I agree with Gwen. But I have to admit that here in the U.S. one should always work. Sometimes, even having fun becomes a responsibility. I don't complain about it though... I think work is good.

I personally think that a good neighbor is the one who does not bother you and who does not get involved in your life. Many students on both sides have mentioned that a good neighbor is a friendly one. But MIT students seem to be more conservative compare to the French crew. I think that the notion of privacy plays an importnat role in the lives of Americans.

It seems the students from Polytechnique commonly agree that neighbors are friends who help out when you are away and you have over for dinner. Whereas, maybe only half of MIT students have that expectation and the remaining students require quiet from their neighbors. Is this for your situation now, in the dorms, or in general? I know in the suburbs of America we expect to be friendly with our neighbors and we do favors for each other. Is this true of the cities in France?

I noticed the same differences as Kristen in the concept of a good neighbor. Except for the other children that lived on my street, I never knew my neighbors very well. Our families had friendly conversations in passing and helped each other out ocassionally, but I wouldn't call my neighbors close friends. The houses on my street were relatively far apart which may have increased the lack of conversation. Are neighbors in France more likely to get to know one another and become friends? When a new person moves into a neighborhood, do people make an effort to greet them and welcome them?

I know that a lot of the questions above haven't been answered but here's some more stuff to think about. I lived in a suburb, and like Kristen said, you kind of expect everyone to be nice to each other and help each other out. Although my parents always tried to be that way with their neighbors, being Hispanic made things a little different. We were one of only two Hispanic families in my neighborhood growing up, and even though everyone was really nice, it took a while for my parents to feel comfortable enough to really make friends with everyone. My mother kind of secluded herself from all the other housewives, because she felt like they didn't want to be her friend. As I got older, all of that changed, but I still remember that for the first couple of years, my parents didn't go to the neighborhood "get-togethers". I think this happens a lot in the US. Many times, people don't open up to their neighbors because of cultural differences and this sometimes impedes the "friendly neighborhood" notion. Do you think this happens a lot in France? If so, is it more prevalent in the city, or in the suburbs?

There are a few trends in housing construction that are interesting in relation to this discussion. The first is the trend towards gigantic fences around people's property. In the neighborhood where I grew up the fences changed over the twenty years of living there from small and see-through to monstrous, solid, and wood. Currently there are only two houses out of about 40 along the entire block which don't have these fences: my family's (which has a short chain-link fence) and the house of the people next to us (which has no fence).

The other trend is toward building more and more gigantic (and I mean really gigantic) houses. Whenever any house in my neighborhood is torn down, the house built to replace it is appallingly huge.

What these trends show is the current obsession with enclosing space. Just as people can now tell you to the exact cent what their bank account is worth and the exact models of their plasma TV and their dual processor computer (with extra video ram), they want to be able to enclose the exact amount of space that they own in this world so that they can display it to you in all its magnificent precision. Clearly, knowing your neighbors is no longer as important as knowing that you're that much more gooder than them.

Bonjour, bonjour ! Il s'en est passé des choses pendant nos vacances !

Sur ce thème du "bon voisin", j'ai été assez surpris de ne trouver finalement que très peu de différence entre nous et vous. Peut être que, comme le dit Kristen, les français insistent un peu plus sur l'entraide et les américain sur la tranquillité ? Il n'y a cependant pas de différence franche à mes yeux.

De plus, en lisant vos messages, je retrouve beaucoup d'éléments qui s'appliqueraient tout aussi bien aux voisinages en France (du moins à ceux que je connais). En France aussi on connait mieux ses voisins dans les banlieux pavillonaires (qui sont plus proches de vos "suburbs" que de nos "banlieues") que dans le centre ville. Mais on se connait encore mieux dans les villages où l'on est vraiment très proches entre voisins. Dans les villages plus que dans les villes, les familles sont souvent présentes depuis des générations ce qui doit contribuer à tisser les liens entre voisins. Je pense qu'on a juste tendance à plus s'ouvrir vers les autres lorsque l'on vit dans une petite communauté. Ceci semble être vrai au USA au même titre qu'en France.

Pour répondre à Stéphanie, je n'ai jamais vu en France une quelconque démarche organisée par un voisinage pour accueillir un nouvel arrivant. Il me semble que c'est au nouvel arrivant de faire le premier pas et d'aller se présenter à ses voisins s'il veux s'intégrer dans un quartier.

Par rapport à la remarque de Gerardo, il est difficile de dire si une quelconque différence culturelle est un obstacle à une bonne intégration dans un voisinage. Si la plupart de la société Française est plutôt ouverte, 15% de la population est xénophobe. Si j'étais un étranger qui viendrait s'installer en France, je pense que j'éviterai les petits villages et les cités (banlieues deffavorisées). Les petits villages de campagne sont restés très isolés et on peut craindre la réaction des vieux habitants qui n'ont jamais été confrontés à d'autres cultures. L'intégration doit être aussi difficile dans les cités où le climat social est difficile et où, bien que la population soit très cosmopolite, l'extrème droite fait ces "meilleurs" scores.

Je suis surpris d'apprendre que les américains ont tendance à construire des clôtures de plus en plus grande autour de leurs maisons. Je pensais que c'était surtout le cas en Europe ! La Victoria lane de "Desperate houswifes" serait donc en voie de disparition ! C'est la fin d'un mythe !

Il parait qu'il y a aux USA des rues privées avec un accès règlementé mais à l'interieur desquelles il n'y aurait pas de clôtures entre les maisons. Est-ce réellement répandu aux Etats Unis ? On trouve très peu de ce genre d'habitation en France que certains appellent les lotissements "à l'américaine".