Ejected from the valences of the elementary particles, a new social science survey (re)discovers that city life breeds loneliness.
Are there aspects of city life that can heighten one’s feelings of loneliness? The charity network Acevo, which set up The Loneliness Project last year to tackle social isolation among young people in London, today publishes a report which suggests young Londoners are twice as likely to be lonely as their counterparts elsewhere in the country.
Young people surveyed for the report cited high housing costs, long working hours and the growth of social media as factors contributing to loneliness in the city.
Part of the reason for this increased loneliness of Londonistan Shrillennials is sample bias. Maybe the kind of people who abscond for the big city life are prone to solitude, or to feeling lonely. But my bet is the two big reasons for the increased urban loneliness are the negative effects of Diversity™, which has been proven to lower social trust and fray social bonds, and the severing of connections to family, neighbors and friends in the home towns from where the fresh London recruits hail.
Loneliness is a combination of distrust of your neighbors and density of strangers in your proximity, intensified in those with introvert personalities. The modren deracinated Western megalopolis deepens feelings of distrust and sharpens the division between the soulful social connectedness the new resident left behind and the stew of mystery meat animus he bears and the self-protective ennui he adopts when he moves to the city to become a “stranger in a strange land”.
The report recommends, among other things, the establishment of a mayor’s Fund for Young People’s Resilience and Inclusion, worth £3.2m, to help ensure that young people build the necessary strong social connections to battle isolation.
Instead of blowing money on another fruity lib welfare project doomed to fail, how about enacting long-term plans to reorient Western societies so that there’s a backing-off from the rush to stuff everyone into these market bazaar soulless anthill megacities, and a concomitant revival of small cities geographically distributed across the nation into which smaller, more cohesive groups of people can sort themselves?
Of course, this won’t happen under the globalists’ watch, because it would mean stronger local community bonds, less concentrated Diversity™, and more affordable housing, all social goods which undermine the political and cultural power of insular coastal elites.
Having tried both rural and city life, I’ve come to the conclusion that although you can experience loneliness in both, it feels more pressing in a city environment. I’ve just moved to a big city and I’m reminded again of how alienating it can be. When you’re approaching 50 and trying to ‘start again’ in a new place, it can be really hard. In a city it can feel like the whole world is out having fun, which makes you feel like a bit of loser. (Polly, Edinburgh resident)
Big cities are intimidating. The more people around you, the easier it is to get lost among them, to lose track of your own self. In big cities one can be completely busy doing so much and be left with little to no time to nurture any particular relationship or interest. Therefore, you’re living surrounded by people, but connected to no one. (Gustavo, Chicago resident)
Growing up in a city that had little to offer but decrepit playgrounds, underfunded schools and a sorry park, I spent most of my precious childhood at home staring at screens. Later, I was compelled to move out of the city and into a more suburban, almost rural place. After a rough phase of adaptation, I was overwhelmed with the cordiality that surged up on me. Within a year, I made dozens of friends, met the girl I now live with and developed a much more positive attitude. (Donald Saunter, ex-Saarbrücken resident)
I personally feel that NYC has become a more transient place rather than a community-building place. There’s no real sense of community left. The city has also become an investment haven for absentee foreign owners. It has also become a homogenised ‘Disneyland’ of sorts – imitating itself like the New York New York hotel/casino in Las Vegas. Another life-long New Yorker I know once referred to the city as a ‘five-star jail’ which I found to be pretty accurate. What can be more lonely than a jail? (David, New York City resident)
I have a thing for major cities, but they can be intimidating. While anonymity isn’t necessarily always bad, big cities do leave you somewhat unprotected and exposed. But part of that loneliness means cities are the ideal environment to discover yourself in your own light, without feeling like you are being watched or frowned upon, and really thrive. (Juliana, Buenos Aires resident)
Juliana is the kind of girl I prey on in the biggest cities. Girls who need to “discover themselves” free of judgmental family or friends who would “frown upon” their sexual adventures. (Let’s cut out the bullshit…in femmespeak, “thrive” means “lotsa cockas”.) This lifestyle does come with its downsides, though. Ironically, urban atomization and its discontents offers a chance at romantic redemption for loveless beta and omega males by giving them the closest facsimile to an “SMV blank slate” they can hope to have.
I once wrote that the anonymity afforded by dense city living was a godsend for aspiring cads, (and a threat to aspiring dads), as the urban milieu does a good job sheltering men from angry ex-boyfriends, bored gossips, and disapproving parents. Similarly, the anonymizing urban jungle encourages permissiveness among girls who don’t have to worry so much about their reputations and walks of shame circulating far and wide among watchful family and friends. They can let their slut flag fly.
The loneliness of city living isn’t its sole enervating aspect, but it will contribute, along with the sexually primal, non-inclusive secret society that hums just underneath the city’s androgynous veneer, to a vast interwoven malaise that saps souls of meaning and wombs of nurslings.
The open borders project forced by a 0.1%er elite on an unwilling citizenry can be viewed in the context of this post as a poisoned ameliorative for the negatives of big city life, specifically the fertility depression and the spiritual depression brought on by social atomization. It’s no wonder elections are more and more shaping up into existential battles between the working and middle classes in the countryside and the dregs and upper classes in the cities. Rome fell under similar strains. Barring a Trumpian reversal, we will too.
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