Churches qualify only if they foster an established physical space where people can assemble. Athletic fields, YMCAs, and swimming pools can do it but so can sidewalks and community gardens. Klinenberg has a similar view of the need to establish appropriate space. I’ve sometimes described ministry as creating the right spaces and letting the Holy Spirit do the rest. As it turns out, “social isolation and loneliness can be as dangerous as more publicized health hazards, including obesity and smoking.” The answer isn’t technocratic or civic but something in between: the hidden networks and taken-for-granted systems that underpin collective life. Klinenberg’s argument is that hard infrastructure improves society only when social infrastructure accompanies it-and that when hard infrastructure fails, social infrastructure determines our fate. It’s common to lament the chronic underinvestment in hard infrastructure: bridges, embankments, sewage works, railways, communications, and storm protection. His conviction is that we can address such challenges only by developing stronger bonds and genuinely shared interests. Klinenberg is well aware of the horsemen of the apocalypse facing the developed world: climate change, profound inequality, serious poverty, an aging population, and explosive ethnic divisions. Besides the library, the temples of Klinenberg’s faith are the barbershop, the gymnasium, the well-groomed park and playground, and the communal lounge with free Wi-Fi.
Now we have cable news and radio talk shows that foster social bonding but jeopardize social bridging-and thus deepen polarization. Gone are the athletic contests that transcended class. Gone are the factories and industrial towns that forged blue-collar communities from diverse ethnic groups. Read our latest issue or browse back issues.
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