Neighbor Guy
City People. Urban Living. Other Stuff.
All I Want For Christmas
It's the holidays again, and Neighbor Guy is making a list and checking it twice. The holidays are a good time to be a city dweller. For starters, the quickened pace of city life helps to ensure that everybody's shopping gets completed on time. Also, the proverbial holiday rush is less of a shock to the system, because people tend to be rushing more or less all of the time anyway.
But, I digress. (So what else is new?)
Naturally, Neighbor Guy's holiday wish list consists of measures that might be enacted to improve City Life As We Know It. He'd like to see more urban investment and less suburban flight. For that matter, he'd like to lure a few suburbanites back to town.
He has his work cut out for him in this regard. Residents of suburbia tend to be wary of their urban dwelling counterparts. They view anybody who chooses to live in a city as a hopeless idealist at best and a cultural elitist at worst. They harbor a not-so-secret desire that the entire urban revivalist movement would simply fall into a giant pothole and vanish forever.
The idea of replacing a blighted house with a community garden or pocket park strikes the typical suburban dweller as odd when there are parcels of untouched land outside of town just waiting to be converted into a public park or, better yet, a cookie-cutter subdivision.
They tend to view 50 plus years of urban disinvestment as the laws of economics running their proper course. It's Manifest Destiny all over again, only this time the pioneers are lawyers and dentists and they drive SUVs instead of covered wagons.
Nevertheless, efforts are being made to lure them back. In my neighborhood, I've seen newly constructed town homes with three-car garages that occupy entire city blocks. These gargantuan residences look as though they have been airlifted straight from the thickest patches of suburbia.
(One can't help but wonder if the occupants were able to get out in time.)
Still, these homes offer the square footage and creature comforts to which the typical suburban dweller has become accustomed. Tax breaks offer the financial incentives many need to justify moving. Charters provide a suitable alternative to public schools.
Will these steps to replicate the suburban lifestyle inside city limits be enough? Maybe if our suburban friends could be assured they wouldn't have an urban dweller for a neighbor, this would seal the deal.
It's a far-fetched notion, but fanciful thinking is an important part of the holiday tradition.
