[marssaxman]

I really don't want permanence, no! I start to feel fidgety and uncomfortable after I've spent too many years in one place. The idea of living in a single house for decades on end sounds like a kind of imprisonment.

I think of Seattle as "home", and once lived there for twenty-three years straight - but I had nine different addresses during that time. I am probably more of a nomad at heart than the average American, but perhaps Americans have more of a nomadic temperament than the average human.

Getting to know your neighbors can be a mixed bag. Sometimes you make a great new friend: sometimes you're stuck with an obstreperous busybody. It can be nice not having to spend your whole life dealing with the same people and the same conflicts.

[kakacik]

Yeah tight communities are blessing, nightmare or both. Good luck with privacy, some people are nosy by default or simply self-centered... weirdos to be polite, gossip, looking down on differences, hard to integrate for newcomers, and one has to conform to unspoken rules, like them or not. Not exactly feeling of proper freedom, is it.

If you get into beef with your neighbor for something which is trivial over long time, now you are stuck with an asshole next door for next 30-50 years.

Its not just US, we moved in Switzerland from very cosmopolitan and international Geneva to small village in wineyards and all this applies at least as much.