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sauergeekI've had the song lyric in the subject* going through my head for several days now. It hits close to home every time I hear the song. I don't think I've ever felt like I was ever living somewhere I belonged -- somewhere I should have been. Even living in the house in Belmont never felt like the place was mine; on moving out it felt like I'd been holding the place for someone else, with the side bonus of getting an extra-fat return on my renter's deposit.
Sadly, the DC area doesn't feel like the place I belong, either. Alexandria is the most promising area I've seen in and around DC, and it still isn't quite right. Two blocks off the major tourist part of Old Town, Alexandria gets skeevy fast. I've seen skeevy that intrigued before. Woodward Avenue**, going through Detroit all the way from 8 Mile to downtown, is empty, decrepit, and waiting for something. It's amazing, and almost frightening, to see a city that is waiting like that. However, Alexandria does not have the same feeling; there's no background expectancy here.
The closest I've come to finding a place that felt like I belonged in it is in the old New England mill towns: Lowell, Lawrence, Methuen, Fitchburg, Worcester, Springfield, New Bedford, Fall River, Concord, Manchester, Portsmouth, etc. I love the huge brick mill buildings -- and many of them are getting converted into apartments, condominiums, and offices, all while maintaining the character of the building. The old worker housing is nifty in its own right. And many of the old mill towns have the same scary but amazing waiting-for-something feeling that I get along Woodward Avenue in Detroit. Of the old mill towns I've seen, Lowell is the farthest along to becoming something good again, but it still has a long way to go.
I'm feeling unsettled here in northern Virginia, and I'm not sure I want to stay. The character of northern Virginia is radically different from that of New England. Old buildings are torn down with impunity and unrelated new ones go up to replace them. The history of the area is kept in very small enclaves which appear to always be called "Old Town"; other than that, there is a bit of history to be had from looking at road names (Old Ox Rd., Little River Tpk., The Strand, etc.). Cars are king in northern Virginia; roads that in New England would be two lanes (and damn the traffic) are six lanes here. Many residential areas don't even have sidewalks. Walking is discouraged both by lack of sidewalks and lack of anything useful (corner grocery, local pub, neighborhood restaurant, small retailers) to walk to. Instead, there are strip malls, largely filled with chain stores. The zoning here is frequently insane. For example, I work in an office building surrounded by other office buildings -- yet there are no restaurants within walking distance of any of the buildings. Whoever is in charge of planning the area seems bent on making everyone drive. Northern Virginia is based on a completely different philosophy of how to develop land, and I think I dislike it.
I'm still not certain that I've been where I'm from yet.
* Jethro Tull, Another Christmas Song, originally on Rock Island, also on The Jethro Tull Christmas Album.
** For people not familiar with the Detroit area, Woodward Avenue in Detroit was the popular cruising street in the 1950s and 1960s, before Detroit started going to hell. It is three lanes each way for most (if not all) of its length, and dead straight. Woodward is still a major road, but now it passes through whole neighborhoods of abandoned or falling-apart houses and dying businesses before getting to what's left of downtown. One very pertinent statistic: the current population of Detroit, at slightly under a million, is well under half of what it was at its peak. Just think of looking at the infrastructure and housing for over two million people, being occupied by somewhat more than 900,000 people, and you'll begin to understand why the Woodward Avenue corridor is so empty right now.
Sadly, the DC area doesn't feel like the place I belong, either. Alexandria is the most promising area I've seen in and around DC, and it still isn't quite right. Two blocks off the major tourist part of Old Town, Alexandria gets skeevy fast. I've seen skeevy that intrigued before. Woodward Avenue**, going through Detroit all the way from 8 Mile to downtown, is empty, decrepit, and waiting for something. It's amazing, and almost frightening, to see a city that is waiting like that. However, Alexandria does not have the same feeling; there's no background expectancy here.
The closest I've come to finding a place that felt like I belonged in it is in the old New England mill towns: Lowell, Lawrence, Methuen, Fitchburg, Worcester, Springfield, New Bedford, Fall River, Concord, Manchester, Portsmouth, etc. I love the huge brick mill buildings -- and many of them are getting converted into apartments, condominiums, and offices, all while maintaining the character of the building. The old worker housing is nifty in its own right. And many of the old mill towns have the same scary but amazing waiting-for-something feeling that I get along Woodward Avenue in Detroit. Of the old mill towns I've seen, Lowell is the farthest along to becoming something good again, but it still has a long way to go.
