Is it racially and economically mixed, or mostly homogenous? Liberal or conservative? Urban, suburban, small town, or rural? Do you know your neighbors? Do you like them? Do you feel safe walking around?

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

Answers

It's a suburban neighborhood. Most everyone here is white, though I've noticed a black family and a couple of Asian families down the block. It's economically mixed within a narrow range - there are some people we know are blue collar (a woman who does painting and construction) and others who are white collar (me, a tech writer, a librarian, others). A couple of families who are considered trashy; some houses where they have mercedeses or expensive RVs.

Many of our neighbors are older, in at least their 50s, and some are retired. There are some kids around but they're further down the street. This is fine with us since I don't like kids and my husband is sort of a premature geezer who would just as soon talk to the old guy next door about his tools.

We've only lived here since May but it's the house where my husband grew up, so he knows everybody. The people across the street are the parents of his best friend and are nice. We visit some other parents of a high school friend of his on the next street over. We like most of the people around here - the only one we don't like is a guy I've never even met but have heard stories about. He's the neighborhood cranky drunk. When we've had parties we've invited folks and they seemed to have a good time. I like having older people at a party and seeing how they have as much fun as the kids.

It's very safe here. Lots of people walk their dogs, at all hours. I wave to some of them.

People don't hang out in their front yards - we don't have front porches. On Saturdays you'll see people working in their yards and we say hi to them then, and go to their garage sales.

I wouldn't mind having a little more contact with people, the stuff you describe about walking the dog and having old people ask you to bring him up to them to say hello. But I love the quiet, very very much.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

Very mixed, very urban, mostly liberal politically and socially. No, I don't know my immediate neighbors, but in other areas of SF where I've lived, I did know some of them and even liked some of them.

I feel pretty comfortable walking around this area, in general - but I don't think any place is really "safe" no matter where it is. When I watch the news, it always seems like there are more weird crimes, kidnappings, etc. happening in the 'burbs and more rural areas, but maybe that's just my perception.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

I agree with you about suburbia vs. rural areas vs. urban areas and crime, Judy. I practice in a very large geographical area -- central California from the Oregon border down almost to Los Angeles, to the Nevada border on the east and just excluding the coastal counties to the west. It's largely rural and small-town, with a few mid-sized cities: Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, Modesto, Sacramento. All of those cities have pretty significant crime problems, but most of my cases from those locations have been what I think of as urban crime -- drugs, mostly, with the occasional robbery or burglary or car theft (don't see many of those because the perpetrators never get caught).

From the poorer suburbs we see domestic violence, more drugs, gang offenses, drive-bys, shootings, stabbings, you name it. From rural areas, we have more drugs -- but often more serious, involving meth labs or major conspiracies -- plus child molestation, shootings, and other ickiness.

Of course, some of that has to do with what gets charged, what gets pled down, what gets punished harshly so the defendant appeals. But I don't really think rural areas or the suburbs are any safer than cities.

I grew up in the country, and I don't think I'd walk along my parents' nearly deserted road at night even with my dog. People out there are far more likely to have guns, I think. There was a random unprovoked murder out there a few years ago, and a rapist working a rural area not far away, and all sorts of occasional badness.

I like living in the city. In the country, there is no one to hear you scream. No one.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

I live in S.F. on a street that everyone seems to take their dogs for walks on. Not that I mind dogs, but I mind that the owners never pick up after them. We rent a flat in the most run-down house on a nice street, with a bunch of multi-unit houses with renters and some really well-restored single family houses.

