Omaha By Design: Omaha, Only Better

Just hanging out down at the riverfront.

By Ken Mayer

Last year, a study by researchers at Duke University reported that Americans are far more isolated socially than they were 20 years ago. Overall, the average number of people in our closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two.

Robert D. Putnam, professor of public policy at Harvard and the author of Bowling Alone, a book about social isolation in the United States, supports the findings. His research has shown that Americans go on 60 percent fewer picnics, and families eat dinner together 40 percent less than they did in 1965. We are also considerably less likely to meet at clubs or go bowling in groups. The causes may be debatable, but, in any case, this increasing isolation can’t be good.

So, what’s all this got to do with public space? Quite a lot, it seems to me. My grandparents’ homes were built before World War II, and as I grew up in the suburbs, I noticed that there was a difference between where I lived and where they lived.

It looked to me like the world had rotated 180º. My grandparents put their cars (and their trash) in back of the house and their porches in the front. In recent decades we have located the porch on the back of the house, we call them “decks” now, and left the cars (and trash) in front.

images

1. Coming together for a lunchtime concert in Gene Leahy Mall.
2. Enjoying the day and each other in the park.