social life

My friend, I’ll call her Sarah, is a great example of the solo person in NYC. She lives alone. She loves it. She has built community around her in good friends, activities and an almost-weekly Friday evening at her local sushi bar. Like many of the people interviewed by Eric Klinenberg for his study and book,  Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone she loves her life.

Going Solo shines a spotlight on a huge and important demographic in our society. People are living alone. Huge numbers of people are living alone. And as he points out, this is an unprecedented development in the history of the human race. Yes, 27% of the households in the United States are single occupancy. 29% of seniors 65 and older live alone. In some of our big cities, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, between 35 and 45% of the households have just one person. In Manhattan it is 50%! Many people are living alone. [click to continue…]

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What does a Sharing Housing presentation sound and look like?  Like this. For a larger view go here. (You must have Flash enabled.) Related Posts:Going Solo—”Surprising Appeal of Living Alone”—Really?Listen to Podcast on Sharing HousingActive Social Life May Delay Memory LossHe Took The Plunge

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Decades of Friendship: Retiring in One House

The “two Nancys” share a house outside NYC.  Paula Span tells their story in her blog at The New York Times. The Nancys were friends for years, part of a birthday group, and when one Nancy was ready to retire asked, “Who is ready to share a house with me?”  The other Nancy said, “I [...]

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Four Degrees of Sharing

Authors and attorneys, Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow, have developed a model they call “four degrees of sharing”. The first degree requires minimal cooperation and no planning, while the fourth degree requires extensive cooperation and long-term planning. The whole model can be read here: They assign sharing rental housing or a single family home to [...]

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The Time Has Come?

At a conference in the summer of 2009, home sharing was declared “An idea whose time has come”. But this is not a new idea. It is an old, old way of living. History is full of examples of individuals sharing housing. Farm helpers lived on the farm. Teachers and preachers boarded with families. Servants [...]

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