How to actually get to know your neighbors

As a 30-something who works remotely, I’ve gone days without speaking to another human. And after living in the same apartment complex for four years, I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know a single one of my neighbors.

My experience isn’t totally aligned with the rest of the country. A 2025 Pew Research report found that about two-thirds of US adults know at least some of their neighbors. But a lot of those folks are older adults in suburban, home-owning environments, the report showed, and they’re more likely to maintain relationships with the people next door. Millennials (aka me) and Gen Z, on the other hand, aren’t nearly as likely to know who lives beside them, data suggests.

There are some good reasons for this: A lot of Americans live in car-dependent places that can reduce opportunities for spur-of-the-moment socializing with people in our periphery. Many neighborhoods also have limited tenure rates, research shows, meaning that people are less likely to be integrated into communities long enough to develop any kind of meaningful connections. Meanwhile, the pandemic led to a decline in community life, and social distancing may have cemented more lasting solitary habits overall. And getting to know your neighbors in our current political climate can be stressful; if you’re a Black or queer person or an immigrant, for example, knocking on a rando’s door might feel like a naive or even dangerous act when you haven’t a clue who is on the other side.

Unwillingness to chit-chat while taking out the trash undoubtedly makes for a less buzzing social life, but as Daniel P. Aldrich, Dean’s Professor of Resilience at Northeastern University, told Vox, refraining from community interaction isn’t just isolating; it’s dangerous.

“The importance of neighbors literally cannot be understood until we recognize how much of our health and our lives depend on them,” he explained. While a large chunk of adults rely on social media and digital communication to meet our social needs, Aldrich said that “if anything goes wrong…those online communities that we are so wedded to can’t do anything at all.”

Aldrich points to Hurricane Katrina as an example. He and his team found that communities with more social capital — aka neighborhoods where people actually knew, and cared for, each other — were more resilient following disaster. “For those evacuees, having strong social ties in the neighborhood was one of the best predictors of good mental health,” Aldrich said, adding that his own family living in New Orleans in 2005 was ultimately kept alive by their neighbors’ quick actions.

Here’s how to get a relationship with the people closest to you blooming, an endeavor that might save your life — or just save you a trip to the store when you run out of sugar.

Face-to-face interaction is paramount for everyone’s health ; this is a well-documented fact. But as Saba Harouni Lurie, a licensed therapist and founder of Take Root Therapy in Los Angeles, told Vox, if you’re nervous about talking with a neighbor, that’s totally understandable. “Most of the people that are in the world around you are also wanting more connection,” she explained. “I know that it’s scary, and I don’t want to invalidate that it’s scary. I can so appreciate the fear of rejection. It is really vulnerable to put yourself out there.”

Lurie advises starting small. “Give yourself a chance to say, ‘I’m going to say hello to 10 people in the next week or month and keep track of how many say hello back,’” she noted. “That can be a way to test the idea, ‘Is this as scary as I feel that it is?’ I would really imagine most people would be receptive and even eager to start connecting.”

When Leigha Bone, 39, first moved into her Mesa, Arizona, home, she made it a point to wave to everyone she passed on the street. “Even if they seemed reserved or standoffish, I would shove down my ego and decide that I would be positive, charming, and friendly,” she told Vox. “I accepted that I might be rejected or embarrassed but kept that nice, Ted Lasso/Michael Scott energy.”

You don’t necessarily need to be best buddies with your neighbors to reap the benefits of community. “When we first moved in, we briefly said hello to an elderly man who lives on one side of our condominium,” Aldrich recalled. “Gradually, we learned his name, invited him to our Passover seder, and then received a copy of his key. That proved quite handy when, after not hearing from him for a full day, we knocked on the door, used the key he gave us to unlock it, and found that he had fallen and was unable to call for help. We called an ambulance, helped him sit up, and ensured medical professionals took care of him. We check on him regularly and help him however we can.”

As for screens, Aldrich and Lurie said our phones aren’t necessarily prohibitive to meeting your neighbors. They can be really helpful if, for example, you are disabled or have social anxiety. The key is to treat them more like a starting point than the endpoint. But don’t discount the power of repeated in-person presence and warmth. Lurie got to know a neighbor she’s still in touch with (even after they both moved away!) with a simple exchange of hellos. “Over time, those hellos developed into longer conversations,” she recalled. “We spent time together outside the apartment and would also stop by each other’s apartments to connect and discuss our days and situations we were trying to navigate. But our friendship developed gradually and over time, and it still stands today.”

