Peace Talks Radio Transcript
Friendship by Design: Rebuilding Connection and Inner Peace
HOST: Peace through friendship. Small steps to connect and how public spaces shape belonging. Today on Peace Talks Radio.
“I had children, but they were on a visitation schedule with their dad. So during the times I didn't have them. The house was empty, it was cold, I was lonely.”
“ The third point between two people that allows you to break down those social barriers is a really valuable thing that you can add to public spaces to encourage that interaction.
HOST: How connection and place can build peace and belonging. Coming up now on Peace Talks Radio.
This is Peace Talks Radio, the radio series and podcast on peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution. Whether it's a search for inner peace, harmony in our closest relationships or understanding our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and beyond. We explore it here on Peace Talks Radio. From personal moments to global movements, we consider what it takes to build a more peaceful world.
I'm Jessica Ticktin. For many of us, friendship seems like something that just happens when we're young on the playground, in school or at work. But as adults, especially during life transitions like moving to a new place, ending a relationship, becoming a parent, or navigating loss, the need for connection doesn't go away.
What does change is how we find it or struggle to. In today's Peace Talks radio episode, we explore the quiet crisis of adult loneliness and the small brave steps people can take to create new friendships later in life. Correspondent Nadine Shaker speaks with Dr. Maya Rossignac- Milon, a psychologist who studies how real connections form between people and why they matter.
A professor at IESE Business School at the University of Navarra in Barcelona, her research reveals what helps us click with others and how those moments of connection bring more meaning and peace to our lives. We will also hear from Melissa Garthwait, a social worker who rebuilt her sense of connection after divorce and remarriage later in life.
Then in the second half of the program, we'll hear from a journalist who recently moved from the UK to Toronto, sharing what it's like to seek belonging in a new city. And finally, Nate Storring co-executive director of Project for Public Spaces explores how the design of our shared environments can encourage strangers to connect.
Here's correspondent Nadine Shaker.
Nadeen Shaker: I moved to Toronto in March, 2024 with my partner and toddler. After the excitement of moving to a new country subsided, I realized that I actually didn't have any friends. And so started my quest to find friends and build community. But I quickly realized that it was actually harder than I thought to make friends.
As an adult, I started feeling something I had never experienced before, loneliness, and I wasn't the only one. According to a Meta Gallup survey, nearly one in four adults across the world have reported feeling lonely. If this loneliness epidemic extends to the entire world, what are our chances of making friendships?
What do we do to make them, more importantly, what exactly are we looking for when we make friendships later in life? Melissa Garthwait has a similar experience to mine. Melissa is a 56-year-old social worker. But in her late thirties, she got a divorce and found herself having to start over, and I really had to reinvent my whole life as I knew it.
Melissa Garthwait: So here I was in my late thirties, still very vibrant, and I said I have to start over again in a lot of ways. So one of the places immediately that I found a lot of connection was through my gym. There were a lot of 30 somethings and 20 somethings in this space. So I found myself actually at that time having friendships that were not only my age, but also some were older and some were much younger.
Nadeen Shaker: Did any of those relationships mature into deeper friendships?
Melissa Garthwaite: They did. Actually, one of my mentors from cycling became a very pivotal friendship for me during the initial year. Period following my divorce and helping me transition. And then it was a period from 2008 and then I got married again in 2013.
So there was that five year period.
Nadeen Shaker: What kind of feelings or emotions you were you going through at that time? You said you had to reinvent your life. Was loneliness ever part of that experience or that transitional period you were going through and. How did it affect your inner peace, if at all?
Melissa Garthwait: So the dating game in your mid to late thirties after not being on that scene for so long was very traumatic and definitely affected my inner peace. I had some friends during that period that were still married, so their availability to be able to go out and kind of explore was limited. They had children at home where. I had children, but they were on a visitation schedule with their dad. So during the times I didn't have them.
The house was empty, it was cold. I was lonely. Getting back to your question, I'm thankful that after five years I was able to find a partner who was on a similar wavelength as me.
Nadeen Shaker: So how did you meet your husband?
Melissa Garthwait: So that's a very interesting story. My husband and I actually knew each other. We grew up in the same town in Connecticut and we hadn't seen each other in over 25 years.
He was a musician and I love music. So we started talking and we connected in actually. Six months after we met, he asked me to marry him.
Nadeen Shaker: How did you manage making friends as a couple?
Melissa Garthwait: Most of his friends were single. They had either been divorced or they were just confirmed. Bachelors. The couples that we did meet were really based around his music involvement.
Nadeen Shaker: Because Melissa's husband played in a few bands since she was married. She became a band wife, and therefore met a lot of other band wives.
Melissa Garthwait: But I didn't always have a lot of commonality with these women that I would meet at the gig as a band wife or people that were in musical theater. I just kind of always felt like I was on the outskirts of that.
So when the pandemic hit. It was during that time that we decided that maybe we needed to have some sort of faith. I think during the pandemic, we were looking for faith. We were looking for community. I was raised in a Jewish home. My husband was raised Catholic and actually went to Catholic school. I never felt an affinity or a belonging to the Jewish faith because my parents weren't really heavily involved.
