This is a very special Best Of podcast episode, taking the best pieces from Season 2 and stich them together into one episode!

We talk with architects, psychologists, designers, activists, writers, urban planners – a host of amazing community changemakers on season two and we weave all of those together for you all. We start with a basic understanding of what is loneliness, social health, and social capital and why is it so important?

Then we dive into office spaces, public places, housing, and more – exploring examples from across the globe as to what types of design strategies and approaches foster social connection and combat loneliness.

In this episode, I speak with community leaders, and all-around good neighbors, Judy Sullivan and Meg Moschetto of the Cochrane Heights Neighborhood Association in Dallas, Texas. They recently transformed an ‘eyesore’ alley into a place of connection, expanding their neighborhood, increasing safety, and paving the way for a butterfly garden, kids playing and many more dog walks with neighbors. Their journey and the beautiful results were first captured by the Dallas Morning News, and serve as an example to us all for how small community-led changes can have a big impact.

Three in five working Americans report feeling lonely. Most of us look inward for the cause. But what if the design of our cities — the streets we can't walk, the stores that closed, the parks that were never built — is one of the least-examined contributors to that loneliness? This episode explores the built environment's role in the loneliness epidemic.