Poll: Tell me about your neighborhood

[boiler717]

What's it like? How often do you see your neighbors? Do people get along? Is there a lot of variety in ages and jobs, or are you all fairly similar? Empty nesters, families, young couples?

[thewop]

Small cul-d-sac. We see our neighbors daily, but mostly in passing this time of year since it's friggin cold. Everyone seems to get a long fine. We do talk to some more than others, simply because we have kids the same age. It's a wide range of young couples with young kids, middle aged empty nesters, single, and elderly. We really like it. It's the main reason we don't want to leave.

[sailorgray]

I live downtown in what is considered an up and coming old steel town. We can walk to an awesome old theater that plays indie films. There are lots of good, highly-rated restaurants. There is also talk of building a minor league ball stadium near us where we could walk, but not too close where it would affect us that much. I know you asked about neighborhood, but I consider the whole town my neighborhood. My particular block is made up of older people and young families. My neighbor is 102 and has his own day in our town. Very nice man with great kids (in their 60's...lol) who stop by. The other side we have renters. The one girl is very nice. The other tenant I have yet to see and it's been 2 years. I do get to stare at his couch on the front porch. It will be the death of me. I think our block is a mix of people who have been there forever like my 102 year old neighbor and young families. Sadly, I don't really know any of them. I am going to guess that most are blue collar.

[sierramist03]

We live in a small town of less than 2k people. We see our neighbors to the east almost daily. She delivers our mail and he runs the local auto parts store. They are great people we love having them as neighbors they always say hi and they even will chit chat with us if the timing is right (ie neither of us is headed out the door to somewhere.) They have a daughter who is a year younger than me. She dated one of my classmates when we were younger. Our neighbors to the west have several daughters and their oldest is high school. We live in a duplex so the lady who lives besides we don't "see" that often she's in and out. She's single and teaches school at the local elementary. We have a young couple who lives across from us we don't really "know" them that well. I know who they are but that's about it.

[cajungal]

We live in a neighborhood that is probably 80% complete. It has lakes, pool, playground, etc. Our house is one of the first in its section though, so we haven't really met a lot of neighbors yet, and we're pretty secluded and surrounded by construction. It seems that it's mostly young families with children. There are some middle aged couples as well that we've seen. I've met the people building houses directly around our house and think it'll be really great once they're all moved in. All of them are young families with children around the same age as ours.

[downtoearth]

We live in a very established neighborhood. Our house is one of the "young" ones and was built in the late 1950's (1957, I think). Most of the houses range from 70-115 (1900 to 1940ish).  We have everything from young parents with kids (us and the people across the street) to elderly people who have lived here their whole lives to the bachelor who has a hot tub and guides river float trips. It's a great neighborhood and everyone loves dogs, are friendly, and we all rally around chasing deer away (in the middle of the city - it's a real problem since they chase the kids and dogs and the city actually hunts them in town since the population is booming).

[mrs.jacinthe]

Our new neighborhood is an HOA of 50+ houses. Snap judgment is that they're mostly retirees or young-to-middle age families. But honestly, I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to getting into the new house and meeting our new neighbors via the sidewalks, the neighborhood park, etc.

[stephm0188]

I live in a small community near a large city. My town is nestled between two larger towns. It's very rural, and attracts families in higher income brackets.

Our neighborhood is fantastic. Lots of people who work on base in some capacity, some military families, and a handful of doctors and lawyers. It's very social. The first phase of developmentwhere we are started 17 years ago, and many of the families are original owners. We're seeing a mix of empty nesters, couples with high school age kids, and younger families like us. There are block parties, a big wheel race, and lots of other gtgs during the year. If you are outside at any given time, you can expect someone to show up for a beer and a chat.

I love it here. We have some trashy people behind us, but overall I adore where we live. I couldn't have asked for a better place to raise my kid.

[ssmjlm]

What's it like? Older neighborhood of established homes that are 1 story with a few newer 2 stories mixed in, like ours. Some of the owners are the original owners.

How often do you see your neighbors? We see some a lot, some none at all. Our dog is BFF's with our neighbors 3 houses over b/c they're always out when we're walking her and the wife gives her milkbones.