So I was always kind of confused about that. But we made our way to a congregational church in Litchfield, Connecticut, and lo and behold. The pastor was a Messianic rabbi, so I was like, this really is crazy that here we found this church and we found it simply because of its location near our home, and because it was the pretty quintessential New England church on the green that I thought was so lovely.
And in we walk and there is this messianic rabbi who has taken over as pastor.
Nadeen Shaker: So what happens next? What? How did you join this faith community? Who did you meet?
Melissa Garthwait: We went in and we started just going on Sundays. We were just so interested to see how this all. Unfolded. We met a lot of people from going, every Sunday you would sit and you would meet, talk to people that were sitting near you, and then you'd stay for coffee hour.
And then we were asked about a year into it to become deacons at our church. And we were like us, I don't know if we're qualified.
Nadeen Shaker: What, what attracted you to the community? You said that you know, being a deacon exposed you to other people and. Potentially other couples. How did you approach these other couples? How did you become friends with them?
Melissa Garthwait: They actually really approached us, and I think it's because we're a little bit different. You know, you have my husband who's a musician, he's got tattoos, he's this hip guy, and you have me. I'm very outgoing, and they approached us, which was. Refreshing and people asked us to come to their house for dinner and we've done different like activities just going to the movies as couples.
This was new to us and it was a little bit overwhelming and honestly it still is. We're taking baby steps because it is new to us and it's new because like you're not used to people approaching you and being. As friendly. Yeah, as friendly. And everyone's there because they believe in God. They believe in faith.
And we wanted, what originally brought us there was wanting to have a sense of community. And you said, what is a sense of community A, a feeling of belonging. We wanted something that was just ours and we thought having faith. At the center of it would also be good for our marriage as a whole, and it definitely has been.
Nadeen Shaker: It's interesting that faith spaces or spaces where you can go to pray have provided that kind of sense of community to people without the need of being religious or having to have faith. This is like a common thread I'm seeing. So you mentioned you'd be invited to dinners and going to the movies together.
Is that something you were seeking to do with other couples, or did you want like. A deeper connection where you're looking for shared values and commonality as well?
Melissa Garthwait: That's a great question. I think that's what we wanted ultimately, but we still feel like we may not have the degree of zest that they have.
We're still finding our way in this faith journey, what would it take for you to fully click with someone in your opinion? I would have to feel that there was zero judgment. I think there has to be complete trust. I have to feel like I can be unapologetically myself and for my husband as well. And because we are, I won't say eccentric, but I'll say we both had some wild times in our life and I feel like I have imposter syndrome when I'm over there, like with trying to connect with some of these women like. I just don't feel like it's a full connection.
Nadeen Shaker: I also feel like have imposter syndrome. Even with the daycare moms, I try to connect with them, but there's something that doesn't fully click because there's always gonna be like a cultural or race barrier.I can't even explain what it is, but there's something that's not there. You want it to be there, but how do you get it?
Melissa Garthwait: You can't force it. You can't force it.
Nadeen Shaker: Yeah. I think that's what I'm finding. I just don't feel like I'm, I can be fully myself. It's not always like black and white, right? It's not like you find a friend and it's perfect.
You're just exploring it. You're seeing where it goes and just opening yourself, I think to friendships, I think is the key here.
Melissa Garthwait: I think having people that we can count on when we have spare time. Especially, you know, with children and careers and, and balancing everything, I think it's better to have a few quality people in your life.
I think my perspective has changed. I think in my thirties and forties I had so many acquaintances, but now having a smaller circle is okay because I think. The people that you're able to be the most vulnerable with. During these tough times. I think that's a gift and that helps to create peace.
Nadeen Shaker: That was Melissa Garthwait. Melissa has been navigating the friendship world for a long time, much longer than I have.
As we got to talking, both her and I found that in our attempts to make friends, we still haven't really found someone we can connect with. That's someone we can truly be ourselves around, and that's little something we are looking for. Has a name. According to Professor Maya Rossignac-Milon, it is called Shared Reality.
Dr. Maya is an assistant professor of managing people in organizations at the University of Navarra, Spain. She introduced the concept of generalized shared reality, the experience of sharing the same thoughts and feelings with someone about the world, which forms the basis of connection. I talked to Dr. Maya to learn about. How we can actually find shared reality with someone. So Dr. Maya, you've introduced the terms generalized shared reality. So what is that and how does it impact whether we have shared reality with someone else?
Dr. Maya Rossignac-Milon: Yeah, so you know the feeling when you're at an event with a close friend and someone says something that reminds you both of an inside joke and you share a glance across the room, or the feeling when you're talking to someone totally new, but you're immediately jumping on the same wavelength and just riffing off of each other, and you're right on the same page, even though you've just met.
Those are both instances of generalized shared reality. So this feeling that you share the same inner states, so those are thoughts, feelings, beliefs, concerns with another person about the world around you. So not necessarily looking the same or being the same type of person or having the same personality, so it's not just being similar and it might not be something that you would have.
Before the conversation in common, it might be something that you develop together throughout the conversation. So it's also not just having the same interstates to begin with, but maybe sometimes creating new interstates, new ways of seeing things, new ways of thinking about things, new feelings together in your conversation.
Nadeen Shaker: So you're saying if I have a conversation with someone, it could start out in one way, but end up with us actually sharing inner states together.
