As to neighborhood choices, 72% of suburbanites want to live in the suburbs and 63% of city dwellers want to be in the city. People living in exurbs (areas farther out, beyond the suburbs, often more rural districts) are the least satisfied with only 37% happy to be in what's sometimes referred to as “out in the sticks.”

People often say diversity is important to their choices. But maybe that's not economic diversity. According to this study, nine out of 10 Americans prefer to be equally affluent with their neighbors.

Commute time is key, supporting the idea of building around transit nodes. Respondents said 14 minutes is the ideal commute time, and 28 minutes is the longest amount of time to still be considered a dream neighborhood.

As for community, 60% said they would prefer to be somewhat close to their neighbors, similar to friendly co-workers. But 22% of those polled said they did not want to be close, but desired respectfully private neighbors. Only 17% answered they wanted to be best friends or very close with their neighbors.

“Neighbors. Have I got neighbors? Ringing my doorbells. All day and all night,” sang the Rolling Stones. But apparently these lyrics aren't music to everyone's ears. Improvenet also conducted a study of the most annoying neighbors. With 2,500 people polled in two dozen cities, Dallas ranked the most annoying, with Minneapolis being the least annoying. (Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago, going from most to least annoying, ranked fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth.)