Kultur 9

The "Love Thy Neighbor" article was extremely interesting to me. Here, at least from what I've noticed, neighbors don't necessarily change just to accommodate other households. Instead, they compromise and every one pitches in just a bit for the better of all, and that effort really helps to make for a better sense of community (at least in my neighborhood, that is). For less cooperative and more grumpy neighbors, like Mr. Birtles down the street *cough*, we just feign a smile and pretend to like them and they do the same for us. To me it seems that in the US it is a lot less my-way-or-the-highway than in Germany, and real problems don't arise from matters as simple as weeds on the sidewalk. It's a little ironic how many see Americans as "sue-happy", yet it's commonplace for Germans to take neighbors to court over what seem to be such trivial things. Some laws they've implemented are pretty great, as well (i.e. the once per month barbecue rule, which in my neighborhood would be violated on a weekly basis in the summertime).