I've lived where I am now for about 7 years, and I can't help but notice that the neighborhood is starting to look a little worn around the edges. It's sort of sad. Actually, it's very sad. Because my sense is that once the face begins to slip a little on any given neighborhood, the decline usually accelerates rather than the opposite happening. I was wondering why today...pondering the factors that lead to the sort of decline I am witnessing. I'm sure there is no one answer, and that the factors differ from one place to another, so I thought it would be interesting to describe my experience, and see what others have observed where they live.
I live in what I would describe as a fairly middle class neighborhood of Portland, or at least it was solidly middle class not too many years ago. The Brookings Institute has done some research on the census trends over the past couple of decades, and one on their findings is that the past 15 years have witnessed a marked decline in Middle Class neighborhoods...at least in terms of numbers. As a nation, we are now much more stratified into either upscale or lower income neighborhoods than at any time in our recent past. The number of solidly middle class neighborhoods is in decline.
But it's not the decline in numbers I'm curious about, though it may be interconnected in the larger picture. I'm asking about the physical decline...which in turn contributes to the socio-economic decline. I see it around me, and I have some ideas about what's going on, but they are just guesses. Lawns that go untended to for way too long, garbage/recylcing bins left at the curb for 2 days after pickup day (or sometimes all week long), litter thrown and sometimes ignored, fences that fall into disrepair and go neglected, a general indolence with respect to a home's frontal landscaping. Insularity, a lack of even cursory social interaction, an almost complete "cocooning" by people inside of the confines of their houses, which makes them oblivious to the exterior.
When I moved here 7 years ago the neighborhood was not uniformly neat and well kempt. It wasn't Maple Lane from "Leave It To Beaver", but it wasn't the wrong side of the tracks, either. It was mostly a neighborhood of modest but neat homes built in the 60's or 70's, with some much older and distinctively designed homes thrown into the mix. Mostly owner occupied, with a few rentals here and there. 3 blocks away is a private college campus...Reed College, and adjacent to the campus are a couple of large apartment complexes. So the overall neighborhood is mixed density housing...not uniformly "suburban single dwelling occupancy." According to recent census figures the population here is 89% White, 3% Black, 4% Hispanic and 4% Asian.
The seeds of this decline are not to be found in racial diversity or anything remotely associated with that. One could be tempted to blame some of the dog-earedness in the neighborhood upon the sour economy, but I'm not sure that is the culprit, either. Some of the signs predate the recent recession. They certainly haven't been helped by that recession, but I'm not sure their genesis lies there, either. I think there are larger social forces at play.
There's an old saying: "Tall fences make good neighbors." Personally, I don't subscribe to that adage, but I fear I'm in the minority...and a minority that grows ever smaller at that. It is especially not true when, as is the case with one of my neighbors, that fence is falling down. Thankfully, it's falling down between her and the neighbor behind her...and they both seem to be happy to ignore the unpleasantry.
I actually believe that the underlying message of that adage is part of what contributes to the decline of neighborhoods...the notion that neighbors are something to be walled off and ignored. In my mind, the main force that compells people to keep their homes up, and more specifically their yards...is self pride. In the absence of that, there was always the external force of being shamed by your neighbors, whom you mostly knew years ago, who were more meticulous than you might ordinarily be about mowing the grass and planting a few flowers. There was some natural peer pressure going on in neighborhoods of a generation or two ago to make at least a somewhat equal effort at upkeep.
That was when we all knew each other. Now...not so much. People don't live in one neighborhood for as long a time as they once did...so they have less of a personal investment in the neighborhood at large. To the extent that they have any investment, it is mostly in their own home, and that, increasingly, seems to be limited to the home's interior. Landscaping? External appearance? "Curb appeal", such as it is, is I believe increasingly seen as something that can be addressed relatively quickly and on the cheap when the time comes to put the house up on the market and move to some other abode, which they will then allow to fall into a similar state of shabbiness.
I've been inside the homes of a few neighbors whose outside looks rather drab and, in some cases, downright neglected...yet the inside of their home is remarkably tidy and pleasant. There seems to be a bifurcation, in their minds, as to what is worth staying on top of and what is not. And the outside is not. Yet, it is the outside of their home, and mine, and everyone else's, which lends the general appearance and impression of the neighborhood at large. It's what we all see as we drive down the street. I don't get it.
Right now, my neighbor's grass is easily 12 inches tall in the back. What's up with that? He's a disabled vet, with a PTSD case going back to Gulf War I, and all in all a great guy. He doesn't work, isn't strapped financially, and seems to be fully functional to me. Really...he's in every other sense a model neighbor, and I like him very much. He just hates yard work. He's told me so. I once told him...Mike (not his real name), it takes me all of 15 minutes to mow my lawn. How much time do you spend in one day researching your fantasy football team's results and future prospects? But he enjoys that.
Mike knows me, and he's still not shamed by his yard, even though it stands in stark contrast to mine. And I am in no way a slave to yardwork. It takes about 25 minutes a week to do basic maintenance. That's hardly indentured servitude. The real problem is with people who don't know any of their neighbors, and feel no connection at all with the neighborhood they find themselves living in. I choose those particular words, because I think they reflect part, and perhaps a large part, of the dynamic at work here. Transience. Impermanence. Mobility. The absence of any roots, or intentions of developing any. Everybody is "just passing through" these days, and whatever happens in any one place is of no consequence. Hence...decline is not a concern. (as long as it isn't so precipitous, of course, that it impacts their own home value in the 5.2 years they plan on living there)
Harder to understand is the neighbor who really does enjoy gardening, and who has made a backyard retreat that is enviable...but who allows the frontage of their house to go unimproved and remain in a rather drab, even dismal state. There is just something anti-social about that, but I'm no psychologist.
In general, people don't really spend any time outside of their homes. They cocoon themselves nicely, and go to work, run errands, hit the remote to their garage door as they approach the driveway and scurry inside, the garage door closing so quickly that it barely misses the rear bumper of their auto as it enters the garage. To the extent that they never spend any time outside of their home, looking at their property, they remain blithely indifferent to what it looks like. And since they don't really know their neighbors, they could care less what they think.
That, in my opinion, is behind a lot of what I see as I walk the neighborhood on my way to Trader Joe's or the produce mart, or just taking a walk. A willful blindness to the shabbiness they have "cultivated", an indifference to what anyone else thinks, and a disregard for how it impacts the overall neighborhood.
Are there some who may be struggling financially? No doubt. I am struggling financially myself. It hasn't, thus far, prevented me from pulling weeds or mowing the lawn, or bringing the trash bins back up from the curb after the truck has come through the neighborhood. Or picking up a can that some kid has tossed onto the yard during the night. Pride doesn't, at the end of the day, cost a whole lot. But admittedly, it costs more than "who gives a rat's ass?"
It is a lack of pride that I see going on in my neighborhood and that is contributing to its slow decline. That and indifference and indolence. And unconnectedness.
I'm curious if others see this as well, or what your thoughts are if you find yourself living in a neighborhood that seems to be on the cusp of sliding.