GMT, yes, we do. Our Hispanic neighbor owns a lawn service and has mowed our lawn for us as a surprise a few time. The Asian lady across the street hired our nephew’s FIL after he did some work for us and she saw and and was impressed. The black guy across the street and H have a friendly Christmas light competition going on. Before they moved, D and the biracial kid next door used to play together. Why live somewhere that you’re going to ignore the neighbors? When we lived in a predominantly white part of Seattle, people were much less friendly, but that was probably only the neighborhood we lived in. The other two have been very friendly.
I know a few families except the Chinese from China, one Indian dude, and a Korean minister. They seem obnoxious somehow. Like one Chinese family etting water run excessively from their front watering in this California drought. Dumping their trash into our garbage can without asking for our permission when were in full view. Playing billiard a in late hours. Leaving their trash outside, not inside a garbage can which attract possums.
The young Indian dude is too cheap to do his yard that nearly two years since he moved in he has not removed the weeds. The weeds blow around to our house.
The Korean minister who tried to pretend he was inviting my husband and I for a BBQ, but in reality, he is an evangelist. Started preaching the minute we opened the door to talk to him. I had to tell my husband to shoo him away, especially when it was either lunch or dinner time.
The people that I talk to are in general came here for school when they were younger like my neighbor who is from Hong Kong, we do share gardening tips. He comes over to watch live DVD concert with my husband, reminiscing his youth. He and his wife are in the same age range as my husband and I, so we get along.
And the younger doctor families with two young kids are absolutely adorable. I’ve watched the one next door improved his vocabulary since we moved.
Of course!
I am often in the front working in the yard, and I talk to the neighbors when they walk their dog, or go to the store. We also just had a party for the surrounding five streets or so, and while it is mostly set up for younger kids, I made an appearance & brought food.
The neighborhood Seattle gatherings are in a few weeks, and we will go to that too, it is held next to a one story apt building with lots of Hispanic kids who are fun to watch as there always seems to be little ones.
I added things to the yard specifically to interest the younger kids in the neighborhood( cement animals & birds), and they like spotting them.
The neighbors next door are a Hispanic & African American couple, and across the street is a Korean family. Up a couple doors are a family from Bangladesh, that have lived here for at least 20 years.
Thats not counting the newer residents who have moved here to work in the local tech companies.
I suppose our north Seattle neighborhood is predominately Caucasian, as Seattle is 65% white, but we have Thai/Japanese/Chinese/Korean/Indian/Vietnamese restaurants, several Tibetan shops, Mexican/Italian & fusion food, Ethiopian & Puerto Rican restaurants & you can’t forget the food trucks, or the Asian market. Unfortunately, the Salvadoran restaurant is not within walking distance & doesn’t have much parking as it is a new favorite.
Just saw this article about a movie relevant to this thread;
A documentary “White People”
http://news.yahoo.com/mtv-causes-stir-film-white-people-154058261.html
Somehow the majority of tenants in the apartments where I live in SV now are Indians. Most of them are fine and friendly, but we do not particularly like one family who live upstairs on the second floor on top of my next door neighbor. They often put a bag of garage out of his front door and are too lazy to take it to the garbage can. The wild animal might open the bag and some garbage may fall downstairs. They could easily see that their garbage in front of other people’s doors but they would not clean up the mess they created. Their young kid has a tricycle. At one time, we noticed that our car has some scratches on the lower side of the door. We think it was their family who pushed their tricycle between two cars and caused the scratch. (We often saw they carelessly pushed the tricycle between two cars parked in the car port. They should not do it.)
I do. My neighbors do. I guess part of it is I live in a co-op, so several times a year there are shareholder meetings about various issues. You get to know people.
There’s also a playroom. When you have little kids, you meet other mommies and more rarely daddies in the playroom. If you ride a bike, you meet other people in the bike room. I met one of my closest friends in the laundry room about 20 years ago. I’ve met several people in the gym, though none of them are close friends.
Plus many people belong to neighborhood organizations–one of the religious communities, the senior center, the neighborhood group for parents of newborns through age 5, the local preschool or daycare center, the babysitting co-op, youth soccer, Little League, adult softball, the local history society, community theatre etc. You meet other people at the library through its old movie night, the book discussion group, the knitting circle, etc. There’s an annual “block party.”
I have a couple of “mystery” neighbors I don’t know, but I can tell you the life stories of most people who live on my floor. I’ve had only a few of them to my home, but we do talk when we meet in public spaces.
I’ve off to water a neighbor’s plants while she’s on vacation :)!
Mcat, I did go over and complained to them about the dropping trash in my garbage can and leaving trash outside. I also called the police and they said they could come out and make a citizen arrest. Some how lately they must be back in China so I have not seen anyone there regularly. But I think this is also the family that my husband saw a female there spitted on her own front yard.
I’m politically conservative living in the coastal California region and hanging out on CC. I’ve always been the minority in the neighborhood. :))
Believe it or not we do live in that kind of neighborhood. When I was growing up Ashkenazi Jews were the norm. Now we have African Americans (yes professional people), Persians Americans (mostly Jewish some Muslims), Asian Americans…I am NOT saying that this is a ghetto or poor people. I know that Mr. Ellebud, I believe, stands alone as the neighborhood WASP.
