{"id":22594,"date":"2025-02-21T09:01:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T10:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22594"},"modified":"2025-02-21T10:30:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T10:30:05","slug":"i-bought-a-house-i-got-a-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22594","title":{"rendered":"I Bought a House. I Got a Neighborhood."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes when you\u2019re looking for a refuge, what you really need is a community.<\/p>\n

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My new house was already worrying me, and I hadn\u2019t even moved in. The problem wasn\u2019t all the work it needed, though the wood floors hadn\u2019t been properly cleaned in decades and the kitchen appliances were relics of the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Renovations would be costly, sure. But the trickier issue, by my estimate, would be relations with the neighbors. I had reason to fear there were some overly friendly people in the mix, which made me nervous some would be overly talkative,<\/em> too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this place, you wouldn\u2019t just get a home, you\u2019d get a neighborhood,\u201d the seller\u2019s agent told me at the open house.<\/p>\n

She said this as if it were a selling point.<\/p>\n

Apparently, the entire street held a pizza party every month, a 40-year tradition started by a few 70-somethings who\u2019d lived on the block since they were raising kids. The rules were simple: Serve nothing fancier than pies from the place by the highway, and chocolate chip cookies or brownies for dessert. The goal was to keep things inexpensive, so everyone would participate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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My boyfriend practically turned cartwheels when he heard this. He\u2019s a sociologist, which means he likes community so much that he studies it for a living. We\u2019d barely learned my bid on the house had been accepted when he said, \u201cWe get the pizza parties, too!\u201d<\/p>\n

I groaned: \u201cWe\u2019re not going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, come on. We have to,\u201d he said. \u201cThis kind of thing doesn\u2019t exist anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sometimes when you\u2019re looking for a refuge, what you really need is a community.My new house was already worrying me, and I hadn\u2019t even moved in. The problem wasn\u2019t all the work it needed, though the wood floors hadn\u2019t been properly cleaned in decades and the kitchen appliances were relics of the 1970s.Renovations would be costly, sure. But the trickier issue, by my estimate, would be relations with the neighbors. I had reason to fear there were some overly friendly people in the mix, which made me nervous some would be overly talkative, too.\u201cWith this place, you wouldn\u2019t just get a home, you\u2019d get a neighborhood,\u201d the seller\u2019s agent told me at the open house.She said this as if it were a selling point.Apparently, the entire street held a pizza party every month, a 40-year tradition started by a few 70-somethings who\u2019d lived on the block since they were raising kids. The rules were simple: Serve nothing fancier than pies from the place by the highway, and chocolate chip cookies or brownies for dessert. The goal was to keep things inexpensive, so everyone would participate.My boyfriend practically turned cartwheels when he heard this. He\u2019s a sociologist, which means he likes community so much that he studies it for a living. We\u2019d barely learned my bid on the house had been accepted when he said, \u201cWe get the pizza parties, too!\u201dI groaned: \u201cWe\u2019re not going.\u201d\u201cOh, come on. We have to,\u201d he said. \u201cThis kind of thing doesn\u2019t exist anymore.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22596,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22597,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22594\/revisions\/22597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}