![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If America appears fractured at the national level, the author suggests, it can be mended at the local one. In six nuanced, thematic chapters, blending academic research, interviews, and personal narrative, Klinenberg presents social infrastructure as the neglected building block of a healthy civil society. In Houston, a multiracial group of churchgoers uses Facebook to distribute supplies in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. At a public library in Manhattan, visitors learn to associate with all kinds of people, including rowdy children or homeless patrons. Yet collectively, such features can improve individuals’ lives and strengthen community in profound ways. From parks and playgrounds to churches and cafés, social infrastructure encompasses “the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact.” Social infrastructure can be mundane: a sidewalk in front of a day care, for example, gives waiting parents a place to exchange child-rearing advice. Renowned sociologist Klinenberg ( Going Solo, 2011) discerns a critical and overlooked source of many of America’s ills, from inequality to political polarization and social fragmentation: the deterioration of the nation’s social infrastructure. ![]()
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