Metropolitan Rural

I’m constantly amazed the people you run into at a bus stop.  When I actually take the time to strike up a conversation with someone standing next to me, I’ve yet to be disappointed or turned off.  Yesterday was no exception.

A young gentleman got off the bus at my stop and asked if another bus had been by already.  I let him know it would be there in about 5 minutes because I’m used to watching it go by just before my bus.  I also noticed an interesting accent so I asked him about it.  Turns out he was originally from Ethiopia.  Well, my wife’s best friend growing up was part Ethiopian.  I’ve met both her and her mother who now makes and sell authentic Ethiopian lentil dips to local grocery stores. 

Turns out he runs an international food catering business.  I’d give him a plug, but he was out of business cards at the time.  We had a nice conversation over the next 5 minutes about food and I also found out that him and his wife only have 1 car as well.  He left it at home with her because she pregnant and expecting while he was out doing errands. 

It’s fun to meet and connect with local people.  I need to make more efforts to do that.  If you’re like me, I often feel so busy and hurried that I don’t take the time to get to know people.  Why not take a few minutes today and talk with a new stranger.  If you’re like me, you’ll find out they aren’t so strange after all!

I’ve been thinking lately about community improvements.   The question that comes to my mind is “Where do you start?”  There are several factors that go into making a nice, livable community.  Here are some of my ideas.

• Housing- Going beyond style of houses, but having a mix of single and multiple family along with different sizes and owner occupied and rentals.  There’s also the aspect of neighborhood design and at least some consistency in style of setbacks and such that factor in here.  Of course, there’s also the big one of condition.
• Education- Here I’m thinking everything from elementary schools to adult education and literacy programs.  You don’t need a neighborhood full of PhD’s but it sure helps to have a neighborhood where everyone has some basic education.  Enough so to stay in touch with the rest of the world and make smart, well-informed decisions.
• Business - Local businesses are often touted as the key to bringing an area back around.  Local shops provide not only necessary goods and services, but also a local sense of connectedness for the residents to meet and share common bonds.

These are 3 great areas that can have a great impact on a neighborhood.  The problem is, where do you start?  There are some “really nice” neighborhoods around with very nice houses, a highly educated residential base and almost no businesses.  Those don’t interest me because the people don’t feel as connected to each other.

The same can go for any 2 of the 3 or any single one.  Areas that have all 3 of these things going from them really thrive and grow (in my experience).  If you start with housing, you can often start to attract more highly educated people to the area as they are more likely to have a higher paying job which can afford the remodeled house. But if you don’t take the time to educate current residents and keep a mixed housing stock, it might seem like they are being pushed out because they would no longer “fit in” to the new demographic. 

Obviously, in this scenario, businesses would be attracted to the neighborhood.  But as incomes go up so does the draw of big box stores.  While I’m not opposed to those kind of stores (they are not “evil” as some propose them to be), they also displace the social connectedness you have with smaller, family run businesses. 

I think this all really goes down to keeping a good mix of all of these things.  Diversity in housing, education and business is necessary for a truly great experience for all.  That was always the thing that turned me off from most suburban communities.  So much of the time they are built to create sameness.  There you can live in a house that if it’s not the same as the one next door is at least the same as the one 2 doors down and be among people who have about the same education and income as you.  Everyone drives the same cars to shop at the same big box retailers to buy the same stuff to fit in their same houses. 

That all sounds like such a bore!  I guess people are attracted by that because so many of us are afraid of conflict.  Maybe if I live someplace where everything is the same, there won’t be any. 

Personally, I see and hear comments from people occasionally about such and such city neighborhood that is “coming back.”  What defines that?  I’m almost afraid at times that it is coming back because people are solely remodeling houses to try and make a big check when some well off, highly educated family moves in at inflated prices.  It seems a lot of people I talk with think that is what makes a neighborhood nice.  I don’t want to see suburban communities here in my city (I’m very worried that McKee is planning that very thing with all of his tax incentives).

