MentalPolyphonics » urban tribes http://mentalpolyphonics.com Committees exist to share blame. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:29:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Bowling Alone in Victoria http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/bowling-alone-in-victoria http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/bowling-alone-in-victoria#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:37:52 +0000 Jared http://mentalpolyphonics.com/?p=11236 A lot of people who move to Victoria claim that it’s hard to build a social life here. They’re from somewhere else, so it’s at least reasonable to think that they’re comparing to other cities rather than just complaining that their social life isn’t like Friends. But a lot of people in my social group are moving here after university, which is of course the ideal socializing circumstance.

I grew up in Victoria and I’m not completely happy with my social life. I suspect other natives aren’t either. So it doesn’t really matter if it’s relative: Victoria’s social scene is not living up to its potential.

Some of the most literal urban tribes I’ve seen in Victoria are sports leagues: team mates and rivals party together, travel together, take care of each other when they’re sick, etc. So in the past I’ve looked at sports as being the city’s only stable social groups. But I should have thought more carefully about my running metaphor: running is easy to do by yourself and most of the runners you see are by themselves.

My friend Nina moved here recently. We were discussing my difficulty organizing Community Circles in my social group and she offered this theory: Victorians are not in exclusive cliques (tribes) that can’t be broken into, instead they’re all off doing their own thing. Victoria is a city full of people bowling alone. Who knows if it’s happening here more than in other cities (bowling leagues are a Middle American thing, right?), but we should try to figure out how to fix it regardless.

]]> http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/bowling-alone-in-victoria/feed 2 About A Boy on Urban Tribes http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/about-a-boy-on-urban-tribes http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/about-a-boy-on-urban-tribes#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:23:30 +0000 Jared http://mentalpolyphonics.com/?p=2022 About a Boy is a story of two lone wolves, Marcus and Will, moving to build a tribe around them. This project has only started by the end of the narrative (better implied in the movie than the book, I think); here are two snippets from the final chapters:

Ali: Do you still want him to marry your mum?
Marcus: Naah. See, I don’t think that’s the right way. When people pair off it’s more insecure because they’ll split up, or go mad or something.
Will: What if we stay together forever?
Marcus: Fine. Great. Prove it. I just don’t think couples are the future.

Marcus: I feel safer than before, because I know more people.
Marcus’ Dad: They won’t be around forever.
Marcus: Some of them will, some of them won’t. You can find people. It’s like those acrobatic displays. Those ones when you stand on top of loads of people in a pyramid. It doesn’t really matter who they are as long as they’re there and you don’t let them go away without finding someone else.

In the second quote Marcus uses a network perspective: the structure of the system is more important than the elements that make it up.

]]> http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/about-a-boy-on-urban-tribes/feed 0 What is an Urban Tribe? http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/what-is-an-urban-tribe http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/what-is-an-urban-tribe#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:55:56 +0000 Jared http://mentalpolyphonics.com/?p=2070 I recently read Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment by journalist Ethan Watters, which is expanded from a NYTimes article. The book doesn’t offer an explicit definition of “urban tribe”, instead is gives an ostensive definition in the form of a case study of Watters’ tribe and anecdotes about other tribes. I’d like to attempt a more explicit definition here.

An urban tribe is a group of friends with the following characteristics:

High clustering coefficient
In graph theory, clustering coefficient is a measure of how cliquey (that’s the technical term, I’m not making this up) a network is: the relationship between two members is similar to the relationship between any two other members. The most striking consequence of this is that urban tribes can contain pairs of members who don’t really like each other but still invite each other to tribe events.
Provides family functions
Traditionally, families fulfill a number of social functions besides raising children: entertainment, emotional intimacy, etc. Young adults used to live with their families until getting married. Now they move to cities while still single and are discouraged from marrying immediately. Urban tribes exist so single young adults can receive the benefit of families without getting married or living with their parents.
Homeostatic
Cybernetics generalized the concept of biological homeostasis to describe systems that adapt to maintain their integrity. Watters’ research begins with an attempt to explain the low marriage rates in his cohort, his striking conclusion is that urban tribes discourage long-term romantic relationships, especially with people outside the tribe. This is because members with a “real” family will have no need for the tribe. This isn’t a conscious action of individual members, but an emergent behaviour of the tribe attempting to survive.

Watters says most tribes have around 8 members, but it’s not clear if there are minimum or maximum sizes.

]]> http://mentalpolyphonics.com/posts/what-is-an-urban-tribe/feed 10