Palaces for the People: How To Build a More Equal and United Society

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There's a term you don't hear these days, one you used to hear all the time when the Carnegie branches opened: Palaces for the People. Climate change: Because of climate change, we will continue to face increasingly devastating storms. The forces that affected Chicago so disastrously remain in play in America’s cities, and we ignore them at our peril. Factors like the pandemic and our deep political divides have kept us isolated, while social media and media echo chambers sort many of us into silos. Libraries are closing across the UK and the US at a scarily rapid rate (nearly 130 have closed in the past year, it was recently revealed).

Churches, such as Wilcrest Baptist Church in Southwest Houston, started recovery efforts before the rain had stopped. Social infrastructure is a philosophy I can get behind and the stories he shares from fieldwork (especially more personal vignettes) were insightful. Photograph: Christian Science Monitor/Getty Residents clean up the streets in Englewood, Chicago, where abandoned lots have been turned into urban farms. This book tries to play the rule of "both sides" and let's all come together and sing kumbaya while never naming that it is consistently the political right who votes against social services which actually help ALL people.

He talks about the importance of school gates as places where parents can get to know one another and the loss of that opportunity in schools with drive-through drop-offs. Maybe it's because some chapters would be slimmer than others, but it seemed to me less focused and in need of a bit more editing/organization.

Different kinds of social infrastructure play different roles in the local environment, and support different kinds of social ties.Which are the most pressing issues and how is the United States currently addressing these issues in various communities? How does the Internet “contribute to our widening ideological divisions” (174) while also allowing people to “build more unlikely social bridges” (175)? Few modern social infrastructures are natural, however, and in densely populated areas even beaches and forests require careful engineering and management to meet human needs. It collects rainwater during heavy rains and floods, and provides a variety of public spaces during dry times as well as wet, with waterfalls, gardens, and sports facilities.

As an avid supporter of public infrastructure and spaces, I was really excited to pick this book up. If the Internet is not to blame for people’s increased feelings of isolation and loneliness, what is? Social media, for all their powers, cannot give us what we get from churches, unions, athletic clubs, and welfare states.Over 800 community gardens and urban farms have been created where vacant lots and burnt-out buildings once stood. Eric Klinenberg declares that social infrastructure – such as public libraries, churches, public schools and other “palaces for the people” – can help fight issues such as inequality, polarization, and even climate change. The church turned into a relief center, offering hot food, fresh clothes, cleaning supplies, and prayer to anyone, member or not.