According to the passage, what was life like in a small community?

In the past fifty years, the American society has changed a great deal. Fifty years ago, most Americans lived in small communities. They rarely moved from one area to another and knew their neighbors at least by name if not by close, personal interaction. Life was so personal in those days that people often joked about it. They said that a person could not even stay home from church on Sundays without the whole town knowing about it. It was difficult to have privacy in a small community like that, but there was usually a sense of security, of belonging, and of community togetherness in such places. Except for church and the local movie theater, there was not much in the way of entertainment. Some people dreamed about moving to the exciting life of the big cities, but most people were happy to live all their lives in the same community. Few people experience this type of lifelong social interaction or sense of community togetherness now. People often move from neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city, and coast to coast. It is rare to find people who have lived all their lives in one community. Because people move so frequently, they do not have a chance to get to know their neighbors. Perhaps this is also why Americans tend to have a more casual attitude about friendship than people from some other cultures. Americans are accustomed to leaving old friends and making new friends.