How can we insure that we reach a balance in community development and improvements?  How can organizations improving these different areas work together to bring about neighborhood improvement that brings people together rather than segregating people out like we’ve done the last 50 years?

Curious Feethad a great post today of a comment from Vashon basketball coach and former prep and college star Anthony Bonner.

“Somebody once told me that you can go farther in the world with a library card than with a driver’s license.”

–New Vashon HS Basketball Coach Anthony Bonner,
As quotedby Kristen Hinman in last week’s RFT

Whoever told him that was right on the money.  But it goes beyond there.  Saint Louis city has and excellent public library system, yet people are still expected to learn on their own.  I would like to see more community education programs available.  Maybe it’s just where I live in the city, but I don’t see much of this happening.

For instance, I’ve heard and read comments from a number of my neighbors complaining about yet another application for a pay day loan store on South Kingshighway.  But that’s all that happened, complaining.  I still remember the old saying from growing up that we’ve all heard before, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day.  Teach him how to fish and he can eat for a lifetime.”  If we don’t like those businesses so much, why aren’t we willing to put more effort into teaching people how not to use them?

I also remember an extra line I once heard from that same old saying, “Teach him how to run a fish farm and he can feed a village for a lifetime.”  Now there’s some real power there!  That’s the real spirit of the American dream and small business and neighborhood mentality that we want to encourage in most of our neighborhoods.  Not only should we take the time to teach people how to avoid bad financial decisions, we should spend time to teach them how to make good ones, how to create something of value that can help a lot of people while helping themselves at the same time. 

Now that’s community.

I was listening to KWMU a few minutes ago when I heard a news story about Missouri Speaker of the House Rod Jetton defending his recent comments about “Lazy Missourians and Mexicans“.  His quote from this story is below:

“You open any newspaper that you guys publish, and look, and you’ll see all kinds of classifieds for all kinds of jobs that people need filled, and they can’t get the workers for them…so I think there are some lazy Missourians in this state who really don’t want to work, and I think there’s a lot of hard-working Mexicans who would love to come up here and make a little money and support their families…and by golly, if we could find a way to trade them, I’d trade them in a heartbeat!”

How refreshing! So often you hear people talk about immigrants in a negative light.  It reminded me of this article from today over at Doug Duckworth’s blog Random Talk on Urban Affairs.  I whole heartedly agree with both of these men.  If able bodied people are willing to come to this country and put in an honest days work when some of our own people won’t, then let them come legally. 

It’s just after 9am.  I made it safely through the ice to my bus stop and got to work at my usual time an hour and half ago.  I look around the office and notice something peculiar.

Everyone I know who takes public transportation to work is sitting soundly at their desks.

Those who drive to work are mostly working from home or called in for time off. 

Funny isn’t it?  Yet, few companies offer incentives for people to use public transportation.  And here we are getting the work done.   Speaking of which, I should get back to!

Yesterday was a holiday where I work.  However, being an hourly contractor, I don’t normally get paid for those days and I had work to do.  I decided to go ahead and go in to get some stuff taken care of in a noiseless office.  I took the latest express bus I could for the morning just so I could sleep in a bit more.  I got to the office about 8:30 in the morning swiped my badge at the door and was greeted by a red light, a buzz and a locked door.  Wonderful.

Since there are no express buses that run out of the city in the morning, getting home was going to be more of a challenge.  Though it probably takes a bit longer than a couple of buses, I opted to walk over to the metrolink and take it down to Shrewsbury and grab a bus from there back home.  I was fortunate enough to arrive at the station just as the right train was stopping. 

At least it was a nice, sunny day out, even if it was a bit cold.  We made it as far as the Forest Park station and things were pretty uneventful.  Then, we headed underground to the Skinker stop.  As the train poked out from earth between the Skinker and Big Bend stops, we were suddenly surrounded by nothing but white.  One could hardly see the Washington University campus on the other side of Forest Park Parkway.  In the matter of 10 blocks or so from the Forest Park station to there we went from sunny, blue skies to white out.  It was truly amazing.

Of course, as quickly as the storm came in, it was gone again.  Only a dusting.  But what a surprise to run into that storm while underground! 

