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There's plenty of historical documentation from pretty much any point in American history that supports the following claim: many Americans once took their local communities much more seriously than they do now.

Even the "IQ Shredder" concept you linked in the other branch is evidence for this, that people uproot themselves and head into the cities, where they become lonely and fail to meet a partner and have children. Of course, this happened to some extent a while ago (like when HP Lovecraft moved to Brooklyn), but the combination (1) of lack of economic opportunity outside of cities, (2) high apartment turnover within cities, and (3) high rates of moving away for college all create a potent force pushing individuals away from stable communities and toward potential isolation.

[roosterdawn]

Certainly, wealth inequality is on the rise, and I think you accurately sum up some of the forces that draw folks towards the city. Cities are places of deterritorialization -- not for nothing, it seems like every city has disdain for gentrifiers, the bridge and tunnel crew, and of course the dreaded transplant. All of these of course contribute to atomization, and the IQ shredder concept seems to account for how the thing they needed that draws them in removes their ability to have the other thing they need later on.

I suppose where I want to see evidence (and it's not because I don't intuitively believe it -- it does seem to make sense to me) is considering the idea that "many Americans once took their local communities much more seriously than they do now." I don't doubt that such a thing is the case, but it's important to remember that historically, America was the country you went to in order to homestead, to be a pioneer, to discover the frontier. It's true that some degree of community was a part of this, but so too was the idea of exploring the unknown. The mechanisms of immigration, frontier settling, and of course genocide were part and parcel of American existence up until settling was complete, "coast to coast".

What I'm getting at is that maybe the individualism that the environment self selected for during much of America's early growth set in place some momentum that continues going beyond when it generally creates only positive exponentiation. Now, as America has continued to grow up over the past century, it begins to grapple with how to conduct a society inside a universe which is not expanding for everyone the same way it used to. Is the lack of community potentially a second order effect which is downstream from this? And does that combine with the almost sousveillance state level visibility everyone has into everyone else's life, vis a vis the only very recent ascent of the "reality show" as a dominant force of cultural production?

[Nav_Panel]

> as America has continued to grow up over the past century, it begins to grapple with how to conduct a society inside a universe which is not expanding for everyone the same way it used to

I think this is a good frame and that your post is basically right, but I'm more of the opinion that it's not so much a lack of land itself but a lack of economic opportunity outside of cities that led to this condition.

> does that combine with the almost sousveillance state level visibility everyone has into everyone else's life, vis a vis the only very recent ascent of the "reality show" as a dominant force of cultural production?

I definitely think the internet in general is a big force that's contributed to our lack of local community. Why talk to your neighbors when you can talk to people online, like we're doing now? :'(