Extraordinary Observations

Jennifer Senior's recent cover story in New York Magazine is a great read and it touches on two issues important to me: loneliness and big city culture. In September I suggested that one of the reasons we are quick to describe college the best time of our lives has to do with the densely populated nature of college campuses and the close proximity to our work (ie classes) and friends.

Urban isolation theory holds that urban dwellers, despite being surrounded by people everywhere (on the street, on the bus, at stores and in coffee shops), ultimately choose to hole themselves up alone in an apartment. Senior points out that, at least in New York City, the data confirms the rate of single-dweller housing units:

Until I was 37 years old, I lived alone. It never struck me as particularly odd. If you’ve been in New York for any length of time, you know from both intuition and daily observation that many people live on their own in this town. But I never fully appreciated how many—and by extension, how colossally banal my own solitary arrangement was—until I checked with the Department of City Planning a couple of months ago. How many apartments in Manhattan would you have guessed have just one occupant? One of every eight? Every four? Every three?

The number’s one of every two. Of all 3,141 counties in the United States, New York County is the unrivaled leader in single-individual households, at 50.6 percent. More than three-quarters of the people in them are below the age of 65. Fifty-seven percent are female. In Brooklyn, the overall number is considerably lower, at 29.5 percent, and Queens is 26.1. But on the whole, in New York City, one in three homes contains a single dweller, just one lone man or woman who flips on the coffeemaker in the morning and switches off the lights at night.

The assumption that someone who lives alone is automatically a loner is a belief that ultimately has to be called into question. Senior looks to work from John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago for answers:

Cities, in other words, are the ultimate expression of our humanity, the ultimate habitat in which to be ourselves (which may explain why half the planet’s population currently lives in them). And in their present American incarnations—safe, family-friendly, pulsing with life on the street—they’re working at their optimum peak. In Cacioppo’s data, today’s city dwellers consistently rate as less lonely than their country cousins. “There’s a new sense of community in cities, an increase in social capital, an increase in trust,” he says. “It all leads to less alienation.”

Considering this idea in relation to my theory about college campuses and happiness, I think a lot of it makes sense. College freshman are generally required to live on campus and with at least one roommate. "Roommate" is used about as literally as it can, as dorms usually pack two or more people into a single tiny square room. You could argue that such a living situation constitutes living with someone, but reality suggests a bit of a different story. Upperclassmen, not surprisingly, opt for single units in the dorms or move off campus to achieve that goal. Living in your own room doesn't mean you aren't living with other people, it just means that you aren't crammed into the same bedroom with someone else. Even those who choose to move off-campus pick rental units within a fairly close proximity of the school; mostly withing walking distance or a drive of no more than a few minutes. Obviously, living in your own room in a dorm, or a studio apartment near campus, doesn't mean you are completely isolated from other people. It doesn't mean you can't walk down the tall to chat with your buddy to walk a few blocks to study with a friend.

Even on my all-time favorite TV show, Seinfeld, all of the main characters, Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, and (to some extent) George live alone in Manhattan. Few would suggest that because Jerry and Kramer live across the hall from each other, rather than share a 2-bedroom apartment, that they are loners; nor would they suggest that because Elaine and George have to grab a taxi or a subway to get to Jerry's apartment isolates the friends from each other.

The idea that we either have to be constantly social or complete loners is a misguided dichotomy that leads to weird interpretations of urban culture. The key to happiness is finding a solid balance between. In the city the never sleeps, it makes sense that someone who has been surrounded by people all day would want to spend at least a little quiet time on their own at some point during the day. The beauty of big-city culture, of course, is that the option is always there. When you live alone, there is always an empty apartment waiting for you; if you want to see friends, they are never an inconvenient distance away; and if you want to meet new people, there is a seemingly endless group of them right outside your front door.