2 minute readNeighbors and friends who watch out for you vs. nameless people who don’t say hello. Healthy relationships vs. loneliness. Community connections vs. social isolation. Most of us would choose the former over the latter any day. And we may not realize that social well-being is literally a matter of life and death – and one that can be positively impacted by how we develop homes and communities.
A study led by Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University found that loneliness is as lethal as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. It was based on an analysis of more than 300,000 people, tracking their health over seven and a half years, revealing that having the support of friends, family and neighbors can increase your chances of living to a healthy old age by 50%. Like the more commonly understood benefits of building walkable neighborhoods to encourage physical activity, building spaces and places that encourage social connection is much more critical to health outcomes than their designation as “soft infrastructure” may suggest.
We build homes and communities for people. Places where they live and experience their lives. In her book, Metrics and measurement will always win in the world of real estate, and few are better at this than the team at Rancho Mission Viejo, developed and activated by the same team behind Ladera Ranch. They track resident sentiment and mobility, benefitting year after year from significant numbers of Ladera Ranch residents moving to new neighborhoods in Rancho Mission Viejo, seeking the social connections they love in a new-home community. On the 2021 annual resident survey, 83% of residents said living in Rancho Mission Viejo supported their wellbeing. This quote from a resident says it best: After 28 years in my former community, I never felt a part of anything. Due to all the social opportunities here, I feel connected to the community.” That is the definition of social well-being. And it takes an intentional focus on the role of community in combating loneliness and isolation, from the land plan to the relationships between the homes and the cultivation of connections between the people who live there.
