The lack of IRL 'third places' for young people to meet locally will only exacerbate the issue -- and probably should bear most of the blame. The car-centric infrastructure of the suburbs (well, the vast majority of America) encourages isolation and asocial behavior. It really sucks that for some, their lives will never go beyond that invisible cage.
When I was young we lived just as spread out. We just biked/skateboarded to places. We stashed our surf boards at the closest house to the beach. We made third spaces happen.
Why has that stopped being an option? Is it because people's parents are too scared to let them do it when they are young (we were taking public busses to downtown Santa Cruz in junior high but we were latch key 80s/90s kids with zero oversite) and so they don't realize it's an option when they are older or?
You might be on to something. And if you consider that the generation that's 22 -- near peak "going out" age in the old days, was in COVID lockdown during that late high school period, which for me was a huge spike in how much time I spent away from my house. That was on top of the "constant supervision and scheduled activities" regime that took over right about the time the oldest GenZ-ers hit late elementary years, and the smartphones and tablets that hit as that cohort hit their teens.
Gen X really ruined their kids in the name of safety. I don't blame Gen Z one bit, they really never had a chance at a healthy social life.
I think it’s because at that time if you wanted to socialize you didn’t have an option. Kids these days have phones and tablets and finding another person to engage with online has substituted the going out part.
Why does it have to be beach culture? Where I live now we have:
Mountain hiking/biking trails started from the outskirts of town.
Parks within town.
A downtown with parks and a lake front park with swimming, volleyball, basketball, lakefront trails, small food concessions.
A city skate/bike park.
City tennis courts.
City basketball courts.
A walking/biking trail that runs from one edge of town to another, ending in a mountain biking/hiking trail system.
All of these things are way way under utilized compared to 10 years ago even though the youth population has grown. They used to be packed. Only thing busy is the library, I suspect because it has wifi/computers/gaming computers/air conditioning but it's still only like 20-30 people.
I rarely see anyone under 40 on the mountain hiking/biking trails. Ski mountain/biking has 20 somethings but most cars are from out of town. Parks are practically empty. Mainly moms and young children. I don't go to the waterfront park so no idea, but downtown I hardly see people heading down there/coming back where before it was a constant stream. Skate park is a few parents with young kids. Tennis courts are mainly 50+. Basketball courts are empty. Bike path is mainly 40+. Town seems deserted at this point, it's wild.
We have a used bike shop with basically 'donation' bikes that are $50 and have new tires, brakes, tuned up ready to go, so I don't think it's accessibility.
I guess most of these things are aged out things, where the group that did them is now 40+, but younger groups complaining about no third spaces there are a ton they just aren't used.
My town still has quite a few third places (the mall, bowling alleys, bars, etc.) and even some new ones like a trampoline place. Most of them are struggling because the young people don't go out. Go into a corner bar on a Saturday night, and you'll see more people in their 50s than 20s. The pool league that used to run 6 divisions a week is now down to 2.
So as far as I can tell, people (especially the young) stopped going out, and then third places started going away.
I just went a looked up my closest bowling alley. 4 people, 2 games mid day Saturday and it was $180 AUD.
It’s not surprising a large chunk of Gen Z are choosing to stay at home when it costs that much to go out. I'm starting to think we as a society need to start subsidising social spaces. Local council owned/run bouldering gyms, meetup spaces, etc. Charging a bellow market rate fee just to get people out of the house.
I don't get this (very common) perspective that the 'burbs encourage isolation and asocial behavior. My experience growing up (born in Iowa, grew up in Minnesota) is really the opposite. I lived in the city but had plenty of friends in the Suburbs (Minnetonka, Edina, Eden Prairie, etc etc) and whenever I'd go over there for a sleep over or something we could wander around the neighborhood like our own little platoon completely unbothered and safe. Running across everyone's lawns, climbing the neighbor's trees, as long as we were home by dinner time.
Maybe you mean for single adults? That's definitely more true, but if you are a single adult you're living in the suburbs for cost reasons, right? Zooming out to see how things would've worked for Gen Z, then yes I could agree that the suburbs were "isolating" during covid. But so were the cities, in fact way more so.
Anyway, loved the suburbs when I was a kid. They're still great today.
Comes down to the execution I would think. I've lived in well-planned suburbs like South Pasadena with tree-lined streets, easy to bike, restaurants nearby but there are many where you need a car to get anywhere, maybe weaker social cohesion, etc that can be alienating.
The suburbs used to have a lot of those kinds of places. Car-centric infrastructure is not the problem. People used to go to church, join bowling leagues, spend Sundays in the park, etc.
I blame the internet. There just isn't much demand for couples to leave the house anymore with the world's entertainment at their fingertips. When the rest of society stays home, it becomes more expensive for those young, single people to support public spaces.
That was never the suburbs I grew up in. You had to drive to go anywhere, and it was spectacularly lonely. I've spent my whole adult life avoiding such places.
Long ago, if you had to drive to go anywhere, your house must have been surrounded by oodles of other houses and hence friends existed to hang out with before some friend could drive. Once someone could drive, the friend crew was good to venture elsewhere.
The problem today is the nanny states don't allow a 16-year-old to transport other kids in their car until many hoops are cleared. We collectively decided that such social/transportation kneecapping was riskier than having our kids be lame during their sophomore/junior year of high school in the suburbs.
>car-centric encourages isolation
Not in the slightest, in fact, growing up and just driving around when younger was exactly the peak of socialization. Being in a 15-minute city as a young adult would be horrifying, being exposed to the rampant crime, violent assaults and homeless open air drug use. You got it backwards my man. The proof is in the pudding.