We are not a kissy kind of neighbors. I have rarely spoken to anyone. (No gift basket…welcome to the hood). My kids knowt the family behind us because when they moved it their dogs ran to check out the new neighborhood…and down the street I said hi and thank you for the beautiful yard. I love passing by and seeing his flowers in bloom.
Dr Google, some people just spit. I dont know why.
It is annoying when people put out stuff that attracts animals, some in our neighborhood even feed the squirrels/rats, because I find peanuts in the garden beds!
I think its a health risk, perhaps the health dept would be interested.
Accordnig to three yr old data, Seattle is #15 for density, in major cities, and I can only imagine it is much denser today. Granted, I did move to the city on purpose 30+ yrs ago, because I like being able to walk places easily, but I still need my car. How else do I get new fruit trees or costco sized laundry detergent home?
(Oh thats right, our mayor thinks we should order our groceries through Amazon Fresh, and get everything else delivered) #whitepeopleproblems.
I have met people at water aerobics, that I now do other things with, I meet people at local concerts, and we have several local facebook groups, and someone is starting a new bookgroup, which sounds fun.
There are lots of ways to meet people, even if you are mostly introverted.
When we moved here however, when it was affordable, it was a common occurrence to hear someone speaking Finnish, or Danish. We still have the largest Syttende Mai parade outside of Norway, but fewer Scandianavian fishermen.
Depends. Is it safe? Is the crime rate low? Is it quiet? Then, sure.
I had my eye on the subdivision we live in since we first got married and moved here (couldn’t afford it then). Most of the subdivisions here are, unfortunately, segregated racially and other ways, but this one is a beautiful mix of people of different skin tones, religions, geographic origins, and orientations. I would drive into this neighborhood all those years ago and say to myself, “One day.”
As soon as we were able, we jumped at the chance to move here. I intentionally wanted my kids to know that the world is not filled with WASPs. When we have a neighborhood party, it looks like a UN gathering 
And needless to say when we lived in Asia and the Middle East (when the oldest kids were small)…well, let’s just say we were in such a small minority it was practically non-existent.
I would not like it if most people in my neighborhood didn’t speak English, regardless of race.
In the neighborhood where our house is (or was, since we have moved but we still own the house and lease it out), the majority of neighbors speak English.
Now we live in an apartment in an industrial area in SV, California, while we take a walk near our apartment area during weekend (it is a quite walkable area, with a nearby park, and lots of preschool age kids), it would be very infrequently for us to hear English being spoken. Also, even though we all speak in English at work, we recently found that a small percentage of my coworkers had received elementary or secondary education in US (like only 20%-25% of the employees grew up in US.) This is an industry we are in.
Recently, a top manager, who is white, told us that he thinks that, after his college, almost 40% of his working days have been away from his home (and his home state) - the majority of his time has been in Asian (and this is an American company.) We asked him if his wife would complain. He said she would in their first few years but then “gave up”. (since he is now working in the US branch, he flies back home every weekend now - 1000+ miles each way.) Actually, in my previous company, he lived in NY but his company was in Texas (but he was rarely in Texas because dealing with the Wall Street could be a more important part of his job - And we heard he had two private jets reserved by him and paid for by that company!)
When S was looked ng for an apartment, he had us drive around the complexes he was interested in on the weekend in the early evening. He was not interested in living where English wasn’t the predominant language, as he felt it would be too many things to adjust to. Where he lives is mainly a condo building For young professionals. Haven’t heard any languages other than English there. Wherei believe the building has many Caucasians, but we don’t encounter many people many there when we visit.
“Now we have African Americans (yes professional people), Persians Americans (mostly Jewish some Muslims), Asian Americans…I am NOT saying that this is a ghetto or poor people.”
Why would anyone think it was? Because there was a mix of races? Odd.
In any case, my D just finished giving a workshop for minority students. They included African Americans, Hispanic and Asians, including 2 from Vietnam who barely spoke English. They all had a blast and the winner of his grade’s “most hard-working student” award. You’d think that little paperback book that he won was made of solid gold, even though he can’t read it yet. Mind you, these kids DO live in “poor” neighborhoods. They were friends by the end of the day. It’s one of the reasons I like living here. A lot of times the perception of “ghetto” and “unsafe” is not the reality.
When we moved to our current house our kids were 9 and 12. We looked for a diverse school district. The top three academically were 98% white so we stayed away from them. Both kids went on to decent schools and good careers.
Oldest taught in a 85% black/Hispanic district and is now in a remote village in Alaska. The population is 200 or so natives and 6 Caucasian teachers. After 3 years of isolation her vocabulary and syntax are starting to reflect the host culture.
Seattle doesn’t have a " ghetto", as such. Makes housing expensive however, you really have to log k.
We do have low income housing, but it can be much nicer than what is available for very low income folks in rural areas.
Are there many regions or metro areas in the US where neighborhoods with substantial non-white populations are all undesirable from the point of view of crime rates, public school quality, etc. (in actual measurable terms, not because people perceive higher crime or worse schools because a non-white person walked by).