Do people get along? Mostly, our direct neighbors have some rowdy teens and they were a bit of an issue mostly b/c my neighbors didn't really do anything about it. We also have a rental a few down on the other side and whoever is renting now isn't taking care of anything outside.

Is there a lot of variety in ages and jobs, or are you all fairly similar? There is a lot of variety. We have original owners, young families, older couples. I also live in a big military area.

[boiler717]

I think we have 14 houses right now. 2 empty nesters, 7 families, 5 DINKS, which is a good mix I think. All of the families are young which surprised me -- I think the oldest kid is 8?

We get together as a group every 2-3 months. During the summer people hang out a lot outside. And my BFF lives 2 doors down which is priceless. I like how friendly everyone is.

DH and I joke about how everyone has the same job. Almost everyone is an engineer or an accountant. Four of us work in healthcare. We need to recruit some social science people to round us out more!

[munkii]

We live in what would have been considered the suburbs in the 1950s. It still feels very suburban to me, but it's very different than where I used to live in SW Carmel.

The houses in my neighborhood were built starting in the late 40s through the early 70s. Many of the houses are still occupied by the original owners; in fact, we bought from an original owner. Since many of them are aging on to nursing homes and other places, some younger people and families have been moving in, but there are baby boomer aged retirees moving in as well. It's a very attractive neighborhood for young people and families since we're within walking distance to WF, Target, Kroger, other shops, and the Monon.

We talk to our immediate neighbors, and we hang out with one set of them. When it starts warming up (and once our house is more put together), I hope to meet more neighbors since a handful of houses sold within the past 5 months.

[niknik]

We live in a Mountain town about 40 minutes outside of Denver. We have a foresty property and a mountain view but we live in walking distance to our downtown area which has cute restaurants and shops and the town lake which has ice skating and boating, tons of festivals, etc. We do have lots of wildlife however. We see Elk, deer, and foxes just about everyday. In the summer, lots of bears and there are a lot of mountain lions around too (although i hope not to see one)

It's a small town atmosphere with lots of kids and families and tons of outdoor activities like hiking, skiing, camping, etc. The schools are excellent and we made it a point to relocate here. In our neighborhood, the lots are all around an acre or more so our neighbors aren't that close and it's hilly so the houses are all situated differently. They are all custom homes built from the 20's to new ones. Some original owners but many are being sold to young families and couples as they retire to assisted living. That's how we got our house.

Dh commutes into Denver and I'm a sahm mom here.

[sju]

Very peaceful established community of about 80 houses with a min. of 2 acres per lot. Several families have horses. We have rolling hills and a large lake close to the entrance. Some lots have lots of trees while othes are very open. Most of the construction happened in the 90's but several houses are newer or are being constructed. Lots of people walk or bike. There is a wide range in ages from what I have seen. I only really know one set of neighbors. After close to 8 years living here I could only recognize a few people if I saw them at the store down the road. I like our privacy but wish I knew more people.

[Deleted]

By neighbors I'm referring to anyone in the 4 mile square radius.

I'm related to two of them. (my inlaws and Hs brother. H has an aunt down the road a bit too). We get a long quite well actually. Hs family is very sweet and rational.

My other neighbor is a sweet old lady who I see a lot. I like her. She's about 85.

Our other neighbors are all brothers on their farmsites. They hate us because apparently H and his dad bid up the price of some land they were trying to buy like 10 years ago. It's a stupid grudge and it's not the entire story, but whatever. They're all around odd and have a tendency to think they're better than the rest of us. They also have tons of Jerry Springer type family drama. We avoid them.

Our other neighbor is a part-time employee of ours. He's great as his family. We just don't hang out because we spend all damn day together.

Everyone here is all mid fifties with kids our age or entirely elderly. We don't have a lot of friends here to be honest. The friends H has here aren't really out "type" right now (different life places, maturity issues) and the ones we do like don't live here. I'm not from here and find it really hard to make friends that aren't family because we're the youngest for quite a distance. I have friends at work but we don't really socialize outside of work.

It's depressing somedays. I've learned to accept, but I had a hard time at first. I grew up very used to people and friends around constantly.