When we first moved in it was sorta seedy, but then it seems everyone else realized why we liked it and drove up the cost of living past the point where we are living in a neighborhood we can no longer afford. I love it because it's so easy to get around without a car, but all the new people moving in want to bring their big SUV's, too, and park them on the sidewalk, thankyouverymuch! (But I just call DPT and they merrily send someone to give out a hundred dollars' worth of parking tickets, heh heh heh)

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

When we moved into this apartment complex, fresh from Connecticut, we could barely afford it, or to eat for that matter. The first, the one-bedroom, faced the length of another building, four up and four down facing four up and four down. Sixteen households, not all of which we knew. But when the tornado sirens sounded, we'd all be out in the parking lot together looking around (not inside in our bathrooms, which would give only marginal protection anyway). Besides, we've never actually had a tornado. We knew Bill and Lanie, and the old drunk who drank red wine on her deck all day, and Jesse and Jaime, and the woman whose mother lived with her who used the mother's disabled license in her car and parked her car in the disabled space even when the mother wouldn't leave the house for days and never drove. (We all hated that.) We knew (by sight) the Satanists across the hall who only lasted two months before being evicted (whew!).

In the new, two-bedroom apartment, we've moved to the other end of the complex. Bill and Lanie bought a house; Jesse and Jaime moved back to Minneapolis. Now we know the neighbors' pets--the two Persians, one half shaved like a lion, Cathy and Colin's two cockatiels and two lovebirds--but not the names of the three households who share our entry, and we don't face eight decks on eight apartments anymore. I miss that.

But we do have the Highline Canal trail near us, and we know all the regular walkers there. And the old woman Esther who lives alone in her little white clapboard house off the trail with lots of birdhouses and a dingy white horse named Clancy. And we wave to the old people in the assisted living place that backs onto the trail, and we spook the prairie dogs, and pet the dogs--the miniature Akitas, Gus the basset hound, the several labs and lab mixes named Dakota and Cheyenne and Casey and Bailey and Stonewall. (Stonewall Jackson, because his owner is Virginian, not Stonewall the bar.)

I'd never walk on the trail at night; I wouldn't even walk less than half a mile to Safeway at night. I'd drive up to the National Park and wander alone looking at an eclipse, but I wouldn't do it in the city park across the street. The complex clips unhelpful mutterings to our front doors about armed robbery in our immediate vicinity, and we lock our doors. I don't like that.

Racially and ethnically, the complex is mixed. Lots of Indian or Bangladeshi men share apartments, play tennis, ride the bus downtown. I see quite a few Russian and other ex-Republic immigrants taking their early morning constitutionals and tried to talk to a man reading a Russian language paper at the pool last summer, but very little Russian survived my intense hatred of my college courses and his English was nearly nonexistent so that didn't last long. (Denver has a huge Russian Jew population.) The kids play, kidlike, in English and Spanish and Russian and Hindi.

Someday I want to live on a street with porches that people sit on, with children playing and dogs barking and old trees. Someday.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

This sounds terrible, but I don't know anyone in my neighbourhood. We live in an apartment building, but other than nodding to each other in the elevator nobody seems to socialize much. We live on a major street, surrounded by other apartment buildings and fairly inexpensive townhouse complexes. About the only notable thing about the area is that any fast food restaurant you can think of is within a five minute walk of our place. Other than that there is almost nothing around here. Except for one scabby, rundown park and three Tim Horton's. I'd love to move but their is next to nothing available in our price range and our actual apartment is really nice.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

I live in New York City, in Manhattan way up at 125th street. The thing is, though, I live all the way to the west. I live right by Grant's Tomb, Riverside park, the Hudson River, and I feel completely safe during the day. There are loads of dogs around, and kids, and a zillion kinds of people, except the rich kind. During the summer, the kids play in the street and use the fire escapes as basketball hoops. They sometimes let a fire engine spout across Broadway and clean the buses, cabs and cop cars. There are more people in a 5 block area than probably the town I used to live in. I couldn't believe how close the polling places were on Tuesday. At night, I feel fine walking to and from the subway, but I don't hang out outside. it used to be a pretty crime-ridden area, and i still feel uncomfortable about that. In the summer there are always people around and everyone is pretty friendly, for new york.

