The 'anomie index' is very poor science. It seems to have been invented in the 70s, never tested properly, and not updated since then. It ignores things like Internet socialising and work relationships, and also doesn't ask if perhaps people are more self-reliant than they used to be.

It also doesn't ask how people actually feel.

The league table on the BBC site is ridiculous. What does a difference of 0.7 between London and Edinburgh actually mean? Is it statistically significant?

It's also part of the media's 'The UK's relentless world of eternal misery and woe - it's a bit crap really, isn't it?' negative reporting mindset.

Was 'community' ever really the idyllic world it was supposed to be? People may have chatted over their garden fences, but at the same time family life was often drunken and violent, with systematic child abuse. There was no mechanism for reporting dysfunction, and no media or social framing for it, so it wasn't seen as the problem it is now. That doesn't mean it wasn't important - it was more that expectations were low, and family violence of every kind was seen as background noise.

Besides - I can think of places like Brighton which seem to be quite fun places to live, even though the turnover of people is likely to be quite high, so they'd score high on this faked-up anomie index.

What makes people engaged now isn't a nostalgic hankering for a rooted family life which never existed, but chances to meet people and do fun stuff.

If there's loneliness it's because the UK's social culture revolves around getting bladdered, which is a pastime of limited appeal. But even out here it's not impossible to find cool people and cool things to do, and this is hardly the cosmpolitan hub of the bustling South.