Street party for the Royal wedding

Somebody in our avenue has organised a street party for the Royal wedding.   There was no chance of us going to it.  The husband is fervently anti-monarchist, so the atmosphere would have been brooding to say the least if myself and one and only son had agreed to go and wave our plastic Union Jacks.
The husband did mutter something about democracy which meant we could make up our own minds if we really wanted to go.  Anyway, the over-riding factor which decided it - had we been in doubt about whether to go or not - was the £5 we would each have to contribute to the jollifications.  I was worried the husband would have to sit seething in the back garden all day, listening to the party, but he has volunteered to go into work that day, so that solves that.  He will have to cycle near the route of the Royal extravaganza, but I'll suggest he rings the transport authority to get an alternative way to keep well out of the way. 
I can't decide if the whole street thing is a good idea or if it isn't.  Well done to the lady who set about organising it - she has ticked all the boxes with regard to insurance and getting 90% of residents to agree to the road being closed all day.  She has trumpeted the value of ''community'', booked a bouncy castle and arranged an exchange point for DVDs and CDs.   However, I don't think there is any ''community'' in our street.  I only know my two immediate next door neighbours, and I've lived here for more than 10 years. 
Maybe a ''do'' like the street party will foster some of that ''community'' spirit, I hear you argue.  Well, it might.  However, I had to laugh when one of the suggestions was that everyone should wear a badge with their house number on it.  Good grief, are they totally incapable of introducing themselves by name to each other?
Anyway, back to the community aspect.  It can be a good thing but it can also be a bad thing.
I was brought up in the North in a small village where everybody knows everybody else's business.  This can be beneficial if an elderly person isn't seen for a while - someone will knock on their door to check they're okay.  If the snow's on the ground, somebody will collect somebody else's shopping and drop it off.  But there is that ''goldfish'' effect - everybody in their own village is a celebrity whether they like it or not, and their personal ups and downs and to-ings and fro-ings is discussed at length by the rest of the village.  There is no escape.  Personally, I prefer the anonymity of a street in London, but maybe I might change my mind when I am elderly myself.