March 4, 2026

By Sara Lieberman

Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Apple, Getty

This past October, as I sat in my parents’ garage on Long Island, taping up boxes, stuffing clothes into suitcases, and counting the growing number of items I’d accumulated for the moving trucks, I considered how to introduce myself to the tenants of my new Bed-Stuy building. My landlord had added me to the building’s WhatsApp group five days prior, and I’d been overthinking how to enter the chat ever since. Name, sure. But age? Profession? Tendency to practice yoga at odd times? An apology in advance for triggering the fire alarm due to an inability to properly use a gas stove?

Coming back to New York after living in Paris for nearly a decade, I was surprised that such a group even existed. For one, it’s taken me ages to get any of my American friends to use WhatsApp to begin with, when it had been the de facto way to communicate in Europe. But mostly I was surprised because in the 13 years I’d lived in NYC before moving abroad, I could go years without knowing my neighbors’ names. In Paris, on the other hand, it was considered rude if you didn’t say “bonjour” to the butcher, the baker, and the actual candlestick-maker, let alone someone you lived next door to. It appeared that something had shifted.

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