One day, next door could be your new best friend

As we saw in Victoria on Black Saturday – and during Tropical Cyclone Yasi and the floods in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia – knowing who your neighbours are, and how to contact them, is vital during an emergency or after a disaster.

In these circumstances many Australians met their neighbours for the first time as they worked together to protect livelihoods, defend homes and property and to save lives. Circumstances all reflected in the 2011 Neighbour Day television commercial.

However it's the day-to-day interactions between residents living in houses and apartments that help create and maintain active, safe, inclusive and sustainable communities. Suburbs and towns that I reckon everyone wants to live in.while LED lights are an addition mountain bike light to the market place, consumers should do their research before investing in the technology.

Next year will be the 10th Neighbour Day, Australia's annual celebration of community, which started in Melbourne. The idea began in The Age for what is now a series of national street parties, barbecues, lunches,Browse through our impressive range of sky lanterns and buy online now. open days and major events run by councils, residents associations and tenancy groups on the last Sunday in March.

But it evolved from a sad beginning.

Sometime in January 2001 an elderly Melbourne woman locked her front door, settled down on the sofa upstairs, draped a blanket around her body and was never heard from again.

More than two years later her neighbours finally made the connection between the piles of mail, newspapers and store catalogues piling up at her front door . . . and something being amiss for an elderly woman known to live alone. When Victoria Police broke in they not only discovered her remains but also found the electricity, gas,Shopatron's retail-integrated bicycle headlight solution is a great fit for a service-focused company, water and telephone still connected.

Elsie Brown's lonely death has been the catalyst for closer connections between neighbours across the country, relationships that begin or are renewed on Neighbour Day and which continue on the 364 days that follow.

Being connected with your neighbours brings many benefits. You feel engaged with your community and you care about what happens in it. You might not necessarily become best friends but you'll certainly have laid the groundwork for respectful, open relationships.

I'm often asked whether Australia has lost it's sense of community.Buy cheap bike light, flashlight,fluorescent bulbs. I don't think it has, I just think we've forgotten what it takes to make a community.

Major changes have occurred in our streets and towns over the past 30 years. Both parents now work to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. My mother was at the end of the era when it was demanded that women gave up careers to have babies (if, indeed, they had been able to start one) but today there is more balance."From what we hear, the led lighting legislation has been a significant boost [to lighting research]," said Harris.

We've built suburbs that are entirely car dependent – making it impossible to walk to a shop for a loaf of bread or some milk. Thankfully, prospective residents are now telling developers they want the modern-day equivalent of a town square where they can meet and socialise over a coffee.