Whats really wierd is that my neighborhood feels incredibly peaceful and quiet. There are no neon signs, rarely loud music, and its residential. Thats compared to some of the more popular or busier parts of Manhattan. But then I go to Brooklyn or Queens and its like the country. They have green trees! 4 story buildings! All our buildings here are minimum 6 stories. Its very strange. I really love my neighborhood even if its not as exciting or young as places like the East Village. Its very real and normal and diverse. I know people in my building and a few people who live around, but mostly no, I don't know my neighbors, although I recognize a lot of people. I guess New York culture is a bit different: its centered on the apartment building. I know a bunch of those folks, and could borrow sugar from them. Its wierd how I feel like its a small place, but I don't know most of the people on my street. I feel fairly anonymous and I like that. Where I used to live, I said hello to everyone in the morning and it was nice in a different way. I like this better, I have to say.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

Hackney, East London. has a bad reputation, sorta. supposed to be a rough end of town. The Krays are from here. but I dunno. it's a little rundown, definitely a workingclass neighborhood. the nice thing about London is that segregated/homogenous neighborhoods stand out as exceptions: in general (especially compared to Boston) more ethnically mixed. that said, there are definite regional concentrations. So right around my street there are tons of turkish people, slightly dominating the mix of caribbean and black british, white brits, africans, and europeans. now and again a fabulous glanmpunk with neon dreadlocks and platform boots and a furry jacket strolls by. A quarter mile away, there are a slew of vietnamese shops and restaurants. My only wish is that there were some cafes. hangout spots for me. There are west indian and turkish restaurants with like two tables and a counter, but they're mostly just for family I think, and not a place to sit with a coffee and a book. I think there's a liberal undertone here, but not a lot of overt political stuff around existing parties. there are regular posters from the socialists, and graffiti for the turkish communist partty (TIKB), though.. It's not particularly queer-oriented here, unfortunately. No gay or lesbian public displays of affection. It's urban, but there are trees, and a green or two, slightly littered and still brownish from winter.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

I live about an hour north of NYC, in Putnam County NY. It is very rural and I live in a neighborhood where every house has at least an acre of land. It's a quiet street that creates a loop with a country road.

I know my neighbors on either side, but I wouldn't say we're really friends with them. If we see them outside we talk to them, but it's not as if our houses are very close together.

Everyone I've met in my neighborhood is friendly. Mostly it's younger families with kids and dogs and from what I've seen it's mostly white with a few asian or hispanic families mixed in.

Since we live on a very quiet street, and it forms a loop with the road, in the spring, summer, and fall lots of people walk around the neighborhood. I've met all the dogs and their owners and eveyone has been especially friendly. It helps to have cute dogs when you're walking around. Everyone wants to pet my super puppy.

I personally love my neighborhood. I think it's a great place to have kids because there are other kids around and it's a safe place to play. If I need something I can always hike next door and ask a neighbor. The kids come around on Halloween and it's a quiet place to spend time in the summer. My yard is big enough for the dogs to play and I don't hear the traffic from my house.

The only thing I really had to get used to is how dark it is at night. There are NO street lights and if the moon isn't out it's really really DARK.

It's suburbia, but I love it.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

I practice in typical small town northern Ontario...homeogeneously white, middle class, married with children. I live just outside said small town in typical northern Ontario farm country...a mix of upper middle class/professionals looking for space and privacy, middle class union guys who earn a nice living at the local mill/government job/etc but have a farm on the side and full time farm families who, unfortunately, don't have the income the rest of us have. I live on 21 acres and my nearest neighbours are 40 head of angus cattle. I know my human neighbours quite well and we call on each other as necessary and they watch out for me quite a bit (knowing that I am a SF living alone). I walk my dogs anytime I want, around my home or my office, and with 4 adult Rottweilers I am not at all nervous , however I won't let my Pugs outside without a Rottweiler escort due to the local coyotes/foxes/wolves/etc. I love it here and would like to retire here in 30 years or so.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

Wow, this is really cool! I love hearing about people's neighborhoods. I find the whole concept of neighborhoods fascinating, probably because I grew up in the country and while we technically had neighbors, we didn't really have a "neighborhood."

