There are communities all over the UK who are feeling lonely, underfunded and adrift. We have lost the investment in structural, cultural and long term support required to enable our neighbours to make the spaces in which we live, into thriving places. And a place is just that: a vibrant, inclusive, public location that is available to our community members and fosters connection, vitality and well-being.

When we (citizens, the government, councils, businesses, philanthropic funds, the media) come together to invest time and money to shape our common spaces into places, we call this type of collaborative activity ‘placemaking’. The collaboration word here is vitally important, as humans need each other. 

When we ignore this—when we don’t invest time and money into placemaking and placemakers—we see our once vibrant towns and communities turn into ghost towns. This is because place-based communities aren’t separate. They are nodes in the network that enables our society to thrive, in the same way the neural network in our brains keeps each of us alive and well. 

I became interested in placemaking when, following the final lockdowns being lifted, I realised I had no sense of place. I felt quite adrift and disconnected, and I wanted to change that. I wanted to feel connected to the world around me, literally. So off I went to visit the local community garden and to make an effort to shop at local stores rather than chains. I volunteered for the local food bank for a while and regularly engaged with my neighborhood WhatsApp group. 

But it still didn't feel like enough. I rarely saw my next door neighbours even though we are literally connected by a shared wall, and I realised that no matter how hard I try to embed myself in my local community, it’s nearly impossible to do so without physical places designed for that to happen.

I spoke to friends. Was I alone? I wondered. Maybe I was just missing a trick and everyone else was out there having fun with their neighbours without me? But no. Pretty much everyone I spoke to seemed to feel like I did. Surrounded by people, but cut off all the same. 

We are physiologically wired to be at our best when we spend time physically close to each other. Our brains treat isolation the same way they treat hunger or thirst (Haseltine, 2025), a fact proven out by the global deterioration in mental health we saw when we were forced to physically isolate from one another during Covid. 

Yet, we are losing our public places at an unprecedented rate, from libraries to community hubs to playgrounds—losses that are triggered by reductions in public spending, down 17% on libraries alone between 2021 and 2022. (Shaffi, 2023) 

Furthermore, as more of us spend more time working from home we lose the water cooler moments at work. As religion declines we spend less time at church. Pubs and clubs are shutting at an alarming rate, and there's been a 69% cut in youth clubs (Local Government Association).

This loss makes it difficult to find places to meet formally or informally. It reduces the chance of bumping into each other, reduces the building of ‘weak ties’, and reduces the opportunity for people from different parts of the community to get to know and understand each other. 

The loss of this ability to bring people who seemingly have nothing in common together is more damaging than we acknowledge, and is increasing the sense of ‘otherness’ many people feel, hollowing out social and cultural chasms between us. 

Frustratingly, even where local places do exist, there is increasing pressure to see them first and foremost as a source of income. Essentially, we have tried to replace our lost places with commercial ‘third spaces’ such as chain coffee shops, gyms, or coworking spaces, where we have to spend money, where we have to consume. And for the most part we do so among each other, but alone.

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We have monetised place and increased loneliness. 

This means that we’ve limited the people who can build connections within our communities to a class privilege, as grabbing a coffee, joining a gym or visiting a soft play won't happen for those of us without disposable income. 

Likewise, commercial spaces themselves signal who they are for (and who they are not) through their decor, their products and their pricing, so each commercial space tends to be filled by people who are alike, leading to mistrust and fear within previously well connected and empathetic communities—we spend less and less time with people who are unlike us. And for most people that feels pretty comfortable, the sameness of many chain ‘third space’ brands make us feel at home in a familiar space wherever we are in the world, and so we don’t even realise what we’re missing out on, or notice the people who are not in the room. 

We need to overcome this by proactively supporting placemaking in communities, through investment in a national ‘Place-Connection Framework’: 

• FUNDING - We need to fund more physical spaces for local communities to come together, as they need to be resourced and maintained. 

• COMMITMENT - We need to make a long term commitment to create places so that they become consistently available, and inclusive of all parts of society. 

• INFLUENCE-COACHING - We need to identify and fund compelling and civic-minded individuals representing each of our communities to spread placemaking and placemaking values through their stories.

