We’ve got very used to this division very quickly, when it’s completely unnatural for humans

The same new survey we conducted in 2022 also tested whether we’d noticed this separation – and we have: two-thirds of us correctly say young people are more likely to live in cities and older people outside them. But over half of us say that’s always been the case, when this is actually a new trend that we’ve only seen in the last twenty or thirty years in the UK. We’ve got very used to this division very quickly, when it’s completely unnatural for humans.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 175

The addition of a family of four to the typical urban area necessitates an additional ten thousand square feet of parking space

Since each major urban center served but a single function, parking lots began to multiple rapidly. Culture center parking serves only its patrons and is not used most of the time. Mall lots are all but vacant after nine in the evening. Arena lots, school lots, medical center lots, etc., enjoy no shared use but must be there. We have arrived at that point where the addition of a family of four to the typical urban area necessitates an additional ten thousand square feet of parking space to accommodate members’ vehicles at home and in the variety of separated centers at which they will have to park them. And now, we must use up a lot of land to secure houses and lots away from the congestion of auto traffic. Nothing was harder hit by unifunctional planning

R. Oldenburg, The great good place (1987), 216

Community social life is necessary to healthy religious life

It wasn’t that the American farmer lacked the social instinct or had any less of it than anyone else. It was that the conditions of rural life and, often, that of local clergymen, operated against its realization in the social habits of the people. In Clermont, Ohio, for example, a survey conducted in 1914 showed the clergy’s stand on the following social activities: Sunday baseball (100 percent against), movies (65 percent against), dancing (90 percent against), playing cards (97 percent against), pool halls (85 percent against), and the annual circuses (48 percent against). Only tennis, croquet, and agricultural fairs received general approval.

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The authors of that report concluded with some irony that the churches were strongest where the lodges were strongest and that “both are expressions of the same spirit of fraternity and sociability.” Two clear conclusions were drawn: “(1) Community social life is necessary to healthy religious life, and (2) If the church is going to succeed it must recognize the social needs of the community and assume its share of the leadership in social activities.” Perhaps the strongest indictment that can be made against the Puritanism and Protestantism of developing America is that, far too often, they sought to ensure the life of the church at the expense of the life of the community.

R. Oldenburg, The great good place (1987), 73

The more people moved about, or were moved about by the companies that employed them, the more difficult it became to penetrate the nation’s residential areas

Once America became the high mobility society it now is, with about twenty percent of the population changing residence every year, one might have thought that neighborhoods would have been designed so that people could be integrated quickly and easily. What actually happened, however, was quite the opposite. The more people moved about, or were moved about by the companies that employed them, the more difficult it became to penetrate the nation’s residential areas.

R. Oldenburg, The great good place (1987), loc. 258

When you see the words “delicious” and “polenta” in close proximity, you know the phrases “plenty of cheese” or “lashings of butter” can’t be far away

‘When you see the words “delicious” and “polenta” in close proximity, you know the phrases “plenty of cheese” or “lashings of butter” can’t be far away.’ Niki Segnit, author of Lateral Cooking, nails the simultaneous appeal and bemused distaste for polenta in one neat phrase. At its best, polenta is indescribably comforting, rich and naturally sweet, soft and luscious. At its worst, it’s lumpy, bland, claggy and, quite frankly, hard work. As so often is the case (and I think we can agree, I am entirely unbiased in this whole pursuit), the difference is butter.

O. Potts, Butter (2022), loc. 2,561

It is less that I have buttered bread to accompany a bowl of soup, and more that my soup is the accompaniment to the buttered bread

And then there’s soup. It is less that I have buttered bread to accompany a bowl of soup, and more that my soup is the accompaniment to the buttered bread. The simpler the soup the better, but it must be thick, and smooth, and terribly hot. There is nothing sadder than a lukewarm soup. The bread should be hearty (read: not white, and doorstep in size), the butter thick and opaque, and dunked with enough confidence that the hot soup is just starting to melt that slab of butter before wham you’ve eaten the whole thing.

O. Potts, Butter (2022), loc. 713

This was very good advice but she still thought that living in a major city was key

If you want to move to the city, you can, Miss Grehan said. And studying poetry at university is a wonderful thing to do. But more important is to read poetry, and write poetry, every day. It doesn’t have to be for long. If just once a day people read a poem instead of picking up their phone, I guarantee you the world would be a better place. When she had gone Elaine said that this was very good advice but she still thought that living in a major city was key.

P. Murray, The bee sting (2023), Loc. 800