Soft City: Being Neighbors

Neighborhood is not a place, it’s a state of mind.

When talking about the human environment, towns and cities, urban design, or placemaking, the word neighbor is always useful. Think of your neighbor and you immediately think of another human being. It is not a vague planning concept or an unspecified urban phenomenon, but a living person, someone like you, but different. Neighbor is not a technical term or professional planning jargon, but a simple word that everyone knows and understands. At its simplest, neighbor can mean the person next door. At its broadest, it can mean all of humanity.

Neighborhood is a state of being in a relationship. More than anything, the human environment is about relationships: relationships between people and planet, relationships between people and place, and relationships between people and people.

In the relationship between people and the planet, we have made harsh places and severe climates habitable. Coexisting with other people has allowed us to cooperate and collaborate — to organize, trade, manufacture, and learn. Our ability to cultivate, control, and even manipulate these different relationships has allowed us to go beyond survival, to create societies and cultures, and often (but certainly not always) to achieve a better quality of life. Successful neighboring has allowed us to thrive and flourish, to live longer and fuller lives.

Of course, being a neighbor is not always easy. People have different perspectives and needs, values and behaviors. The benefits of colocation can just as easily become problems, as surplus becomes waste, energy becomes pollution, mobility become congestion, collaboration becomes exploitation, and coexistence becomes conflict.

Yet, in our rapidly urbanizing world, the word neighbor is more relevant than ever. All over the world, cities are not only densifying, but also diversifying.  It is precisely the diversity and the differences that create opportunities. The simplest way to tap into everything society has to offer is to have neighbors, close neighbors.

The thesis of this book comes down to a simple equation:

Density x Diversity = Proximity

The idea is that the fusion of density and diversity increases the likelihood or the possibility of useful things, places and people being closer to you.

The attraction of cities lies in mutual benefit. They offer reciprocal systems or arrangements, which support symbiotic relationships. There are at least three such benefits that can explain the attraction of a dense, diverse urban environment: physical proximity, common resources, and shared identities.

Physical proximity to people and places can improve access to employers and employees, teachers and tradesmen, shops, schools, and services where and when you need them. Proximity in an urban context is made possible by common resources such as public spaces, hospitals, libraries, universities, and public transport. It is about being closer to where decisions and discoveries are made, where new knowledge grows, where fashion is created, trends start, and culture happens.

With proximity, the space of the urban environment can be translated into time, with the convenience of being able to do a wide variety of things in the same day, in the same morning, or even in the same hour.

We know that infrastructure costs per capita decrease as density increases. Additionally more people make for more customers, allowing a wider range of commercial and cultural activities to thrive. In theory, the larger the city, the larger the pool of common resources. It is exactly this access to these that compensates for the sometimes cramped and crowded living conditions of urban life.

Another benefit is having a shared identity with your community, which comes from sharing the same places and resources. This feeling of belonging can be seen in people’s pride in their city, in its places and local heroes, its public buildings, parks, and promenades and its athletes and artists. Local urban identity is often stronger and perhaps more relevant than national, cultural, or ethnic identity. It’s inclusive nature is arguably making for one of the healthiest forms of collective identity.

Yet another benefit of that dense, diverse urban environments is the potential for unexpected opportunities. Towns and cities are sites of the spontaneous and serendipitous random encounters and unpredictable meetings. The ever-changing configuration of people results in a delightful unpredictability, ripe with possibilities. Seemingly an insignificant aspect of urban life, it has very real importance.

If we better understand what conditions make for being good neighbors, we can then better accommodate density, difference, and change. We can embrace these as beneficial opportunities rather than unfortunate challenges.

We should recognize that every detail in the physical composition of the built environment has the potential to deliver comfort, convenience, and connection to others. The subtle balance of private and public needs, and the colocation of different activities in the same place make it possible live well without having to travel so much. By getting the relationships right in the physical environment, with everything you need close at hand, an urban neighborhood can offer a better life.

With everyday exposure and regular encounters comes relevance. With time this awareness and understanding can grow into reverence, when people care about planet, people, and place. Changing mindsets leads ultimately to changing behaviors.

In this way, neighborhood is not a place, it’s a state of mind.

This is an excerpt from the book ‘Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life,’ written by former Creative Director and Partner David Sim with support from Gehl and Realdania.