Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment

Finally someone sees something positive in our friendships. Watters has validated an important time in my life when I was focused on my friendships and not yet settling down in marriage. I have had several valuable years living in big cities with many wonderful friends who have been my family. This is an important book for our generation, especially young women, because it supports our time of growth and self-discovery after college. We are the first generation that has the opportunity to develop ourselves in careers, in friendships and in romantic relationships before we choose if we are going to get married and start having families of our own. I am giving this book as a present to my dear friends and my parents so they know how much this time in my life has meant to me.

You meet the damnedest people stuffing envelopes at the headquarters for the American Association of Single People, doling out licorice whips in the Black Rock Desert, and trolling the conference floor of the American Psychological Association's annual convention. These are some of the stops along the way for Ethan Watters in his quest to understand this unique clustering of friends common to most twenty- and thirty-somethings. Urban Tribes asks the questions you've been afraid to ask, and Watters is willing to put himself in harm's way to get the answers. Among those questions: Is my urban tribe of friends advancing my life or holding me back? The book is a turbulent, often wacky trip that I'm glad I took.

Ethan Watters has written a book about an interesting topic that has just recently begun to draw national attention: those of the current generation who are in their late twenties to late thirties and have not yet married and started families. According to the author, many of these "yet to be married" have formed cohesive social groups which he calls "urban tribes." These tribes, formed on the basis of friendship and sometimes intimate relationships, seem to have taken the place of the traditional family.The first part of this book is generally introspective and autobiographical with Watters drawing on his own experiences in attempting to understand his own status as a "yet to be married" member of an urban tribe. The latter part of the book is more outer-directed and analytical, and Watters discusses some social theories and sociological data which may help to shed light on the development of this new type of community.There are a few initial problems with which the author wrestles early in the book. One is the difficulty with defining exactly what an urban tribe is and what differences and similarities may exist that characterize various tribes in varying settings. A second is the question of why so little attention has been paid to this phenomenon and why it has had so little public recognition. Finally, a question that I think is at the core of the book: Why have so many of these "yet to be married" opted to settle into urban tribes instead of forming a conventional family as previous generations have done?These are interesting questions and Watters approaches them in a number of ways at various stages of his very personal quest. Along the way the reader will be introduced to the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert, the American Association of Single People, the activity of "social networking," the problem of defining the word "single," an academic discipline called evolutionary psychology, information about mating behavior, and the concept of "social capital." The reader will also hear about the author's attempt to glean some insight from experts at a national convention of the American Psychological Association and the author's participation in a Cinco de Mayo celebration in Philadelphia to which, Watters pointedly notes, no Hispanics had been invited.One of my favorite segments, however, was the author's discussion of "gossip and grooming," a notion based on the work of biological anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who suggests an intriguing association between the use of language and the size of groups we humans choose to socialize in. Monkeys and other nonhuman primates spend a great deal of time in the practice of grooming one another. The time and effort involved in this grooming seems to have some effect on the size of the social group with which the individual animal associates. After all, there is only so much time a monkey has for this type of activity. Dunbar theorized that human beings had replaced grooming with talking, spec

Must Read BV (Book Value): 'Friends' in-depth in 256 pages (instead of 30 minutes every Thursday)Ok, so I have to admit it up front. I and my tribe are mentioned in the book a couple of times. In addition, I have given Ethan a lot of feedback for this book. I was first told about the book when a fellow tribe member brought the article that inspired the book to our tribe's attention on one of our email discussion lists. Mind you, we didn't call ourselves a "tribe" at the time, we were just a group of close knit friends who acted at times like a family. As such, I'm a bit biased. However, being a bit of an urban tribe subject matter expert, I think I bring a good deal to the table in reviewing this book.In the book, Watters goes to great pains to explore, compare, and contrast several different colors and shapes of urban tribes. He talks about the unifying factors as well as the factors that are as different as night and day.He then goes further, by researching major trends and theories in society that have created the conditions by which urban tribes have sprung up. Examples such as the marriage gap (the number of years between adult status at 18 and when the average person gets married), the purchasing power of those in the marriage gap, and general network theory attempt to justify the why's and how's of urban tribe existence.Along the way, the author keeps us chuckling in acknowledgement by sprinkling in humorous interactions he's had with his tribe and potential mates.One topic that I found missing from the book was the potential effect on the marriage delay and urban tribes caused by internet dating. It is also unclear what tribal life and the marriage delay will be in the next generation, say 30 years from now. I'm hoping Ethan will study this and write us another book then so we can understand our children better!This book is a MUST READ for anyone between the ages of 18-35 IMHO. You will learn more about the way you behave, as well as the way you could behave. Your parents will get something out of this book as well: You might just understand better the path your adult child is taking, and will probably agree with it once you understand it.

The best part of the book are the personal anecdotes and life stories integrated into the broader theme of the book. I particularly enjoyed the author's self deprecating style and laughed out loud many times. This is a charming, nuanced, and intelligent study of a modern lifestyle trend.