Won鈥檛 you be my neighbor? How porch culture fights loneliness.
| Washington
Lida and Mark Simpson sit on the steps of their porch with friends while the blues rock band Red Medicine plays in a yard across the street. People crowd all four corners of the intersection, dancing and chatting. It鈥檚 PorchFest in Petworth, a neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Some 100 performers will play on porches and yards throughout the day. A new group of people walks up, searching for space with a view of the band. 鈥淪it, sit,鈥� says Ms. Simpson with a big smile, gesturing toward the wall at the edge of the yard.
The Simpsons, who have a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, chose Petworth because it鈥檚 walkable, close to restaurants and playgrounds and public transit, and still has a neighborhood feeling. When they first moved in eight years ago, Ms. Simpson says she hoped for an active front porch culture. But it didn鈥檛 quite coalesce until people began socializing from their yards in 2020. Happily, says Ms. Simpson, 鈥減orch and stoop culture restarted during the pandemic, and it鈥檚 stayed around.鈥�
This week, the U.S. surgeon general declared an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, saying that 1 in 2 adults reported experiencing loneliness even before the pandemic. At a time when neighborliness is decreasing and Americans are growing further apart, some, like the Simpsons, are intentionally building relationships within their communities. And events like porch fests are growing in popularity. Central to a culture of neighborliness, many say, are front porches.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onWhy do some people view a doorbell ringing as a threat? Meet the Americans embracing porch culture and trying to keep a sense of neighborliness and fellow feeling alive in a society with an epidemic of loneliness.
鈥淔ront porch culture is just friendliness. It鈥檚 community, it鈥檚 interaction. It is wanting to have real community in the true sense of the word with neighbors and friends or potential friends. It鈥檚 an analog lifestyle in a digital world,鈥� says Campbell McCool, founder of a Mississippi development that centers community life.
It鈥檚 also in direct opposition to the kinds of tragedies that have struck urban, suburban, and rural communities around the country over the past few weeks. On April 13, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot after knocking on the wrong door to pick up his siblings in Kansas City, Missouri. In upstate New York, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed after the car she was in drove down the wrong driveway. And this weekend, a man in Texas killed five people, including one child, after he was asked to stop shooting in his yard because a baby was sleeping.
鈥淎s it has built for decades, the epidemic of loneliness and isolation has fueled other problems that are killing us and threaten to rip our country apart,鈥� wrote Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in on April 30, announcing a framework to rebuild community. 鈥淩ebuilding social connection must be a top public health priority for our nation. It will require reorienting ourselves, our communities, and our institutions to prioritize human connection and healthy relationships.鈥澛�
A front porch is a liminal space, says Michael Dolan, a writer and editor in Washington. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the outside of the inside and the inside of the outside, so people feel safe being on their porch because they are in their place and yet they are in the world,鈥� he says.
鈥淲hen people who have [porches and stoops] don鈥檛 use them, they鈥檙e missing out on the opportunity to interact with the environment,鈥� says Mr. Dolan. 鈥淎nd the environment includes humans and includes passersby, includes somebody coming up to ask directions, includes somebody coming by to say hello.鈥�
The type of neighborliness embodied by Mister Rogers is no longer the norm. Over half of Americans say they only know some of their neighbors. Although Americans living in rural areas are more likely to know their neighbors than Americans living in suburban or urban communities, people in the countryside are slightly聽 with one another. Even in urban and suburban neighborhoods, neighborly exchanges are rare. Over half of Americans who say they know some of their neighbors say they never get together socially, according to聽.
It takes curious and open people to build the kind of community that has block parties, borrows ingredients, and watches each other鈥檚 kids, but social spaces like front yards and porches are important too, says Mr. McCool. 鈥淎 front porch is central to the whole personality of a neighborhood,鈥� he says.
And at Plein Air in Mississippi, a development inspired by the new urbanism movement that promotes walkable and mixed-use communities, the only architectural requirement is that each house have a front porch.
