You Are Who You Meet: A Geography of Common Ground
Of leaving metal bubbles, neighbourhood orbits, and moving mountains
and I are delighted to share today’s piece, which also appears as a guest post on ’s Substack.
A couple of months ago, our family had the opportunity to attend a screening of The Coddling of the American Mind, a documentary film directed by
based on the book with the same title by Jonathan Haidt and . During the ensuing discussion hosted by the Heterodox Academy, audience members repeatedly noted that the message of the film provided hope. Hope that we can find space for debate that does not depend on political lines. Hope that we can find common ground.When we hear people talking of finding “common ground”, it’s often politicians who are using the idea as somewhat of a trope. If we indeed want to recover common ground —socially, politically, and otherwise— getting back to the literal meaning of the term offers a more promising starting point.
Many North-American neighbourhoods are designed for maximum independence and leave little opportunity to interact or encounter anyone. People use personal vehicles from garage to destination, visit drive-throughs, place online orders, opt for food delivery. Most social interactions happen online, where algorithms cater to our interests and desires. There are few rubs in life, that require us to bend, compromise, concede, or find a literal common ground.
Our homes are large, our streets are wide, our opinions and views are fed and coddled online. And when we face each other in person, we wonder where all this division has come from.
Last month we spent a few weeks visiting our family in Basel, Switzerland. Every morning I (Ruth) stepped out to the bakery on the corner where I greeted neighbours and staff asked about our family’s plans for the day. I continued on to the grocery store down the street to fetch milk and fruit and encountered more familiar faces.
At the bus stop I picked up the free daily community paper before heading home for breakfast. Within those seven to eight minutes it took me to complete this daily routine, I had already come into contact with several neighbours, greeted, smiled, and acknowledged faces, all without even trying.
It is tempting to think of Switzerland in simplistic idyllic terms, but it is not the only European country, or the only country in the world, with so much literal common ground. As we seek to come together as a society, we often start with abstracted ideas or ideological systems, whereas we should maybe begin the other way around and start with the tangible realities.
Life outside the metal bubble
...most American cities have been designed or redesigned principally around the assumption of universal automotive use, resulting in obligatory car ownership, typically one per adult—starting at age sixteen. In these cities, and in most of our nation, the car is no longer an instrument of freedom, but rather a bulky, expensive, and dangerous prosthetic device, a prerequisite to viable citizenship.”
Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck
In order to rub up against other people, we need zones of opportunity to do so.
Basel’s inner city core is a car-free region where pedestrians reign. The streets, which date back to the medieval ages, are lined with cafes, stores, bookshops, bakeries, and enjoy steady foot traffic from locals and tourists alike. There are neighbourhoods within the city where less than half the people own a car, and even when cars are present, they do not dominate the landscape. Take this street in my mother’s neighbourhood for example:
This is a two-way street (with parking along both sides as well). Upon first glance it looks like it can barely fit one car. It takes consideration, interaction, and concession to navigate. Yet people there do so effortlessly and without road rage or increased accidents.
One vehicle that does dominate the inner city core (such as this stretch outside the train station below), is the bicycle. Given their fervent love of bikes, it is not surprising that in 2018, the Swiss voted to officially embed cycling into their constitution.
Families can regularly be seen biking with their children either following along on the sidewalk, in child seats on the back, or in a trendy new design that accommodates two kids and groceries as well.
When not walking or biking, many Swiss choose to use public transport. In Basel, 31% of distances are travelled by public transport and over 53% of the population hold public transport season tickets. This option is not only chosen by those who cannot afford a car, but rather by all levels of society for getting to work or for leisure1. This in turn creates ample opportunities for social exchange: common decorum is enforced (such as a request for “quiet please” or “ could you turn down your phone”), getting up to offer a seat, helping parents with strollers, or pressing the button to hold the door open for a senior.
"An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport."
~ Enrique Penalosa
You are who you meet
True freedom isn’t being so emancipated that you are isolated, it’s the opposite — being part of a group and knowing where you fit in and are valued. Be that a church, a cafe, a family, a club, or a Nation.
from Europe is Healthier than US by
Walking along Basel’s streets you are as likely to bump into a politician, a senior, a family with young children, or a gaggle of teenagers. A recent story in the local paper highlighted a popular lunch spot on the Rhine River that is frequented by both “high” and “low” society.
A few years ago a snapshot of the Swiss president2 standing at the train station alongside other commuters (and no security) went viral. Meanwhile some cafes choose to limit technology use to encourage conversation among its patrons.
“What if we saw attention in the same way that we saw air or water, as a valuable resource that we hold in common?”
There are a variety of ways Swiss society encourages the mixing of different classes and stations of life, rather than pitting them against each other. The more people share common space, the more they share a sense of connection, even without having to think much about it.
The neighbourhood orbit
Basel’s main newspaper is currently running a series of articles focusing on the unique character of each “Quartier” or neighbourhood within the city. The neighbourhood bond between people is strengthened by a variety of local initiatives including connecting residents in need of babysitting, assistance with grocery shopping, gardening, or small handyman work with neighbours who can help out. Public book boxes (frequently made from repurposed phone booths) are stocked and tended to by volunteers from each neighbourhood.
While local news in the US is eroding at break-neck speed and leaving many counties as “news deserts”3, in Switzerland around three million people read the local news “20 Minutes” either in paper or digital format daily. The paper is free and available at major bus stops and at newsstands throughout town. If we want to care about our neighbourhood or city and the people living in it, we need to know what is happening.
