> Now the ones to avoid move around and it's all too likely that a newcomer is such a person.

This seems a wild generalization to make, though I guess "be suspicious of newcomers" is a little biologically hardwired. What's your epistemology for believing "newcomers" are "the ones to avoid"?

I think it's still likely that most new people you'll encounter aren't malicious. I have to wonder what your mental image of a 'newcomer' looks like.

I am not from the US but your observation, if correct, would offer a counterexample worth thinking about.

You are saying that in the past, more resources were spent supporting individuals than the resources spent supporting communities and yet communities were stronger. That sure would be an interesting thing to understand if true. My interest is certainly piqued, seems too good to be true though.

That has never really been part of the definition. If you look at that Wikipedia article a couple comments up, I only see two examples (i.e. stoops and parks) that are free, and I think parks are a stretch because conversation is not a primary reason for most people going there.

I noticed this the first time I took a walk by myself to the town center rather than letting my parents drive me there. You know the routine: drive to the mall parking lot, go and get the thing you're looking for, drive home. Well, I didn't have my own car and figured I could walk there (about an hour, so probably 2-3km, in a country that uses sidewalks). It's basically magical how much stuff you notice that you would just ignore when in the car, even as a passenger.

A planned neighborhood is technically by definition not suburban sprawl, as sprawl requires a lack of planning. On the other hand, I'd argue if you can do all of that (and said walking distance is under a mile[0]) you're not even in a suburb, you're in a dense enough location to be a town or small city. Unfortunately thanks to American zoning and planning it can be very difficult to know what your home area is actually considered and it makes this type of anecdotal evidence not particularly useful[1].

[0] A mile is essentially the farthest the average person will comfortable walk versus driving a car for travel that does not require carrying anything back. Once you add in carrying things (e.g. groceries) it drops to half a mile. Anything less dense than that and people won't want to walk, anything more dense than that and you're into standard city planning.

[1] Assuming you're American of course and obviously I'm not about to ask you to dox yourself, considering this type of thing can vary right down to the neighbourhood level.

>I can walk to a branch of my local library, a few restaurants, a bar, a bookstore, I even get my haircut in my neighborhood.

If you can walk to these things, you don't live in the areas the parent comment is talking about. "Suburban sprawl" doesn't mean all suburbs, it's specifically the ones which don't have facilities and community.

Urban environments blunt people's connection to other people too, see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

If you pack people in too tight they just tune each other out.

I also like the idea of libraries having a cafe, internet access, a place to meet, all non profit and owned by the community.

There are lots of libraries with cafes, maker spaces, and more. Seattle is one.

If yours doesn't, this is your wake-up call to get involved with your local library. Stop waiting for someone else to do things.

I live in a suburban neighborhood with a couple bag ends, our neighborhood is pretty social. couple of neighborhood bbqs a year, kids all playing together every day, dinners, etc. It is quiet and not a lot of traffic with long term residents. I am not 100% on what exactly the key is for a town is, I think style matters, but Ive been in walkable neighborhoods without a good community, and non-walkable neighborhoods with one.

> idealized fantasy land

For what it's worth, many (most?) countries have most of their people living in places that are not sprawling suburbs. It's worst in the "Anglosphere" countries (US/Canada/Australia) within the last 50-70 years, but it's absolutely not a fantasy land. It's the way things were everywhere before 1940, and most places still are today.

I say that because it is fixable, if we let ourselves fix it...

Your point stands though, even in a fairly antisocial layout of a suburb, you can still usually make friends with a decent number of people nearby.