JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

These days, we hear a lot about how the U.S is divided, polarized, doesn't know how to get along. Over the past few months, we set out to learn how people find community and maintain it. It's part of our series Seeking Common Ground. Reporters from NPR member stations around the country recorded nearly 30 conversations with small groups of people, and reporter Ana Williams-Bergen from North Country Public Radio has been listening back through them.

ANA WILLIAMS-BERGEN, BYLINE: In all our conversations, we asked people what made them feel connected to their community. Heidi Sourwine grew up in a tiny, rural hamlet in northern New York. And for her, the question brought back a childhood memory.

HEIDI SOURWINE: When I was a kid, Sundays were for Sunday drives. So we would drive around from farm to farm and pull in the driveway, and my dad would have conversations about either the corn or how things are going on the farm. So as kids, we didn't really appreciate that because we would be like, OK, when is Dad coming back? But as I've gotten older, I don't think I can live another way.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: As I listened back to all these conversations, I was struck by the longing many people felt for connection and by a sense of change that the physical places people used to get together just aren't there anymore. Katherine Atherton is a recent community college graduate in Colorado Springs.

KATHERINE ATHERTON: I think that there is a significant lack of places for people who are entering into adulthood. You know, you can't go to a bar when you're 19.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: And she says it's not easy finding other places, either, even just to practice a hobby like, in her case, knitting.

ATHERTON: I love knitting. The only knitting group that I know of meets at a coffee shop, and you're expected to buy something when you go into a coffee shop. You can't just sit and experience with friends, with community.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: Another problem - time.

SETH PHILLIPS: There's very seldom a day of the week that works for everyone. Like I say, I organize parties. Those parties almost never have all of my friends at them.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: That's Seth Phillips, a college student also in Colorado Springs. As he points out, there's work that has to be done to get people together. Someone has to organize those parties. Digital spaces are just easier.

PHILLIPS: I am part of, like, 12 different group chats with the same fundamental, like, six or seven people. They go on late-night calls, just hanging out on a call. If I could, 100%, I would love just once a week meet up with my friends, but it's unfortunately just not realistic.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: We hear a lot about our crumbling physical infrastructure, but America's social infrastructure is also changing. A 2023 Surgeon General's report called social isolation a crisis. It found that fewer people participate in community organizations like religious groups and unions and that Americans today spend more and more time alone. I heard a lot of frustration about this dynamic, but it wasn't all bad. People still find community through church, through movie nights in the park. I even spoke with a group of men who stay connected through the sport of demolition derby.

JASON MARLOW: The demolition derby brings everybody together - people that you don't see for months at a time. And when it's time to smash, it's, like, a big get-together.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: That was Jason Marlow in Malone, New York. Geoff Carlisle is in Austin, Texas.

GEOFF CARLISLE: There's this massive blowout Halloween party. They bring the police in, shut down the street. And I think about that. Like, all it takes is just a few neighbors coming across the street and saying, like, I want to have a block party. I think, like, what we're longing for right now, especially in this time, is connection, is community and a sense of place.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: Heidi Sourwine from northern New York, who you heard talking about her father's Sunday drives - she now works for a local land trust that helps preserve outdoor spaces.

SOURWINE: It's very moving to think about what life might be like if we were to lose the places that we do get together. And so these nature preserves that we're putting together are for everyone so that everyone can continue to paddle on the lake, take a picnic at lakeside.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: Sourwine's hometown, Redwood, has less than 500 residents. In the fall, tourists head home. People start driving slower. Businesses close up shop. But fellow Redwood resident David Magbee says the season brings people together.

DAVID MAGBEE: In the winter months, when there's a concert happening or something, everybody's there - right? - you know, 'cause there's only so much going on. And there's actually something that's really beautiful about that because it forces us to be present almost always.

WILLIAMS-BERGEN: For NPR News, I'm Ana Williams-Bergen in northern New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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