[pitterwoo]

Pre WWII neighborhood with modest homes that are close together and have front porches. Neighbors are friendly and we have one couple that we get together with every other month or so. I'd like to get to know more neighbors better.

Not many kids around, though I do see a moms with stollers a lot, they don't live on my block though. A lot of DINKs and older people.

[katecoop]

Our neighborhood is large; it is divided into different sections--from modest one-stories to larger, more custom two-stories with walk-out basements. In our section we have basic two stories with 3-4 bedrooms. There is a good mix of empty nesters, families with teenagers, and young families with babies. I am sure there are people without children but so far we are the only ones. We have a park, a pool, and basketball courts for neighborhood use so people are out a lot, and everyone is always walking when it's nice, but it's more just friendly and not friends-like.

Boiler, you mentioned in another thread you have "cougar town" nights. I'm so jealous! I wish our neighborhood was like that!

[Blueper]

I live in a super suburban community in a cul-de-sac. Our backyard has a privacy fence, and it has a gate to a large park with trails throughout part of the town, a hockey rink, baseball diamonds, decent playground, and basketball courts. Thankfully behind our house is a grassy space so it doesn't get terribly noisy.

We are the youngest in our neighborhood, most of our neighbors are families with school-aged kids or are empty nesters that keep to themselves. Only the lady across the street from us came over to introduce herself on the day that we moved in- but I'm not surprised.

I absolutely love our house, but we definitely sacrified a lot when we moved away from a rural area where everyone spent time enjoying their time outside instead of watching TV.

[electricmayhem]

Our neighborhood is almost 10 years old, and was all new construction.  Lots of young families and white collar professionals.  We don't see our neighbors much, but DH and I are admittedly homebodies.  From what I can tell, it seems like everyone gets along; I know they've had block parties or picnics in the past.  I'd say most are in their late 20s to late 50s, but all probably have at least one household member who works for one of the two main employers of our town (healthcare or tech industries).  It seems as though many, many of the families who have children on our street send them to parochial school, based on all of the uniforms I see getting off the buses in the afternoons.

[simpsongal]

Feb 6, 2013 11:58:09 GMT -5 boiler717 said:

What's it like? How often do you see your neighbors? Do people get along? Is there a lot of variety in ages and jobs, or are you all fairly similar? Empty nesters, families, young couples?

It was built in the 1960s and 70s - planned community of 1/2 acre lots and 6-10 different house styles (40 houses total).  There's only one other one like ours

We have an informal association.  We have BBQs and parties for the neighborhood 5-6 times/year.  We do luminaries on December 24th.  It feels very much like a 1950s neighborhood where people all know each other, loan each other tools, and chat when they see each other.  We LOVE our neighborhood.  We're the youngest homeowners here, most are probably between 40-55 with some outliers.  There's a good amount of kids too.

[demandypants]

I live in the burbs. A neighborhood that was built in the late 50s to mid 60s. Our street is a short one, ending in a cul de sac, with 8 houses. half of those are families with young children. And the two houses across from our road also have children. So on a warm summer day the street is full of bike riding, popcicles, soccer games and the like. Sometimes the dads have poker nights, and the moms will schedule a ladies night with wine and gossip. We have people over for pool parties and a yearly "back to school/end of summer" ice cream social occurs each August. We have a lot of wildlife that parades through the yard, and while it makes gardening frustrating I just love to watch the animals.

Our next door neighbor, and one other house at the end of the street are occupied by original owners. The lady next door crocheted my daughter mittens for christmas this year. She is 93
It is really too perfect. I couldn't have invented a better place to be in my mind.

[sratsey]

They're still building in my neighborhood. We were the 3rd house up and in a year 12 houses have been built, 4 are closing in a few months.
Our neighborhood is part of an HOA that is across the way, made up of easily 100 homes.
In our particular neighborhood there is a very eclectic mix of people.
Age range is mid-30s to early 60s.
2 sets of DINKS and 4 retired couples. 4 families with kids in elementary/middle school...more coming in.
We all get along very well. Lots of people out taking walks after dinner and stopping to chat about this house or that one and who's coming into the neighborhood or building issues.
We have a Clubhouse that does a lot of kid oriented activities so I'm always there with the neighbors who have kids the same age...that's on Friday.
We bring wine while the kids play bingo for an hour and then we subsequently end up at someone's house ordering pizza for the kids and drinking for the evening.
My next door neighbor is a retired guy who always has his finger on the goings on...my kids will NEVER be able to throw any wild parties while I'm away.

