London is reportedly the loneliest city in the UK. With third spaces at increasing risk of closure, funding reductions, and the cost-of-living crisis, new groups are defining their own accessible community spaces.
Research conducted by the Belonging Forum shows 35% of people living in London report feeling lonely, compared to 28% for the rest of the country.
The report finds the capital’s heightened loneliness could be due to a higher concentration of young people who are new to London, renting, or facing financial difficulties, which create barriers to building lasting connections.
With young people among the demographics disproportionately affected by loneliness in the capital, Gen Z also faces growing dating app and social media fatigue.
The run club boom of recent years highlights a growing desire for affordable, in-person social activities. For those seeking alternatives to socialising requiring exercise, two London-based groups are offering distinct opportunities for building connections.
On a Saturday night in Hackney Wick, the garden of the Bath House fills with voices. People sit along picnic tables, smoking, sharing pizza, filtering in, often alone, and joining small circles.
Part-time events space, full-time host to Hackney’s community sauna, tonight the Bath House pulses with improvised music. A jam session, where musicians take to the stage to play together unrehearsed, is being held by the Five Points Project.
An events community centred around collaboration between musicians and artists, Five Points was founded in 2022 by school friends Max Riby-Williams and James Lear, now in their late 20s.
Sounds of jazz, funk, soul and Chicago house mix through the evening. Music is filled with saxophone, drums, keys, and vocals. James jumps to the stage: “Britain is great. I know it has a dark history, but I believe everybody in this room is great!” His impromptu speech blends into the start of the house band’s set.
Dance collective Golden Battle circle the floor, bringing a loose, inviting energy, encouraging people to move. Forget the stiff bobbing of a central-London club: here, people aren’t scared to dance.
“There’s movement in the room, and that movement is really infectious. It’s a nice way to relieve yourself from all the shit and stresses of the day. You just shake it off,” says Max.
Inspired by their own desire for connection after Covid-19, the duo soon realised a wider need for community in London. “It dawned on us how fucked up the country was, both politically, socially, economically, and [we realised] how important people coming together was,” says James.
“We created [Five Points], and we were like, oh, this is a community for people to feel safe and like family. There’s a desperate need for it,” he adds.
The group gets their namesake from the Five Pointz building in New York, which once existed at the intersection of the five boroughs of the city.
A home and tagging spot for graffiti artists, the building symbolised free creative expression. The Five Points Project hopes to emulate this same atmosphere in their events, which are held monthly in various London locations.
Aware of the rising costs of nightlife in London, the duo wants to keep live music affordable while encouraging their members to support the artists performing at each event. The group offers a £6 monthly Patreon membership that includes guest list access to all events, or the option to buy individual tickets.
Also hosting hiking and football clubs, jam sessions are where Five Points comes to life. “It’s meant to be a party, but also, we want people to feel safe to express themselves. We’re trying to create a space where you can feel free to be yourself and be silly and weird and playful…all of those things that we put limitations on,” says James.
65% of Gen Z want to meet people in real life, yet 70% feel anxious about attending new social events. Max and James feel music is the right way to encourage connection. “Live music gives such a unique experience that binds people together,” says James. “There’s something tribal about it.”
Throughout the night, the garden smoking area remains just as lively as the dance floor. The space is just as much for those seeking to dance freely, without judgement, as it is for those hoping to start a conversation with someone new.
“You might dance together, but that’s half the relationship,” says Max. “You’ve got to come out and chat to each other, that’s the other half.”
Another Saturday evening, a week apart, the search for London’s communities brings me to a very different event. Down the road from Shoreditch High Street, a nondescript office building is where Sonder members gather for London’s first presentation night.
The brainchild of two university friends, Mehedi Hassan and Lenard Pratt, Sonder is London’s alternative to algorithm-ruled friendship apps.
With two members later joining the team, Helen Sun and Hannah Kin, the group of mid-20s friends launched their app last summer that “self-filters out the nonchalant demons of Hinge or Bumble BFF,” in designer Helen’s words.
Sonder started as “a dating app where you can express yourself on a canvas,” Lenard explains. Profiles here look different to the isolated square pictures of the typical apps.
Users create a collage of sorts, adding photos, text, drawings, graphics, and the option to link their favourite song to their profile or their top films on Letterboxd.
“It requires you to be quite intentional and exert more effort compared to other apps,” says Helen. “You get out of it what you put in, and you can tell when someone is serious.”
The team soon realised many of its users were looking to make platonic connections rather than searching for another dating app, and introduced ‘Friends Mode’, which has now taken over in popularity.
Lenard cites his own experience of the isolation of going to university in London, where a lack of campus and student spaces makes it harder to form connections as inspiration behind the app. “There’s a big lack of third spaces in London…with Sonder, we’re trying to solve that problem.”
Aware that many of their members want to spend less time online, the app is only one step towards building connections. Sonder hosts a range of socials, with their most popular being Uno nights, where queues form down the street to play heated games among strangers.
Sonder’s app is free to use, while events are priced individually and sometimes also free. Most events are based around an activity, creating an easy icebreaker for guests.
“You’re kind of in your flow state, but at the same time you’re meeting so many new people as well,” says Helen. “It’s nice to have different vibes across all the events, and people can just choose which one they’d prefer to come to.”
This evening’s presentation is one of their newer events. Inspired by a TikTok trend where groups of friends present niche powerpoints to their social circles — from conspiracy theories to ranking your friends’ exes — the concept is to come up with the most unexpected and creative ideas possible.
The room is already full before the event starts. People crowd the sofas and seating, arranged in a ring around the presentation screen, sipping free sodas picked up on arrival and chatting to their neighbours. Warm lighting and large windows give the impression of a laid-back dinner party.
Presenters bravely take centre stage one at a time to speak to the room full of seventy strangers. Among the hailed topics of the evening include a dissection of Club Penguin and its merits as the adulthood Gen Z were promised, convincing the audience we don’t hate Labubus but rather late-stage capitalism, and a dramatic retelling of a romance novel with a particularly convoluted plot.
The spectacle of strangers deep-diving into innocuous topics creates an easy atmosphere among the audience. Attendees move around the room during a halfway-point break, all having an excuse to approach strangers as they gawk at the stories or congratulate presenters.
“It felt more comfortable than I was expecting,” says Rihana, 21. “I think because everyone comes with the same intentions of meeting new people and finding friends, so it feels less daunting to spark up a conversation with a stranger.”
At the end of the evening, a £50 cash prize is awarded to the audience’s favourite presenter, and people stick around to chat and swap contacts.
“Everyone who goes to our events is open to talk, I think that’s really important because you’re going there to socialise,” says Lenard. “Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, everyone gets along, and everyone is there to really make an effort to make friends,” adds Helen.
While London faces the closure of traditional community spaces — youth clubs, independent businesses, arts centres — new capacity emerges for alternative methods of connection.
Young Londoners’ awareness that connecting online is no longer sufficient, and paying for expensive memberships or club nights is no longer feasible, has sparked action in defining their own communities.
With different activities driving methods of bringing people together, these groups are linked by a mutual aim of connection. No particular special interest or prior experience required; all that is necessary to join is an openness to new bonds.
London’s community spaces aren’t lost, they’re just being reinvented.
All images by Pippa Kline.