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I'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.
