Running away (or…Beany’s rant)
I’ve been having a hard time lately in trying to read some of the blogs I read regularly. They are filled with such happy, positive information about reaching out and forming communities. About doing good, about being a happy, shiny, person that I’d like to be.
And I’m reading meditation articles about doing metta meditation on various people: me, people I like, people I don’t know, people I dislike. I finally gave up and just decided to focus on me because I am important and I should learn to like myself first instead of all these other people I may or may not care about.
I am aware and its true that I am leaving this city in a little over a month (~36 days), but the negative feelings I have toward this entire city is getting worse and worse everyday.
I just hate this city. I hate the people, I hate the trash, I hate the noise, I hate the aggression, the anger, the abuse I see on public transit between parents and their kids, the people who don’t pick up after their dogs, the crappy public transit, the aggressive drivers, the pervasiveness of certain institutions, the political corruption, the homeless people, the lack of enforcement of noise ordinances, the crappy service from service workers, and on and on and on.
I read this post by Daharja last week and thought a lot about her message, the point that hit me the hardest was this one:
If you are in a large city (anything above about 200,000 people counts as large in my books), get out of it.
Because:
In times of unrest and uncertainty, that’s where the riots will be.
And I realized with a start that that was true - at least considering where I live now.
But first I should explain why I wound up living in crappy areas to begin with.
When I first began studying about racial relations and American history in college, I learned the importance of taxes. I learned that property taxes and income taxes (city/state) play a big role in who gets what: public playgrounds, pools, trash pickup, street cleaners, libraries, etc. After some bit of thinking, I decided to voluntarily live in economically depressed areas because I wanted to effect some sort of change with my money in whatever tiny way I could, because money talks. Picking an economically depressed area in this city is easy-peasy: there are only three pockets of the city (of roughly a few city blocks - small city blocks) that are not actually "ghetto". The rest is all crap. So I just began living in crappy areas. Its true that I wanted to save money, but overall the savings on rent was basically minimal, especially considering the fact that I have a tendency to live in small spaces and have a very frugal lifestyle.
But now…I am just beaten and the optimism I used to have is replaced with just hardened anger. Yes, I had this grand illusion that I would be some sort of saviour - that was naive and foolish of me. But its a bit hard to be the only person on a block to recycle/bicycle/sweep the sidewalk/contain marital conflicts indoors/contain trash and entertainment choices indoors/etc/etc. One of the reasons I moved into my current neighborhood was because the place is ethnically one of the most diverse in the city. I had alot of positive thoughts of how I thought life would be like here. But it isn’t how I thought it would be. I don’t know…it just makes me very sad. Its very depressing to ride through the city (one of my big hobbies is exploring parts of the city by bicycle), and see all this decay everywhere. I am not Mike from Satan’s Laundromat, I don’t find urban decay fascinating anymore. I feel very sad seeing how this city was poised for greatness 40-50 years ago and then just fell apart and never quite recovered.I’m sad that the general attitude I perceive is one of negativity. In a nutshell, this is not the place for me. I think I’m going to keep running away until I find a place that I can tolerate. I hope that happens before I am senile.
—-
The odd thing is I don’t live in a area where there are burned out shells of buildings. Its true that there is some sort of crack den a block away (per scary newspaper stories) from me, but its basically a middle class neighborhood. I think its the people that make the city, and I just dislike the people in this one.
Cities and dense living are supposed to be very good for the environment. They allow public transit to work effectively. Farmers markets can come to just one location. Everything is compressed, easy to walk to, vibrant culture, blah blah blah.
Even knowing that, I generally don’t like cities. I visit San Francisco a fair amount and used to live there. The people may be nicer or they may not. They will care more in terms of recycling, biking, etc. but it’s still crowded and dirty. People still fight outside or throw trash where they shouldn’t. That just seems to happen when you get a lot of people living in close proximity.
I live in the suburbs outside of SF. They’re not like suburbs you read about where it’s miles to a grocery store, etc. We’re pretty dense here though not as dense as a true. It seems a happy medium.