I'm feeling unsettled here in northern Virginia, and I'm not sure I want to stay. The character of northern Virginia is radically different from that of New England. Old buildings are torn down with impunity and unrelated new ones go up to replace them. The history of the area is kept in very small enclaves which appear to always be called "Old Town"; other than that, there is a bit of history to be had from looking at road names (Old Ox Rd., Little River Tpk., The Strand, etc.). Cars are king in northern Virginia; roads that in New England would be two lanes (and damn the traffic) are six lanes here. Many residential areas don't even have sidewalks. Walking is discouraged both by lack of sidewalks and lack of anything useful (corner grocery, local pub, neighborhood restaurant, small retailers) to walk to. Instead, there are strip malls, largely filled with chain stores. The zoning here is frequently insane. For example, I work in an office building surrounded by other office buildings -- yet there are no restaurants within walking distance of any of the buildings. Whoever is in charge of planning the area seems bent on making everyone drive. Northern Virginia is based on a completely different philosophy of how to develop land, and I think I dislike it.
I'm still not certain that I've been where I'm from yet.
* Jethro Tull, Another Christmas Song, originally on Rock Island, also on The Jethro Tull Christmas Album.
** For people not familiar with the Detroit area, Woodward Avenue in Detroit was the popular cruising street in the 1950s and 1960s, before Detroit started going to hell. It is three lanes each way for most (if not all) of its length, and dead straight. Woodward is still a major road, but now it passes through whole neighborhoods of abandoned or falling-apart houses and dying businesses before getting to what's left of downtown. One very pertinent statistic: the current population of Detroit, at slightly under a million, is well under half of what it was at its peak. Just think of looking at the infrastructure and housing for over two million people, being occupied by somewhat more than 900,000 people, and you'll begin to understand why the Woodward Avenue corridor is so empty right now.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 05:24 am (UTC)I just live here
grew up somewhere far away
come here thinking I'd never stay long
I'd be going back soon someday
it's been a few years
since I got here
seen 'em come and I've seen 'em go
crowds assemble, they hang out awhile
then they melt away like an early snow
onto some bright future somewhere
down the road to points unknown
sending postcards when they get there
wherever it is they think they're goin'
I'm not from here
I just live here
can't see that it matters much
I read the papers and I watch the nightly news
who's to say I'm out of touch
nobody's from here
most of us just live here
locals long since moved away
sold the played-out farms for parking lots
went off looking for a better way
onto some bright future somewhere
better times on down the road
wonder if they ever got there
wherever it was they thought they'd go
hit my home town
a couple years back
hard to say just how it felt
but it looked like so many towns I might've been through
on my way to somewhere else
I'm not from here
but people tell me
it's not like it used to be
they say I should have been here
back about ten years
before it got ruined by folks like me
we can't help it
we just keep moving
it's been that way since long ago
since the stone age, chasing the great herds
we mostly go where we have to go
onto some bright future somewhere
down the road to points unknown
sending post cards when we get there
wherever it is we think we'll go
-- James McMurtry
Story of my life, and I feel the same way you do about NoVa despite having lived here for several years now. At least we found one of the tiny areas where there are a *few* walkable things, and the houses are old enough to have a bit of character (not to mention a link to the region's history, in the form of Earl the Crazy Redneck). But it's still a suburb, and still something I really only tolerate under duress. I liked living on foot in the center of bustling cities, and I liked the brief time I spent in a place so rural you couldn't easily see the nearest neighboring homes from your own yard. Suburbs, to my tastes, combine the worst of both worlds.
stranger in a strange land
Date: 2005-10-27 06:03 am (UTC)Boston is a stopgap for me, and has been for almost half my life. The many places I've lived before here are definitely Not It. Still looking. (NYC is the closest I've found.)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 06:17 am (UTC)I apologise that this may not be relevant to you, but I'm in Orlando for a conference right now and got a very sweet SMS the other day from Brian: "It's not fun being home when you're not here. In the end, you're my home."
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 06:23 pm (UTC)That's an entirely different kind of home, and I can see one overwhelming the other. However, because I am currently single, that sort of home is one I don't have right now. How things might change if I stop being single is an open question.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 12:32 pm (UTC)Colorado is much closer to home for me ... I feel different there and the air, the landscape feel right. Minneapolis or Montreal have come close as well, but like you I'm still looking and larger cities aren't really cutting it.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 12:41 pm (UTC)Places in NoVA that are kinda nice: Reston/Herndon, while the epitome of car is king, are actually quite livable and interesting. Also, Arlington/FallsChurch have always had that "skeevy but interesting" quality to them. Falls Church, in particular the area right around The State Theater, actually feels like it has a history. I'd recommend you check it out. Besides, there's a CD Cellar right around there. Always a good place to stop.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 06:26 pm (UTC)I'm less familiar with Herndon, but it is more interesting, and more liveable, because it actually grew as a city with a purpose, instead of the planned-to-death atrociousness of Reston.
Falls Church has a history, and the State Theater area is probably the most interesting part of Falls Church. But it is a tiny area, has significant strip-mall influence within two blocks of the theater, and lacks that expectancy. Instead, it has almost a resignation that it has been eclipsed, and that there's nothing that can be done about it.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 01:34 pm (UTC)I have absolutely felt that about most of the houses I've lived in while in MA. The current one is... OK, but knowing it's a rental and that I can't do anything to seriously alter it means I'll never love it.