Dr Maya: Absolutely. Yeah. So on paper you might not necessarily be able to predict if two people meet, are they gonna experience a sense of shared reality and what kind of shared reality are they gonna develop?
Because so often it's really unique to the two people involved and what they can create together that's new in their conversation.
Nadeen Shaker: And you mentioned that I don't have to share the same observable traits, so for instance, race, religion, or worldview with someone else, but does it help to share those labels?
Dr Maya: I mean, we know from decades of research and social psychology that people can get very hung up on those kinds of differences. And so to the extent that people get hung up on them, they can get in the way of creating a shared reality. But what I think is really important about shared reality is that it's not actually about sharing those things.
And you can, by bonding over the way that you experience the world around you, you can bridge some of those divides by creating shared realities.
Nadeen Shaker: Like speaking from my experience, I'm also trying to make friends as an adult, so I feel. Some sort of comfort level with someone who's maybe more of my race or a minority, and I feel that connection is just easier to make.
But what you're saying that it's, it's not necessarily true.
Dr Maya: I think part of why that's the case is that we tend to have an easier time creating shared realities with people who have the same sort of cultural background that we do, who already kind of speak our language in some sense. And I think something that's important about shared reality is that.
Because it involves creating new shared languages together, creating new rituals, and creating your own unique culture that's different and unique to the two of you. Some of those cultural differences from your broader, like macro cultural mileu, that can kind of shift into the background and you can really have at the forefront what you're creating that's unique together.
Nadeen Shaker: I wanted to ask you about. When does it become clear to you that you're having a shared reality moment with someone? How do you recognize that?
Dr. Maya: I love this question because we can really observe this both between strangers chatting online. So I've had some studies where I've paired up strangers who've chatted online together about say, ambiguous scenes, little stick figures, and they're making up a story together about what's going on all the way to partners who are in the lab face-to-face, having a discussion. And there's across these different relational contexts, there's particular behaviors that people engage in that signal that they have this shared reality.
So one obvious thing is they agree with each other more. They express that kind of agreement. They say totally. Exactly. Or they'll signal that they were thinking exactly what the other person just said. I was just gonna say that you read my mind. Or they can also engage in things like saying the same thing at the same time.
So that doesn't necessarily have to be the exact same thing, but you know, expressing the same idea quickly, interrupting each other with the same thoughts, and also finishing each other's. Thoughts. So once you have created a shared reality with someone else that involve shared beliefs, for example, you might feel more certain of those beliefs and that can also have these broader effects on your overall sense of meaning in life.
You find that your life makes sense and the world around you makes more sense because you have this partner with whom you can process that world and make sense of events, and in turn, your life feels more meaningful. So eventually it gives your life more meaning.
Nadeen Shaker: Can you talk a little bit about how does shared reality develop amongst strangers?
Dr Maya: So in these studies, I've had pairs of strangers in chat environments talk about ambiguous images, and the ones who really manage to create a shared reality are those. Who make up a new story together about what's going on in the image. They'll give the characters and the images names, and they'll come up with shared explanations for what's going on and really aren't afraid to riff off of each other.
So instead of each giving their side by side interpretations, which is kind of how we tend to structure. Conversation and small talk. Right. We so tend to ask, so how was your weekend? Oh, mine was great. I went to the park. How was yours? Oh, it was good. I watched this movie like we just kind of exchange and mirror questions and we mirror each other's answers as opposed to building on what the other person is saying.
What I think these pairs are able to do is to create something new together in that sense, create a little shared world that they're inhabiting for a moment. Together.
HOST: This is Peace Talks Radio correspondent Nadine Shaker is speaking with Dr. Maya Nia Milan, a leading researcher and professor in the psychology of friendship and shared reality.
Nadeen Shaker: Can you share some of your tips on how to create shared reality?
Dr Maya: So in, in my research, I've found that one thing that can help that we are often hesitant to do in conversation with strangers is embracing spontaneity and being a little bit more real. Than we normally would be. So we tend to stick to conversational scripts and hold back in terms of disclosing things that might be a little bit more vulnerable about ourselves.
And what I found is that in, in conversations with strangers, the more you can be a little bit vulnerable. So instead of just. Saying, oh, I watched a good movie this weekend. Maybe you disclosed that like for the first time in a while you watched a movie that made you cry and you know, here's why. Here's like what it reminded you of and the nostalgia you experienced, or whatever it might be.
You just share a little bit more than what you normally would. That can help the other person feel that you're being more authentic, feel that you're being more real, and the two of you then create a stronger shared reality.
Nadeen Shaker: I really like that 'cause I was talking to someone. We were talking about how it was hard for us to find real connection because we always find that what prevents us is not being our true, authentic selves with others.
And if we can't be yourself with someone, then you can't build a friendship with them.
Dr Maya: Yeah. You have to disclose those inner thoughts and feelings in order to be able to discover the ones that you share and create new ones together.
Nadeen:I guess one true barrier is really being vulnerable. I think it's really hard for a lot of us to just get to that space where we can do that or we can shift our minds into talking about our vulnerabilities.
So can you walk us through the steps?
Dr Maya: So if it starts with sharing and finding a connection with someone, like clicking the first time, possibly saying our thought, or I believed in the same thing, or, I agree. Where does it go From there? Maybe pay attention to something that the other person said that you might then call back to, and that word will take on a specific meaning to the two of you, or come up with a funny expression for things through your conversation, and then use that expression.
