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I'll be honest: I prefer it this way.

I spent more time than I care to think about in the sort of town where everyone who knew you had known you forever. And probably your family. And probably had opinions about your church. I'm absolutely certain that many of them loved living there, and that plenty of people would. For my own part, I found it stifling.

After that, living in a place where my community is something I assemble myself from the people I choose is amazing. I have a sense of belonging. I have a home and a community. It's just not defined by the archaic assumptions around immediate physical proximity.

Also, Americans have always been a footloose lot. If anything, we collectively move a lot less now - https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-189...

I'm absolutely sure that the narrative of how people are moving now like never before feels true. It carries with it all the right emotions. It just could be more congruent with facts.

That's a good counterpoint; I too remember growing up in a (relatively) small town where a lot of people knew each other, and there was a LOT of gossiping and talking about other people - like e.g. when they didn't show up for church (again), they'd get Talked About.

I'd rather not get Talked About so staying anonymous is better.

Of course, I'm sure my current neighbours Talk About me sometimes, about how I don't really do much besides leave and get home every day.

"my community is something I assemble myself". How can someone do that? What kind of community you live in?

I had very similar views when I was student living in dorm. There was a lot of open people who shared my passions of the time and wanted to hang out.

Decade later I found myself in situation opposite to that.

The general form goes like this:

* Be in new area, knowing few people.

* Find things you like that are at least moderately social.

* Do said things, both to enjoy them and to meet people.

* Having made some friends, either attend or organize events to turn a collection of friends into a social circle.

Now you have a nascent community. If it works, it will tend to grow over time. It can take time and be error-prone, but also sometimes you get lucky and stumble into an existing social circle that fits you.

It's worked out OK for me in a half-dozen places over the past ten years since college.

>it was a different time, people moved into a house, stayed there, raised a family, their kids grew up, and came back to visit their parents.... Now days? Everyone moves. A lot. Chasing jobs, dreams, hopes, and aspirations. We aren't in one place long enough to form a sense of being or community.

No, This is just factually incorrect.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-189...

>NOV. 16, 2016 —The percentage of Americans moving over a one-year period fell to an all time low in the United States to 11.2 percent in 2016, according to tables released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.... “People in the United States are still moving, just not to the same extent as they did in the past,” David Ihrke said, a survey statistician in the Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch.

The figures you cite don’t seem to say anything about the fraction of people who stay in one place for ~15 years.

Is it growing? Shrinking? The data you link says nothing, since it is just YoY mobility data. People moving in that year was at an all-time low. But this does not preclude, e.g. average five-year mobility for simultaneously being at an all-time high.

This isn’t a problem, except that you so assuredly state that the parent comment is “factually incorrect” while not actually providing data that would back up that claim.

Strikes a chord for me too. I came to Seattle from the midwest where I lived in a Craiglist house with a gang of besties. I met some people here (also via CL shared housing) but since I've paired up and settled in it's been really hard to maintain good relationships with friends. I looked out at the skyline and though, geez there must be tens of thousands of people within a mile radius, none of whom I have any means to communicate with. I was going to do a nextdoor-like startup for sharing tools, rides, events, etc. (it was too be called "neighborcasting") but I didn't pull it off due to engaging day job.

I've also been discouraged because it seems like very many people simply do not want to meet the people around them. For instance, check out this recent thread on the SeattleWA subreddit about talking on the bus [1]. I was kind of flabbergasted by how much people hate it when a stranger talks to them.

It's like there are just too many people and no one has time to connect with any of them in an unplanned fashion.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/8stzn9/featuring...

I spent a year in Seattle riding the bus to work. I couldn't tell you which one. The bus was a cold place for sure. To be surrounded by people all the time and have them all act as though no one else exists.

I guess you havn't been to Tokyo then.

You have to keep in mind that these people are trying to go somewhere, and would rather be at their destination or anywhere else - nobody rides the bus for fun.

> For instance, check out this recent thread on the SeattleWA subreddit about talking on the bus [1].

Before smart phones it was different. Now an interruption is a distraction from our magic dopamine granting machines.

As someone who worked on early smartphones, I feel a twinge of guilt[0]. The addictive nature of the technology really has destroyed any semblance of mental down time that used to exist.

[0] I'd feel more, but Windows Phone didn't turn into a raging success, so I'll let the Android and iOS engineers contemplate the philosophical implications of their code!

Really, I do use it a lot, however I am astounded by the fact some people literally keep their faces at it all the time

When walking (pay attention to the traffic!). When riding the bus. When doing pretty much anything.

It does get boring after a while, to me at least. And looking at nature or other stuff is good.

But no, some people want to stay plugged 100% of the time in some silly freemium game.

> Before smart phones it was different.

Not for me. Crippling social anxiety means that anyone unknown talking to me causes panic. Especially on a bus in London which are reknowned for their, uh, "colourful" characters who may well be a harmless eccentric but could equally well be Stabby McStabberson or Robber McFeralYoot.

London has gone down in the recent years, so I've heard. Do you also feel that?

No more than when I moved here nearly 20 years ago, really. There's more pressure on people (financial crash, austerity nonsense, etc.) but on the whole it seems fairly similar to me.

