I have the excact opposite experience. The closer you live, the more people protect their privacy sphere around them and more often avoid real connections with people they run into, like neighbors. After we moved from living close in the city to outside the city limits, with way more space around us, we went from "hello" when meeting a neighbor to now stopping up and talking for real and taking a real interest in eachother, helping eachother out, etc.
I agree that in smaller places such interactions happen more organically. But you are still bound to who happens to live in the vicinity.
In the big city I do have less interactions with neighbors, but on the other hand, whatever my interest is and however fringe, I will find likeminded people.
I reckon it depends a lot on how far away your interests are from the norm as well as which and what part of the city you are living. The neighborhood I'm in, people do spent quite a lot of time in the corner cafes, restaurants and park and are open to make new friends, instead of just leaving the apartment to go to work.
I think it's the difference between those who look for similar people versus those who prefer complementary people.
Naturally everyone does both but in the RPG of life some rogues tend to hang out in the rogues guild in town while others want to be out in a dungeon alongside wizards and warriors.
That's funny. I grew up in a tiny town, and the gossipy busybodies just disgusted me. I literally heard a rumor about a family member before I heard the actual story from them once.
Panty-sniffing busybodies with nothing to do but mind other peoples' business are a major reason I've lived in cities since I had the option.
Again I funnily enough have the exact opposite experience.
In my experience if you live near 1000 people there are a higher risk of there being "gossipy busybodies" than if you live near 100 people or 10. In my opinion the difference is not the amount of people that talk rumors, as it is likely always around the same percentage, but that they drown out in a big city. So I guess the question is, if that is true: Do you care about the rumor or about hearing the rumor?
All it takes to ruin it is one bad neighbor. I went from party and traffic noise, people trying to threaten me to back off when I complained of noise and drugs being sold to waving to people in the neighborhood, walking our dogs together, helping out when a car is broken down, etc. It is like night and day.
This is very similar to my experience. I moved from an apartment complex in a city, where everyone was - and wanted to be - anonymous to a village, where people are way more open and genuinely interested in each other. Quality over quantity.
Stopping by for a chat, coffee or beer, joining for a walk or bicycle ride, helping out or asking for help etc is something natural here, while in the city would have to be arranged days in advance.