Dean, I'm with you on the dog poop. I've stepped in my share of poop, usually in my own front yard (but not from my dog), but I think that people in midtown Sacramento are generally pretty good about cleaning up. The problem is that there are quite a few dogs in my neighborhood that go under their fences and run around, and of course no one cleans up after them.

I've only failed to clean up after my dog one time, and it will be on my conscience forever. I couldn't help it, though; I always carry two bags in case he surprises me by having to go twice, but this time I had somehow lost the second bag. (So I obviously littered, too.) We were a long way from home and there weren't even any big sycamore leaves for me to scoop it up with. I'm a civic minded person and I know it's my job to clean up after my dog, but there is no way in hell I'm going to touch dog poop with my bare hands or with leaves from an ornamental plum, which was all that was available. So to whoever lived in that apartment building and had to deal with it, I'm really sorry. I'm already aware that I'm going to hell.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

I live in an old apartment building in North Seattle. Of course, it's not old in that charming, quaint way that really old buildings are, because it's one of those buildings that were built in the 60's/70's "Ugly Is Beautiful" era...you know, that Housing Project ambience apparently inspired by Soviet gulags. Also, the other apartment buildings on my block are rather chic, or at least presentable, so of course I ended up in the one eyesore in the whole neighborhood. It's a diverse mix of people on my block. On the one hand it's very working class sort of neighborhood, mostly wood-frame houses with a few newer apartment buildings (except for mine, of course), many blue-collar type families, the requisite Camaro up on blocks on the lawn. But there are also a lot of Asian, Indian, Pakistani, and other immigrant groups here. I live right down the street from an Indian food market, a Vietnamese Pho restaurant, and a Korean church, so it's a real varied setting. I like it, although I don't have much interaction with anyone in my building. This building just has a weird vibe. A friend of mine said it's like one of those apartments in movies like Taxi Driver where weird, creepy loners sit and go crazy while writing insane rants. I felt there was a hidden message there,

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

We live in Denver, a short distance from Fairmount Cemetery in a complex with six high rise buildings and a bunch of town homes. In side the area are two parklike common areas with grass, trees and a pond. We know a few people here but not too many - - - - - the rest are friendly enough, just haven't had much of a chance to meet and sit and drink coffee with them and get acquainted. There are several public parks near by, one where we take our walks. This is a reasonably quiet, peaceful area. I think the most disadvantageous thing about living here is the high concentration of gasolene engine pollutants which get pretty hairy during rush hour and Denver is getting to the point of being in rush hour condition all the time. We are near our doctor and the clinic, near the supermarkets, the hardware store and in between Walgreens, 8 minutes or less to Costco and about the same for K Mart. Walmart maybe 12 Minutes and Target and Mervyns 5 minutes, My credit union is near Costco. So we have everything nearby around us but not nearly enough cash to patronize more than two at a time, it is hilarious, but when we do come up with the pennies we do not have to go far to spend them. I do like where we are, but I miss being able to bike out into the country like I did as a kid - - - the country is too far out now.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

My husband and I live in mainly Jewish neighborhood. I think I am the only Japanese around this part of town. There are two big synagogues within 10-mile radius. When it is Jewish Holiday season, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kipper and other holidays, there is neighborhood specific traffic problem. ;-)

The supermarket food sections are catered toward Jewish Holidays and of course all things are Kosher. When Michigan used to close stores on Sundays our neighborhood supermarkets were open from 9 a.m. Sunday.

Despite what Rob of Book of Rob says (;-), greater Detroit suburban area is really nice areas to live. Also Ann Arbor, a college town is great place to live. There is a lot of culture there. It is second best college town to Cambridge, Mass, where I lived before Michigan.

