This week, we are supposed to reflect on the changes we have seen in urban, suburban, or rural life in recent years. I have had the privilege of living in all types of environments, so I will comment on them all.
When I was ten years old, my father retired from the
military and we moved to rural New Hampshire where my dad became the general
manager for a second-home resort community.
We lived in the middle of the woods, no neighbors, no mailman, no
garbage man, no house numbers, no cable. We heated our house using a woodstove.
Many of the kids on my bus lived in tar-paper shacks with no running water.
Some had to take showers in the nurse’s office at school. There were very few
jobs to be found. Many were seasonal, so my friends’ dads would cut and sell
wood in the summer and plow driveways in the winter. My high school was 40
minutes away on the highway and all some of my friends were long-distance on
the telephone. We eventually did get a number on our house (we picked “10”) so
that we could get 911 service. And I hear they opened a new store in the town I
grew up in. But I think it’s generally the same. They closed the beloved ski
area we used to go to with school on Fridays. I think the weather has warmed up
enough that some of the little ski areas just don’t get enough snow to stay in
business. I couldn’t wait to flee that rural area and many of my friends did
the same – we left for the big city, never to return. I do have some friends
who stayed though, and, with the Internet I don’t think they feel nearly as
isolated as we did as when we were young.
In 1999, my husband and I headed West and lived in the city
of San Francisco, where we lived for five years. There, we found an apartment
in the Marina district, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge from our
third-floor window. The Marina was close to the water, surrounded by Russian
Hill, Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Presidio. It was an all-white neighborhood
with lots of little restaurants and shops. This was in 1999, so the gentrification
of San Francisco was in full-swing. We had friends who were ready to gut or
renovate $800,000 fixer-uppers in “up-and-coming” neighborhoods, just so they
could own a piece of the city. We couldn’t fathom paying that much money for an
old dilapidated flat in a bad neighborhood, so we headed East. We do have
friends who stuck it out, saved their money, mortgaged themselves to the hilt,
and settled down and started a family in San Francisco. It has gotten out of
hand as far as price, but some of the neighborhoods that we would never have
considered living in 10 years ago (like Potrero Hill) are now nice enough that
we might consider it if we moved back.
In Charlotte, NC, we were able to witness full-fledged
suburbia, and I fell in love. It was a place I’d always dreamed of living when I
was a kid. We lived in a 90-home planned community, where everyone had the same
exact 1980s brick colonial, with huge lots and tons of families, events, and
gatherings to keep you busy. Now, in Charlotte, as opposed to San Francisco, parking
was a dream. We couldn’t believe how much space there was. But you had to get
into your car every time you left the house. There were no sidewalks, and
everything was so far away (not to mention the darn heat), that you wouldn’t
want to walk anyway. During the time we lived there, we saw a housing boom,
then a big bust. We were able to make a profit on our house before moving to
Northern VA, but we were lucky. When we visited Charlotte last summer, it was
like a ghost town. Many new housing developments were just sitting there,
half-finished and vacant. And a lot of the businesses we had frequented were boarded
up, out of business. This was due to the bank crash and the fact that Wachovia
and Bank of America are the main employers in Charlotte and they were hit hard
by the financial crisis of 2008.
I have lived in all three types of environments and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. I now live in Suburbia and am happy. In all three areas, population is growing, though much slower in the rural areas, where jobs are scarce. Gentrification is a thing we are seeing wherever we go - out with the old, and in with the new. In Vienna, even today, old houses are being torn down daily to build new "mcmansions".
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