Here where I live, every unit has a nice balcony, people put plants and chairs on the balcony, and in nice weather a lot of the neighbors sit out now and again or emerge to water the plants.  It’s easy to greet each other from balcony to balcony.  Where the courtyard is  narrow you can have a meet and greet across the courtyard from different stories of the building.  Or people can converse between a third-floor balcony and the swimming pool and then hail another neighbor who comes walking by.  Yesterday when I went to get my mail I was  introduced by a friend on her third story balcony to a mom and little daughter merrily floating in the pool.

I love that about this place.  It  feels like I imagine traditional, populous residential streets  in Europe or on the East Coast must feel.  People aren’t in each others’ pockets all the time – but neither is everyone cocooned in a big house with a mowed-yard buffer zone on an empty street where all that comes and goes is cars!