Our Neighborhood

I love our neighborhood. I live in a town where the West side is much more prosperous than the East side. However, that's not to say the East Side is poor. Sure, there are poor people here, but it's a mix of incomes. We joke that we live in Tha Hood. And sure, in comparison to the other side of the city, it might seem like that.

The fact is that it's older. I think it has a lot of character. Our old downtown area is very interesting to me. Even the suburbs here are cool, in my ever so humble opinion. The crime is higher here than there, but it's okay. We're still pretty low on the crime scale when compared to many other places. I like that my kids go to schools where they are not the obvious majority. I look at Allison's group of friends, and it's such a rainbow, and that's so cool. I grew up in a few areas. In middle school (which was 5th and 6th grade where I was), I was a very clear minority. I don't think I really noticed, other than sometimes the white folks seemed to be looked down upon. I didn't like it that much. Then we moved to a small town near my grandma. It's a great little town, but the Jr. High and HS I attended clearly had a white majority. There were maybe 15% African American students, less Hispanic, and only a smattering of Asian and Middle Eastern kids. There was a lot of racial strife during HS, mostly by some kids claiming to be part of the KKK. I seriously doubt they actually had ties, but the hate was there, nonetheless.

Anyway, my little city is not perfect, but I don't seem to see a ton of racial divide. I like that. I like the mix of economies here. It's not the bohemian downtown life I envisioned, but we have kids. I had to make sure that we had a safe place for our kids to go to school and grow up. We have plenty of time to live that bohemian life when we're empty nesters. This is worth it. And I like it.

I like looking at the old houses and our community, and one thing we do right is that we have great parks and walking trails. I got a chance to really look around yesterday as I was walking.

Anyway, Just some obervances, and me realizing that I really like where we're at.