There's another aspect I'd consider. The internet has allowed us to target who we connect with. Maybe randomness doesn't yield enough interesting connections and people got used to have exchanges online instead of random people.

I agree, my neighbours do have very active contacts but my wife is more of a loner, and happily so, she doesn't feel the need to go there and have a beer (and she's one of the most stable, happy and content personalities I know). I however do feel that need, I feel left out, I sometimes even get annoyed by my neighbors but of course they are not bad people and generally easy to talk to. I'm sure I'd be more happy having good relations with them and occasionally having a beer with them. My happiest times were when I'd spend more than half the week talking with good friends in bars (this was during my bachelors). Now with kids I don't do that anymore and I think I miss (need) it more that I realize. I love my kids and having a neighbor as a friend would make both possible, kids and a lot of social stuff. You can easily go over when the kid is a asleep for example, no need for a bar.

I would bemoan the general alienation of modern life myself.

But I think one can reasonably ask whether suicide rates have in tracked isolation and alienation overall. Isolation and atomization are a fairly old story, after and while, I wouldn't object to claims they've increased, it's hard to see suicide as a good proxy for these things.

Wikipedia's statistics seem suicides now as significantly greater than the early 2000's but still less than the 1970s. Can we really say anything specific about that?

None of this is saying you're on the wrong track. I simply would like to see better measures for these phenomena.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States

I suppose a lot of them thought it was a sale, or a scam or something similar. Which is understandable.

But yes, it gets sad. Not wanting to buy the cookies is not an excuse to not saying hi casually.

They weren’t selling them, they were giving them.

I don’t charge my elderly neighbour when I have her around for drinks, I don’t charge when I mow next door’s lawn because I’m doing mine and I may as well. They don’t charge me when they look after my cats while I’m away, and just as I don’t charge them for apples from my trees they don’t charge me for cherries from theirs.

Not everything in life is mercenary, nor should it be.

> I suppose a lot of them thought it was a sale

You see people with packages knocking at your door you think they're selling them and you close the door before they have a chance to explain themselves.

These are people who see me walking around the complex though. Also it was December 27th or so, at 8pm! We introduced ourselves as saying we were from unit nnnn, we'd baked some holiday cookies and we'd love to share.

"No thanks", closed door.

:(

Sorry you have shitty neighbors. Were it me is take your cookies with pleasure and talk to you.

Sounds like one of those "overly friendly" sales pitches to me. Or worse, one of those "pretend you have a gift, forcefully demand payment" scams. Or even worse, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses using baked goods as an in to talk to you with the real reason why they are there is to solicit you their religion.

People used to do something very similar to my grandma a lot, say they are there for something neighbourly and then put pressure on her to buy something when she interacted with them for a bit. It worked on her too, even though she never actually wanted to buy something.

I would have said no thanks and closed the door too and I don't have a problem associating with my neighbors at all! In fact, throughout the years I've shared with neighbors baked goods and beers, let them borrow tools, helped shovel snow, invited the young single one to "Friendsgiving dinner"[1] to make sure he had somewhere to go, offered help with various tasks, etc.

Most people want to have a bit of a rapport with someone before they are cool with unsolicited baked goods at 8 at night. Especially when you're knocking on people's doors, it can be very unsettling to be interrupted from what you are doing like that. At 8pm people with younger children are in the middle of putting them to bed, it's not like they have the energy to deal with potential scammers at the front door at that point.

What would have been appreciated is if you put the bags in a basket in the hallway with a sign "Merry Christmas from Joe Bob and Sally Doe in unit xxxx!"

[1] This is Thanksgiving dinner except with friends instead of family.

I do think you are the voice of reason here. In the sense that they had the best intention but maybe not the best execution.

You said: “not wanting to buy the cookies”, which implies you see the cookies as being an economic transaction.

Well, you do that. I open my door to my neighbours, and don’t assume they’re paid schills. What a sad world you must live in.

Perhaps if you opened the door once in a while you might meet people, find new experiences, live a little - but if you assume that everyone is out to “get” you, then the only person diminishing your life is you.

And yes, I’ve ended up chatting to pushy door to door salesmen. I don’t buy their shit, and politely tell them that if they do come back, I’ll waste their time again.

I don't think most people enjoy random visitation in North American and Northern Europe. In Holland, they promote neighbor encounters which are scheduled well in advance. Despite them not happening very often, they do seem to work in creating some cohesion.

I think it depends a ton on how the neighborhood is setup.

In both Portland and San Francisco my wife and I make an effort to regularly invite people over for BBQs, and introduce ourselves to new faces we meet on the street.

Don't get me wrong though we had someone close the blinds on us and not answer the door while handing out cookies when we moved in to SF. But, it was a 1/10 experience. Most folks were warm and welcoming.

Moving around a lot as a kid I I have experienced this lack of neighborliness in one out of the four houses I lived in. It was a large planned cookie-cutter suburb where there were no parks reachable by a >10m walk, and no stores reachable by >15m walk. The outcome was that you loaded into the car in the garage and drove to your destination rarely running into people.

