Love in the Neighborhood

The Hood,
The thought occurred, afterward a long and lazy walk through my neighborhood with my beautiful and eager dogs, what exactly is a neighborhood anyway?
Can you count the times you have heard or read stories about someone's experience living in the hood.  I am not talking ghetto.  I am talking about real live neighborhoods.
It seems technology has impacted so many aspects of our life and I see how this has affected our little 29 home hood.  It use to be when our neighborhood treasurer and his wife collected the dues each month there was a connection to what was happening in the lives of the residents.
"Mr. Hill fell last week and is having a hard time getting around"....or "Susie's daughter is graduating from high school next week"...these were known facts throughout the neighborhood when conversation was made in passing.  This also prompted the "grapevine" method of everyone knowing who was in need or who needed congratulating!
Are these days gone???  Our association now has agreed to paying their dues online and so now, well, there's no grapevine(:
And then I ask, if I am to "love my neighbor as myself" how do I do that? Really, do I know my neighbor???  This stopped me in my tracks.
Honestly, how am I a good neighbor?  Well, I try to keep my dogs quite so they won't bother folks, and I try to keep my yard up and not looking like a jungle (although some may say it does).  I do try to have neighborhood picnics as president of the association but is that all I could be or do?
What about trying to keep the line of communication open and actually spend time getting to know my neighbors better and if they are in need?
I think that's a great idea, I think I will do it!  How about starting with a minimum of 5 neighbors?  What one thing can I learn about their lives, that maybe is different from mine?  Perhaps given the opportunity I may see life from a different perspective and then learn also something about myself?  Then maybe, once I know my neighbor, I may begin to love not only my neighbor but also love myself even more!