• REPRESENTATION - We need champions for the concept of place altogether, through a reinvestment in local news, free media training for community leaders, and with support from MPs and councils to drive representation in local & national policy.   

• COLLABORATION - We need a platform where different communities can come together and learn from each other, a repository where they can share tools, best practices and learnings. 

Philanthropic funders often step in to fill the funding hole here which offers some respite, but according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation we still need a broader and longer term focus in this approach, as “there is little doubt that the drip irrigation approach of philanthropic funding to date has been a handbrake on the realisation of regenerative potential.”

In addition, bearing in mind the climate and biodiversity crisis, our ability to empathise with and protect nature is more important than ever before. Despite this, nature-based placemaking has taken an especially large hit; half of all land in the UK is owned by 1% of the population, and just 3.4% of our riverways have an uncontested public right of navigation. A whopping 6.1 million people have no park or green space within a ten-minute walk from home. Our community members are so desperate for connection with nature, yet there are waiting lists for allotments of up to 15 years in some areas. (Gayle, 2023)  

This hits underserved communities and minority groups especially hard. In the UK 40% of black British, Caribbean or African people live in areas that have reduced access to green space, and people who live in deprived areas are more likely to have less access to green space (The Health Foundation, 2024). This means that minority and low-income communities need additional support to ensure easy access to nature. 

Shifting culture is another driver of our acceptance of loss of place. Young people are growing up having never had access to shared places in the same way older generations have. 

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Can you miss what you’ve never had? I think you can. 

Young people are obviously suffering from a lack of connection, and are twice as likely to report feeling lonely often or always than those over 70 (Campaign to End Loneliness, 2023). A lack of place isn’t the only reason for this—the problem of a disconnected youth is much more complex—but it doesn’t help. It’s one the reasons the team behind the #IRLRevolution are setting up ‘Dens’, real life spaces created especially for 12-17 year olds to hang out, with the first opening in Queens Park. 

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If we carry on this way, eventually we may forget how to connect at all. 

Disconnection is already costing us heavily, putting additional demands on our healthcare system, social care, the environment and even policing. This could be costing us over £32 billion a year (Browne, 2024). 

To put that in perspective, we spend just £1bn per year on playgrounds in the UK (Grant and Duncan, 2023), £650m of National Lottery, Government and third-party funding was invested in community infrastructure in the 5 years running up to 2021 (The National Lottery Community Fund, 2021), and the government has recently announced it will invest £900 million in major sporting events and grassroots sport. 

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The costs of doing nothing far outweigh the potential costs of doing more. 

The idea that a lack of social connection has wider implications is something Robert Putnam explored in the Join or Die documentary, a follow up to his book ‘Bowling Alone’.

He showed that social capital, defined as “the amount of participatory potential, civic orientation, and trust in others available to cities, states, or nations” plays a “vital role in the functioning of societies and has significant implications for various outcomes, including economic development, political participation, and overall social well-being.” (Claridge, 2024)

Building social capital means supporting not just the market and the state, but also civil society, an entity that connects everything. 

Bearing in mind the permacrisis we now live in, and the increased chances of life changing phenomena such as pandemics, extreme weather events, autocratic politicians and mass migration, we need social capital more than ever, as the impact of these events will be felt on our streets, in our schools, our workplaces, our local high street, and in our hospitals.

There are lots of people out there creating change at this local level, such as food banks, warm banks, climate hubs, transition towns, community gardens, youth clubs, libraries, toddler rhyme times, allotments, parent and teacher associations...

But it’s not all joined up, and we’re not reaping all the benefits. 

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By harnessing the positive effects of place based communities, the benefits are felt far beyond those who spend time in that place.

Essentially we can view each ‘place’ as a node in a bigger network. The people in each node move between groups and in doing so act as information and emotion transmitters, spreading social capital across the network in the same way our neural network allows mood enhancing hormones such as dopamine and serotonin to move around.  

And just as a reduction in these hormones and their transmission leave us feeling depressed, anxious, and lacking in energy and motivation, the loss of positive social capital has a similar effect on a population. 

When people fall into this state, they are often advised to take medications called SSRIs. This stands for ‘selective serotonin receptor inhibitor’. Simply put, these medications increase the amount of serotonin moving between neurons. 