So have your own, develop your own language, develop your own rituals together. Every Wednesday we go on a walk together, or we have this favorite bar that we go to to grab. Grab a drink together. Or maybe we call each other at when specific things happen or whatever it might be. But you could have these different rituals that can really enrich your friendship.
And like we were talking about, kind of weave this thread through your interactions and give you that sense of generalized shared reality about the world at large. I think that kind of sense making and that kind of feeling like your life has meaning. That's very much something that gives you that sense of inner peace.
When we feel like we don't have a purpose in life or that nothing really makes sense around us and we have a hard time understanding. What's going on? That can lead to a lot of inner turmoil and inner conflict, and so having those shared realities kind of buoy us in those instances, I think they can be really powerful.
Nadeen Shaker: This is Dr. Maya Nia Milan, an assistant professor in the IESE Business School in the University of Navarra in Barcelona. I'm talking to her about how to create strong friendships with others we may like or share commonalities or similarities with. But how about making friends with people We have differences with.
First, tell me what is shared relevance?
Dr Maya: Yeah, so I wanna make sure to give credit. This is an idea of my dissertation advisors, uh, Tori Higgins. And so what he proposed is basically that when two people. Disagree about a particular issue and don't have shared interstates about that issue. Maybe they vote, wanna vote for the opposite political candidates.
What they can agree on is the fact that what they're talking about matters. That the issue that they're talking about is an important issue that's worthy of our attention. So in that example, voting matters, they can at least agree on that. Or they can at least agree that we should talk about, you know, who we're voting for and, and that it's worthy of discussion, worthy of, of thinking about carefully.
We do live in a world where there is polarization and there's different views, and it's inevitable that I will meet someone who I. Totally disagree with, and instead of like avoiding the topic, we can find shared relevance or agree that this thing is important, but the way we approach it or think about it is different.
Nadeen Shaker: Could you imagine a world where this could create more peaceful societies?
Dr Maya : Yeah, I would really hope so. At least allows people to get on the same page about what matters and which issues are important, and then they can go about figuring out, okay, well where are we gonna land on these issues and take things step by step.
But I can at least be the first bridge in some sense, across disparate realities. I did wanna ask you, are there inherent biases that might prevent shared reality from happening?
Dr Maya: We do know that people get really hung up on different from each other speaking differently, these kinds of more observable differences, and that can sometimes get in the way of discovering these shared.
In states that people might have. And so it is really important to not to try to not get caught up on those or make assumptions necessarily about whether or not it's possible to share the same in states. But then I think part of your question too is what happens when you do come across shared in states that are just impossible to reconcile, which of course happens regularly just trying to discover more.
Different shared interstates about other things and trying to see, well, reality is huge, so let's figure out what are the other parts of reality or what can we create together that might change the way that that, that we see those shared interstates.
Nadeen: So if there's a dissonance between two interstates, the solution would be to push through and still try to find similarities. Or do we just give up, like we're never gonna be able to reconcile with each other.
Dr Maya: It is worth trying to find that common ground and that, and it really leaning into, okay, we have these different baselines and maybe we come from these different cultural backgrounds, but again, if we're trying to create this new culture together, then we don't have to let those differences necessarily get in the way of.
Creating a new inside joke together. So it might depend on how like fervently you guard those beliefs, how insular that shared reality is. But you can also create shared realities where you're constantly bringing in new ideas into your shared reality co-creating constantly. And that can lead you to be much more open vis-a-vis other people and not make those fault lines as deep.
Nadeen Shaker: So what advice would you give someone who is trying to make new friends as an adult?
Dr Maya: I think probably the most important one is really letting yourself riff in conversation and not being too afraid of breaking conversational scripts to disclose something a little more vulnerable and really build on what the other person is saying so that you have the opportunity to create something that is unique to the two of you in conversation and isn't something.
So you have conversations with other people that aren't conversations you could have with just anyone else.
Nadeen Shaker: I find myself in a position where because I'm a newcomer to a new country, I just like have to get to a point where, okay, now I'm open to the world and now I'm open to making friendships. And I feel that was the starting point for me, which is something I didn't have before.
Dr Maya: I love how you described that, not just in terms of openness to new relationships We get very stuck in our ways of thinking about things and our ways of, of doing things in the world and what we love. And it's important as you're saying, to be both open relationally, but also in terms of your sense of truth and what's real and being open to other possibilities.
Host: That was Dr. Maya Nia Milan, a professor at IESE Business School and leading researcher in the psychology of Friendship and shared reality. She was in conversation with correspondent Nadine Shaker. Earlier in this episode of Peace Talks Radio, we heard from Melissa, Garthwait, a social worker who rebuilt her sense of connection after divorce and remarriage coming up in part two.
In a city where loneliness affects millions, one journalist, simple acts of reaching out, spark unexpected friendships even across political divides, and hear how thoughtful public spaces can become vibrant. Third places that bring communities together. This is Peace Talks Radio. I'm Jessica Ticktin. Stay tuned, back in a moment.
Exploring the power of connection in a world where loneliness is growing, coming up on Peace Talks Radio.
