In his book Palaces for the People, sociologist Eric Klinenberg demonstrates a correlation between death rates in the 1995 Chicago heat wave and access to social infrastructure. Social infrastructure—which he defines as “the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact”—includes places like libraries, community centers, cafés, parks, and barbershops. In Chicago communities with less access to these places, mortality rates due to the heat wave were higher (even when accounting for race and socioeconomic status), presumably because these neighborhoods lacked the deep networks, relationships, and infrastructure necessary to form the social connections needed for survival.
How a Massachusetts town is investing in social infrastructure to rebuild its Main Street (Aaron Greiner and Emily Cooper, Brookings)
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