I saw this story on the news last night.

Shots fired outside Hazelwood Central

And the whole world heard about the story in Kirkwood last week

 6 dead in shooting rampage at Kirkwood City Council

I’m glad I don’t live in the County, it’s dangerous out there!

In reality, we all know violence can happen anywhere, yet so many people in the area feel those of us who live in the city take our lives in our hands everyday.  The only real difference is, we are aware of the dangers.  Sure, there IS more crime in the city as is typically the case with a more dense population.  As communities though, we know the dangers and choose to work with each others and be aware of it rather than to ignore the possibilities and be caught off guard and surprised when it happens.

It’s always a tragedy when one person takes the life of another.  But be realistic, it CAN happen in even the nicest of  neighborhoods.  We are humans, anger can get the best of anyone  and we can make bad decisions.  Don’t think because you live in Kirkwood or Hazelwood, or even Frontenac or Huntleigh that it can’t happen to you.  The best prevention is always to know and be friendly with those  around you.  Take some time out today to say hello to a neighbor you don’t talk with ever or often.  You never know what might happen to either of you and you would have missed the chance to say a simple Hello.

My neighborhood e-mail group has been having some recent discussions regarding people walking/running in the street rather than on the sidewalk.  For the record, I almost always use the sidewalk.  Unless the snow/ice is just so bad that I’m forced into the street, the sidewalk is my haven.

I do notice a number of people who will either run or walk in the street.  Many runners on the group said it’s just safer for them because of how uneven the sidewalk is around us.  That I can understand.  That’s the bad side of having so many nice street trees between the sidewalk and the street, they cause a lot of sidewalk sections to heave over time as the trees grow. 

What I haven’t heard is people making a good defense for why people would walk in the street.  I mean, it’s called a SIDEWALK.  Side, as in, it’s on the SIDE of the street.  And Walk,  as in, you should WALK there. 

I’ve lived plenty of places that didn’t have sidewalks in the neighborhood and I much appreciate and make use of the one’s we have now.  There is, in particular, one older woman I often see at the bus stop in the mornings.  She walks about 6 blocks down a somewhat busy street pulling a little basket behind her.  With cars parked on the side of the street, there is often not exactly room for 2-way traffic as it is and yet, here she is taking up more room and putting herself in danger.  It’s not like the sidewalk is so bad she can’t use it.  Sometimes, I just don’t understand people.

Yesterday was supposed to be another night for me to teach.  I prepared by bringing the text book, note book and my laptop computer with me to work in my backpack.  Of course, with the ice storm blowing in yesterday afternoon, class was canceled.

So, it was out to the bus stop with a heavy backpack to wait in the sleet and ice rather than a trek to the metrolink.  There I was waiting…. for 45 minutes!  Talk about running late.  When will spring be here?!

The next few weeks you might not see me around here much.  Between the full-time job, the night teaching (2 nights a week) and getting the basement work done, time is going to be precious.

 I took advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday and got the garage cleaned up.  Basically, it was a lot of stacking of lumber that had been taken out of the basement and/or leftovers from working on the fence.  That let me take an hour or so on Sunday and get about half the stuff we have stored in the basement out to the garage.

I used several long 4×4 posts and some big 1×12 boards to make a large “pallet” on the garage floor so I can keep most the boxes off the floor should there be water get in the garage (which seldom, but does occasionally, happen).  I’ve got a couple tables and another dozen or so boxes to get out there some evening this week if it’s warm enough. 

That means that by next weekend I should be able to put up some drop cloths to keep dust out of the main part of the house and go to town tearing down plaster ceiling.  I’ll have a few light fixtures to work on in the process, since the one’s I’ve found down there were attached directly to the plaster ceiling without any kind of junction box.  So, I have to carefully work around those and then redo the fixture with a proper box so that I can still have some light down there when I need it. 

Anyone feel like a weekend of plaster removal, just drop me a line and I’ll hook ya up!  Heck, I could even pay ya in wood lathe or maybe even some bead board!

I won’t hold my breath.