Are next-door neighbors in Europe like neighbors in the US?

Several interesting points - when children are all about the same age, go to the same local school and other activities, and so know each other, the families cannot help but mix - things like “you’re going to the soccer game? Can you take Sam, I have to run an errand.” that sort of stuff creates bonds.

In the past 20 or 30 years, families are MUCH smaller - 1 or 2 vs 3 or 4 - and the odds that neighbours have kids old enough to play together is less; another trend is that newer suburbs seem to be built without alleys to economize land use; the garage is direct attached on the front of the narrow house, so there is rarely a useful porch and the live-in part of the house is set back an extra 25 or more feet and not too visible - and people drive right into the garage thanks to remote door openers. With fewer corner stores and mostly remote malls, people drive everywhere (unless they have a dog to walk). Heck, my current location does not even have sidewalks. There’s so much less reason and oportunity to interact with your neighbours, and as I mentioned - with air conditioning, less reason to out in the back yard too.

The immigrant thing is true too - less in common and inability to communicate. I like to say I live in an upscale neighbourhood; many of the neighbours own two taxis.

Nitpick: Europe is slightly larger than the US, at least according to Wikipedia; 10,180,000 sq. km vs. 9,800,000 sq. km. And yes, I am aware that some of the boundaries of Europe, e.g. Transcaucasia, are in dispute.

I think we can agree any geographical region on the order of 10,000,000 sq. km. is going encompass a broad range of cultural diversity, no matter where it is in the world. The only question is to what degree. Yes, there are 50 states, but there is one common language and one common (federal) government. To somehow equate that with the situation in Europe is naive.