4/2     http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060401/sc_space/lonelinesskillsstudyshows
        "Social trends in the United States suggest a recipe for greater
         loneliness and thus higher blood pressure and risk of heart disease.
         The population is aging and more people move around and live alone
         than ever, contributing to greater separation from caring friends
         and family."
        Like I said, I just don't find endless suburb expansion to be
        all that good for the society.
        \_ Uhm, no. People moving out into suburbs has little or nothing to
           do with the social trend of more and more people living alone.
           The social trend of people living alone has a lot more to do with
           the "me" culture that permeates modern mainstream American society
           (especially amongst Caucasians and assimilated ethnics).
           Traditionally people used to live with their families, it was
           not unusual for individuals to live with their parents and
           grandparents. The rise of industrialism in the 20th century,
           the advent of modernity and individualism has slowly but surely
           eroded this traditional familial structure. It was once expected
           that one would take care of one's parents in old age. Nowadays
           this is become rarer and rarer. Add in the fact that people are
           living longer than ever beffore and divorces are more common
           than marriages which last results in a very large group of
           lonely people. So, essentially this is the price you pay in
           forgoing the "traditional" concept of family. I suspect that
           in the future newer concepts of what is "family" will have to
           be created and that a backlash (actually this has already occurred
           with the whole neo-con/neo-religous right movement of the past
           decade) against the erosion of the traditional family unit will
           occur. So, agian, no, your overtly simplistic analysis of a complex
           socio-economic problem is not right. Suburbs do not automatically
           equate to lonely people.
           \_ I disagree.  The "me" culture may contribute to the problem,
              but I think it's due to a higher rate of changing social
              expectations.  A few centuries back, you could have three
              generations living in one house and everyone was on more
              or less the same page in terms in terms of what was socially
              acceptable.  Now, I think many peoples' expectations of
              what's "acceptable" have diverged noticeably from their
              parents' views, and certainly from their grandparents'.
              Noticable exceptions to this seem to be in extremely
              conservative (or liberal!) households, in which social values
              are shared across generations. -bishop
        \_ how do you balance people's material need for "territory" with
           people's need for each other?
           \_ You introduce a religion, and turn them into bald
              reproductionless vegetarian hermits. Wait it's call Bhuddism,
              Monks, and Monestary.

              \_ Bhuddism, Monks, and Monestary?  Is that like Settlers of
                 Catan?  Sounds fun....
           \_ just keep packing em in like rats.  we know from rat studies that
              the more over crowded rats are the more psychotic they behave
              which is exactly what we want in human soci-- oh wait.