“I like to say placemaking is something that we all do, right? It's actually something that we do in our everyday lives and we don't even think about it. So the best way to put it is it's the difference between a house and a home.It's that process that all people do of shaping their environment to make it more useful and more meaningful for them. The design of spaces that invite strangers to become neighbors.”
This is Peace Talks Radio, the radio series and podcast on peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution. I'm Jessica Ticktin. This is part two of our program on what it takes to create new friendships later in life. Correspondent Nadine Shaker talks to people who share their stories about reaching out across unfamiliar ground to create community.
She interviews experts on the tips and tools to help foster connection and the design of spaces that invite strangers to become neighbors. First, we hear from journalist Jay Cockburn, who shares his personal journey from isolation to community. Discovering how simple acts like chatting with neighbors on a porch or adjoining local teams can bridge divides even across political differences.
Then we'll hear from Nate Storring of Project for Public Spaces, who explains how thoughtful design of third places welcoming environments that encourage people to gather, linger, and build friendships organically. These stories reveal how intentional community building, whether through everyday interactions or shared public spaces, can foster peace, belonging, and resilience.
Here's Nadine Shaker.
Nadeen Shaker: Jay Cockburn is a Toronto based journalist and podcast producer, originally a BBC producer in London. He moved to Toronto in 2019.
Jay: I was supposed to be moving here with my partner of four years at the time, but at the last minute, just after I had got here and found us an apartment, she decided she was moving to Boston instead.
I felt completely alone.
Nadeen Shaker: Jay came across a figure in the Toronto Foundation's 2023 report, Toronto Vital Signs. The power of us that said that over a third of Toronto's adults say they feel lonely three or four days a week. In fact, Toronto was the loneliest major city in Canada. He himself was lonely.
Jay: And this is why I had moved to London and struggled to make friends. And it honestly took me like two years before I had any friends and moving to a completely different part of the city and being quite deliberate about changing my life to meet more people. So when I moved to Toronto and I found myself in this situation, once I stopped feeling like I was falling through the floor into an endless pit of despair, I did know what to do a little bit and know that I had.
Nadeen: To be proactive about meeting people. Jay joined a bowling team, despite by his own admission not being a big bowler. He also joined a kickball team and started chatting up neighbors on the porch of his six unit multiplex. But the fact that Torontonians were lonelier than ever before, stuck with him and gave him an idea.
Jay: I was kinda just having coffee with the editor of the Green Line, a really great journalist called Anita Lee. We were just chatting about third spaces, places you can go to hang out that aren't where you work or where you live. And it's not my phrase, but I always think of the phrase, you always have to pay or pray.
To go to a third space. Uh, and we were chatting about like how there isn't anywhere you can go in Toronto where you don't have to pay or pray. Neither myself nor Anita are religious, but we started thinking like, what about the pre? Because that is a place that you can go to for free that they want you to go to.
And so I was kinda like, why don't I try going to church and seeing what that experience is like as a means of community building. So going in, what did you expect and what did you find? So I went in with a completely open mind because you know, I'm 35 now, and as I've gotten older, I've started to see more value in religion and.
I wasn't really sure how welcome I would be. I turned up at 8:00 AM before the Catholic mass and I was welcomed by the priest in his Franciscan robes and stuff, and he explained how it was going to go and what to do, and I found it, the Catholic mass really calming. It was just so nice to be there on a Sunday with kind of the songs and even if I don't necessarily believe what was being read from the Bible, the rhythm of the words being read.
Nadeen Shaker: I asked Jay about the sense of community at the Catholic Church. I just remember seeing a lot of people from all different walks of life would say hi to each other as they walked in and out, and community building is about those organic interactions that happen whether you try to make them happen or not.
Then I walked down the road and went to the United Church, and that was quite a different experience. The difference with the United Church was they had what was called fellowship time afterwards where everyone went and met and had coffee and cake, and I could tell it was really important to a lot of the people that were there.
People were having a great time, and I hadn't even got to sit down when people came up to me and were really eager to. Talk to me and get to know me. And yes, impress upon me how great the United Church was. Uh, and I remember asking 'em about the things the church does, and they had done a lot of really cool stuff.
The building was attached to what used to be a school that. Old school space is full of donations for refugees and immigrants or newcomers. They've been getting clothes and toys and bikes and kitchenware and anything that a newcomer might not have when they come to Canada, you know, a big coat. So I got shown round all this and it was incredible.
There was so much stuff. And so I asked about the kind of people that was picking these up and they're largely people from Muslim countries at the moment. And so I asked, I was like, is the point to sort of. Show how great the United Church was, and the person I asked kind of scoffed and said, no, these people are Muslim.
We're just helping them out. And I thought that was. A really lovely piece of like altruism, but also it's creating the connections between mostly white Christian Canadians and newcomers who were mostly people of color and Muslim. And so I, I thought, you know, there's that little moment of connection you're creating with people who are new to your community and you're welcoming them by saying like, here is stuff you might need.
It's like giving out that olive branch and saying, welcome to our community. Let's get along. Here's some stuff that could. Help you start your new life in Canada.
Nadeen: The way I'm hearing it is that you've connected with people at the United Church because you connected with their ideas or you know the underlying tenets of what they do in their faith.
HOST: You're listening to Peace Talks Radio correspondent Nadine Shaker is talking with Jake Cockburn about the challenge of finding community.
