Why is it so hard to feel connected in contemporary Canada?
The lack of a public square coupled with the very cold weather for about half the year makes socialization very difficult here. This is why depression is very widespread in our country, especially during the cold months of the Winter.
I believe depression to be structural, in large part, with the material reality around the person greatly influences their mental state of well-being. Many people would be less depressed with an environment that facilitated greater human socialization, even if people think they are not that social themselves, it is because they have been socialized to think alienation is normal.
Car-dependent cities and subdivisions are a huge issue. By design, this creates a sense of social alienation and isolation. This is a struggle for community organizing as so much of the urban planning is comprised of this configuration in Canada. When municipal areas are set up under Euclidian zoning practices — purely residential and commercial spaces segregated from each other by dangerous “stroads” without attention to the integration of public spaces — people turn inwards.
The closest thing to a “public square" for many areas is a Walmart parking lot.
Following decades of neo-liberal economic policies with the increased privatization of public spaces — something that should be attended to by the state as a matter of public good — under the current mode of capitalism the state essentially offloads this responsibility onto small businesses to provide a “third place” for socialization between work and home for people.
However, small business was especially hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many Mom-and-Pop shops either closed or operating with reduced hours and staff having not since recovered from the pandemic years. Also, the lockdowns in the early 2020s only exacerbated the problem of having domesticated the population to stay indoors in an already digital age.
As a result, many turn to online spaces to find community which can be unsafe for teenagers and children. Likewise, for people of all ages, a digital community cannot replace the feeling of local community. For young adults in their 20s, without a school to meet generational peers in person anymore, sadly many have more online connections than tangible relationships in their local area. All of this helps explain the low levels of romantic and sexual activity among the majority of young adults today in Canada.
On the micro-level this causes issues where people are not starting families which on the macro-level impacts reproduction of the domestic population for society as a whole. It is an open fact that Canadian birthrates, save for the First Nations communities, are below replacement levels, and immigration is essential for buffering the teetering system. However, a couple of generations into their naturalization process, the descendants of the current immigrants will deal with the same issues as the current citizens in Canada.
This is interesting, for the capitalist system to replenish the domestic population, immigration is needed from different countries with different cultures. What does this say about the commercialized culture here?
The “culture” of consumerism instilled in the Far West is based on a liberal individualism which promotes anti-social behaviour that makes it hard for people to try to socialize, creating a low-trust society, people here internalize that as the norm when it really is not that way across the world. We need to revitalize the public square to make it easier for people to build bonds and strengthen community. It creates a more high-trust environment where people want to look out for one another when they know their neighbours.
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