Patterns of neighbouring

The proactive favors I observed ranged from small gestures, like putting back the trash can for a neighbor who usually returns home after dark, to extended inter-ventions during which individuals take on serious risks and make sacrifices in order to assist somebody else.

We protect each other. . . . Do we socialize? No. But we’re neighbors! And we’ll help each other if we need to help each other.

Here are the four key principles Lofland identifies as enabling smooth interaction (or non-interaction) among strangers in public spaces:

1. Civil Inattention

• Definition : The practice of acknowledging the presence of others while deliberately avoiding sustained attention or intrusion.


• Example : Making brief eye contact with someone walking past yo

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n the giv-ing end, all study participants seemed willing to aid a neighbor who approached them for help, and most recounted examples of assisting others in the past.

If a neighbor who has received help does not display any gratitude, the relationship very quickly will turn sour. In case one cannot reciprocate a favor by helping the helper in a timely manner, some locals will feel obliged to pay back their debt to other neigh-bors in need when the occasion arises. The practice of giving and receiving neigh-borly... See more

In local communities, residents are much less prone to ignore any threat or dis-comfort a neighbor might experience. Instead, locals are more willing to get in-volved on an assumed victim’s behalf, especially when the neighbor is absent or somehow unaware of what is going on.

withholding friendly recognition among mutually known neighbors is interpreted as a notable act of hostility, thereby further reveal-ing the normative power of this principle.

s in the case of sympathy—participants will be keenly aware of the account balances on either side of the fence.

four distinct practices indi-viduals enact to treat each other “as neighbors”: friendly recognition, parochial help-fulness, proactive intervention, and embracing and contest ing diversity.