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Comment by randomsearch | Hacker News Reader

It’s interesting to note that during college we live closely with lots of strangers in a big community, make lots of friends, and typically describe those days as some of the best of our lives in retrospect.

We then move away and live in increasingly isolated housing, typically long distances from our friends.

Modern life doesn’t make much sense in this way. We’re sociable chimps that need a group. I really love the idea of living in a street with friends nearby. Maybe I can make that happen.

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> Maybe I can make that happen.

The most surefire way to achieve that is to move into a large, new housing project, but these are rare nowadays and usually work-related.

My grandparents moved in their early 20s from their village to a whole damn city district built specifically to accommodate workers(along with their families) employed in a newly built steel mill.

Everyone was roughly the same age and had children at the same time.

To this day I think it's the single thing communism got right.

I spent the first years of my life living in an apartment complex for university employees, because that was my father's line of work back then.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseto_effect

When my wife and I had our second kid, we moved into a new small (28 indentical homes) housing development (in the US). The builder had owned the land for a long time and bought it for a very low price, so he priced the houses below market value. The school system had recently been highly touted. Everyone who bought a house had a young kid or was about to have kids, valued education, and had similar interests. We all bonded and had great block parties and other shared events as our children grew up. But like you mentioned, these types of experiences are rare.

We do? That wasn't my experience at all. I commuted to college on a public bus while working full time as well.

Any thoughts on what a big college could do to foster the conditions for forming enduring friendships, among a cohort like yours?

this is part of the reason why so many homeless people stay living in the streets. It’s definitely more social than an apartment building, assuming you feel a sense of belonging when living with other homeless people.

That doesn't match my knowledge of homeless people.

Mental illness plays a big role

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