[tarheels]

Recent construction (earliest 2007) of 25 homes.  The developer went bankrupt, so about half the lots are bare earth, so there should be about 50 homes.  The population is about 50% college students whose parents bought the house for them to live in while in school, 25% DINKS, 25% weekend/football homes (vacant all year except the 7 home football games and maybe a couple baseball or basketball games).  No children at all. 

In the 3 years I've lived here, there's only been one big party, and the girl came over to apologize the next day bc her friends tweeted about it and she ended up with tons of strangers and she called the cops herself to get rid of people.  The HOA (me) takes care of lawn care and flowerbeds, so it stays nice.  There are plenty of neighborhoods where kids have wild parties, but this isn't one of them - probably because mommy and daddy would whoop their ass if they trashed the house.  We're 7 miles from town, which in this small town is like driving to the other side of the planet, so partiers don't buy out here bc it's too far from the bars.

I was super good friends with 3 houses, but 2 of them moved   Everyone's really friendly.  I used to get together with the other houses because we were all older.  I don't have much in common with a 21 year old.

[bearkatjen]

My neighborhood is just outside of a small town, right on the lake. There are a bunch of amenities: golf course (not part of our HOA fees), a marina, a racquet club, fitness center, parks, hike and bike paths, and practice fields. People are always out walking or golfing or something. The majority of residents are retirees and there are whole streets without children, but my particular street has a lot of young families on it. We've only been here a month, but our neighbors are friendly and have been introducing themselves when we are outside.

Most activities are geared towards retirees, but the yacht club does something special for children around holidays - Easter egg hunt, Halloween party, ect....

Houses range from modest one stories to luxurious water front homes. There are condos and townhomes in the neighborhood too. People take care of their yards or pay someone to do it. We are near a national forest, so it's a green area - lots of pine trees. Homes date back to the 70's to brand new, and there are still lots that haven't been built on yet.

[thatgirl2478]

My immediate neighborhood is a small culdesac with a mix of families: an elderly widow, an elderly couple, 2 families with high school/college aged kids at home, an older empty nest couple and us a youngish couple with a 2yr old.

Everyone except the widow & elderly couple work. We hardly see anyone this time of year, but when it's nice we chat with the neighbors regularly (either over our fences or in the street).

We most people get along ok - though one of the women is a bit of a 'hussy' - divorced and has a tendency to be a little TOO flirtatious with the other husbands. The elderly couple has been known to be a little too involved in what you do with your front yard, but they are mostly harmless.

The houses were pretty much all built in the late 50's, we back up to the main park in town (which is nice b/c I can see the swing sets & play ground from my front window), and we're super close to the pool & community center.

[gnomesweetgnome]

We don't really talk to anyone on our street much - my DH knows one of our neighbors peripherally from work (one of them is a field worker and one an office worker, though, so not really the same type of job), so we say hello and finally (after almost 4 years of living next door to one another) will make small talk if we're outside at the same time.

We have several rental homes on our street that are typically rented by college students.  The rest of the block appears to be families or married couple with no kids.  The majority of our neighborhood is families, I would say.

I learned in a Census training yesterday that our neighborhood (census block group) is 29.7% White (non-Hispanic), 30.4% African American, and 39.4% Hispanic/Latino.  I'm not sure how that compares to the rest of the town, but compared to the neighborhood I grew up in it's much more diverse.

