Warning – This is a bit long and gets slightly off topic, but I promise to bring it back round to buying a house at the end.
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For most Americans, the most social years of our lives are our youngest years. Up through college, we have regular interaction with others in our ages group. After college, a funny thing happens. We become slowly become more and more insular and withdrawn. How else do you explain the huge explosion in online dating? It’s hard to meet people outside of work these days.
I know I am not alone in longing for the America of my childhood. The days when we left the front door unlocked, and our parents sent us out to play till dinner time. The days when we were allowed to talk to strangers and eat all our Halloween candy. The days when hitchhikers were just folks who needed a lift, and not potential psychos.
So I have taken note of many factors I believe are contributing to this anti-socialization of our communities:
--Our culture is very mobile. People don’t set down roots as much as they used to. It is rare to find someone like my mom who lived in her house for over 30 years. She knew all the neighbors and they knew her.
--Our culture is 24/7. In Europe (at least when I lived there in the ‘90s), the shops were only open in the morning and the afternoons during the week, almost never on the weekends and evenings. This meant everyone was free to spend time together since they all had evenings and weekends off.
--It is rare to find a city center or common place for communities to gather in American cities these days. In Europe, all the young singles would hang out in the city center on Fridays, and the families would stroll around on Sunday afternoons. This activity keeps everyone in close contact and keeps everyone familiar with who lives in their community. Since many folks walk and take public transportation they also interact more.
--Gated community is an oxymoron – These gates are designed to keep people out and there is not anything communal about these developments. These “communities” keep the front lawn manicured, thus you never meet your neighbors as they work on their yards. With some associations, you can’t even park out front, which means, you don’t even get a chance to say hi to your neighbor as they walk to their car. Everyone now has a pool in their backyard as opposed to using a communal pool. The only opportunity you have to meet is at the mailbox! The one thing I enjoyed about the big snowstorms in the East, was that everyone would be out front together helping shovel snow afterwards.
--Our culture, especially post 9/11, has taught us to fear and judge one another. These days, we are afraid to interact with the outside world, discipline others children, or help out someone in need for fear of being sued or shot or yelled at. We are very quick to judge others, calling them stupid, or lazy or fat. Eying them suspiciously and wondering if they are a terrorist. It’s amazing how people feel they can rip each other apart on the internet or e-mail when they would never feel at ease saying those things in person.
--Many people prefer to watch reality TV and Sports in their homes rather than to experience reality and play sports outside their homes. Our TVs have gotten bigger, while our outside lives have gotten smaller.
I think this phenomenon also explains the large growth in the size of American houses. We no longer trust the outside world, so we retreat to our inside world, our houses. Thus they need to grow to accommodate more of our lives.
So where does all this leave me in respect to my house search? It leaves me looking for neighborhoods that have sidewalks for strolling, a local pool for hanging out, and last but certainly not least, no gates. I would love to find the community of my childhood, but unfortunately, I don’t think I will find it here in Sacramento.
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23 comments:
Hi Average Buyer,
I lived in the South for a year during the '90's, and much of what you seek may still be there. My neighbors waved to one another (I don't know is there is a bigger faux pas in the South than to fail to acknowledge another person's existence), watched out for each other's dogs and houses when they were on vacation, and actually engaged in conversations that went beyond "hi" and "bye." In my experience, Southerners are more people- and neighbor-oriented than people in other parts of the U.S. That's why Southerners tend to be somewhat shell shocked when they move to other parts of the U.S., IMHO.
I think the midwest has elements as well. Madison Wisconsin was just wonderful. I lived there for a little over 6 months on assignment. It was really a perfect city in so many respects...of course, all except for the below zero winter climate.
I agree 100% with your post. Outside of East Sac., Land Park, Davis, etc. you won't find what you are looking for in the Sacramento area. It's no coincidence that the above areas are also among the few holding their values. El Doraldo Hills pretty much is the opposite of what you're describing.
