Times are displayed in (UTC-06:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada)Change
Social infrastructure and neighbourhoods: Thinking about the socialites that bind communities
Topics:
Keywords: social infrastructure, neighbourhoods, urban geography, community, social networks, sociality Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Alan Latham, University College London
Jack Layton, University College London
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
Abstract
Social infrastructures are places that allow people to gather. Places that support community life. Places that allow friends and relatives to spend time together, and to care for each other. Places that allow people to crowd together, experience culture together. Places that encourage people to exercise, play sport, dance. Places that allow people to live comfortably alone and alongside one another. The places in cities that support social connection. In the ongoing response to and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic people in cities and towns across the UK and elsewhere found a renewed appreciation for social infrastructures. As a result, how best to support the social life of cities is once again a key question for contemporary urban scholarship. Developing recent scholarship on social infrastructures and community, in this paper we present a sixfold typology to explore the different registers of sociality afforded by social infrastructure: co-presence, sociability and friendship, care and kinship, kinesthetic practices, and civic engagement.
Social infrastructure and neighbourhoods: Thinking about the socialites that bind communities