Do you believe in the West Way?

[addedentry]

Note the punctuation: the Westway is the A40 out of London. West Way is a road leaving Oxford; or, from my perspective, leading there

Comments

[jvvw]

From my experience flats are much worse than houses from the point of view of getting to know neighbours - maybe because you're so much closer to eachother, folk are more concerned about keeping their distances. Flats are more likely to be rental properties too I suspect too and people renting are less likely to invest time in getting to know their neighbours.

We did have a head start with our current house though because one of our new neighbours was the mother of our next-door neighbour in our previous house it turned out and recognised my ancient car on the day we moved in. Best way to get to know your neighbours though is to have Tesco decide to build opposite :)

[addedentry]

I'd put it down to renting but there must be some truth in the difference between flats and houses. We share walls with other people but structural maintenance is down to the landlady; what we don't share is a garden fence, which brings next-door neighbours together, for better or worse!

[monkeyhands]

I think the reason why flat-dwellers are less friendly is the same reason why people don't get all chatty and eye-contacty in lifts. The less physical space you have, the more emotional and social distance you need.

If anyone would like to discuss this further, I'll be in the toilet.

[vinaigrettegirl]

Thank you for all that. My old house - still available to rent from circa 15 September! - is in your purlieu and all your photos are my landmarks, too. :-)