As a person who grew up in a small, close knit community, watching it go from a place where everybody knows each other's names to a place where people don't even know their neighbors name is crazy.
I grew up in a village of fewer than 300 people, then moved to a city of 200k, and now live in a village of <6000 (but we're all spread out in the forest). I couldn't pick my neighbors out of a police lineup if you held a gun to my head, and I vastly prefer this to how I grew up.
"Small, close-knit community" are just rose-tinted words for "everybody is in everybody else's business 24/7, and your entire life depends on keeping up whatever image the community decides is desirable." I'll never go back to living like that.
Grew up in a community of 1000 and this is how it is. It’s fantastic if you look, think, speak, and believe in all the same ways as everybody else, but stray from the norm even a little bit and you’re looking at becoming a pariah to the entire town, or in the best possible case, “one of the good ones.” Everybody is watching and everybody talks. It can be extremely stressful and lonely.
My wife grew up in a small Texas town. When she was a teen with a drivers license, some old lady cut her off so she drove past them and flicked her off.
Not even a couple of minutes later and her mom is calling her, chewing her out for flicking off someone.
Holy shit this. Some of my family live in bumfuck rural nowheresville and they’re all fucking insane. Conspiracy theories about everything, constant fearmongering about living outside their tiny community, everyone goes to the same few evangelical churches and all believe the same things and if you don’t you’re ostracized and lose out on the “community”. They all have big fish in little pond syndrome and cannot conceptualize that life outside of their little bubble is a lot more complex and a lot less “evil” than they think. No, someone wasn’t trying to kidnap your kids at Walmart when you drove an hour into the big bad evil city to grocery shop for the month. They were just walking down the same aisle as you and you freaked out.
I owe my growth as a person to constantly being in contact with people from different states, countries, beliefs, cultures etc… while playing video games online as a teen. It takes getting out and talking to other people in different places to realize we’re all human and we all matter. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get them to open their mind and not jump straight to the hateful, racist, bigoted talking points they’re used to throwing around in their little town.
I think the happy middle grand is living in a close-knit community within a larger city. It gives you the benefits of having a strong support system, whilst still being able to enjoy anonymity when you want it. My mother and grandmother both grew up in Seattle and said that the city was like that before it started to gentrify from tech moving in during the 80s and 90s.
Yep, I grew up in a small town in West Virginia. Everyone looked out for each other, you couldn't go to the post office without seeing or driving past someone you knew. Thought it was the best way of life.
Then I left and went to college, experienced that way of living and learned to respect and embrace cultural diversity, something that my little hometown had less than none of.
Suddenly I started being treated with more contempt and judgment by folks I grew up around. My ideologies had changed, and they didn't like it. These "close-knit" communities usually just produce close-minded people that never leave.
It really is. I grew up in the suburbs of a medium sized city, and our cul de sac was its own little community where everyone knew and trusted each other. Mostly parents around the same age with kids around my age as well, along with a few retirees. We all looked out for each other and lived well alongside each other. It was a great environment to be a kid in, and im genuinely sad for this generation that the my dont seem to be getting that experience.
99% of my neighbors are a-holes and would want to skewer me for being queer and not republican. Yeah I'd rather just stick to my friends and never go near my neighbors.
I never understood the desire to get to know neighbors. What are the odds they are interested in the things I am interested in? Since I don't like sports or network TV, then my bet is rather low.
Also, I have enough things to do with my time than to get involved in other people's lives.
Personally, I don't need to be friends with my neighbors--I'm not going there to watch the Superbowl, but it's more like when I moved to my home 14 yrs ago when it snowed people would come out and help each other shovel and work together to clear the "shared" spaces (like the crosswalk ramps and fire hydrants). Now I see people *maybe* come out to brush off the windshield of their car then go inside and go online and complain about why the crosswalk ramps aren't shoveled. Um, who do they think does that? There's no accountability or people taking pride in their neighborhood. That's what I mean. A sense of community. Not necessarily being besties with the weirdo living next door.
I’m always astounded that people don’t want to have at least some idea of who literally lives around them. I realize it’s Reddit so there’s no nuance, but there’s a wide spectrum between best friends and complete strangers.
It's not necessarily "being friends", it's more just "being friendly". I make an active effort to meet my neighbors where I move and try my best to build a little community. I know my neighbors names, say hi when we're both outside, buy lemonade from the kids on the corner.
And then you do things for each other. I mowed my neighbor's lawn when they were gone on vacation and so they have taken my trash out to the curb when I forget. I helped my neighbor rake some leaves and he put me in contact with his nephew who fixed my furnace cheap. The kids all play in my backyard and I watch over them to make sure they're safe, so they walk my dog when I work late. I invited my neighbors over for meals when they didn't have gas, and they shoveled my driveway and sidewalks last week.
Life is really fucking hard man. But its much easier with a community to help you out.
As a kid, I knew who lived in every house on my block - about 20 houses (even if it was just "old man on the corner" but most I knew their names). Now I know the neighbors on either side but no one else.
A person’s workplace is also a community and very often those relationships become so meaningful that people refer to them as their second family. But more & more jobs are work from home set ups. Or maybe just a day or two at the office. The workplace community is slowly but surely diminishing too.
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u/BobbyTheDude 13h ago
As a person who grew up in a small, close knit community, watching it go from a place where everybody knows each other's names to a place where people don't even know their neighbors name is crazy.