Nadeen Shaker: After moving to a new city, was there any point where you thought, this could be my community, I could potentially see myself as less of an outsider?
Jay: In this community, much as they are open to everyone and they say, you don't need to believe in God to come to our church.
It still wasn't quite for me. Mm-hmm. But I do think there was lots of things we could learn from them. And I don't know exactly how to put this into practice, but the idea of having those spaces where people turn up every week and having kind of organic interactions. Where it's not predicated on buying something or anything like that, or praying like you said, or praying, yeah, maybe it's sports, but we need public squares and places you'll bump into people in your community and just kind of be able to say hi, if you're not providing places for people to linger.
Then how are they gonna have interactions? You know, like we need more places for people to linger without putting up a sign that says No loitering. I think we should do more loitering. Everyone should loiter. Yeah. I think it should be like organic lingering, but also the reason why I loved reading about it is that there is a shared commonality, even if it's praying.
I think that needs to. Be factored in somehow. And how would you do that on a policy level, right? You need to bring people together who share something. If you create a space that's for everyone, you also kind of create a space for, that's for no one in a way. And I think it's like totally fine for people to have their faith space and to find community that way.
Nadeen Shaker: Jay eventually makes friends, but not from church, rather from literally sitting on his building's porch and chatting up neighbors. Some of them became lifelong friends and his journey to find community among his neighbors. Another incredible thing happened, something a lefty like himself would not think was even possible.
Jay: I think if you are talking to people and making friends with them, even if they're people that you would not get along with, my neighbor, my old upstairs neighbor, we could not be more different politically, and we got along just fine. In fact, we would hang out on her patio sometimes and like have a glass of wine and she would try and rile me up with conservative talking points and I would have to kind of bat them away.
So that, that's quite kind of like a good bridging there. It made my experience of living in that building much nicer if that was a kind of piece between people who are wildly politically different. That happened because. We were able to make friends and realize that even if we disagree vehemently on how the country should be run, we can still chat and we can still respect each other, especially when we have to live like 12 feet from each other.
So I think that is like really important.
Nadeen Shaker: Yeah, that's, uh, you know, peacemaking at its core. Jay's journey reminds us that even in moments of deep loneliness, reaching out to those nearby neighbors, teammates, strangers can transform isolation into connection and build bridges across different. How do we build public spaces that feel like they are made for us?
Spaces that are designed to prompt those types of organic, meaningful interactions between people. Do these public spaces exist and if they do, how can they foster deep connections and community building? Can they act as third spaces where friendships can actually be made? Project for public spaces is trying to create those types of places by involving community stakeholders from the start and employing the concept of placemaking, which is making a place feel like home.
I talk with Nate Storring more about this.
Nate Storring: So my name's Nate Storing and I am one of two co-executive directors at Project for Public Spaces.
Nadeen Shaker: And how did you come into this work? It's been a long path, but I started out in the art world actually and started to feel frustrated by the ability of art to really grapple with real world issues and connect with the general public.
And that led me down a long circuitous path to eventually doing a lot of work in cities. And really trying to help connect the general public to issues of urban design, of urban planning and urban policy. And that's what led me here.
Nadeen Shaker: So Project for Public Spaces is really big on this concept of placemaking. What is placemaking?
Nate: I like to say placemaking is something that we all do, right? It's actually something that we do in our everyday lives and we don't even think about it. So the best way to put it is it's the difference between a house and a home. It's that process that all people do of shaping their environment to make it more useful and more meaningful for them.
The problem is that when we look at public space. Those spaces end up being so much more complicated than a house that you own or you live in. There are so many more stakeholders, so many jurisdictions, so many issues that come together in public space that it often requires a more intentional process to get back to that core idea of all of us being able to shape our places together.
And so that's what Project for Public Spaces does, is we provide. That that facilitated process to invite a wide variety of stakeholders to come together to envision the future of their public spaces.
Nadeen Shaker: Is placemaking a new idea?
So placemaking has been around as an idea for quite a while. The word has actually been used since the 18 hundreds.
But I think in its current form of this idea of being a community-based process for improving our shared spaces. And are those stakeholders, people from the community? Yeah, so the, so we really take a broad idea of what a stakeholder is. Certainly includes residents of a neighborhood, for example, but also business owners or people who work there, fellow nonprofits that are operating in the area that may be steward the space or are nearby and provide programming or those types of things.
And certainly government agencies, libraries, anyone who could possibly have a connection to the space, whether as a user. Or as a contributor to the space, one of the challenges that comes up consistently with people who are trying to make new friends is where do they go to actually make those friends?
Nadeen Shaker: So why are public spaces the perfect third places in your opinion?
Nate: It's a good question. I, so I think it's interesting because public spaces can be amazing third places. And they can also be terrible. Third places, for example, times Square, probably one of the most recognizable public spaces in the world.
It's a terrible third place. Yeah. It's not designed that way. Absolutely. Uh, not used that way. And that's because you have people traveling from all around the world to come to that space. And they're, many of them will never come back. And so the public spaces that work best as third places are often the ones that are part of your normal routines.
They're the places that might be very close to where you live, that you go to every day or a couple times a week and run into the same people again and again. So that could be your local park. I think a lot of folks who have children who are that age, that's one of the ways that they meet other parents, is that they have to play with their kids outdoors and they run into other caretakers there.
