Brooklyn. bigmike33x / Flickr Last summer I moved from one Brooklyn neighborhood to another to get closer to the park and an express train.

At the last place, where I lived for three years, it was all sorted out: best burrito spot is there, comfy cafe over there, and yes, I'd love to meet for a beer at the beloved local bar.

In my new neighborhood, I have a shorter commute and a nicer morning jog, but I'm no longer a regular at any local spots. Travel, work, and dating Manhattanites didn't help with getting to know the new neighborhood.

While I used to spend ten minutes bantering with the wisecracking owner of the bodega around the corner from my old home, I'm now just another customer in the convenience store. Though I'm happy to feed my downstairs neighbor's cat, it's hard to shake the feeling of isolation.

I recently did an interview that showed me that neighborly isolation, minor as it might sound, could actually pose a huge problem — with a simple yet elusive solution.

Earlier this month, I spoke with Susan Pinker, a Canadian psychologist who has studied why villagers in Sardinia, Italy, live 20 or 30 years longer than the average European or North American.

While researching her "The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter," she found that she could never get the centenarians alone — there were always cousins, shopkeepers, and other people stopping by.

To Pinker, those relationships are nourishing— like eating well, avoiding alcohol, and not sunburning your way to skin cancer.

"Social activities have a profound effect on preserving your happiness and your memories," Pinker says, citing studies suggesting that elderly people with relationship ties have half the cognitive decline of people who are isolated, and that in any given time period, people with close ties have a 50% less likelihood of dying. Other research indicates that people who are close with their neighbors have a lesser risk of heart attacks.

"We consider it intangible because it doesn't bring us any money, it doesn't improve our social status, but it has a concrete effect on our health," Pinker says. "If you have a stroke, you're better protected by your relationships than by medication."

In our interview, Pinker was careful to note that it's not just romantic partners, family, and close friends that lead to longer, happier lives, though they certainly play a huge role. It's also community ties — neighbors, shopkeeper, and the like — that help people live richer lives.

It wasn't just the nephew that visited the Sardinianian centenarian, it was the barkeep, too.

Pinker says that if the New Yorkers, Chicagoans and Angelinos among us are going to live as long as Sardinians, we need to live in places where we know our neighbors and talk to them (and, one may assume, remember their names, birthdays, and where they're from). She contends that these face-to-face interactions are much more emotionally rewarding, and physically sustaining, than likes and retweets.

"Once you recognize that you need more than pixelated, electronic ties, and more than a handful of close friends and family to keep you healthy and happy, you can stay where you are" she writes. "By cultivating a community of diverse, person-to-person relationships, you can build your own village, right where you live."

When I told Pinker that I live in New York, she lit up, saying that it's one of the best places to create a village, given the city's trademark density.

Yet my new neighborhood is not yet my village, since I've spent so much time ranging about Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn over the past five months.

Talking with Pinker and thinking about all those long-lived Sardinians makes me realize that even though I now have furniture in my apartment and art on the walls, I haven't truly moved in. I'll need to get to know my neighbors — and my neighborhood spots — to create a home.