[perkyderky]

I live in a "circular" suburban neighborhood.  Go in on one street and the other streets dead end onto the next street, until you wind up on the last street to get out.  It's a neighborhood that people who have lived in my city their entire lives might never know existed unless they had a reason to be there.  It's both extremely convenient and quiet at the same time, and since it's very mature and connects to various  parks/protected green space, we have a lot of natural wildlife.  We do have a small lake (it's feeder stream is one boundary of my property). I do tend to know many/most of the homeowners that live on the streets around the lake (we have a voluntary lake association) and I think we all get along for the most part.  It's easy to "know" people at the superficial level at least when so many of them own dogs and you pass them when walking your own (or in our case, biking/running by them day in and out).  We have a wide variety of ages--we're definitely some of the younger home owners, there are some middle-aged people, some kids, and some elderly people, varying ethnicities and political viewpoints.   There are some real odd balls, but at this point, it's the crazy/devil we know.  There are no two homes in my development that are the same, but all have characteristics that reflect a common builder (for the majority of the homes at least).  Some are ranches, some are two stories and most were built in the 50s and 60s.  The first house we ever looked at was in our neighborhood.  We didn't buy that one, but when our house appeared in MLS we jumped at it and bought it 4 days after it went on the market--not only did we love the home, we really loved the "hidden gem" of a neighborhood. 

[RoxMonster]

We see people in our neighborhood quite a bit. It is an older neighborhood (from the 50s/60s) but I love that all the houses are different and we have mature trees, which was a must when we were house hunting.

There really is quite a mixture of people. Our backyard neighbors are so sweet and always in their yard in the summer. They're my parents' age (50s). The couple to the side of us is around our age but kind of odd. We never see them outside. Across the street, most of those houses are families with younger kids.

[finally]

We live in an older neighborhood that is kind of undergoing a restoration.  I live very near to a "hip" downtown area so our area has become very desirable.  As the people who have lived in this neighborhood forever move out (across the street has been here 50 years), new people are coming in and knocking their homes down and rebuilding so it's definitely on the upswing. 

People pretty much stay to themselves - at least on my block and we don't know anyone on other blocks.  Our neighbors on one side are in their 20's with kids, other side are mid-50's with college age kids, across the street are 80+ years old (we're early 40s' and no kids) and we don't know anyone else.  We have a lot of friends and family so don't really need to be close to our neighbors.  The neighbors in our last home are what caused us to move so having nice, quiet neighbors is very important to us. 

[Marmee]

I live in an "urban" neighborhood of a mid-sized city. It's about 2 miles from Downtown & pretty densely populated. It's mostly 2 story brick houses that are 100+ yrs old. There are old mansions, town houses, duplexes, condos & apartment buildings mixed in. It's known as the "gay" neighborhood to many. I'd say that it is super mixed though in lifestyle & socio-economic status. My particular block still has only SFHs with the exception of 2 houses turned into apartments. There are mostly DINKs with several families (like mine) mixed in. There are a few empty nesters around too. It's beautiful around here because we have gorgeous parks, buildings, botanic gardens,, streets lined with huge trees. We can walk 1-3 blocks to many restaurants, bars, grocery stores, shops, coffee shops, etc. People are always walking, running, biking in and around our neighborhood. The backyards are small & the houses are mostly old (detached garages on alleys, no huge closets, bathrooms) & it's pricey for SFHs & condos but overall I love it. It was my dream neighborhood I thought I'd never afford but found a great deal we pounced on. I have several close friends within a few houses now. We have parties, our kids play together. For an "urban" life I think my kids are having a blast growing up here. I have no desire to ever leave it.

[narockshard]

We don't have a neighborhood really since we're on an actual road (not like a side street or anything), so there isn't much interaction. The people to the left of of us are never outside, I think I've seen them 3 times in the 1.5 years we've been here, but I think they are about our age (mid 20s) and work third shift jobs. There isn't really anyone to the right of us; behind us is an older couple probably in their 50's but we're separated by woods, and across the street is kind of a crazy guy in his 50s who doesn't work but works on cars all day long, so he kind of has a few cars parked outside that annoy me...he talks to my husband though and is really nice. He has 2 dogs that bark a lot when we pull in the driveway and they sometimes bark at night which also annoys me...And next to him is an older couple in their 50s with college age kids who we also rarely see. Our area is nice though because we have lots of bike trails and lakes and stuff around here so people are always riding or running down our road in the summer. There are about 6 new houses along our stretch of road (ours included) and then 3 that were here originally and probably built in the 50s or 60s.