Kari (my first post! Wow)

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

i thought i should balance the discussion with an antipodean response .. i live in metropolitan Sydney, NSW, Australia. About 14 miles from the centre of the city. i have thousands of acres of national park for my backyard, and suburbia out the front door. there are germans, japanese, korean, english people in the street. we know most of the immediate neighbours, and have a "bushfire alert" telephone list with each other's phone numbers on. the schools are within walking distance, and a small local shopping centre with about a dozen shops. we feel perfectly safe leaving the doors unlocked even when we're out. crime is very low in this district. i can go for a walk after dark in total safety. i feel very privileged to live here!

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

Another antipodean response (from sunny Matraville, Sydney; where are you from Jilly?):

Type: suburban, largely Department of Housing-owned. Pretty isolated, even though we're relatively close to the city, and we've always been that way. I've always thought of Matraville as being a place that even some of the residents have never heard of. I once did a search for Matraville on the Net and found only three pages with references to it, all of which came from my site. Do I feel safe walking around? Not particularly. Daylight's OK but wouldn't really like to chance it at night. We know only a few of the neighbours but we like most of the ones we know. Mum lives in abject terror of some of the rest. Few kids in the street since the new Housing Commission people moved in, but they don't make much noise and they're OK. You do get a few troublemakers, such as the Aboriginal woman and her boyfriend across the road, who used to have a penchant for getting wrecked on drink and/or drugs and having screaming matches out in the street at three in the morning. Fortunately, though, they haven't done this for a while, and now they only seem to do it ever three or four months instead of every other night. Plus there's some kids from down the bottom end of the street have been pests in the past.

It's just about tolerable nowused to be nice, quiet and boring, and frankly I think I preferred it when it was less interesting than it is now. As more and more Housing Commission places go up and more and more Housing Commission people move in, though, I don't see it improving a bit. I've lived in this area for all of my 25 years (the first 3 in the immediately adjacent suburb. the last 22 in the house where I currently am), but if I were to move away from here I don't think I'd miss it. Which is sad, perhaps, but it's that sort of place.

Tonight We Sleep In Separate Ditchesround and round, up and down, through the streets of your town

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2000

wow!,this is really cool Beth.. well,I live in the heart of sanfrancisco,the -western addition-.I love it here.I live in a large Edwardian flat with a few roommates,its typical city-roomy stuff.I'm also near-dog park(almo square,though I dont have a dog now,lol).We're near the U.s.f. campus so there are a lot of students in the area.Also my neighborhood is just a few blocks north of the golden gate pan-handdle,so escape from the city is possible,even without a car(for now).We have Pac-heights to our north and the castro to the south,so money people and liberal-cross gender bending dorks either get along,or tend to be in one and the same person.Gentrification is begininning to get to us but I think we have a few months..? I've been in s.f. for 6 yrs. now,but my current neighborhood is the best.3 years and counting,and they are not going to budge the likes of me.ha, ha...Every race imaginable,and sexual-orientation seems to cross any and all boundries. Okay,enough of this...it was cool to see some posts from sydney,hope to go there someday. yawww!

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2000

Hello There. I enjoyed your article on your neighborhood. I haven't fallen in love with the neighborhood where I now live... I am held up a bit by the fact that is "Ranch Style". I do love our immediadte neighbors they are lovely people and loveably odd in their own way. What I prefer to write to you about is the neighbor hood that I have most recently left, and am still in love with. The neighborhood that I love is in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It is an older neighborhood, and irrigated, so it supports large trees and is noticeably 10 degrees cooler in the heat of summer. It is like an oasis in the city. You pull off of the busy city street onto a tree lined road with desert dove, and humming birds. There have been hawks and owls there as well. My favorite bird is an escaped fighting cock. He showed up several years ago, when he was very young. He is older now, and cannot fly up to the top of the tall trees any more, but he has now established a comfortable relationship with many of the cats and small dogs that live in the neighborhood. My favorite neighbor, is a lovely old man. He takes care of the neighborhood, and by the way, also takes personal responsibility in caring for the rooster, and stray cats. He used to sit on his front porch most of the time, with a "silver bullet" - can of beer in his hand. -He's retired. Other neighbors, included the "macho man" who occasionally would dash out to get his paper, or whatever, in his towel. There was the artist, that had to move, because he wound up spending so much time working on his house, that he couldn't get his work done. There were others as well. I miss them all so much, and the garden neighbor hood that I still love.

