alt Hacker NewsHave you ever seen those videos filming London streets in the 1970s? They are absolutely packed with groups of two or three people, not going places, but just standing there, chatting, as if they have nowhere else to be. It is something most of us have never experienced in any form and the change has happened over long enough timescales that we are used to our streets of strangers just going about their lives, the external world just a physical inconvenience to traverse as quickly as possible, not the real world where one just exists.
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I think a lot of it comes back to cars: many people traded longer commutes for suburban houses, which has advantages but comes at the cost of not having much to do without driving somewhere and less free time around other people. This is especially bad for parents when they don’t feel comfortable letting their kids walk / bike around the neighborhood since that means more time spent playing chauffeur.
I have plenty of such scenes in my city still, but these people are usually either pensioners, or local unemployed drunks who have an entire day to fill. People with jobs don't hang outside, unless they're with their kids.
My perspective is very simple: our homes are simply a lot more comfortable than they used to be.
We have better heating/air conditioning, endless television/video games/entertainment, large refrigerators, lower density, etc and so on.
Back then, home covered a narrower set of needs - so the default option was to spend time elsewhere, even if it was just to escape the noise/heat/smells/smoke of home for a minute.