Community

Vital City - In many American cities, new residential buildings boast amenities like roof gardens, playrooms and gyms. But can these shared spaces connect people, like the stoops of old, and help form stronger webs of attachment within neighborhoods? That’s the question Anjulie Rao explores in Vital City this week, outlining the case for tackling loneliness and strengthening social ties through better design. Touching on the work of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Riken Yamamoto, Rao illuminates how social housing developments from Japan to Chicago have created spaces like shared courtyards and outdoor walkways that encourage people of different generations and in different income groups to mingle.