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A few days ago a coworker casually remarked that I lived in a "marginal neighborhood," a description I had heard more than once since moving back to my small hometown in south Louisiana. The phrase was meant, really, as a caution to me rather than a reflection of me—at least that's how I took it. This morning is quiet. Two cats wait patiently at the edge of my patio, wary but not particularly worried by my presence; the possum that creeps across my front yard most mornings is still a half hour away.
I like where I live and I like the small house I live in and I like (for the most part) my neighbors. Visitors and those familiar with the makeup of the city see the warehouses that line the streets behind mine, the skate shop where kids hang out, the rows of Section 8 apartments with shell drives and littered weeds, the old fashioned boxing club across the street at the end of the block, and the bar on the corner.
There are some good reads about neighborhoods, including some by Richard Florida, who is best known for developing the idea of the "creative class" and its relationship to urban regeneration. Richard Florida is an urban studies theorist, which—if I understand correctly—is a term for someone who studies and theorizes on what makes a neighborhood a neighborhood. He has proffered that the metropolitian areas that are most successful are those that contain a wide mix of people, with elevated numbers of artists, musicians, lesbians and gay men, people in the technology fields and what he refers to as high bohemians.
An increasing number of urban theorists are recognizing that there is so much more to a community than the finery on its gate. In fact, the homogenous, well paved and maintained, finely appointed neighborhood is not the ideal and doesn't necessarily enrich the lives of its denizens. In an interview discussing the characteristics of neighborhoods and the data being compiled about what people want and need in a neighborhood, Florida notes:
Obviously, having a low crime rate and great schools and good jobs are important, but there were two other factors that were really critical. The first was a community that treats all of its residents fairly—ethnic minorities, new immigrants, low-income people, young people, old people, families, entrepreneurs, artists. And then the most important factor was what I call the quality of the neighborhood itself. Does it have trees? Does it have open space? Does it preserve its historic architecture? In other words, does it have some kind of physical beauty? This quality, the aesthetic character, was the number one factor.
Surrounding my neighborhood, but separated by significant psychological barriers, are the not-so-marginal enclaves of upper middle class living: beautifully manicured and landscaped yards, 3,500 square foot homes with spacious garages and backyard swimming pools, and the ubiquitous kid's bike on the front lawn: planned communities of great beauty and little soul.
For Martin Heidegger neighborhood implied a wholeness, a selfsameness no matter the particular place in time. The sameness, however, wasn't in the architecture or landscape but in the purpose or goals of the inhabitants of that space. And that is what I see when I look around my neighborhood. I see people grilling in their shell drives, kids plucking cumquats from my neighbor's tree, the rainbow stream of out-of-shape children from the boxing club jogging past my house, the carefully tended potted plant among the weeds sprouting along the cheaply-constructed duplexes, and the occasional mother or father pushing a stroller in search of a breeze.
There is a hardness here as well, a casual knowing that life is neither simple nor easy. Save for the two grand houses across the street from my home, this is a working class neighborhood populated by people that dream of winning the lottery, are unabashed in our shared public spaces, and who offer an easy smile and wave to anyone on the street. We are each different, true, but we share a common goal of greeting the morning sun with a determination of spirit and the knowledge that home is the place where love resides.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?
The word for today, August 7, 2015, is "wrath."