A New Community
I ventured out of my office today and walked across campus, something I rarely do. What I found strengthened my desire to stay in New Orleans. First of all, it is a beautiful breezy, sunny day. Then I also saw a sign that says “Criminology has moved to ED 226,” with ED 266 crossed out and “Houston” written in; a group of Indian men playing a game of cricket; a sign for the UNO Greens announcing a showing of the film “Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices”; and students of every race and ethnicity imaginable. There truly is no place like UNO right now.
In my composition class, we are discussing what kinds of communities New Orleans should be rebuilding, and the subject of who lives in these communities has inevitably come up, with most students saying they want to live around people just like them. We’ve been reading about “New Urbanism,” a design philosophy that stresses walkable, compact neighborhoods and diverse populations. The questions is, can you design the kind of “community” you want? Can you engineer diversity?
Universities do it, and with good reason. As I told them, I much prefer the diverse classrooms at UNO over the homogonous student body at the Big Ten university I was trained at. I love hearing from a student about how the Vietnamese community he grew up in that was destroyed by Katrina is being rebuilt; or how a student who lived in predominately white Chalmette went to school in the predominately African-American Ninth Ward; or a student of Middle Eastern descent who owns gas stations in black neighborhoods. This is part of what I love about my job and what I love about living in New Orleans.
After living in the white-flight suburb of Slidell for five years and yearning to go back to the comfortable but bland Midwest, I am quite happy now to be living in the heart of New Orleans, in an area called the Irish Channel, where Irish immigrant laborers settled around the turn of the last century and which is today characterized by a broad spectrum of incomes, races, and household types. Suddenly, I find we are living in precisely the kind of neighborhood the New Urbanists are trying (and often failing) to manufacture: it is traditional, diverse, walkable, and close-knit.
We moved into our new hosue last Friday, and within a couple of hours we had met five of our new neighbors. The whole five weeks we lived in Lakeview before the storm, we met only the two older sisters who lived next door. There the houses had alleys behind them and you drove up and parked your car and walked in the back door. We never had the chance to run into people, and many likely never even knew we were there. But here the houses are close together, everyone parks on the street (the homes were built before cars became the norm), and when you step out on your front porch you are immediately part of the neighborhood. People work in the little gardens in front of their stoops and hang out on their porches. It feels like Mayberry, but with a difference. There are gay and interracial couples as well as families with small kids. A block away are low-income apartments. The diversity of the neighborhood is typified by the kinds of shops on Magazine, a busy commercial street that runs through our neighborhood. Just one block away, nestled next to each other in the same building, are a tattoo parlor and a store that sells rare chandeliers. An A&P and a Walgreens sit next to a row of funky vintage clothing stores, coffee shops, and a wine bar.
I have never lived in a neighborhood or a city like this. And while I feel like I haven’t had a whole lot of agency in choosing where to live--we stayed in the region because we couldn’t find better jobs, and we chose this house because it was the best we could afford—I am happy with where we have landed. We fee like we are finally “home.” And there is even a sweet, affectionate kitty that looks a lot like a smaller, fluffier version of Jasper, who lives next door but makes frequent visits over to our yard and even inside the house.
Of course, we still have plenty of anxiety about the future of the city as hurricane season approaches. We are waiting for the next calamity to hit us. My husband and I have both had dreams about the house burning down. We will never again take our home and our community for granted. And we both feel as if we have finally found a home that we couldn’t stand to lose. I can sense us developing the kind of fierce attachment to place that is motivating so many New Orleanians to rescue their flooded neighborhoods. I think I finally know what is driving the passion to rebuild this city.
In my composition class, we are discussing what kinds of communities New Orleans should be rebuilding, and the subject of who lives in these communities has inevitably come up, with most students saying they want to live around people just like them. We’ve been reading about “New Urbanism,” a design philosophy that stresses walkable, compact neighborhoods and diverse populations. The questions is, can you design the kind of “community” you want? Can you engineer diversity?
Universities do it, and with good reason. As I told them, I much prefer the diverse classrooms at UNO over the homogonous student body at the Big Ten university I was trained at. I love hearing from a student about how the Vietnamese community he grew up in that was destroyed by Katrina is being rebuilt; or how a student who lived in predominately white Chalmette went to school in the predominately African-American Ninth Ward; or a student of Middle Eastern descent who owns gas stations in black neighborhoods. This is part of what I love about my job and what I love about living in New Orleans.
After living in the white-flight suburb of Slidell for five years and yearning to go back to the comfortable but bland Midwest, I am quite happy now to be living in the heart of New Orleans, in an area called the Irish Channel, where Irish immigrant laborers settled around the turn of the last century and which is today characterized by a broad spectrum of incomes, races, and household types. Suddenly, I find we are living in precisely the kind of neighborhood the New Urbanists are trying (and often failing) to manufacture: it is traditional, diverse, walkable, and close-knit.
We moved into our new hosue last Friday, and within a couple of hours we had met five of our new neighbors. The whole five weeks we lived in Lakeview before the storm, we met only the two older sisters who lived next door. There the houses had alleys behind them and you drove up and parked your car and walked in the back door. We never had the chance to run into people, and many likely never even knew we were there. But here the houses are close together, everyone parks on the street (the homes were built before cars became the norm), and when you step out on your front porch you are immediately part of the neighborhood. People work in the little gardens in front of their stoops and hang out on their porches. It feels like Mayberry, but with a difference. There are gay and interracial couples as well as families with small kids. A block away are low-income apartments. The diversity of the neighborhood is typified by the kinds of shops on Magazine, a busy commercial street that runs through our neighborhood. Just one block away, nestled next to each other in the same building, are a tattoo parlor and a store that sells rare chandeliers. An A&P and a Walgreens sit next to a row of funky vintage clothing stores, coffee shops, and a wine bar.
I have never lived in a neighborhood or a city like this. And while I feel like I haven’t had a whole lot of agency in choosing where to live--we stayed in the region because we couldn’t find better jobs, and we chose this house because it was the best we could afford—I am happy with where we have landed. We fee like we are finally “home.” And there is even a sweet, affectionate kitty that looks a lot like a smaller, fluffier version of Jasper, who lives next door but makes frequent visits over to our yard and even inside the house.
Of course, we still have plenty of anxiety about the future of the city as hurricane season approaches. We are waiting for the next calamity to hit us. My husband and I have both had dreams about the house burning down. We will never again take our home and our community for granted. And we both feel as if we have finally found a home that we couldn’t stand to lose. I can sense us developing the kind of fierce attachment to place that is motivating so many New Orleanians to rescue their flooded neighborhoods. I think I finally know what is driving the passion to rebuild this city.
posted by Scribbling Mama | 1:47 PM
1 Comments:
We fee like we are finally “home.” And there is even a sweet, affectionate kitty that looks a lot like a smaller, fluffier version of Jasper, who lives next door but makes frequent visits over to our yard and even inside the house.
Having read your blog since the beginning, I was very happy to read this whole post, but especially the part I just quoted. Wonderful!
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