Friendly neighbors often waved off in Las Vegas

By Marshall Allen

Monday, July 10, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

You've seen it. We've all seen it, probably given it. The Vegas Wave.

You know, that neighborly wave to the couple across the street who you see all the time but never talk to.

"Hey."

Wave.

Now duck into the car and drive away.

We offer that meager, sheepish salute to nameless neighbors to show we are friendly. But are we?

Sheri Cohen says Las Vegas is the most unfriendly place she has ever lived.

The Clark County schoolteacher moved to Las Vegas 15 years ago from Connecticut and has yet to socialize with a neighbor. No evening conversations by the fence. No gatherings with the kids. She lived in one house 14 years and never knew the names of her neighbors.

"Garage sales were the only time I would see many of them," Cohen said.

Cohen said there was never an opportunity to interact with neighbors. She found friendships at school and synagogue, but feels isolated and unsafe at home. If there was an emergency, she only knows one neighbor well enough to call for help.

"You feel like you're pretty much by yourself," she said of life here.

This rings true for many of us.

Sizzling summers send neighbors into months of hibernation. Thirty percent of employees in Clark County are in the gaming and leisure industries, where shift work minimizes chance encounters at the curb and can pre-empt weekend get-togethers. The gates and walls of suburbia implicitly promote seclusion. Suburban sprawl leaves commuters exhausted, turning to TV instead of social opportunities before nodding to sleep.

And even if you get to know your neighbor, it might not be a lasting relationship. For every two people who move to Nevada, one leaves, according to state demographer Jeff Hardcastle.

It is a churning population, where even the people who stay in Las Vegas are so frustrated by losing friends they're hesitant to reach out to newcomers. And exacerbating the problem, they are not likely to have local family to lean on for support.

The lack of neighborly community is part of the reason Daniel and Sara McCue are packing their two-bedroom condo and leaving Las Vegas. Dan, 28, moved here from the Midwest seven years ago. He completed a master's degree at UNLV and worked as a fundraising consultant for nonprofit agencies. Sara, 27, has been a teacher in Las Vegas for three years.

The couple felt distant from the neighbors in their Green Valley condo community. It didn't help that units are served by separate stairways. Despite the concentration of residents, there was little interaction.

"Ironically, we've only gotten to know our neighbors as they're moving in or out," Sara said.

The McCues said they want to start a family - and for their children to be steeped in a sense of community. The couple eventually forged friendships in Las Vegas, but it was a struggle. They found a church with like-minded people with Midwestern roots. And they socialized with people from UNLV and work.

As they leave, the McCues can count about half a dozen couples they will miss. Dan started his new job at Grinnell College in Iowa in late May, and he's already rhapsodizing about the small-town environment.

The most outgoing among us can crawl out of our isolation. Take Javier Tamez, 40, the senior pastor at Las Vegas Church of the Nazarene. Granted, he is in the people business. His family moved about a year ago from Chicago into a Henderson neighborhood and immediately reached out to others, he said. They interact with neighbors almost every day - caring for one another's pets, taking out a neighbor's trash or sharing swimming pools.

Tamez and his wife frequently host church members in their home - and have been told that their hospitality is unusual for Las Vegas.

"They say we're the exception to ministers they know," he said.

Other residents may not know their neighbors, but they have many friends based on their common interests. Parents interact at their children's sporting events. People join churches or service clubs.

But scholars debate whether communities of interest are as beneficial as those based on proximity.

Hal Rothman, a history professor at UNLV, said Las Vegas has more affinity groups - such as Little League, book clubs and investment clubs - than you "can shake a stick at." People who wait for the phone to ring will be isolated, he said, but those among us with initiative will have friends.

But Joel Hirschhorn, author of "Sprawl Kills," says communities based on common interests are a dangerous trend. When people only spend time with those who share economic status and social values, it polarizes society, he said.

There is probably no danger in offering the Vegas Wave - especially if it is accompanied by a friendly introduction.