> In both Portland and San Francisco my wife and I make an effort to regularly invite people over for BBQs, and introduce ourselves to new faces we meet on the street.

Seattle is weird enough that there is a dedicated Wikipedia article about it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Freeze

It is hard to explain this in a way that is believable.

As an example of how this works, my wife and I have tickets to go to an event with another couple. We need to discuss the logistics of transportation and timing, so 3 weeks in advance I send out a text asking if we can come over to chat about things (we live close by). He says sure, but they are driving home right now, he'll text us when he gets home and we can come over. No text is ever sent.

A few days later, I send another message, asking if it is a good time to come over. "Sure, we're not busy, come on over anytime!"

This couple is not especially flaky, for Seattle this is normal behavior.

It is how Seattle works. Planning the smallest of things is an exercise in frustration. If I am with a group of more than 4 people and a decision needs to be made on food, I just make it by fiat, because otherwise there is a non-trivial chance that restaurants will closed before people ever decide on where to go. (After the second time of not getting to eat, I just started doing the dictator thing.)

This is not just my experience, I have multiple friends (mostly from out of town), who report the same thing. Getting plans here nailed down is impossible.

(Plug: My startup aims solves this problem!)

The pessimistic view is that people become so apathetic that the dictator thing (blindly letting other people lead you) starts happening in government as well, instead of harmless restaurant choices.

I am this person - the one who will politely decline your offer and close the door.

I have no interest in meeting my neighbors. Having them come over unannounced would literally ruin my day.

It's not about you. It's about me wanting to choose when, where, and who to socially interact with.

> Having them come over unannounced would literally ruin my day.

You aren’t prepared for normal life and need help.

I think from the surrounding stories we can see that this is in fact normal life and that he does not specifically need to get help for this. If it's not normal that people come by unannounced, then you do not need to learn to deal with that.

Of course, whether or not that is a healthy skill to have is a separate problem (I think it is). In this case your response is too extreme though.

Seems we share common visions. We started with this 7 years ago, and built out a whole lot of technology besides this as well. Perhaps we can work together. My contact info is in my profile, reach out if you like...

2017: https://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2017/12/power-to-the-people/

2013: https://qbix.com/blog/2013/04/23/a-new-kind-of-platform/

I'm thinking of moving my startup from the bay area to a place like Champaign, IL.

Low cost of living, a great engineering town, and a small(er) town feel.

I have no sense of neighborhood in the bay area and stories like this make me want to move even more.

Just to add to the anecdotes:

My father grew up in a suburban neighborhood in Virginia that had a very tight-knit community. Kids running around, everyone knew each other, etc. My grandparents (who've since passed) when I'd see them would talk about how it didn't feel like a community anymore. There weren't really kids and families anymore, just old people.

I grew up 5 minutes away and never felt much of a sense of community in my own neighborhood. My neighbors were mostly old people and I probably wouldn't have even recognized them.

The two places I've lived where I felt a strong sense of community were the college town I went to college in, and rural Japan where I'd spend a month out of my summers as a child living with my grandparents and attending school. In the latter the school went out of their way to make sure I had friends since I was the only foreigner there (eg. I remember a teacher literally telling the kids in class to hang out with me and invite me over to play. In America that would never happen). All the kids in each neighborhood walk to school together every morning so that helps as well. So does being able to bike/walk everywhere and not being dependent on a parent to drive you.

It's definitely tougher to meet people after you graduate school. I think a lot of people close themselves off once they enter the "real world". It's a shame.

> everyone else did a quick open and shut

What do you mean by this? Were they polite about it?

That also sucks that your friends have moved away. The past two cities I've moved to, I've found weekly meetup.com groups for one of my interests and I've made some great friends that way. Many of my friends in my last city also moved away. We've been in California for about 4 years now and nobody has moved away yet, although I'm sure it will happen.

Clarified in my post. We were told "no thanks", "not interested", etc.

I live in a nice neighborhood (single family homes around here are 7 figures), and I could see people wearing work badges showing that they were at the same company as me! The behavior I saw was just surreal.

Shortly before I moved in, my complex held a potluck. No one came!

This is unanswerable of course but what can you do?

I wrote a lot more than this. Erased it. Wrote again. Erased.

I don't know if what you're talking about existed other than a short time in the last century. Really just two or three generations had that kind of life. What was life like before that? What can we do to change it? Is changing it for the better?

> This is unanswerable of course but what can you do?

I'm a technologist at heart, so the answer is always more technology! :)

I think I have a unique take on the problem and how to solve it, inverting the existing model for how the online->offline meeting of people works.

All in all, I'm hoping that the work I do can make people happier!

Is this a US thing? I got the impression that neighbors tended to be a lot more friendly when I was traveling through Europe.

(One of the many reasons I’d consider a move.)

Do you realize that some people feel stress when someone comes unannounced? Opt-in interaction like in your startup is so much better!

I looked at your website. Could you explain more about what you're planning to do?

A huge degree of privacy and individualism have emerged as the defining quality of Western societies for a while now.

Its also so to some extent capitalism. You tend to worry about yourself above everything else there is.