[glitchc]

Part of it is politics. Totally correct about everything in common, and yet in the multicultural fabric we call society, politics could be vastly different:

Neighbour 1 cares about Trump, neighbour 2 about Ukraine, neighbour 3 is focused on Palestine, neighbour 5 about public transit, while I might not care about any of those. All of them are going to seek like-minded people who are unlikely to be their next door neighbours. It wasn't like this in the past, where economic mobility was relatively limited.

Multiculturalism coupled with economic mobility means often neighbours and you don't really have much in common. As an example my next door neighbour: He's a major, I'm in the sciences. We travel in different circles. I have a dog, he doesn't like pets. We both have kids but they are of different ages, don't go to the same schools and basically don't know each other. We met a few times then realized that we have very little in common and stopped interacting. There's nothing binding us beyond a shared geography.

[jll29]

That's okay. You may still benefit from knowing each other when you run out of milk and shops are closed, or whatever favor neighbors can provide via the valuable indirect social graph connections (need a reference for a job or to enter a good uni, ask a neighbor who is a Harvard alum; or just let a kid interview a Republican neighbor for a school essay, or...), so it's good you sounded each other out.

Not everybody has to be best buddies with their direct neighbors, but in my experience in a one-mile radius from you, whereever most of us are, there are some interesting folks nearby that are worth knowing, and they would say the same about you.

Because of TV, social media, computer games and gadgets, we forgot how to socialize well, but if we (enough of us) care enough, we can re-learn it.

[balfirevic]

> but in my experience in a one-mile radius from you

I mean, that's a circle with a diameter of two miles - it's basically "entire city" for many cities.

[red-iron-pine]

knowing them =/= agreeing with them.

only the most onerous of neighbors are going to launch into tirades about politics before getting to know them anyway. these people will already have their giant TRUMP flag on the lawn.