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2000

What a great topic, and I loved your neighborhood entry, Beth. My husband and I are new to Appleton, WI, and just bought a house. We haven't moved in yet, but we've already learned a lot about the neighborhood. Appleton is small town/conservative in some ways, big emphasis on families, schools, predominantly Lutheran and Catholic. But Lawrence University, a small and I guess prestigious liberal arts college, sits right downtown. It gives this area a more liberal feel. There are lots of natural foods stores, independant bookstores, vetetarian and ethnic restaurants, (the chef who lives next door to us says Appleton's sushi place is better than any he's been to in California!), and quirky shops. The house we bought is close to downtown, so I'm happy about that. You can see the Fox River from the back of the house, and a paved walking trail that leads to a frisbee-golf park. Unfortunately, you can also see the paper mills (the area's biggest industry) right on the river, too. The house, and all those around it are around one hundred years old. Some show their age, but others have been beautifully updated. There are Hispanic families in the neighborhood, and Hmong. There is a large Hmong population here. When we first moved here, the library had a huge display on highschool kids that are gay; it had pics of them with essays they had written on the difficulties, challenges and predjudices they faced. I was impressed. Its not Madison, but we like it so far.

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2000

Another Londoner : ) - quick note for Trouble : Hi, Are you the Trouble that knows Heyoka? re: the coffee place shortage have you been to Columbia Road? - there are many nice coffee shops around there although at the weekend they get packed with people visiting the flower market! I think us Brits are more into sculking in pubs than cafe society although more and more starbucks seem to be cropping up everywhere at a rate of knots.

My Neigbourhood is a kind of no mans land in between Camden and Holloway ( for those of you who read Trouble's entry and want to visualise where we are in relation to the centre of london then she is two or three o'clock depending on which part of hackney she lives in and I am 12o'clock!!!) I'm really satisfied with my road it's really quiet, tree lined and has some really lovely Victorian Houses lots of cats and really interesting, fun neigbours. I have a flat in a converted house with a garden (something which is becoming a rare commodity in semi central London) At night I feel fairly safe walking alone - much more than if I were to go slightly up the road to Holloway - which has the appearance and feel of a getto! the only major problem we have here is car theft (although cars with immobilisers and alarms don't get taken as a rule anything less secure will!)

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

I live in Fox Point, a working class Portuguese neighborhood in Providence. Or at least, it once was. As the yuppie-artist-gay community of Wickenden street creeps upward and the yuppie-drunken- priviledged-idiot community of Brown university creeps downward from college hill, Fox Point keeps shrinking. Buildings are bought by scumbag landlord developers who double or even triple the rent and force out folks who's family has lived in the neighborhood for generations so they can rent to the Ivy League and Wickenden crowd. This has just happened to me, and as of April 1 I will be homeless. I can't seem to find another place in the city even though I have been looking for two months.

Right near my house is a little market where they still speak Portuguese. Up the street from that is the George Arujo park. George Arujo was a prize fighter in the early fifties, a damned good one too. He was also the second member of the Peace Corps but he was kicked out when he married a white woman. He's sorta famous around here, the bar that I go to has his picture on the wall. He did a lot for his community (and was also a dedicated member of the Communist Party until the day he died, but Sports Illustrated won't tell you that).

I happen to be good friends with George's son Mike. Mike's a cook at a restaraunt downtown, and can't afford to live in the neighborhood where he grew up, can't afford to live near the park that bears his father's name.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Hey David Grenier, I used to live in Providence -- beautiful place! Though I would have been part of the yuppie-priviledged-idiot- artist community attending the other annoying school on the hill ... I miss cobblestone sidewalks and iron fences.

My wife likes to watch Providence, and occasionally they do show some great scenes from the city. What a beautiful place.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000