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If I have to have neighbors, I want to be far enough away so that:
1) I can sit on the deck in my jammies drinking coffee in the morning and have complete privacy
2) I don't have to hear barking dogs at odd hours, or for prolonged periods, and no out of control aggressive fence jumping neighbor dogs are allowed in the neighborhood
3) I can't hear neighbor conversations and vice versa
4) The smoke from the chain smoking neighbor who is always outside smoking is unable to reach my airspace (isn't this illegal or something?)
An ideal neighbourhood, for me, would have the following:
- trees whose upper branches entwine with those of the trees across the street...giving the street a covered bridge/tunnel look
- houses would be set back at least 45' but not much more than 100'
- the lot widths would vary from 50' wide to 200' wide
- the houses would all have front porches, be sided in natural materials, and designed by different architects in various years/decades
- the street would be two lanes wide, no on-street parking, speed limit 30 mph
- one end of the street would be downtown of a small Mayberry-like community and the other end would lead past turn-of-the-century mansions and, eventually, to farmland/vineyards with rolling hills in the distance
Really nice, LIGuy, I agree with your criteria!
Except I wouldn't have one end of the street be downtown, but would rather that downtown be a few blocks away. And the town swimming pool and park should be a few blocks away too.
And I'd like to see kids out playing catch across several front yards, parents out walking with strollers and dogs on leashes on good sidewalks, cats snoozing in sunbeams in the front yards, and neighbors out talking with one another over picket fences.
When you were a kid in school did you watch those old "educational" films made in Ohio in the 1950s and early '60s that followed Bobby and Susie around town and taught us all to wash our hands and cross the street at street corners? Those Ohio films really affectected my vision of what a neighborhood should be!
The operative word is "neighborhood". I completely sympathize with those who don't want any neighbors, but that's a different conversation.
One of my favorite neighborhoods is Brookside in Kansas City. It's a village-style, streetcar suburb built mostly in the 1920's. It's basically just like Chicago's North Shore suburbs. I call it a suburb, but it's actually in the city limits. The housing is almost exclusively single-family, but there are a couple each of condo buildings and apartment buildings. The house styles range from those on typical gridded streets with full-sized front porches in the north, to a variety of 1920's middle-class styles in the south on early-suburban windy, but through, streets. A Tudor-architecture village-style neighborhood business district lies in the center with all of the daily necessities, including 2 grocery stores (upscale and average) and a farmer's market, a CVS, post office, UPS store, a coffeeshop that has what must be some of the best coffee anywhere, an ice cream shop, a dozen or so restaurants (both everyday and upscale, quick-service and sit-down, many are also bars), a variety of locally-owned businesses, banks, professional offices, etc. There are no office buildings or major employment, but Brookside is toward the southern edge of Kansas City's linear urban core and is served by Kansas City's best (BRT) bus line and just a few minutes from the Country Club Plaza (uptown district), midtown, and downtown. Most of the power lines are buried and all streets are perfectly tree canopied with large, mature trees. There are several pieces of public art and one large fountain in the area too.
The commercial area photos look like areas of Long Island but the residential neighbourhood pics are much nicer than most Long Island neighbourhoods. Thanks for posting.
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