During one of these conversations we got talking about the breakdown of local communities and with it a valuable source of everyday support. I grew up in East London during the 70's and 80's on the edge of the docks. It was a poor area, I didn't know of anyone that owned their own home and most people worked in manual jobs.
The one thing that I strongly remember from those times was that all of my extended family lived within a mile or so from where I lived. All of my friends parents had gone to school with my parents and even grandparents knew grandparents. Everywhere I went as a child someone knew me.
As a child this wasn't good. Any naughty business I got up to I would always end up getting dragged home by someone or other, consequently lots of time spent in my room being punished. Now as an adult I remember those times differently. I can remember times when I needed help, it was always there, and I always had someone to talk to. For my parents I can only imagine there must have been far less stress for them then than there would have been today.
In recent times I lived in the remote Shetland Isles. One of the houses in the center of town that I lodged at hadn't locked their front door for the past 35 years. In fact almost no one locked doors or cars or sheds. Again for generations most people had grown up with each other.
Social breakdown is never due to just one issue, but there are very direct correlations between community dispersment and social breakdown. So what can be done to compensate for this? Maybe a starting place could be "love others as you love yourself". It takes decades to build community, seconds to show care for someone, and eventually all of those seconds turn into decades and all of that caring turns into community.
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