Palaces for the People: How To Build a More Equal and United Society

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Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University, examines how our social structures--from the library to schools to community gardens--can help mitigate problems and challenges of our divided civic life. He posits that neighborhoods, regardless of economic or over-all social standing, which have strong social infrastructure do better at taking care of one another when crises strike and also do better at resisting crime and other negative social impacts. And yet -- with their rugged, self-help-through-self-education ethos that is as American as Benjamin Franklin -- public libraries are an increasingly anomalous feature in a political landscape that--seemingly, and increasingly--wants to raze the very idea on which they rest: that the government can and should invest public money in cultural infrastructure for the improvement of citizens' lives. Or, as Klinenberg muses parenthetically, "(If, today, the library didn't already exist, it's hard to imagine our society's leaders inventing it.)"

Harvard Kennedy School Social Capital Toolkit,” (tiny.cc/socialcapitaltoolkit): A resource providing information about social capital and how it encourages development in communities.

Living in a place like East New York requires developing coping strategies, and for many residents, the more vulnerable older and younger ones in particular, the key is to find safe havens. As on every other Thursday morning this spring, today nine middle-aged and elderly residents who might otherwise stay home alone will gather in the basement of the neighborhood’s most heavily used public amenity, the New Lots branch library. When everyone is outfitted the players take their seats, making small talk and tapping their toes in anticipation. Christine tries to link the Xbox to the machine in the basement at the Brownsville Library, where their opponents, invisible to us but no doubt similarly composed, have put on their own uniforms and settled in for the match. It worked perfectly in practice, but this time there’s something wrong with the connection. Christine calls Brownsville. Yes, they’re there, just working on the Wi‑Fi. In a few minutes, the machines are in sync and the game is on.

Today, we may have every reason to feel atomized and alienated, distrustful and afraid—and the demographics are as challenging as the politics. There are more people living alone than at any point in history, including more than a quarter of Americans over the age of sixty-five, who are at particular risk of becoming isolated. That’s worrisome, because, as a large body of scientific research now shows, social isolation and loneliness can be as dangerous as more publicized health hazards, including obesity and smoking. But some places have the power to bring us together, and the kind of social bonding I witnessed that morning in Brooklyn happens in thousands of libraries throughout the year. Race: Klinenberg delves into the shared social spaces that either create and entrench racial segregation or encourage mixed communities, looking at historical divisions in cities like Chicago, New York, and Baltimore—and the contemporary organizations and institutions like public libraries and pools that are bridging racial divides and fostering cohesion. Even more odd are the couple of times he uses the plot from *novels* to make a point. It’s just bizarre – how am I supposed to be convinced by that? Americans are in a crisis of loneliness. Factors like the pandemic and our deep political divides have kept us isolated, while social media and media echo chambers sort many of us into silos. There isn’t a single reason why this loneliness crisis exists, but there is a way to recover: Social infrastructure. At a time when polarization is weakening our democracy, Eric Klinenberg takes us on a tour of the physical spaces that bind us together and form the basis of civic life. We care about each other because we bump up against one another in a community garden or on the playground or at the library. These are not virtual experiences; they’re real ones, and they’re essential to our future. This wonderful book shows us how democracies thrive.”The accessible physical space of the library is not the only factor that makes it work well as social infrastructure. The institution's extensive programming, organized by a professional staff that upholds a principled commitment to openness and inclusivity, fosters social cohesion among clients who might otherwise keep to themselves.” We are living in a time of deep divisions. Americans are sorting themselves along racial, religious, and cultural lines, leading to a level of polarization that the country hasn't seen since the Civil War. Pundits and politicians are calling for us to come together, to find common purpose. But how, exactly, can this be done? Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life Form small research teams and list examples of social infrastructure in your community. Start with those places that Klinenberg directly identifies, such as parks, libraries, universities, etc., but also expand your scope to include any other “physical places or organizations that shape the way people interact” (5). Discuss the effectiveness of each in terms of both engaging the community and encouraging a sense of community. Take into account in your discussion societal problems that your community specifically faces, and create a presentation illustrating how social infrastructure could be improved, or implemented, to better serve the needs of your community. The book would also benefit from a tougher edge when telling its feelgood stories. It would be more credible if it told more of what happened next, of what works and what doesn’t. As for Big, my knowledge of the company’s work so far suggests that it is not the go-to practice for effective and cost-effective public work. I would be fascinated to discover that it is, in fact, achieving such a thing in New York, but the evidence isn’t there.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR •“Engaging.”—Mayor Pete Buttigieg, The New York Times Book Review(Editors’ Choice) of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg An eminent sociologist and bestselling author offers an inspiring blueprint for rebuilding our fractured society.

