How does the neighborhood look?  Are community areas well kept and clean? Do yards & houses reflect ongoing interest and care by the Owners?  The way a neighborhood looks tells a lot about the people who live there.  Talking to those same people is another good way to learn about their neighborhood.  They can tell what they feel are the neighborhood’s special attractions and defects.  People are usually willing to discuss neighborhood pro’s and con’s with an interested listener.

People can actually do more to make or break a neighborhood than anything else can.  The people who live in a good neighborhood do much to hold it together by their shared interest in events and conditions that affect it and sometimes by their attention to change these conditions. Underlying this practical relationship is a deeper basis  for neighborhood unity: people’s acceptance, consideration and acknowledgment of each other as members of a living community.

Taking a walk around the neighborhood at different hours of the day can help form a feeling for the quality of neighborhood life and the presence of any adverse influences or nuisances.  For instance: is there a lot of noise? If so, what kind of noise? If the noise is made from children playing outside, it could be music to the ears of a Buyer with four children of his own.  But if the noise is from a commercial airliner whose flight pattern lies directly over or near the neighborhood, a person should know about that before he/she buys.

(Quality of Neighborhood cont. March 2023)