Americans today suffer from family disintegration, homelessness, racial animosity, suicide, and deaths of despair — and on a scale without parallel elsewhere in the developed world. These problems reflect Americans' social breakdown: the fraying of the relationships that used to bind us to each other. Yet our government bodies, philanthropists, and social entrepreneurs target these challenges in separated siloes, often weakening the very relationships people need in the process. They should rethink their approaches with a focus on place.