Won’t you be my neighbor?

Instead of the crazy lady in the SUV who thinks I’m the “b%*&h” who stole her boyfriend in junior high….

My encounter with the strange neighbor was foremost in my mind as I picked up Peter Lovenheim’s book In the Neighborhood. As he writes, it is rare for most Americans to know their neighbors. Even with social media apps trying to fill the gap (my Next Door update just informed me there is a “Creepy guy at 160th & meridian Little Ceasers”),  we are clueless as to who might be living a few doors down. He aptly observes that it often takes a natural disaster or tragedy to bring people out from behind closed doors.

I’ve experienced this first hand when it took a flood to meet my neighbors in Japan. More recently, a mild winter snowstorm brought the neighborhood kids out to shovel sidewalks and gave my kids an introduction to our latest neighborhood in Washington.

Lovenheim’s premise is that it shouldn’t take a tragic event or extreme weather for us to meet those living in close proximity. In fact, he wonders that if neighbors do know one another better they could be instrumental in providing a haven before tragedy strikes.

Lovenheim, going through his own separation, was influenced by a murder down the street to set out to meet his neighbors. Not only did he meet them, he even convinced some of them to let him spend the night and observe a day in their lives. His book is an account of those encounters as well as a brief examination of the influence our suburban lifestyles have on isolating ourselves from those around us.

In reaching out to his neighbors, not only did he benefit from finding friendship, he was able to connect others who had much in common. His book teaches us that nodding to the woman who walks her dog every evening is a start, but not an end. 

So even though I am now avoiding eye contact with anyone driving an SUV on my street, I probably will be braver about saying hello to the dog walkers and stroller moms I see on my afternoon walk. And maybe soon this "housing community" will actually start feeling like a community.