The article is about SF and NYC. People live for years in residential neighborhoods in SF and NYC without befriending their neighbors.
Anyways, having transients for neighbors actually reduces your risk (variance) with respect to your neighbors. Any given day you're likely to have a normal respectful neighbor. If they're not, they'll soon be gone. Whereas with permanent neighbors you're stuck with them for a long time if they're inconsiderate assholes.
So your opinion is that people who want neighbors should consider seeing random strangers next door an improvement over people with whom they can develop long-term relationships?
> People live for years in residential neighborhoods in SF and NYC without befriending their neighbors.
The data doesn't back this up. In fact, NYC and SF are two of the best places to befriend neighbors based on the shared walkable living areas that are rare in most US cities. Here's a recent article on the phenomenon:
Anyways, having transients for neighbors actually reduces your risk (variance) with respect to your neighbors. Any given day you're likely to have a normal respectful neighbor. If they're not, they'll soon be gone. Whereas with permanent neighbors you're stuck with them for a long time if they're inconsiderate assholes.