I don’t think there has been a single time when I have mentioned (to suburban friends) that I am moving downtown that I haven’t gotten some version of the “I’m so jealous” response. I truly believe our cities have been abandoned by hoards of reluctant sheep following some powerful force that drags them from vibrant urban communities to the stripped of any heart and soul suburbs.
And I am not even talking about leaving behind the downtowns of Manhattan or Chicago. I’ve moved to Madison’s downtown which, forgive me, little city, is hardly the epicenter of urban buzz. But it does have a buzz.
It’s for the kids that we leave all this, isn’t it? We buy houses with gardens and we let the children make loud noises because there are no neighbors above or below. We learn how to tend to tomatoes and flowerbeds and the kids go to proximate schools and have neighborhood friends to kick a ball around. They splash in wading pools while their dads grill meats on Sunday evenings.
Until we find that we need a new roof and the tomatoes rot and the kids have to drive everywhere and you hope they avoid intoxicated friends who incidentally are also horrid drivers. One year we take a long hard look at the four walls that we call home and we find that they’re, well, crumbling. And at night it’s quiet. Very quiet. Six-feet-under-type of quiet.
Downtown. Walking with crowds again, to and from work, looking at store windows, smelling not the roses but the coffee. Stopping to drink it. Getting home late, waking early. Watching construction workers leave their trucks in a vacant lot and move with their huge lunch coolers toward the newest condo project a few blocks up.
I was in my mid twenties before I set foot in a suburban house. Honest – I had never been in one before.
I’ll never forget the feeling when I woke up for the first time in our own house. One small daughter, another on the way, two cherry trees planted by me, next to each other, a yard where I put in coreopsis and campanulas (yellow and blue). It seemed right then. Almost like playing house.
Downtown. Bright lights and promises.
20 hours ago
I truly believe our cities have been abandoned by hoards of reluctant sheep following some powerful force that drags them from vibrant urban communities to the stripped of any heart and soul suburbs.
ReplyDeleteOh, I agree, and I find it annoying when this is characterized as an irresitstible force as opposed to an adaptation to cheap private transportation, and also not a little racism and/or classism.
I have sent a copy of this to my step-daughter in hopes that she will understand ahead of time about these notions we find only a couple of decades into experience.
ReplyDeleteShe seems locked into a suburban existence and dissatisfied with all it has to offer, albeit in central Texas.
When I went down from Colorado to join her mother we were both budding artists supposedly open to what you speak of, the hollowing out of the cities. We could have taken over non-traditional buildings to raise her two children, but she balked in the end into an endless charade of moving to "better neighborhoods" that didn't exist. There's a longer story to it, but I will spare you and everyone here all that.
oh, I'd love to hear that story!
ReplyDeleteAnd congrats to Nina for a move well done and I wish you many happy years there!
me: currently living in the woods, far away from the city and liking that too. for now.
i look forward to the day when we get to move back to a downtown. any downtown!
There's country and there's city. Then there are the suburbs. They have forced development that disturbed the ecosystem (the wild things are fighting back though!) and they depleted cities of their essential and charismatic character. When I worked in Milwaukee, I found walking downtown after hours to be the single most depressing experience in my entire day, and my days (at the firm, doing work that I did not like) were full of potentially depressing experiences.
ReplyDeleteI agree, why do so many people chose to live in the suburbs, in expensive homes that are essentially tract houses, all landscaped the same with a little plot of land? I grew up in the country but moved to the city for about 15 years. The only time I was truly happy in the city was when I lived in the oldest neighborhood downtown. There was such a vibrancy. I've lived in the country for over 15 years now and feel as if I have come home. So I agree - give me downtown or the country! I want nothing to do with anything inbetween.
ReplyDeletesaul: yes, mini dogs for people with maxi budgets. My neighborhood is removed from that and I love it in all its complexity! Soon, I'll take a good walk through it soon.
ReplyDeleteearth girl: I have grown to despise the yew bush -- the easy maintenance solution to characterless front yards. And the grass -- do not get me started on grass issues. True, it is possible to fight back and change the landscape of your piece of heaven, but I don't know that it's possible to change the essence of the suburban existence. Ever wonder, for example (because I did, all the time) why 90% of outdoor social activity takes place in the back yard?
After I got married, my former spouse and I bout a house in Silver Spring, MD -- a suburb of DC. Our daily commute into the city was an hour each way (because of rush hour traffic and the need to drop the baby at child care). As a result, once we came home from work, we were reluctant to venture back into the city for evening activities. Though I loved owning my own home (my first time EVER living in a house rather than an apartment), I felt stifled in the suburbs and couldn't wait to get out. Never again.
ReplyDelete"Soon, I'll take a good walk through it soon."
ReplyDelete-----
Nina, Have you seen the Greenbush neighborhood memorial sculpture at North Murray and Regent? I'm not sure if that's your neighborhood, but close enough (1 block south of the Kohl Center).
It is steeped in history and very interesting to read the panels from former residents about growing up there. (Though some are fading from the sun and have weeds growing between panels -- not too well cared for, it seems.)
I drove past it many times -- looks like a triangle with a swan's neck -- but finally stopped to check it out the day I was moving out of the neighborhood. (My friend had returned a UHaul on Washington and was walking back to my old apt. when he read it and alerted me.)
Check it out if you haven't already. I bet you would like it. Very inspiring and "bloggable" :) MaryG