Why porches made Toronto less lonely

I have been living in Amsterdam for quite some time now, and sometimes I dream of having a garden. I have this romantic idea of getting my hands into the dirt, sowing seeds and picking my own home-grown flowers.

I don’t know if you are familiar with the real estate situation in Amsterdam, but not only is this unaffordable, even if you’re lucky enough to have a garden, it’s the size of a postage stamp. So my dreams of eating my own home-grown tomatoes… well, not in Amsterdam.

But last week I came across an article that made me feel much better straight away. It was a story about Toronto — a city wrestling with exactly the kind of urban density questions Amsterdam knows all too well, where something quietly remarkable happened decades ago.

Italian and Portuguese immigrants, building homes in neighbourhoods like College Street and Dundas West, did what felt natural to them: they built porches. Not enclosed gardens hidden behind walls, not extensions of private space to retreat into, but open, forward-facing platforms sitting right at the threshold between home and street.

What looked like a nostalgic cultural habit turned out to be an act of accidental urban genius.

Because here is what porches actually do: they keep people visible. A porch puts you outside, but on your own terms. You are not quite public, not quite private. You are in between. And that in-between space, it turns out, is exactly where community happens.

Behavioural scientists call this a "liminal zone", a transitional space that lowers the social cost of interaction. American urban researcher William H. Whyte spent years studying what makes public spaces work, and one of his most consistent findings was this: people congregate where there is something to lean against, something to sit on, some reason to pause. The porch is the domestic version of Whyte's observation. It is a designed reason to linger at the edge of your world.

Roger Ulrich and other environmental psychologists have documented how the physical design of a space directly shapes whether people feel safe enough to make eye contact with strangers, slow down, say hello. The enclosed garden says: this space is mine, stay out. The porch says: I am here, I see you, we share this street.

As Toronto grew denser, city planners began noticing something. The neighbourhoods with the highest social cohesion, the lowest rates of reported loneliness, the strongest sense of local identity were not the neighbourhoods with the best parks or the most amenities. They were the neighbourhoods with the most porches. The threshold design mattered more than the grand infrastructure.

How to use this insight:

If you design spaces, whether offices, homes, public areas, or even digital environments, the most important question is not what happens inside. It is what happens at the edge. The threshold between private and public is where belonging either forms or fails.

In a workplace context: does your office have a porch equivalent? A coffee point visible from the corridor, an open kitchen at the entrance, a small seating area that invites both staff and visitors to pause? These are not luxuries. They are the architectural conditions for connection.

In urban planning and community design: before investing in grand shared spaces, ask whether the micro-transitions between private and public are working. A bench at the right angle at the right threshold is worth more than a plaza no one wants to cross alone.

And me? Well, my happy conclusion is this: I don’t need a garden after all. I just need to put a bench on the pavement in front of my house to boost my happiness.

This is behavioural design in its most elegant form: not changing people, but changing the context so that connection becomes the path of least resistance. A far cheaper intervention than moving house.

Don’t you love it when everything you wish for is suddenly right on your doorstep?

It sounds counterintuitive. Surely a busy, full café signals that it is good? But research on social proof and environmental cues suggests something more nuanced is at work.

Psychologist Robert Cialdini's work on social proof shows that we use other people's behaviour to calibrate our own. But here is the subtlety: a completely full café signals scarcity and pressure, not welcome. The sweet spot is somewhere around 60 to 70 percent occupancy. Enough people to signal that the place is worth being in, but enough space to signal that you will not be trapped.

The same principle applies far beyond cafés. Meeting rooms that are always fully booked signal urgency but undermine psychological safety. Inboxes with no white space signal a person too overwhelmed to respond thoughtfully. Social media feeds with no gaps signal a creator performing rather than sharing.

The insight for behavioural designers: fullness communicates a lot, but it does not always communicate what you think. Sometimes the most welcoming signal you can send is deliberate, visible space. Room to breathe is not emptiness. It is an invitation.

Until next week,

Astrid Groenewegen

Co-Founder of SUE | Behavioural Design Academy, Author of 'The Art of Designing Behaviour' / 'De Kunst van Gedrag Ontwerpen' and ‘De Gelukscode’.