What does it take to build a more communal life in an age of rising isolation? Being open to one helps. If you happen to have access to a porch, or a friend’s porch, that does too. 

There, “people feel safe because they’re in their own space,” writer Sophie Hills says on the Monitor’s “Why We Wrote This” podcast. “But they’re still in the world. You’re still interacting with people walking by. ... And so porches open us up to the people around us.”

Sophie looked into front-porch culture for a recent story that might be cast as an antidote to what some have termed a loneliness epidemic, one with deep roots that further deepened during the pandemic, and that can spread as in-person contact gives way to connection via tech. 

“In every interview, everyone seemed to be in agreement that this is something you have to create intentionally,” says Sophie, who grew up running throughout her neighborhood with brothers and friends. “I made it through middle school without an iPhone,” she adds. 

Sophie saw that intent in people like Karen Goddard, who builds trust and rapport with eye contact and a smile. Sophie met another source, Michael Dolan, on his porch. 

“We found all these connections that we had from having lived in the same area,” Sophie says. “And I got to actually experience some of that neighborliness with someone who wasn’t even a direct neighbor of mine.” – Clayton Collins and Jingnan Peng

Find show notes with links to more of Sophie’s work, and a transcript, here.