Living in the Netherlands in a -for Dutch standards- mid-size city (250k), smack in the middle of it.
Got a lot of neighbors closeby, but not as many as when I lived in SE Asia.
There's loads of man made noise around. On the 11m my s-meter goes rarely below s7 to s9. Had located one source of the QRM and managed to eliminate that.
Those where a bliss 2 weeks, until someone else moved in elsewhere a couple of doors down, installed internet over the power cables -my guess as it sounds exactly the same and one internet company here (kpn) is famous for their adapters- and now it's back, just from another side.
This mostly involves 11m, but also some of the Ham bands.
Anyways.. I still make contacts all over Europe, Canada, US, Carribean, South America, Africa. Just have to be a little bit more lucky on being able to hear the other side.
Usually don't use more than 100 Watts.