# Could you live in a neighborhood where few or none of your peers live? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 8, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837 "2008-02-08T19:28:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ubertwizzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ubertwizzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ubertwizzler)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/21 "2008-02-08T23:46:31Z")
I currently live in a Mexican ghetto (or is it a barrio?) in a farm community. Just saving money. I can’t talk to any of my neighbors, but then I’ve never been in the position. I’m inside except when I leave in my car out of my garage. So I could be in Little Italy or Little Saigon with the same effect. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/22 "2008-02-08T23:48:06Z")
> [@](#): > > - You’re an educated professional, and you live in an “rugged” exurb where everybody and their brother runs a machine shop, works in the mechanical trades, drives a tow truck, and so on. This pretty much describes me. I live in a rural area and when I go to the nearest bar I pretty much have more teeth than all the other patrons combined. The locals are pretty rough. I’m sure that they all think I’m odd sitting there sipping my beer and reading a book. If I want to socialize I have to go into town. ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/23 "2008-02-09T00:08:10Z")
I live in Northfield IL where I am FAR below the median income level. I rent an apartment in a community where the average house tops $1M. I like it becuase I live across from the forest preserve and my kids get to go to New Trier High School starting next year. I go into Chicago to see friends, or they can come hang out on my deck and enjoy my ample free parking 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/24 "2008-02-09T01:56:00Z")
[QUOTE=MikeG] I live in Northfield IL where I am FAR below the median income level. I rent an apartment in a community where the average house tops $1M. I like it becuase I live across from the forest preserve and my kids get to go to New Trier High School starting next year. [/QUOTE] This is my situation except a different expensive suburb, and no kids when everyone else has plenty of kids here. We rent in a nice quiet neighborhood with practically no crime of significance, and it’s a quick walk to the train station for me, and a 5-minute drive to work for my husband. My husband has been mistaken more than once, while out mowing our lawn, for a member of a landscaping crew. He was asked if he could head over to their house after he was done. Apparently no else one around here mows their own lawn and/or his Mediterranean blood makes him look vaguely Mexican when he’s sweaty and exerting himself. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/25 "2008-02-09T17:22:39Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] In to the local bar for a drink, I’d prefer to drink with other educated professionals. I would rather not be the guy in a suit who shows up to the blue collar bar. [/quote] I think this kind of thing is no longer within the daily experience of most Americans’ lives. Most people don’t patronize businesses like bars based mainly on their locations. You usually patronize the gas station or the pharmacy or the convenience store that’s closest, but for anything other than immediate necessities like that, what’s within walking distance isn’t really the primary factor. Most Americans live in suburbs or exurbs anyway. You have to drive to get anywhere. Your contact with your neighbours is fairly limited unless you go out of your way to interact with them. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/26 "2008-02-09T17:42:46Z")
I don’t really know my current neighbors that well, and I’ve been living here for about ten years. I rent a house with people I knew from college. I would say I’m eclectic enough that there’s no neighborhood that could really be full of my “peers”. But certain neighborhoods, if I interacted with the neighbors, would probably bring out more of whatever side of me they represented. I’m used to pretty much ignoring the neighbors since I guess we have nothing in common, but it could be nice to live in a bohemian artistic neighborhood, or an area with a lot of college kids, or an area with a lot of hispanic culture. The only neighborhood I wouldn’t want to live in was one that felt dangerous to me, either because poverty and crime, or bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2008, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/27 "2008-02-09T18:08:44Z")
I’m not even sure who my peers _are_, actually. The neighborhood I live in now is decently mixed in just about every way you can slice it – age, family status, ethnicity, socio-economics. I like the mix. And it’s going to a be a sad day indeed when I go to a bar and can’t find something to chat to someone about. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/28 "2008-02-10T00:44:22Z")
:Looks at location: :Looks at mirror: Yep. Granted, other than the racial, cultural and linguistic differences, I’m not that odd in the neighborhood. I’m a married, white-collar professional with a young kid, just like just about everyone else here. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/29 "2008-02-10T01:41:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Could you live in a neighborhood where few or none of your peers live? I have always been the outsider, the loner. I don’t know the names of my next door neighbors. There would be no difference. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/30 "2008-02-10T02:42:57Z")
The Thursday night shooting in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood prompted [this reporter](http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/debpeterson/story/A1F3E3FAE33D3290862573EA000EE064?OpenDocument) to write about the neighborhood where she felt totally out of place. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/31 "2008-02-10T04:04:46Z")
I don’t ever really talk to or befriend my neighbors, so I don’t know. My family has always either lived out in the sticks, or on roads with exactly two houses (last house), or in an entire neighborhood of retirees (now). I currently live in an apartment complex of about 50 people, and don’t know any of their names except for the ones that I live with. (I know most of their dogs’ names though). ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/32 "2008-02-10T12:57:00Z")
I don’t even know who lives in my neighbourhood. They seem to be mostly families, but far from exclusively. There are regular employed people, retirees, jobless people, students, rich, poor, middle income, young people, middle aged people, elderly people, all sorts and everything. Race and culture seems to be a very wide mix, nothing particularly dominant, though I may be wrong on that; there are Italian, Greek, Asian, Indian, and various European and American, and many more I can’t determine, all pretty evenly spread throughout the area. I would probably feel uncomfortable in an area that was very clearly dominated by a culture I was not a part of, especially if it was a very social environment and I was continually not participating. But the truth is I’m an indoorsy loner and, in real terms, I’d barely notice anyway. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/33 "2008-02-10T16:23:08Z")
Neighbor to the left is black. Across the street an Iraqi family. Then an Arab married to a platinum blonde southern woman. Then a Romanian family. The only people we don’t get on with is the white family on our right. But, they are not friends with any one in the neighborhood. We have a single elderly woman a few houses down known as The Cat Lady. ---
**Author:** ![Amygdala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@Amygdala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amygdala)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/34 "2008-02-10T22:15:34Z")
My SO and I are younger than our neighbors, most of whom are families with kids. It doesn’t bother us; we hardly even see our neighbors since we’re on a different schedule from most of them. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/35 "2008-02-10T22:23:08Z")
No, I hardly ever speak to any of my neighbors – unless they begin invading my home or ripping me off on the street, I couldn’t care less. And in a previous neighborhood I was mugged several times, and never considered moving because of it. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/36 "2008-02-11T13:19:54Z")
We are the only white people on our block. Last summer, they had a block party, _and didn’t invite us._ ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837/37 "2008-02-11T14:27:49Z")
When we bought our house in DC we were the only white family in our neighborhood and one of the few without children. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-live-in-a-neighborhood-where-few-or-none-of-your-peers-live/436837.md?page=1)