Is it really a beautiful day in the neighborhood?

[Eryn Silverfrond]

Neighborhoods feel alive. And no wonder, they're filled with living things. Most noticeably, people. Whether you think people are beautifully complex or painfully simple, chances are, you probably know some, maybe you even live in a neighborhood? Perhaps its someplace on the heights, with well manicured lawns, and and HOA, or maybe you live on the wrong side of the tracks, but you've got a tight knit community who looks out for each other? Perhaps you live in a place of polite disinterest, or maybe you have the nosy neighbor from Bewitched...

But to you? what makes a neighborhood? A community? Is it conformity? like a regiment, all the i's dotted and t's crossed? or is it more nuanced than that?

What are your experiences with neighborhoods of all kinds, and do you think there is an inherent psychology to every neighborhood, somehow either connected to on contrasting with all who dwell within?

[Maya Dawn]

Hmm... in the suburbs where I currently live with my parents and brother, we don't usually talk much to our neighbors. However, we all know each other to the extent that we'll either give a polite hello or talk enthusiastically about our dogs (plenty of homeowners around here are also dog owners, yay!).

We do have one nosy neighbor, an old Sikh who my siblings and I lovingly called "Sardar Uncle" back when we were teenagers (I swear we weren't being racist, we were innocent and just didn't know better - plus he took the nickname kindly). Sometimes he's a little too nosy and "huggy", but he means well. I'd say he's one of the few neighbors who we can trust enough to look out for each other (others including one white family across the street from us, and a Hispanic family two houses down our street - both nice neighbors, we've been around long enough to see that ).

[Population: 1]

I’m of a mixed mind on neighborhoods. I don’t mind the idea of people helping each other and being cordial and ‘neighborly’. However, there’s a fine line between being neighborly and being intrusive. If neighborhoods start developing that attitude that your home is my home, your business is my business outlook? No. No. My home is my fortress away from the bs of the world. Invitation only.

Now the only close neighborhoods I see around me are close for all the wrong reasons. Neighborhood associations- as if authoritative organizations dictating to you what’s proper don’t already demand enough from you- you need a neighbor to tell you how high your grass can be or what color your house is allowed to be painted. Funk that noise. Anyway, that 1940’s-50’s Leave It To Beaver neighborhood model is long dead- if it ever truly existed at all. People seem to all display the attitude I’ll keep to myself and you keep to yourself. Is it healthy for a society? Probably not but it’s been trending that way for quite a while. The internet ‘people in a personal bubble’ isn’t really helping promote community closeness either. What do I know though? I’m an extreme introvert.

[asynartetic]

A red trolley is always a nice touch, not to mention a friendly mailman with a vaguely pervy last name. A plus if your neighborhood looks good when pulling away with an aerial wide shot camera view.