| |
When Lewis Feldstein, co-author of “Better Together: Restoring the American Community,” speaks about the craving for connection, he says “the hair goes up on the back of people’s necks. They get it that they’re missing something.”
What they are missing, says Feldstein, is an opportunity to be happier and, in fact, healthier.
“What you are doing in Ashland,” he says, in reference to the new Aleph Springs neighborhood, “can literally be good for the health. There is a huge amount of data that shows a correlation: people who are connected like this are healthier on all kinds of measures.
“Being alone, absolutely alone, will kill you.”
Better Together, coauthored by Robert Putnam, was a follow-up of Putnam’s Bowling Alone-The Collapse and Revival of American Community, a book that showed how Americans had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends and neighbors. The second book cites examples of civic renewal and community-enhancing projects.
“The need for us to be connected in this way seems to be hard-wired into our systems,” says Feldstein. “It is in the core of what we are as humans. Most of us crave this consciously or unconsciously.”
|
|
|
