Americans Love Their Neighbors

"A Pew Research Center survey of Americans released last year found that the share of people who said they knew all of their neighbors decreased from 2018 to 2025. In a different report on social connection in America, also from last year, 63 percent of respondents said they never got together with their neighbors to improve their community, and only 27 percent said that their neighborhood was close-knit."

"The past couple of months, however, have shown that huge numbers of Americans do love their neighbors-enough to show up in frozen streets, confront armed federal agents, and even risk death. The response to Border Patrol and ICE's presence in Minnesota has prompted one of the greatest mass displays of neighborly love that I've seen in my lifetime. Read: Minnesota proved MAGA wrong Donald Trump's administration has described immigrants not as neighbors but as threats, and even as subhuman."

Survey data show declines in neighborliness: a Pew Research Center survey found the share of people who said they knew all their neighbors fell from 2018 to 2025. Another report found 63 percent never met with neighbors to improve community and only 27 percent said neighborhoods were close-knit. A 2024 survey reported about half seldom or never spoke with neighbors they did not know well. The decline began around the 1970s. Recent events in Minnesota saw large numbers of people confronting Border Patrol and ICE to defend immigrant neighbors, despite federal rhetoric portraying immigrants as threats.

Read at The Atlantic