A few days after our last class it struck me: we really are alienated from each other in New York. I did some browsing and saw that it was an actual consensus that New York was a city in which strangers generally remained alienated. I even found out that amongst our many titles, “The Lonely City” is one that no one talks about. But why are we so filled with people yet no one really knows each other? After thinking about it for some time, I believe that it could do with how people don’t want to burden themselves with keeping a large group of people happy, or satisfied. This is because there is a strong sense of work yourself to near death culture in this community. How much harder would like be if you had to talk to every single person you saw and also keep in touch to make sure they are doing fine? In a small community this may be much easier as there is a much smaller group to deal with and that leads us to our “blocks”. In our blocks, most of us know the bodega cook, and some of the elders in the community. We know the kids that run around and cause trouble, and don’t. We know who’s who and how they are like. So I believe that while New York may be “The Lonely City”, it may not be nearly alienating as people may think.
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Edgar, To explore this question more deeply, I would suggest thinking a bit more about what it means to be (or feel) lonely. What do you think we require in order NOT to feel lonely? Do you think “blocks” like the one you describe (a la Jane Jacobs) are the norm for New Yorkers today, or are they the exception? You might also want to think about your own experience of loneliness and consider to what extent the city might be a contributing factor.
JS
I feel like New York is a city in which everyone just does their thing, and is focused on their careers reason why we can say that most of the time you do not even know your neighbors. For me, if I did not have my family, I would feel very lonely as besides my best friend, there is no one that I truly would like to spend time with. Even where I live, it is unbelivable for some people when I tell them that I have never seen the people that live in my building. Maybe I have casually seemed them on the streets, but I wouldn’t be aware that they are my neighbors because I have never seemed them in the building. I feel like sometimes people just prefer to be this way because even when I am curious to know who my neighbors are, I do not honestly care about it unless their music that is too loud. As well, it would be too much for me to say hi to everyone living in my building every morning or whenever I find them on the streets. I feel like everyone does everything under a certain time, and finding people you know such as neighbors and have to say hi to them just for courtesy is time taking which is not convenient for New Yorkers as time is money. This might be the reason why, at the beginning of the semester must of us in class wrote about how we prefer not to find anyone we know on the streets, maybe because we do not have enough time for some chatting on our way or because we just prefer to be lonely as we are already used to it.