How to find community in 2025: ‘The most important thing I’ve learned is I’m not alone’

Civic participation is in decline across the English-speaking world. To opt out of the trend, Tom Gill learns to join in

They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The idea? That everything has a cost, even if not financial. But I’m at my local Neighbourhood House, one of many community centres found across Australia, breaking bread with strangers and eating a genuinely free lunch. While it cost me time, what I’ve gained feels socially priceless: I’m getting to know my neighbours, something fewer and fewer Australians are doing.

In 2000, Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone warned of declining civic participation and social connection in US society. Americans, he argued, were retreating from clubs, associations and volunteer groups – the building blocks of community connection – in favour of a more solitary existence. As Putnam put it at the time: “We used to bowl in leagues; now we bowl alone.”