Still, though, I long for the freedom of rural life. For my kids to run and run and run and run. To look out over the horizon and see only trees, plants, clouds - not skyscrapers or other homes. I just don’t think we’re meant to live in cities but there are too many of us on the planet now to live any other way.
Comment by Green Bean — July 29, 2008 @ 12:23 am
I lived in Philadelphia for a couple of year and pretty much confined myself to center city - how yuppy of me!
Between Center City and Univ of Penn, all seems pretty nice. Love the brown stone buildings and the history within them.
But whenever I ventured out of Center City, it always shocked me how run down Philly was. We did a Christmas in April project for a west Philly neighborhood and it dismayed me to see how the residents simply did not care about their living environment. While we clean their upstairs, hung dry wall and repainted, the residents of the particular house sat downstairs eating pizza and watching day time soap.
I felt sad because I saw how beaten down they were. And I was not courageous enough to live there. I still have hope though that one day even the beaten beyond repair people can be inspired to care about themselves. And then their home and their community.
Comment by CindyW — July 29, 2008 @ 3:07 am
Recently I was in Shanghai, a huge, noisy, crowded, polluted, chaotic, hot and humid city. I dislike big cities in general and cared little for it when I was there. But it had this energy that was pooled by the people there. They seemed hopeful. They wanted to go somewhere. They seemed to care about something (not sure what it was). Perhaps that is the difference between Shanghai and Philly - one seems full of hope and trying to go somewhere and the other seems dispirited and waiting to expire.
Comment by CindyW — July 29, 2008 @ 3:13 am
GB: sfordinarygirl has urged me to consider one of SF’s suburbs since they apparently aren’t like the ones here. I am open to the idea of living in one (if we wind up there, we still don’t know where we’ll eventually wind up), especially since we’re both homebodies not the club going kind. It makes me sad that these dense areas are going to be first in line (and hardest hit) for all these upcoming catastrophes (food shortages being one). Ten people banding together at the farmers’ market isn’t going do much considering the thousands that visit walmart for food.
Cindy: One of our favorite cities on the E. coast is Baltimore and its because of that positive vibe we got from its residents. There was this general feeling of optimism everywhere we went. And we did go everywhere.
In fact we were walking to our Bed and Breakfast on an extended trip there once, got lost, and accidentally found ourselves in the supposedly scary ghetto near Johns Hopkins (we didn’t realize it at the time). Now that I think back on it, one of the reasons we weren’t aware that the place was so sketchy was because the place was clean and there were no burned down shells of buildings or crackheads lining up the streets bothering everyone. Its probably the rose colored glasses, but I just cannot remember any trash.
Comment by Beany — July 29, 2008 @ 9:19 am
I live in a suburb outside of Detroit. Yes, I agree. The people do make the city. Detroit’s mayor is accused of a whistle-blowers scandal, assaulting a police officer and possibly collaborating on the murder of a stripper who entertained at a party at his mansion. His affair with his chief of staff is only the icing on the cake. Consequently, the public school system is haunted by a staggering defecit, crime is at an all time high and we are also ranked as one of the nation’s fattest cities. Hmmm, is there a connection here? Add to that the free fall of our economy due to the incredibly bad businesses decisions of the three American automotive manufacturers based here and you have a down-right miserable city. Good for you for staying put for so long and doing good for your community. I wish I had some of your resolve!
Comment by eco 'burban mom — July 29, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
I think this is another reason why your upcoming adventure will be so great…you’ll have the chance to find a place you can really fall in love with. Sounds like it’s coming at just the right time too!
Comment by melissa — July 30, 2008 @ 4:29 am
Eco Mom: I’ve been following the Detroit scandal for several months now. When I think it can’t get worse - it does! We had a similar scandal with lower level flunkies using up city funds for their tacky lifestyle. And yes, the school here have problems just like Detroit. What is wrong with these people??
Melissa: I don’t know if the adventure will be great (trying not to get hopes up and then get disappointed), but it certainly will be different! In my fantasy world, we will have money to last us through a trip down the entire west coast before settling down. We’ll see how that works out.
Comment by Beany — July 30, 2008 @ 8:21 am