The first house that my wife and I owned was in a neighborhood on the southeast border of Charlotte, N.C. It was March 2006 when we moved in, and we spent the next few months making it our own. My wife, who was an elementary school teacher at the time, spent her entire spring break peeling garish wallpaper off the walls in the kitchen. I bought a lawn mower and did my best to beautify the landscaping. All in all, life was simple and good.
Except for one thing. We seemed to be having a hard time getting to know our neighbors. We were friendly. We greeted people and introduced ourselves when walking down the street. And gosh darn it, we were young and likeable people! But nothing seemed to materialize at all beyond knowing the names of a few people who lived in maybe two or three of the houses nearby.
So we hatched a plan, a way to solve our perceived neighborhood-isolation problem. We would host an informal open-house type of get-together, in which our neighbors could drop in, have some cookies, and make friendly conversation. Surely this would break the ice as it were and cement our place in the world as that wonderful couple who lives on the corner of Trail Ridge Road and Leeswood Lane.
We got to work. We wrote, printed, and delivered simple invitation flyers to the nearby houses. We baked cookies and a handful of other treats. My wife made cute little folded signs to place next to the items like “Coffee” and “Decaf” and “Cookies.” We cleaned and tidied the house. It looked so put together, so inviting, so adult-yet-not-old. We were ready well before the 7 p.m. start time of our grand two-hour debut into our neighborhood’s inner circle. Let’s do this.
At 7 p.m., we went on high alert. We watched eagerly through the window for our first arrivals. They’re on their way! We scanned Trail Ridge Road from right to left and down the hill of Leeswood Lane.
7:15 p.m. came, but our first guests had not yet arrived. People around here are fashionably late, obviously. My wife and I are both punctual to a fault, but we understand that other people aren’t wired like us. No big deal. I’ll just have a cookie while we wait.
7:30 p.m. came and went—still no guests. We weren’t too worried yet. This is the South, after all, people are just a bit more relaxed around here.
8 p.m. arrived, and our vigilant window watch turned into an occasional glance outside. This is weird, we thought. Where are all of our neighbors?
During the next 45 minutes, we began to wonder aloud to each other: “Is anyone going to show up?” “When should we start to put things away?” On the inside, we began to ask bigger questions. Am I a good person? Do people like me? Am I worthy of love? If I eat all of these leftover cookies, will I feel good inside?
And then! At 8:45 p.m., just as we were about to call it quits, someone knocked on our door. We had stopped watching for visitors by then, but we eagerly sprinted to greet our guests. It was the couple from the house on the right. They said their names, handed us a fruit cobbler of some sort, and then, apologizing that they couldn’t stay, turned around and walked away. They hadn’t even stepped into our house.
Aside from the cobbler hit-and-run, no one showed up. No one. We slowly put away the treats and drinks. We turned off the porch light. And the cute “Coffee” and “Decaf” and “Cookie” labels, now destined to remain works of art seen only by the eyes of my wife and me, slowly twirled down, down, down into the trashcan.
Neighborhoods and Communities Matter
Many potential explanations exist for our failed attempt at neighborhood togetherness. An in-depth analysis of that isn’t my goal here. Instead, it brings to my mind the realities of neighborhoods and perhaps more importantly, how a sense of community matters for most of us—in both good times and in bad.
First off, research does seem to suggest that frequent interaction with one’s neighbors is positively associated higher levels of well-being and life satisfaction. Similar to these findings is the notion of “social capital,” which generally describes the network of relationships among people, and how it is positively associated with one’s level of happiness.
Second, although these data are a few years old, the Pew Research Center reported that (1) 57% of Americans report only knowing some of their neighbors, (2) we’re more likely to interact with neighbors face-to-face than digitally, (3) 66% of Americans who know at least some of their neighbors “would feel comfortable asking to leave a set of keys with them for emergencies,” (4) 58% of Americans who know at least some of their neighbors never meet them for parties or get-togethers, and (5) people who live in rural areas are more likely than those who live in suburban areas to know all or most of their neighbors.
Those data suggest to me that the situation in America might not be dire when it comes to our neighborly interactions, but it also suggests that there’s a lot of room for improvement. Furthermore, those data were collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting social isolation. Results from one interesting study suggest that having high-quality relationships with neighbors tended to buffer the negative affects that the pandemic had on well-being.
It appears, therefore, that neighborhoods and communities matter in part because they can be a source of strength and support during hard times. Having people whom you both trust and can call upon for relatively quick assistance if necessary is quite helpful, as is having a social network to provide more general, ongoing interaction as we go through our lives.
Creating a Stronger Sense of Community
So having a strong community of neighbors is likely an important component for both well-being and resilience. If that’s the case, what might we do about it? What could or should my wife and I have done back in 2006 in North Carolina?
As I shared regarding loneliness, building relationships requires consistent effort. Our attempt at hosting a get-together, perhaps, was overly idealistic. Sure, it would’ve been nice if at least a few people showed up, but it’s not altogether surprising that people weren’t motivated to come over to a stranger’s house simply to mingle.
What does seem to make sense is to build community through the organizations and institutions that naturally bring people together. These might be nonprofits with volunteer opportunities, groups that bring people of a certain demographic together (e.g., new moms or parents), and faith-based organizations. Work or school (if you happen to be in an academic program or if you have children in school) sometimes serve as ways to build relationships with people who have something in common. These ways of connecting might not help with building community with the people who happen to live next door to you, but they could provide some of social support benefits we all to some extent need.
All that being said, there does seem to me something good about at least knowing the people who live near you. They don’t have to be your best friends, but being friendly and thoughtful with the people who sleep within a 300-yard radius of you seems like a small step toward creating a more pleasant and resilient community. All we have to do to start is to be a bit more other-focused as we go through our daily lives—noticing other people, taking the time to learn something about what they’re doing, and welcoming newcomers.
And if someone has the audacity to invite you over to their house for cookies, really consider stopping by—and actually staying for a few minutes to chat.
Have a question or thought you’d like to share? An idea you’d like me to consider writing about? Scroll down and let me know with a comment.
References and for further reading
Chyn, Eric, and Lawrence F. Katz. "Neighborhoods matter: Assessing the evidence for place effects." Journal of Economic Perspectives 35, no. 4 (2021): 197-222. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.35.4.197
Howley, Peter, Stephen O. Neill, and Rowland Atkinson. "Who needs good neighbors?." Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 47, no. 4 (2015): 939-956. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/a140214p
Zangger, Christoph. "Localized social capital in action: How neighborhood relations buffered the negative impact of COVID-19 on subjective well-being and trust." SSM-Population Health 21 (2023): 101307. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827322002865