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I took a star off because I found the text somewhat rambling and roundabout. I thought it would be much more useful to divide chapters by type of institution, so those reading for institutional purposes could easily find what they're looking for. I did see an indication that the finished copy will have an index, so that should help. He has a strange obsession with Silicon Valley. I’m not sure it deserves as much attention as it gets in the book. Read The Inequalities-Environment Nexus report and find out more about the OECD Well-Being Framework An engaging, readable argument for why we should build more “social infrastructure” like libraries, community gardens, parks, sports facilities, etc – but with a curiously meandering structure that flits between ideas and subjects.

All of which means that the stories and insights come with a certain amount of mush. The conclusion is majestically woolly: “What we need, now more than ever, is an inclusive conversation about the kinds of infrastructure – physical as well as social – that would best serve, sustain and protect us.” Try putting that on an election poster. Or a tweet. I leave feeling uplifted by the cheering, the camaraderie, the joy of watching people who hardly know one another turn their neighborhood into a community. It was a rare moment of what the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim called “collective effervescence,” and I hadn’t expected it, not at the library. Klinenberg is a professor of sociology and the director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He coined the term “social infrastructure” to describe the libraries, day-care centers, bookstores, coffee shops, and community gardens that shape our face-to-face interactions, and he has been exploring it for decades—ever since his landmark study of Chicago during the 1995 heat wave. He was the research director for the Obama administration’s Rebuild by Design project, where he worked to integrate social infrastructure into post–Hurricane Sandy rebuilding plans. In PALACES FOR THE PEOPLE, he applies this deep knowledge, stemming from years of both research and application, to diverse communities and challenges around the globe—from Singapore to Brazil and from East New York to Silicon Valley—to show how interactive physical spaces are combating some of the most profound problems of our time. Robust social infrastructure doesn’t just protect our democracy; it contributes to economic growth.”The elderly can also participate in some of these activities in senior centers, but there they can do them only with other old people, and often that makes them feel stigmatized, as if old is all they are. For many seniors, the library is the main place they interact with people from other generations.” The key differentiator between similar neighborhoods was the social infrastructure---physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact---convening and relationship building spaces. Libraries are at the core of social infrastructure. In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg offers a new perspective on what people and places have to do with each other, by looking at the social side of our physical spaces. He is not the first to use the term "social infrastructure," but he gives it a new and useful definition as "the physical conditions that determine whether social capital develops," whether, that is, human connection and relationships are fostered…Anyone interested in cities will find this book an engaging survey that trains you to view any shared physical system as, among other things, a kind of social network. After finishing it, I started asking how ordinary features of my city, from streetlights to flowerpots, might affect the greater well-being of residents. Physically robust infrastructure is not enough if it fails to foster a healthy community; ultimately, all infrastructure is social. The New York Times Book Review - Pete Buttigieg Libraries: Klinenberg visits one of New York City’s poorest districts—which is highly segregated and has high levels of homicide, felony assault, and sexual assault—to see the life-giving programs being implemented at a Brooklyn Public Library branch, including a virtual bowling league, that are successfully building and strengthening ties among the elderly, a group particularly at risk for isolation. He talks about the importance of school gates as places where parents can get to know one another and the loss of that opportunity in schools with drive-through drop-offs. He looks at what happens in catastrophes, as when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, and churches helped flood-hit families to save and reorganise themselves. He draws on his own experiences, when he was appointed research director to the rebuilding programme after Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012.