Cluster without Fluster!

By Roy Zazeraj

"I believe I have no prejudices whatsoever. All I need to know is that a man is a member of the human race. That's bad enough for me." Mark Twain

Getting steamed at the noisy teenagers next door? Or the old folk next door complaining about your noisy teenagers? Wanting to murder the neighbour's yap-dog that defecates in front of your patio? Tired of the nosy person in number 10 complaining about your constant flow of visitors? Someone always parking in your space?

Is it just you, or them, or the close proximity living conditions?

One thing is clear - high-density living is here to stay. Once it was a daily existence reserved only for the poor, or rich holidaymakers in the congested playgrounds of the world. Now, it is increasingly a happy and practical lifestyle choice for a wide-cross section of people. The benefits are many, varied and well documented. Let's not forget them.

But the "cluster" lifestyle is not without its frustrations and drawbacks - especially in our highly stressed modern world.

More than thirty years ago, writer and scientist Desmond Morris coined the phrase "The Human Zoo" (in the book of that title) to describe the modern urban landscape. This was to draw a clear distinction with the more commonly used term " the concrete jungle", which did not survive his zoologist's scrutiny. Humans in a city do not behave the way animals do in a jungle. But they do display all the abnormal behaviours that caged animals do in a zoo. For example, Morris claims, "Under normal conditions, in their natural habitats, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homo-sexual pair-bonds or commit murder. Among human city dwellers, needless to say, all of these things occur."

While Morris was talking about urbanisation generally, his thesis is even more germane to the increasingly popular modern environment of sectional title and cluster housing, where people live in closer and closer "human zoo" conditions. We won't be exploring his sorry list above (any daily newspaper will keep you up-to-date on these). However, we will be discussing the issue of regular disagreements with the neighbours - with causes that are both real and imagined, and often blown out of all proportion. We'll look at what turns sweet, co-operative, mature, well-educated people into raging, unreasonable, litigious combatants - and the many variations on that theme. However, the emphasis will be on what to do to manage these situations, should they arise, whether you are protagonist or antagonist.

In upcoming columns, we will explore these and the various personal and socio-emotional issues arising from this modern lifestyle. I look forward to chatting to you.