A place that cares about its stories, history, memories, and people is a place in which the local community is nourished like the plants growing in a field of healthy and fertile soil. That soil welcomes the establishment of deep roots, which strengthen the community, hold the people there, and ensure that that the entire place is built to last.
from Wendell Berry at the Matched Horse Races by
If you cannot move a mountain…
So my somewhat anachronistic practice is this: to be the first to open the door to connection; to say hello, introduce myself, and be willing to be a friend. In the past five-ish years of practicing this, I have not once (that I can recall) met with push-back or unwillingness, and have continued to be challenged to notice people, and to let them know that they are seen.
reader comment from
You may well nod to all the examples of common ground we shared above, but feel that your location simply does not allow for this type of local living. While we cannot transport Switzerland here, we can transpose a Swiss approach to community building. We’ve tried it, and it can work:
Almost twenty years ago we decided to move close to family. For us this meant choosing to live in the suburban sprawl north of Toronto. The town we moved to was literally at the bottom of the list of places we would have chosen to live in Canada. There was too much concrete, the streets were lined with ghostly empty sidewalks and homogenous strip malls, and a car was required to get almost anywhere.
We decided to start every day with a walk. We walked around our neighborhood, we trekked to the grocery store with a backpack and stroller, we regularly made longer one to two hour journeys to town centres. While these walks may not have appeared interesting on the surface, they allowed us to grow familiar and fond of our surroundings.
We organized neighbourhood garbage clean-ups, held our birthday parties at the local park, went Christmas carolling door-to-door, and asked the city for permission to plant a flower garden along the city sidewalk.
We basically acted contrary to common norms and in the process managed to forge community and a different way of living within the monotony of suburbia.
Over the years we became known as “the family who walks” and in the process came to know people around our neighbourhood, many of whom were very different from us or spoke little English4, and in doing so grew unexpected bonds.5
If we are who we meet, then the corollary is that through frequent and regular contact with the local people around us, they rub off a little on us, and we rub off a little on them. This “rubbing” won’t necessarily change our core values—and it doesn’t have to—but what it does do is change those outer layers of our identity, the public and interpersonal layers that help us get along, help us be patient with each other’s differences, help us trust each other a bit more. These little rubbings may not seem like much, but multiplied across a community, across a town, across a nation, they can help recalibrate our relationships toward one another—and if we’re fortunate, they may even positively infect the culture of our politics.
A geography of common ground doesn’t depend on living in a small and idyllic country like Switzerland. It’s the geography immediately around us that matters, wherever we are; the suburban or urban neighborhood; the grocery store, the cafe, the gym, the parking lot, the walking trails, the park, the sidewalk by your front door.
We’re already standing on the common ground. We need only look down at the area around our feet, and then share it with someone.
If you would like to come and walk alongside us, we would love to have you join our Pilgrimage Out of the Machine on the Camino in Spain next June!
We would love to hear from you!
What are your ideas or practices for creating “common ground” in your neighbourhood?
What suggestions would you have for readers who
-have a disability and can not easily leave their home?
-live on busy roads without sidewalks?
Please share your experiences, reflections, and questions in the comments section!
Further Reading
Walkability and the Culture Wars by Daniel Herriges
Europe is Healthier than US by
Car-Free Cities Don’t Feel Radical by
How and Why To Take a Cookie Ramble by
This Lady is Hitting Every Shop in in NYC by
Our Year Without a Car (With Kids) by
How to Create a Free-Range Neighbourhood by
Enrique Penelosa, former mayor of Bogota, created a mass transit system and “in less than 10 years turned one of the world's most dangerous, violent and corrupt capitals into a model city”.
In Switzerland the seven members of the Swiss Federal Council serve collectively as the head of state.
The loss of local newspapers accelerated in 2023 to an average of 2.5 per week, leaving more than 200 counties as “news deserts” and meaning that more than half of all U.S. counties now have limited access to reliable local news and information” researchers at the Medill School of Journalism have found.”
Our town had the highest percentage (78%) of visible minorities in Canada.
We have since moved to a place closer to farm country but still continue the same neighbourhood building practices here.
This post is SO encouraging to me. I live in North Texas -- the epitome of urban sprawl. If you don't have a car, you can't go anywhere. Obviously, I'd love to live in Switzerland, but I don't. I live in suburbia right outside of the city. What made this post so impactful to me is the last point: how you live in community within a built environment antithetical to it.
In my first Substack series, I've been exploring the problem of ugly urban architecture (how it's becoming more prevalent, and what that means for our lives and communities) and searching for the answer of how to fix it. I haven't gotten to the practicalities of solutions yet, but your points here will probably find a way into it.
I plan to show your post to my husband, and hopefully we can find a way to work this into our daily routine more. We're both desperate for a more connected lifestyle -- more connected to our neighbors, to nature, to life itself. I want practical solutions -- this is one of the first posts I've seen that offer some. Again, thank you.
Excellent piece, Ruth and Peco.
Something I have often thought is making the decision to do a journey by car which could be done by foot is to make a decision that removes the possibility of conviviality with neighbours, removes the possibility of greeting, and removes the possibility of stoping and helping passers-by. Sometimes, the thought that my choice for convenience is depriving others of community is the impetus needed to inconvenience myself and use my two feet (which almost always turns out to be a joy). This isn't to say that it is wrong to travel by car, but walking is often better.