When writer (and occasional Vox contributor) Julia Ries Wexler, 38, first moved to Los Angeles in 2017, she’d frequently take her dog, Ollie, out for walks at the park near her apartment complex. And though her downstairs neighbor, Nancy Blaine, didn’t have a dog, her own neighborhood watch committee — consisting of two curious cats — would spot Wexler and Ollie passing by. After a few weeks of polite head nods, the two eventually struck up a conversation about their love for animals.

“She would be outside feeding the birds and the squirrels, and she would teach me a little bit about the different kinds of birds that lived in the park that we live next to,” Wexler said. “I just feel like there was a really strong shared love of animals that helped our friendship develop, as well.”

When a modest earthquake struck the city, Blaine tried to help her (understandably freaked out) new Angelino neighbor feel a bit more comfortable in the aftermath. “I felt very important and heroic in being youthful to my friend,” Blaine, who’s 25 years Wexler’s senior, told Vox. “But I felt an affinity toward her.” Though Wexler has since moved away, the two remain in close contact.

39-year-old Heather Mayer Irvine, who lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, says that bringing her 6-year-old daughter out on walks in the neighborhood has been key to striking up conversations. “We moved to this neighborhood when she was 18 months, and she’s always been on the lookout for friends and dogs,” she told Vox. “My husband and I have definitely met and started relationships with more neighbors because of her. She’ll run out, ‘can I pet your dog?’, and 15 minutes later, we’re chatting with the adults.”

Though we don’t all have dogs or kids to help lubricate social interactions, Lurie says that having some type of conversation-starting item on you — and looking for similar things in others — helps a lot. That can range from an object that puts your personality on display (say, a prominent bumper sticker or band t-shirt) or a hobby (perhaps you take a book or knitting outside on a nice day).

Spending time in a “third space” — aka a spot besides work and home, like the gym or a coffee shop — in your neighborhood (if there is one) can have a major positive impact on your psychological health and make it easier to get seamless connections going. Byron Cordero, a 37-year-old living in Miami, always makes it a point to “attend the cute, and maybe corny, Taco Tuesday or rooftop yoga Wednesday” held by his apartment complex to get to know neighbors in a new spot. And Ruth Furman, a 59-year-old from Las Vegas, developed friendships in her neighborhood pool through a water aerobics class. Even though Furman is the youngest in the group, she told Vox, “we share suggestions and stories about goings-on in the neighborhood, plus tips on shared interests, like thrift stores and free classes through the local libraries.”

Geoffrey Radcliffe, 47, also from Las Vegas, says he has several genuine friendships with his neighbors — something he credits, in part, to his condo’s proximity to a lake with a walking path. So when he’s craving connection, he’ll whip up a drink — he calls it a “walk-tail” — and head out to the lake. “For initial anxiety, a cocktail generally makes someone more talkative,” he told Vox. With a bit of liquid courage, Radcliffe will typically ask a passerby their dog or child’s name, how long they’ve lived in their home, what they like to do for fun — anything to keep the convo flowing. “These types of questions are easy to answer, and you can really get to know someone this way. If your neighbors aren’t into it, don’t push; they’ll come around when they see how much [fun] all the others on the block are having.”

His one warning? Limit yourself to a single walk-tail. “You shouldn’t overdo it, or you’ll end up making out with a single neighbor, and that’s generally not the best idea,” he explained. (That’s up for debate, of course, depending on what kind of connection you’re seeking out!)

Flashing a warm smile at a stranger will make you both feel good in the moment, but Lurie said that building community won’t happen overnight. “Knowing that it’s going to take time is really important. I also think that, with consistent efforts to extend a hand, it becomes a bit easier, and people become more receptive, and they’re going to often want to reciprocate too, and so, things can snowball in a really positive direction,” she said.

One surefire way to strengthen the connection, per Lurie? Favors. “Reciprocity is also a tool that really helps us come into closer contact with people,” she explained. “It doesn’t have to be something fancy or formal,” Aldrich added. It could be as simple as saying, “Hey, I’m going to Target. Do you need anything?”

When Edna Angie Frank, 37, moved into (and then began remodeling) her Paradise Valley, Arizona, home, she felt the cold shoulder from her neighbors immediately. “No one likes neighbors who remodel — duh,” she joked. Still, Frank was eager to make connections, and when she noticed her elderly neighbor living alone (who also seemed shunned by others on the block for being “grumpy,” Frank said), she decided to show up with homemade tacos. Today, Frank regularly checks up on the woman, helps put up her holiday decor, and takes out her trash. “Now, we’re besties. All it took was some Mexican food,” she said.

The bottom line: Try to see a connection with your neighbors as an investment in your health and happiness, not a chore. “Oftentimes when we’re working from home, the last thing we think about is touching our neighbors — getting in touch with them, getting to know their names — but that is so important,” Aldrich says. “For me, there is no level of investment in neighbors that is not worth it.”