We wanted more of a community as well so we left Placer County and moved to Portland, OR. We bought a house in NE Portland that was built in 1927 (1400 SF, including finished basement) and our neighborhood still has a lot of the positive traits you describe. I walk my daughter to school and tonight we'll walk to the neighborhood pool for her swimming lessons. The middle class up here still supports the public schools for the most part.
You couldn't pay me enough to move back to Sac!
Great post!
I'm here in arizona waiting the bubble out.This is the most anti social place I have ever seen.Never felt so lonely being surrounded by people.The neighbors hardly ever come out to socialize.They drive their cars right into the garage and close the door.Seems like when I'm out no one talks to you.Bartendars at chains hardly even talk to you when you go and have a drink.I'm sick of spending money at these chains with no customer service at all.They do not even acknowledge you as a customer.Home depot, walmart, it's all the same shit.
I could write a great book about my adventure down here.We are becomeing a very boring, lonely society.The internet and tv has screwed us up.
I have to disagree with MBC on E. Sac and Land Park..While they are closer to this ideal for sure, my best friend lives 2 blocks off McKinley Park and while he does know a few of his neighbors, there has been a lot of turn over by both sales of houses and the fact that a lot of the people living in E. Sac are renters. There have been burglaries, car thefts, twice while I've been there people have come to the door asking for money..nothing major, and I would feel safe enough living there, I still wouldn't let my kid play outside unattended or leave my door unlocked.
I'd have to say Land Park would probably be much worse since it is a crime sandwich, shoehorned between Oak Park,South Sac and Broadway (Do people still regularly get shot on Broadway?]
Another observation about the decline of western civilization that ties into the bubble is how little anybody cared about anybody else in the run up and still during this slow decline..I'm not just talking about pushing bad loan products, greed blinded everyone as to what the run up would mean to young families, the middle class/working class, boomers priced their own children out with glee while complaining about all their kids moving away or requiring a stipend even for "kids" in their 30's/40's. Nobody seems able to wrap their mind around the idea of selling something for a dime less than the absolute most they could get.
Another interesting aspect of the bubble was how easily, quickly people accepted these new shitty standards.. Who cares what a mortgage cost in the 90's in 2001 even, they accepted that things were changed for the worse forever. Sheeple didn't refuse to accept this by not buying until they were literally forced to by insane prices and tighter lending. Articles were published in The Bee saying that today you'd just have to get together with friends or multiple families to go in on a house together. I think this is the most depressing part, people so easily accept that today will always suck more than yesterday so don't ever expect what the "Greatest Generation" or the boomers ("Worst Generation") had.
Great post, AB.
First, I have to say that the older part of EDH in which I live is very neighborly. I confess that I am not the most sociable of people; I have four grown kids, a sig other, two dogs, and I spend my entire workday interacting with people who are dealing with health problems. It's all I can do to deal with the emotional issues of my work and my family.
However, at least 3 neighbor families have introduced themselves to us here in Governor Village. Several people walking their dogs have stopped to chat briefly with us if we are out doing yard work. In addition, many kids around here ride their bikes to the local park, which is just around the corner. There are ducks, beavers and turtles in the park and I've seen kids fishing -- but I've never seen them catch anything. We've been hit up by fundraisers from the Boy Scouts and the local soccer club. Moms stroll constantly down the main street into our neighborhood. At the entrance, on Warren off of Governor, there is a house where an older man often comes outside just to smile and wave at everyone.
Of course, this area is at least 20 or 30 years old. It's not Serrano. But there are houses for sale here, too, and the yards are beautiful and shadey.
Some of us would not live comfortably in the Southern US. And speaking as a Midwesterner, let me clue you in that in both the South and the Midwest unless you are born in an older neighborhood or small town, you will forever be a "foreigner". Not shunned, just not quite legitimate. I have argued this point in other venues, and people have told me that things are changing and that people of color and women and people of various spiritual beliefs are not treated poorly any longer in the South, but I think that attitude of tolerance is only widely practiced in large cities. From what I can see in our national discourse, these cultural beliefs continue. Think about it.
How many pundits have asked if the country is "ready for a woman president" or a "black president". It's the insular, rural areas that tend to balk at the notion of anyone other than a white guy being President. The very areas in which we all tend to believe that life is so much more "neighborly" and supportive. Perhaps so long as we all know our place.....