HOST: This is Peace Talks Radio correspondent Nadine Shaker is speaking with Nate Storing co-executive Director of Project for Public Spaces about how the design of our shared environments can encourage strangers to connect. Back to their conversation.
Nate: So while there is some overlap, there are also differences between creating public spaces for people to go outside, spend time without having to spend money, and creating a public space that's specifically designed to foster friendships and deeper relationships.
Are you trying to do one or the other, or both?
Nate: Definitely both because I think we have a sort of framework that we use when we're doing community engagement that is based around these four characteristics of public space that makes them used and well loved, and that's uses and activities you need things to do there.
It's comfort and image. Do you feel welcome there? Do you feel like you can relax? Do you feel like it's clean and safe for you? It's access and linkages. Can you get there? How often can you get there? How easily once you are there, is it easy to get around? That kind of thing. And then finally, sociability, right?
And so I think for us, that question of whether you're building social connections or feeling connected to your community. Or it's a place where you like to go with people you already know. That's an important ingredient of creating that kind of successful space that also just feels good and functions well.
Nadeen Shaker: And I was wondering, in terms of design, are there specific design principles that just encourage people or strangers to interact with one another, maybe strike up a conversation? Is this something you intentionally do when you design a public space?
Nate: I come from a background in museums. And there's this great museum director and author named Nina Simon, who writes a lot about participatory museums.
Mm-hmm. And one of the ideas that she has in there is this idea of the social object. And it's these objects that just prompt you to respond and prompt you to, you might call it a conversation piece, right? You look at it and either you're like, what the heck is that? Or, wow, what? What is that like? And one of the places I worked over the years was at the Chicago Architecture Center.
And they had this giant model of the city of Chicago. And that was such a perfect social object because the first thing that everyone does, whether they're born and raised in Chicago or they're visiting to Chica Chicago, is they're like, oh, where's my house? Where's my hotel? Where was it that we were the other day?
And they're all trying to find places that they recognize on the model. And it's, you can just watch total strangers interact with each other around that object. And similarly, here in, in New York City. There's a public space called As Place, and it has this sculpture in it that's called the Alamo, but most people just call it the As place cube, and it's this giant cube that's turned up on its side.
But the secret of the As place cube is that if you push on it hard enough, it actually turns and similar. And this is a similar thing where you will watch. If someone starts pushing it and everyone else can see how heavy it is, you'll often see people who do not know each other, pushing the cube together and just having a, a sort of weird social interaction in public space.
Yeah. And it may not turn into a friendship, but it still gives you that dose of I connected with a human being. I felt connected to the broader community of New York or of Chicago. So I think those objects, those, we call it triangulation, the third point between two people that allows you to break down those social barriers is a really valuable thing that you can add to public spaces to encourage that interaction.
Nadeen Shaker: Is there anything else that can serve as a community hub? Maybe allowing the community to hold events or make it their own. Is this something you plan for when you create public spaces as well?
Nate: Yeah, absolutely. I think generally speaking, the flexibility of the space is very important. And so one of the tools that we always love to use in our, our projects is movable chairs.
And it sounds like such a basic thing, but the reason why movable chairs are so powerful is because it allows visitors to rearrange them into different patterns that support their use. Right? Can make the same place be a spot where you can. Go have your lunch where you can go have a conversation where you can people watch, where you can put your feet up, where you can read, where you can rearrange all the chairs into space for an event where you have rows of chairs, right?
It just opens up all of the possibilities of use. Similarly, in order to have those chairs, you need a fairly like open. Flexible area that isn't over-designed. I think sometimes there's a temptation to make a public space look really good from above. For example. Yeah, like from an airplane or a satellite or a drone.
And that doesn't matter on the ground. And actually a big boring square might be exactly the thing that you need in order to keep it flexible for the community, to use it both on an everyday basis, but also to be programmed by the manager of that space to have those community events like a concert.
Nadeen Shaker: You mentioned earlier that residents or the community are involved in designing your public spaces as stakeholders.
How does this process eventually help in creating a space where people actually do bond and find community? Does it impact one another at all to have the community come in and give their opinions about how they want their space to look and then actually creating a communal space?
Nate: We often say that the process is part of the product, right?
That the very process of bringing the community together around this issue and solving the problem together. We often even have community members like go out in the actual space themselves, observe it, using those four characteristics that I described earlier, and then come to their own conclusions about what's working and what's not.
What ideas might help to improve the space and talk to each other and work through what they think the path forward is, and just that process of observing it together, problem solving. Coming to some solutions that are either, maybe they're compromises that have some consensus around them, or maybe they're ideas that are idiosyncratic and just one person suggested it, but it's safe enough to try and everyone else is willing to just say, let's give it a shot.
Let's experiment. That whole process builds a lot of social connections often, and many of the people in the room may not know each other before, before this workshop, but now they have a place that they share together. So I do think that's a really important part of the placemaking process.
Nadeen Shaker: Can you give examples of how some of your projects have been utilized to bring the community together or perhaps serve as a community hub?
Nate: One of the projects that we worked on recently was in Arlington, Texas and what our local partner was finding in. Arlington, Texas was that they had all these new residents and what they found was that something like 40% of them had pets, a lot of dogs suddenly flooding into downtown Arlington, and they didn't actually have anywhere to take those dogs.