History of the American front porch
Historically, Mr. McCool says, three things sped the decline of the front porch in suburbia in the 1950s: air conditioning, television, and the car. Air conditioning and TV coaxed people indoors. Cars meant more people lived further apart from each other.
When sociologists began studying differences between residents in neighborhoods with and without porches, they found that in the latter there was little to no interaction. People drove straight into their garages, and private backyard decks grew in popularity.
鈥淎 lot of people don鈥檛 realize that the social nature of the porch in America was imported with enslavement,鈥� says Mr. Dolan, author of 鈥淭he American Porch: An Informal History of an Informal Place.鈥�
West Africans were kidnapped and brought first to Brazil and then to the Caribbean. There, enslavers directed them to build their own houses, which had porches where people could socialize out of the sun, says Mr. Dolan. That aspect of Indigenous African architecture spread throughout the New World. When French colonizers moved to New Orleans, the housing styles of West Africa were imported into Southern culture and eventually spread beyond Louisiana.
Today, polls show that older Americans are more likely to have neighborly connections. Just 4% of Americans over 65 say they don鈥檛 know any of their neighbors, compared with 23% of adults under 30. Older, white, and wealthy Americans are all than Americans of color and those who are younger and less wealthy.
鈥淧rofessional porch sitter鈥�
Karen Goddard, who prefers porches to private decks, calls herself a 鈥減rofessional porch sitter鈥� in her attempt to make neighborliness popular again.
Ms. Goddard, who moved to Key West from New Hampshire two years ago, first came across the concept after reading about a self-proclaimed professional porch sitter. 鈥淚t was all tongue-in-cheek. It was just something made up,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut it was a great concept.鈥�
The point, Ms. Goddard says, is to meet on front porches without agendas, minutes, or formality 鈥� 鈥渏ust meeting and conversation.鈥�
It resonated with Ms. Goddard as something she was already doing. 鈥淢y friends in my neighborhood in New Hampshire knew that they could come to my house any Friday night and hang out on the porch,鈥� she says.
And, when Ms. Goddard sold her home in New Hampshire, her friends joked that the buyer should be informed that the house came with friends.
In an age of preoccupation with productivity, Ms. Goddard embraces the humor behind her chosen 鈥減rofession.鈥� It鈥檚 a label for, well, doing nothing. She and her husband had a joke: Ms. Goddard would sit on her porch, and occasionally her husband would poke his head out and say, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e doing a very good job, honey.鈥�
Jokes aside, Ms. Goddard鈥檚 main reason for porch sitting is simple: 鈥淚 like to smile and make eye contact and say 鈥榟ello鈥� if possible, because I just think that鈥檚 important for human connection and for neighbors.鈥�
The porch has always been a place of social interaction, says Mr. Dolan. That鈥檚 been his experience for the four decades he鈥檚 lived in the Palisades neighborhood of Washington, where he says neighborliness shines.
The rise of technology as an intermediary between people is unsettling, says Mr. Dolan. It makes its way onto the porch in the form of Ring Cameras, to which he鈥檚 opposed. 鈥淚 like to answer my door and say hello to the people who come to my house,鈥� he says.
鈥淸One gains] the feeling of trust in the neighborly compact, the ability to rely on one鈥檚 neighbors and call one鈥檚 neighbors,鈥� says Mr. Dolan. 鈥淥r even if your neighbors bother you, ... you tolerate them because they鈥檙e neighbors. So it鈥檚 a sense of place that reinforces your feeling of being part of something.鈥�
The Simpsons in Petworth say they get together with neighbors throughout the year. The neighborhood has several active email lists, and neighbors swap tools, like the Simpsons鈥� hedge trimmer.
Despite the overcast sky, PorchFest is packed. Young children have no reservations dancing to music, playing with each other, and exploring neighbors鈥� yards. A crowd of kids gathers in front of one porch where a band plays 鈥淗eads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,鈥� increasing the tempo with each refrain. The pack of 3-foot-tall children ecstatically dances to the song, giggling and trying to keep up, while bubbles float above their heads. As the band keeps playing, parents and teenagers join in.
