I just listened to a section in the audiobook We Should Hang Out in which the author describes how people in a Blue Zone in Costa Rica hang out in groups outside every evening and have bbq together. Families with neighbors we etc.. It seems so healthy and I want something like that. In the Portland, OR area houses are required to have porches to foster community, but still most of them are to small to be attractive to hang out on. My house has one, but it's smaller than my other outdoor spaces. I was thinking after I listened to it, how to create a front for a potential future home that fosters community like this. We all seem to long for something liked describes here or in the part in Costa Rica, but nobody does it. How much is architecture/city design vs smaller families vs everyone being busy vs other, isolating entertainment?
I'm fortunate enough to live in a 100-year-old home in Phoenix, which is a rarity. It happens to be a large neo-classical style (think: colonial) that has a porch that spans the entire front facade. Some times, we'll sit out there, and the number of neighbors we've met on walks and such has been really delightful. You don't have community if you don't have any place to commune, it turns out.