In other words, they are an external intervention that increases the amount of positivity transmitted from one node to another.  We need to put a similar external intervention in place to increase the sharing of positive effects between one place and another. 

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Investing in a Place-Connection Framework could be that equivalent intervention for society, our network of humans.

If we don’t invest in placemaking we stand to lose our ability to connect to each other as humans. Imagine a future where you stay inside your house, lonely and anxious, but too afraid to head outside as you don’t know the people out there, they are simply strangers who are also alone. Your kids have few friends; they only know the people at school and have no idea how to interact with anyone who is different to them. You want to help build a better future, but have no idea where to start so you have to watch helplessly as severe weather events, economic crashes and pandemics decimate your local area and keep you trapped in your home. 

By supporting place-based communities through funding, long-term commitment, influence-coaching for leaders, trustworthy representation, and cross-collaboration, the positive impacts of each individual community can be transmitted outwards and absorbed by those in adjoining communities.

Imagine instead your family sitting outside, eating food that’s been grown in the allotment and you’re sharing it with your neighbours. Your teenage children are out at the youth club finding new skills and new friends. As someone who’s passionate about the future, you’ve connected with local schools, educating kids for the real future they’re going to grow into, and when your kettle breaks you take it to the local repair cafe, staffed by older people sharing repair and mending skills. 

Given the choice between such future outcomes—a choice which we have now at hand to make—why not support placemaking? Let’s give ourselves and future generations a safety net of support and connection by providing the right places for the future we want to emerge.

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Citations:

Black History Month: Access to all things nature (2022). https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/blog/lois-donegal/black-history-month-access-all-things-nature#:~:text=With%20more%20than%2040%20per,for%20communities%20of%20colour%20to.

Browne, V. (2024) The cost of disconnected communities - Eden Project communities. https://www.edenprojectcommunities.com/blog/the-cost-of-disconnected-communities.

Campaign to End Loneliness (2023) Younger Brits report higher levels of loneliness - Campaign to End Loneliness. https://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/press-release/younger-brits-report-higher-levels-of-loneliness/

Claridge, T. (2024) ‘Putnam on social capital – democratic or civic perspective,’ Institute for Social Capital [Preprint]. https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/putnam-on-social-capital-democratic-or-civic-perspective/.

Gayle, D. (2023) ‘Waiting list for allotments in England almost doubles in 12 years,’ The Guardian, 12 October. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/11/waiting-list-for-allotments-in-england-almost-doubles-in-12-years.

Grant, H. and Duncan, P. (2023) ‘England’s playgrounds crumble as council budgets fall,’ The Guardian, 24 November. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/04/england-playgrounds-crumble-council-budgets-fall.

Haseltine, W.A., PhD (2025) ‘Connecting with others is more than something to be desired.,’ Psychology Today, 26 March. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/best-practices-in-health/202503/new-evidence-that-were-wired-for-connection#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20uncovered%20specialized,much%20like%20eating%20reduces%20hunger.

Local Government Association (no date) ‘Rethinking Local: youth Services’ https://www.local.gov.uk/about/campaigns/re-thinking-local/re-thinking-local-children-and-young-people/re-thinking-local#:~:text=Since%202010%2F11%2C%20youth%20services,and%20750%20youth%20centres%20closed.&text=of%20youth%20organisations%20faces%20closure,reducing%20services%20for%20young%20people

Shaffi, S. (2023) ‘Spending on British libraries falls 17% as in-person visits soar,’ The Guardian, 2 March. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/02/spending-on-british-libraries-falls-17-as-in-person-visits-soar.

The Health Foundation (2024) ‘Inequalities in Access to Green Space’ https://www.health.org.uk/evidence-hub/our-surroundings/green-space/inequalities-in-access-to-green-space#:~:text=green%20space%20deprivation).-,People%20who%20live%20in%20more%20deprived%20areas%20are%20more%20likely,in%20the%20least%20deprived%20neighbourhoods.

The National Lottery Community Fund (2021) New report reveals benefits of £650 million investment into community spaces over past five years | The National Lottery Community Fund. https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/news/press-releases/2021-08-31/new-report-reveals-benefits-of-650-million-investment-into-community-spaces-over-past-five-years.