Many good points raised...and I'm comforted knowing I'm not alone in feeling this loss of community in cities like Sacramento. Small cities tend to still have some element of it. The megalopolises lost it long ago.
Actually one of the reasons I liked Madison (they call it the Berkeley of the Midwest), is because there is abundant diversity (in all forms) partly because it is a university town. Unfortunately Europe is the same way as the South, once a foreigner, always a foreigner.
HappyinSF - Don't get me started...I am so tired of hearing from my parents how outrageous the prices are that I pay for "insert item here". For instance, my mom seems to think I can just go find any neighbor and pay them $75 a week and they would be happy to take care of my two kids. She doesn't seem to understand that times have changed and $75 will barely get the lawn mowed these days.
Cymst - The area you live in was actually the first area I identified as one of my "target" areas...for many of the reasons you stated. You never know...one of these days, you may end up running into us as we pull our kids in the wagon on the way to the CSD pool!
Buying Time,
Your observations of the South are interesting. As an African American female (and fourth generation Californian), I was never fully accepted in the small Southern town in which I lived. However, Southern manners and hospitality meant that my neighbors actually did make an effort to speak to me and get to know me, even if I was somewhat of an oddity to them.
I walk my dog every day in Elk Grove -- twice, actually -- and more than half the time, when I say hello to someone, they don't even speak. Many don't even smile. Yes, the South probably still has its race and class issues (which I will be writing about in my novel!), but they still have better manners and greater courtesy than most in California, with the possible exception of Berkeley.
WTB -
I have never actually been to the South (it was Cymst that made the observastions). But nonetheless I am saddened by your experience....
One of the reasons I have always been so proud to be a Californian is because we tend to be more accepting of diversity (of all kinds....race, religion, sexual preference, socioeconomic, political, food etc.).
I have many collegues and friends from the midwest and the south. They are always chatting up people on the street, in shops etc. I see this all the time when I visit back east (NC and TN).
Now in SF and LA? Forget it. It's all about not making eye contact with anyone. Sac used to be a bit like a small midwest town and about as friendly. Now it just reminds me of a East Bay suburb.
As to why people are withdrawing socially? I could write a novel >; )
IMHO, the greatest change to our society that has decreased our civic involvement and increased our fear (because what you're really talking about is fear, you know) is the TeeVee.
Our parents, and some of us, learned to be passive consumers of the news and entertainment that humans (who are very social animals) crave. And it is the Web that is beginning to save us. Look at blogs: we don't just absorb the news, we dissect it, discuss it, argue about it.
Before personal computers became the communication tools that they are now, I remember thinking that US society was fast disintegrating into a mindless work/spend hamster wheel that was being driven by TeeVee, which seemed like the perfect set-up for a mass abdication of the rights and responsibilities of a truly informed and involved electorate.
We have teetered very close to the brink, and IMHO the thing that has saved us from going over is the Web and blogs. We also have a greater understanding of world events, and maybe even interact with people regularly online who live all over the world.
It's not the same as face to face, but let me tell you, it's a lot better than staring slack-jawed into the TeeVee every night!
If there was one thing that I'd try to pass on to young parents it would be to stop being so damned afraid.
That's hard to do. Life is dangerous. Bad things have happened, and will always happen.
But even in the sixties, with a threat of nuclear annihilation that was so real that we practiced diving under our desks and knew where the public buildings that were bomb shelters were, we didn't cower in our homes. We weren't quite ready to give up our civil liberties.
There have always been child abductions, molesters, gang-bangers, and creeps out there. We just didn't give them 24/7 news coverage.
The world is a dreadfully beautiful place, and it always has been.
Cmyst, I think whatever salvation the internet may provide is probably far overshadowed by both the advent of the Cell Phone as well as all the portable media that computers have provided, so while you can now blog on the bus, you can also watch TV or Movies or gab on the phone on the bus too. We now have minivans with personal DVD players so nobody has to talk or sing songs or look at the scenery, everyone in thier own personal isolation pod passing time.
