Another thing that works for meeting and talking to your neighbors, and has the benefit of attaching you to people who live blocks away from you and not just the people you see getting into the car every morning, is local politics. I've met more people being engaged in local politics than I have through any other activity, including work.
My guess is that civic engagement across the United States works pretty much the way it does where I live in Chicagoland, which is that somewhere there is a message board, Facebook group, or mailing list, and you get engaged by joining it, getting the vibe, and then participating in the discussion --- it's very much (alarmingly much) like getting comfortable on Hacker News. Except you do it well and you can change laws.