Resources from Redefining Community for People, Places, Purpose Keynote
Thank you so much for attending the 2025 Michigan Municipal League Convention! You’ll find additional resources, reports, and book recommendations linked below. -Allyson
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Reports, Articles, and Citations sorted by subject
Holiday decorations and sociability within neighborhoods
Inferences about homeowners’ sociability: Impact of Christmas decorations and other cues, by C. Werner, S. Peterson-Lewis, B. Brown, Journal of Environmental Psychology, December 1989
Unstructured play for youth
Resurrecting Free Play in Young Children: Looking Beyond Fitness and Fatness to Attention, Affiliation, and Affect by Hillary L. Burdette, MD, MS; Robert C. Whitaker, MD, MPH, The Archives of Pediatrict and Adolescent Medicine, Jan. 2005
Loneliness and social disconnectedness in the United States
What does friendship look like in America? by Isabel Goddard, Pew Research Center, Oct. 2023
Friendships: Less is now more by Martin Armstrong, World Economic Forum, Nov. 2022
Face-to-face more important than digital communication for mental health during the pandemic, by S. Stieger, D. Lewetz & D. Willinger, Scientific Reports, May 2023
Social connection from The Center for Disease Control, March 2024
It’s time to harness the power of connection for our health and well-being by Etienne Krug, World Health Organization, Nov. 2023
Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation from The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, 2023
Mental health and access to care in the United States
Suicide data, from the National Institute of Mental Health
National, State-level, and County-level prevalence estimates of adults aged ≥18 Years Self-Reporting a Lifetime Diagnosis of Depression — United States, from the Center for Disease Control, June 2023
The impact of social media on brain and mental health
Social Media and Youth Mental Health by The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, 2023
Social media’s impact on our mental health and tips to use it safely from University of California Davis Health, May 2024
Social associational capital
Social Associational Capital by county data, from University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, 2024
Revisiting declines in social capital: evidence from a new measure by Inbar Weiss, Pamela Paxton, Kristopher Velasco & Robert W. Ressler, Social Indicators Research, July 2018
Volunteerism and charitable giving
Three Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer, and What Can Be Done About It by Amy Yotopoulos, Stanford Center on Longevity
Time Well Spent, a National Report on the Volunteer Experience, The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, (UK), June 2023
Book Recommendations on this subject
