Strategy wise if you're unattached and have free time, making commutes to events and planned activities is still a more effective way to make friends.
The question is whether the benefits are worth it.
apologies for being pedantic, but the article literally starts off with a screenshot of the Live Near Friends app which shows that you're doing it exactly right in their terms, because they're talking about living a 5-minute walk away. likewise, that's the goal of the app:
This August, Levin launched Live Near Friends, a site that helps people live within a five-minute walk of a close friend or family member.
500m is over 0.3 miles. That's certainly possible in rural locations, but its very much not typical of places people live outside of “dense cities”.
> In a lot of the USA, living within a 5 minute walk of your friends means they are "1 or at most 2 next door neighbors down the street".
This is true in a lot of the USA by geographical area, but not a common experience (exactly because this fact means virtually no one lives there.)
Suburbs are typically around 2,000 people per square mile, or about 150 people within a 500m radius.
I understand I am very privileged, but we actually made effort to live near each other. Well, it definitely helps that it's a dense neighbourhood of an actual city and not a suburb. It's hard to plan it out, but worth it.