Neighboring (How to Build Community You Can Count On)

The missing manual for a more connected life, with simple, step-by-step guidance for meeting the people around us, showing up for one another, and rebuilding a better world

If you want community but aren’t sure how to find it, you’re not alone. If you’ve joined a group only to have it fizzle out, struggled to move beyond casual acquaintance, or found hosting daunting, it’s easy to conclude that tightknit networks of support are for people with more outgoing personalities, lots of extra time, and better luck.

In Neighboring, journalist Katherine Goldstein has good news: community building is a skill you can learn, no matter your circumstances. Drawing on interviews, years of research, and her own experience, Goldstein offers concrete advice for practicing the small, warm acts of “neighboring” that expand our social worlds over time. She walks readers through getting to know their “nearbys,” building a village around caregiving, and finding belonging in houses of worship and workplaces. Along the way, she offers a Deep Casual playbook for prioritizing connection over perfection, and permission for all of us to do less—less cleaning our homes before people come over, less hyper-intensive parenting, less worrying about what other people will think—so we can show up more for the relationships that matter.

There are structural reasons Americans are spending more time alone, but this is not another book theorizing about the loneliness crisis. Approachable, insightful, and practical, Neighboring is a refreshingly realistic manual for creating the connections you crave and our world so desperately needs.