[quote author="roundcorners" date=1249600876]Finding and creating a social network is not easy. This is where I my opinions depart from BKs? You can find genuine community almost wherever you live in Irvine. Yes, some Villages might be easier than other but to foster what you have mentioned:
*lots of kids
* kids actually play together
* neighbors actually greet each other and become friends
* not too uptight or snooty
* good schools, but not cutthroat
* HOAs that aren?t TOO hypervigilant
YOU have to initiate that contact! You can?t just move into the ?perfect? community and have these things come to you.
There are families at every stage in every Irvine neighborhood! We couldn?t believe there were moms taking their infants strolling in the parking structure at Watermarke, but there it was! You just have to find them and, again initiate contact. Get out of your house; take walks, go to tot-lots, neighborhood activities, sit by the pool, got knock on your neighbor?s doors! Yes, houses have doorbells, use it!
It?s not that difficult. Moms & dads will naturally gravitate together. Instead of expecting friendly neighbors, BE the friendly neighbor! Start greeting people, saying hi, small talk, bring food, snacks and offer resources.
If church is your thing, there are many, many great resources there. Find a family friendly Irvine church and get plugged in there. I?m sure you can easily find one or two families that live in your village.
Family chemistry, like most relationships are hard to describe and determine. We would think we would have better relationships with people we think we should get along with, but don?t; vice-versa, we get along perfectly with families we never though possible. Just be open to everyone!
?Dropping anchors? is very important. It doesn?t have to be BK?s long term relationships; it can be for a season. And it is always worth investing in.</blockquote>
[quote author="GraceOMalley" date=1249650585]In 2001 I moved from LA to Irvine. It was 42 miles from door to door. I expected that it wouldn't be any big change, it was still So Cal and I was excited to be living in OC for the first time and looking forward to all it had to offer, the beach, less smog, better traffic etc.
BK and I lived there together for a little over 5 years. We never met our neighbors and in all that time I never made a single friend. Neighbors moved in and out, there was no sense of permanence and absolutely zero sense of community. No kids were allowed to play in the street and if you did see kids they were being walked to a tot lot by their nannies.
I've lived a lot of places, the SF bay area, Seattle, Atlanta, Dallas, Paris France and Dusseldorf Germany to name a few. I've travelled to some pretty remote places on the planet and I've never had a harder time adjusting to anywhere than I did adjusting to Irvine. It was lonely, weirdly hostile, sterile, and totally confusing to me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong, or why people were so aloof. I noticed a sense of entitlement that I also had no idea how to respond to and also found confusing.
The house directly across the street from ours was flipped 3 times in 4 years. We had a passive aggressive neighbor who put a note in our mailbox every time BK brought our trash cans in later than said neighbor deemed appropriate. Our HOA was a bunch of useless wanksters, and the landscaping was regularly butchered and killed by the landscapers. Everything looked the same. No one used their front doors and so no one ever interacted with one another.
In retrospect I dont think that this sense of isolation was unique for us. I think a lot of people in Irvine feel that way, and unless you are part of the "mommy club", Im willing to bet that BK and I are not alone in our experiences.
The day we moved into our current home, as the truck was pulling away, BK and I stood in the front yard exhausted and looking at the house. While we were out there, 4 of neighbors introduced themselves to us. Sidewalk chalk is common in the streets, and until it gets dark; you are likely to see half the kids in the neighborhood riding bikes and playing games across everyones from lawns. In my 5 years in Irvine, those are things I never saw anywhere, and seemed to exist only in the brochures.
I prefer knowing my neighbors, kids playing in the streets and a genuine sense of community over the meticulous masterplanning of Irvine any day.</blockquote>
I think this shows the clear difference between Irvine, some of the other communities in OC, many in CA, and the rest of the US. For Irvine, and for the most part the majority of OC, <strong>YOU</strong> have to make the effort to get to know your neighbors and your community. Where I grew up in OC, it was just the thing to know your neighbors, in fact I went to the wedding of the guy that grew up across the street from me a few months back. They don't live in the hood anymore, but my mom keeps in touch with them, even if they live 2000 miles away. Do you think you will ever have that in Irvine?
When I lived in the Bay Area, the one thing I could say that is different from there to here is: In the Bay good people find you, in OC you have to find good people. I met so many awesome people in the Bay Area by random chance that it was foreign to an OC native. Then I move back here, and I did meet some new and cool people, it just wasn't the same. I have met more intelligent people on IHB in the last 2+ years, and become friends with them, than I have since I moved back to OC 10 years ago. There is a desperate need to find like minded people here, but no one wants to really admit it, because those who don't care about being like minded are the majority.
I will also say this for the comparison of neighborhoods, I have been to several open houses/new homes in Irvine, and I have been very vocal about the flaws of the homes such that the other people touring the homes can hear me. Do they ever ask questions about the flaws I point out? Nope. I have even made a roundcorners like effort to make conversation, but they are more concerned with seeing the granite in the master bath than see the huge crack in the drywall that was installed last week. Then I go to Floral Park... I have people come up to me to chat about the homes, and what the flaws are. Then they talk about how this house or that house was awesome growing up there as a kid. When I was at the <a href="http://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Ana/2019-N-Victoria-Dr-92706/home/3049872">Victoria house</a> with the cracked upstairs bathroom tile, a lady listened to what I had to say and was concerned about the can of worms I thought it might be. So... when we were at the <a href="http://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Ana/2225-N-Victoria-Dr-92706/home/4472657">sh*tty 70s built Tara home on Victoria</a>, she was there and asked me what I thought the costs of repair would be to the previous house. I gave her my honest opinion, which the cost was backed up by BK, but I don't think she realized the amount of money needed to get that place up to par. Anyway, I have had more random and interesting conversations with strangers in Floral Park than I have ever had in Irvine, and I have been to more open houses/new home models than I have been to homes in FP. And for the record, none these inquisitive people from FP have been overbearing or all up in my business. They associate well, say their piece, ask questions, and move on. Ask Cayci, people in FP are way more pleasant and conversational than Irvine.
And FWIW, the next time I am at a new community in Irvine, and there are Asian people touring the homes, like they were in 95 and 96 (no more FCBers then than now) when I first started to tour new homes... I'm going to go all roundcorners on their a$$. "Hey... do you read IHB? Come on... I know you do. Okay... well do they discuss Irvine in your local newspaper? Why Irvine? Are you paying cash? Do you have relatives that are coming here with cash to buy homes? Is feng shui important, and does that fiery stove under your bed make you reconsider? What about the being sh*t on when you enter the place, and is that why you will only enter through the garage?" I would have to be that obnoxious to start a convo in Irvine. When all I had to do was make eye contact in FP to find out all those details.