And that meant that number one, there was sort of an unmet need, but also there was a lot of dog waste, let's say, on the sidewalks in places that you don't want it. And so what we were able to do with them is actually just take the buffer. Area next to the local railroad and transform it into a dog park.
So it was before the project, it was just a space of lawn that really was part of the dividing line between downtown and the adjacent neighborhood. And we were able to make it a place that kind of connects those two spaces by making it a little more lively and also meet a community needs and create this space where.
New residents to the neighborhood can actually come together to meet a very basic need of their pets, but also hopefully meet each other and become part of the community.
Nadeen Shaker: I did wanna ask if the public spaces you create allow for new populations to join in. For newcomers such as myself, would it be inviting for me?
Nate: Yeah. I think that there are a lot of ways for public spaces, and maybe more importantly, the organizations that steward public spaces to invite newcomers. Into that space and into the community. So just a couple examples. We did a conference a few years ago in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and one of the things that I loved about getting to know that city is that there was this sense of local pride.
I can remember getting a tour of the city and literally. Our local partner would just pull people off the street and be like, tell this guy why Chattanooga is so great. And just strangers would tell me that how, why they love Chattanooga. And so there was this sort of sense of belonging. Mm. And when I started digging below the surface, what I found was they actually have a lot of programs to support that sense of integration.
Not to make everyone the same, but to just feel that sense of belonging. And so one of them is called Chatta Newbies, a program for. Newcomers to come together and get to know each other, and also get to know the city. Actually bringing newcomers together with each other is a really great opportunity because they already have something in common.
And then inviting in other people who have lived there for a long time and going to places around the city that you know, the hosting organization loves, is a way to start to feel connected to. The people and places in that community as well as other people that are going through the same process. I thought that was such an impressive program and a great example of how you can invite newcomers into the community, but they're also doing it out in public spaces often or in other third places and that kind of thing.
Nadeen Shaker: You are listening to Nate's storing co-executive director at Project for Public Spaces, talking about how we can create inclusive public spaces that prompt real connection and interaction between people.
What does placemaking mean to you?
Nate: I think for me, it really comes back to that basic human function need ability that we all have to make meaning in the world, right?
And not just meaning for ourselves, but shared meaning. I think that's the most powerful part, and particularly when we're working in public space. I think that's the power of it, is that it gives us a feeling of connection and purpose. The actual doing of it is about building that sense of connection and purpose, and we get a great public space at the end of the day.
But I think the work is the part that really, uh, makes life worth living in a lot of ways. That collective act of doing things together and shaping our environ.
Nadeen Shaker: And I wanted to ask you, if you could imagine a world where you create these beautiful public spaces that are able to foster meaning and friendship and community, how would the world look like in your eyes?
Nate: I think my vision for the future would be that all of our communities have the resources and the time and the ability to be involved in shaping the world around them together. And the fact is that's not the case right now. It's those resources and the opportunities are not evenly distributed. And so I think that we have a long way to go.
And it's not just about money, it's not just about funding. It is also about creating the space for that kind of work. And I do think that could really contribute to resolving a lot of conflict or making room to, to have important conversations that go unsaid or we get our opinions about it online. But to actually talk about it together in person, in the spirit of problem solving, something very concrete together, I think there could be a lot of value to peace in that.
And in terms of inner peace, I think it goes back to that idea of providing purpose. Right and shared purpose I think is something that gives me a lot of peace of just knowing that there are other people out there who are pushing in the same direction or see things the way that I do or experience things that I do, and that we can make a difference.
We can change things, push things. I find peace in that.
Nadeen Shaker: I eventually did make a friend in the big city, a neighbor who has a kid close in age to mine. We met at a condo building event. After many false starts, awkward conversations with daycare, moms and strangers in the park, and after seeking friendship in the strangest of places, like on a friendship app and at a pool party, I would say I still find it difficult to make friends.
It does take time, energy, and a lot of courage, but once a connection is made. When you find a shared reality with someone, it is irreversible. At least now learning about other people's experiences and hearing expert advice on friendship, I feel more equipped to navigate the treacherous terrain of friendship making.
Host: That was Nadine Shaker for Peace Talks Radio. Nadine spoke with Nate Storring, co-executive director of Project for Public Spaces, as well as journalist Jake Cockburn. In part one, we heard tips from psychologists, Dr. Maya Rossignac-Milon, a professor at IESE Business School at the University of Navarra in Barcelona.
Nadine also spoke with Social worker Melissa Garthwait. That's it for this episode of Peace Talks Radio, exploring how friendship, especially during life's turning points, is not only an emotional lifeline, but also a building block of more peaceful communities. You can find out more about our guests @peacetalksradio.com.
You'll find links to their work. A transcript of this episode and more about creating inclusive connection friendly spaces @peacetalksradio.com. There's also a donate button where you can become a Peace ambassador and help keep this nonprofit going into the future. Support comes from listeners like you, as well as the Albuquerque Community Foundation Ties Fund and UNM at the University of New Mexico.
Nola Daves Moses is our executive director, Allie Adelman, composed and performs our theme music for correspondent Nadine Shaker, co-founders, Paul Ingles and Suzanne Kryder. I'm Jessica Ticktin. Thanks so much for listening to and for supporting Peace Talks Radio.