We visited Sac last weekend, and while my Mom watched our son we decided to go to a movie. It was a 7 o' clock show at the Folsom theater. In the rows in front of us there were about 13 teenage dudes who seemed to know each other but all sitting with a seat between, they were constantly texting, or talking on the phone or getting up when they couldn't hear the phone, each one must have walked out 7 times. Strange behavior for Folsom, which I hear so much about on the blogs as such a high class place. It seemed pretty clear that they could not concentrate for more that 10 minutes on the movie (or probably anything) I'm not sure why they were even there, it seemed pointless.
Good post!
"I'm comforted knowing I'm not alone in feeling this loss of community in cities like Sacramento. "
I think that everyone here, including myself, is with you on this - at least to some extent. For myself and my sig other, I'm not sure we could ever visualize any area around Sacramento as having the type of community we'd like to live in. We're somewhat considering moving to other areas (Portland was mentioned above), partially for this exact reason (along with home prices of course). Aside from the growth of TV and the Internet, I see the problem as being related to the gross corporatization and commercialization of our towns and cities. Folsom, for instance, has just about every restaurant and store chain that exists, or pretty damn near it. It's gotten way out of hand. Why do we need all this crap? It seems the focus of the town is more on turning it into a giant shopping mall with nests of homes spread between rather than having it be a cohesive community, in the traditional sense.
BTW, Cymst and Buying Time: I used to live in Governor's many years ago. It's definately a nice place, and I would consider buying there when all the craziness ends... I'm just not sure how I feel about El Dorado Hills altogether nowadays. The term "modest" would describe my ideal community, which fails EDH now.
This is going to sound weird, but I often evade answering the "where do you live?" question. Sometimes, I say ,"oh, up in the foothills" and sometimes I say I live in Folsom. The perception is that EDH is way higher-end than I am actually living.
I did have an interesting exchange with a co-worker who obviously has much more expensive tastes in dress and lifestyle than I do. When I mentioned that I didn't mind making a trip to one of our clients because I lived close to him, she had to repeat "You live in El Dorado Hills?" three times with me affirming three times and her looking increasingly confused. It was hard to resist saying something like "Hun, you could live in EDH, too if you stopped spending your entire paycheck on your wardrobe and makeup."
PR you hit the nail on the head. One of the reasons I was looking in Folsom was the hope that I would find a community within a community. But instead, it seems to be turning into just another pocket of urban sprawl (albeit with better than average schools and a beautiful lake).
As for the exculsivity of EDH and Folsom....at least in the price range I have been looking (we're not talking serious high end homes), they seem pretty comparable to other areas. So I do get a bit confused why people think these areas are so unaffordable.
Cmyst,
What a wonderful post! I don't live in either EDH or Folsom, but I do live within my means. That in turn means that people are surprised that, given what I do for a living, that I drive a beat-up Honda (that's been paid off for the past 4 years -- it's 9 years old), don't wear expensive designer/logo garb (I get excited when Isaac Mizrahi for Target shoes go on sale!), clip coupons and shop at Winco (my siblings, whose combined salaries are less than mine, consider shopping at Winco to be "slumming" and "bottom feeding"), pay off most of my credit cards at the end of each month (I had a huge vet bill I'm still paying off) and rent instead of buying in this crazy market.
I get this all the time: "You make good money. You can afford to buy. What are you waiting for?" Well, I'm waiting for prices to come down so as not to unnecessarily reduce my disposable income, which I'd like to spend on other things, like investing for my future and travel. My feeling is that given how much I earn -- I'm not super rich, but by myself I'm way above the median salaries in the Sac Metro Area, not counting my husband's salary, which is more than mine -- why should I erode my earning power by making some Bay Area specuvestor rich? As I've said to numerous real estate agents, brokers, and mortgage brokers, you can eventually change the interest rate on your mortgage, but you can never, ever change how much you paid for your house. You have to get the best deal you can on your home price -- not with some silly incentives like granite countertops (extremely beautiful but impractical, IMHO) -- UP FRONT. You can't renegotiate it later. Unfortunately, we have an "If I can afford the payments, I can afford the product" thinking in today's society.
