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I blame modern technology for a lot of this. Things like air conditioning, video games, cable TV, high speed internet, etc. make it easier for people to be lazy and stay indoors. I personally elected to go without many modern conveniences (no cable, no dryer, no dishwasher, no AC) even though I could afford them. I believe a simpler lifestyle is healthier both physically and mentally.
Please. You're on here all the time!
How is being indoors doing whatever one chooses (watch TV, write a book, listen to music, work out) lazy next to sitting around outside drinking with your neighbors?? Just being outside is meaningless in terms of output. While my neighbors are outside sitting around a fire getting drunk, I'm often inside writing for music pubs, doing work on the side, reading books, watching informative documentaries, having fun with the lady, or having people over and doing the same thing everyone else is doing outside, because for some reason even though you live in the city and it's as far from nature as possible, that's intrinsically better???
This is coming from a nature boy who hikes/bikes/fishes every weekend year-round and many weeknights ta boot. Going outside, if it's just drinking and hanging with your neighbors, is just as lazy as sitting around watching empty sitcoms. And I know "drinking with the neighbors" as well as anyone, living in Wisconsin where we do that more than anyone else.
I grew up in a working class neighborhood, and the people who were my neighbors there are still my friends (and many still live there) to this day. We didn't sit out on the porch, but our next door neighbor had what felt like parties every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. Some of the adults drank a little, and the kids played outside. We knew all of our immediate neighbors intimately.
Where I live now could be considered average, or slightly above average. About half of my immediate neighbors grew up on this very block (they are all much older than me). They sit outside in the front of one particular house most weekends, and just talk and play games in the front yard. We were invited (and went) once (when we first moved in), but have been mostly shunned by most of them since.
If I could have what I had growing up again, I'd be in hog heaven.
I live in the Toronto area, and you do have at least some of this in small lot SFH or townhouse communities in suburban Toronto, mostly after school/when school's out. Ex this neighbourhood in the suburb of Brampton, this particular neighbourhood doesn't have porches but if it's too hot to be in the sun sometimes people sit in the garage with the garage door open https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.64534...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.64584...7i13312!8i6656
The suburban neighbourhood I lived in until I was 10 was a bit like that. I don't think it was quite as vibrant, it was mostly the kids outside, although occasionally the mothers would be outside watching over them. One of my neighbours held little "picnics" in her front yard. Then we moved to a new area where I lived during my teens, we still knew most neighbours by name and were friends with a few, but we didn't see them quite as often. That neighbourhood had a fair bit of new homes with porches, I guess people liked the look of them and the feeling of community they evoked, but there's only one house where I've actually seen anyone sitting on the porch - an old lady doing some knitting. I think that was literally it, and it's not that I was never outside to see it, I walked to school about 10-20min each way and then later when we got a dog walked it several hours a week.
The late 19th/early 20th century neighbourhoods of Toronto do too, but they seem to have fewer children. My impression has been that there's more kids in the older parts of Hamilton, Ontario than those of Toronto's west end. I've gone around some bike rides in Hamilton's east end this summer and there seem to be a fair bit of people out on their porches, hanging out, kids riding bikes...
Is that the new Ti-Cats Stadium near that street? It looks like an area of Hamilton I'd live in, just to go walk to the games.
Yes, that is Tim Hortons Field. The Coffee Grounds!
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