What If We Had a 15-Minute City for Friendship?

When it comes to friendship, closeness matters. Emotional closeness, sure, but also — whether we like it or not — physical proximity. Researchers talk about an ideal “friendship radius” that even the internet hasn’t made obsolete. It can vary by person and location, but at a basic level, the closer you are, the better. “We are more likely to spend time with friends that we can easily access,” says Elizabeth Laugeson, a clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Cities around the world are contending with what the US Surgeon General recently deemed a “loneliness epidemic,” and one of the public health proposals to solve it is to build social infrastructure that facilitates more human connections.