Loneliness Is on the Rise. Are Closer Neighbors a Solution? | Retro Report

Even before the Covid pandemic shut down schools, closed businesses and introduced the idea of social distancing, medical experts were seeing an alarming increase in Americans struggling with isolation. The U.S. surgeon general has called this trend an epidemic of loneliness, as harmful to health as smoking cigarettes. 

To counteract isolation, some Americans are turning to a living arrangement known as cohousing. The idea originated in Denmark in the 1960s, describing communities of privately owned, single-family houses built around shared outdoor spaces, bringing neighbors closer together.