I've even been chided at work for not wearing suits and not looking like the others in my profession. I tell people, if you want me to wear suits, that's an additional $21,000 a year (the pay cut I took to go from private industry to government work). But, I also remind them that, according to my union contract, there's no dress code. I wear suits when I have to -- when I'm meeting with the higher-ups -- but otherwise, I decline to make my dry cleaner any richer than I have to. Plus, I love my Wal-Mart khakis at $17.00 a pair.
Americans so need to get past the useless and conspicuous consumption addiction. It's as stupid as putting rims on a Kia. (And, BTW, I rented a Kia Optima on a business trip last week. Not a bad car for the money, or at least for that week.)
WTB -
I was originally considering doing a post on conspicuous consumption, cause I feel the anti-socialization is closely tied to it. But I was a bit nervous how it would be recieved. Anyways, I am right there with you on all fronts (even the coupon clipping). Except I have to admit, I tend to over dress a bit for work because I look young for my age and there are very few women in my profession (although I don't dry clean....who wants to spend $10 to clean a shirt that only cost you $25...mostly Dryel). Unfortunately I had to get a bigger car when our family expanded. My Nissan was 12 years old and going strong, but I couldn't fit two kids and a stroller in it.
I never quite understand the need for larger vehicles due to kids, my Sister bought a huge van for her family of 4 (They have 3 vehicles!).. When we were kids, my parents always had a small 2 door sedan (we always had the crappiest cars, including a Pacer and a Chevy Citation). We have one child and no car. We recently went on a 4 day trip to Dilion Beach with my mom in her Toyota Corolla , with a swing, blow up bath, co-sleeper, car seat/stroller combo, all our luggage, a guitar and my medium format camera and spot meter.. It was more than large enough. I don't buy the driving other people around excuse either since it seems people always want to have there own car and always meet people at soccer, the olive garden, wherever. Further it has become a game for me to look in SUVs & Vans to see that single occupant driving down the road. I think it might be more a fear of driving in a small car, yet buying large vehicles only increases the fatalities on the road and fuels this protect us, screw everyone else mentality (which includes excessive gas consumption in an age where it is obviously a poor moral choice).
Sorry for the rant, which is not aimed at you AB, I have no idea what kind of vehicle you purchased or what your vehicular needs are.
"When I mentioned that I didn't mind making a trip to one of our clients because I lived close to him, she had to repeat "You live in El Dorado Hills?" three times with me affirming three times and her looking increasingly confused."
There's a lot of unnecessary hype and mystique about certain towns like EDH, Granite Bay, etc, which most people appear to buy into. Prior to all the oversized and pricey developments such as Serrano, Waterford, Sterlingshire, etc, EDH was just a nice town in the foothills where middle class folks who didn't mind a little commute would *choose to live*. We were very much average middle class when I lived there, as were most people I knew. That's not to say there weren't plenty of upper class folks there, moreso as the years went on, but the hype about EDH such as what your co-worker seems to buy into tells you that they are just uninformed, or relatively newer to the area (this probably accounts for most hype).
"I was originally considering doing a post on conspicuous consumption, cause I feel the anti-socialization is closely tied to it. But I was a bit nervous how it would be recieved."
I agree, they are tied together somehow, and I think this would be a great topic.
I guess I'm the bad girl. I bought a new Tucson with cash. We own 1 vehicle and it only gets driven if we need to leave the area or if it's storming badly. Everywhere else is on the bikes. We can go 1 to 3 months on 10 gallons of gas depending on the time of year.
"I was originally considering doing a post on conspicuous consumption, cause I feel the anti-socialization is closely tied to it. But I was a bit nervous how it would be received."
I highly recommend reading the books "affluenza" and "Nation of Rebels", They are totally spot on. "Culture Jam" has many good points even though Kalle Lasn bugs me, as well as "No logo" to round it out.
Also, "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" is pretty eye opening even though it was written in the 70's and a few points are no longer accurate.
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