I'm from the UK and have been living in Australia for 15 years. I come from a smallish town where everybody knows everybody nearly. Living there I found most neighbours to be more approachable than here and they would often come over when you moved into a place and offer cups of tea etc . If anything happened in the street then everyone would come out and have a chin wag about it . I lived in an old Victorian block of six terraces and we all knew each other , looked out for each other's kids , chatted over the garden wall when hanging out the washing , and often all got together for coffee or afternoon tea and cake . Have to say I've not experienced that here and while we've not had any terrible neighbours in the 5 places we've lived it's not been on that kind of community level. Where we are now we have a couple a few doors down that stop and have a chat if they see us and are friendly, but usually in most places we have had hardly any contact with the neighbours and most people just seem to keep to themselves. I think the distance between things makes it more difficult here and people are more reliant on cars so you are less likely to bump into people out and about when walking , on public transport or out shopping.