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I love this story. Shows how a lot (not all, but a lot) of people living in suburbs like Powell live in faux-communities, or insta-communities and try to live in a communitiy made up only of people exactly like themselves. No diversity at all. Plus it seems all the stranger when people there show off a sort of “neighborhood pride” that doesn’t really apply to a real neighborhood… just “housing development pride”. :roll:
COMMUNITIES WITHIN A COMMUNITY
In Powell, home is where subdivision is
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Kelly Hassett
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
POWELL — Sally Van Meter is from the Retreat. Chris Pilkington calls Middlebury Estates home. Cindy Capizzi lives in Bartholomew Run.
Officially, they all live in Powell.
But as more subdivisions join the small but rapidly growing Delaware County city, many residents identify themselves not as Powell residents but by their neighborhood corner or subdivision.
Even the city map and schoolattendance list are organized by subdivisions.
People reveal a lot about themselves when they say where they live. Some subdivisions cater to parents with small children, others to older homeowners. Van Meter, who has lived in Powell for nearly two decades, attributes the different identities to the fact that the city has grown chunk by chunk, out-sprawling city grids and road plans.
“You enter the Retreat, and it’s not connected to anything else,” she said. “It’s pretty much a self-contained, isolated little group.”
The fractured allegiances likely come from the fact that Powell is a newly growing city that is still developing its identify, said Hazel Morrow-Jones, an Ohio State University associate professor of city and regional planning.
Subdivisions provide neighbors with similar economic backgrounds, proximity and even a name, she said.
“It’s geographically divided to create a ‘community,’ ” Morrow-Jones said. “You’re supposed to feel like these people are your community.”
Powell also has a transient professional population. So when families move in, knowing they might be transferred in a few years, they look for an ‘instant’ neighborhood with similar interests or lifestyles.
“You don’t put down roots. You don’t identify yourself with the (entire) community, but the ones you see most often,” Morrow-Jones said.
Reta Yamarick, who lives in the Estates at Falcon Ridge, said she hears other residents throughout Powell identify themselves by their homes. She refers to herself as a Powell resident because she doesn’t think those distinctions should matter.
Gross.
After living in the city for a year, I can’t fathom moving out to a suburb like that. I *may* move to a burb like Grandview Hts if I were to have kids, but that’s about as far as I’d be willing to go.
It’s so damn inconvenient to live way out there in a plain vanilla development. If I had to live out there, buy a minivan, and take the family to TGI Fridays or Applebee’s, I think I’d cry myself to sleep every night.
Is downtown really so different on this score, though?
People from Powell don’t say they live in “Powell” to other people in Powell just like many people who’ve made the urban jump don’t tell to other Columbusites(?) that they live in Columbus. By contrast, my sister’s boyfriend is from “Powell” when he talks to me because I don’t know the Powell subdivisions the way a resident likely would.
Downtown is similar. If you’re one of the urban pioneers talking to another one, you don’t say you live “in Columbus.” You say that you live in the Short North, Victorian Village, Harrison West, Italian Village, Arena District, German Village, Merion Village, Brewery District, etc. Those are our “subdivisions.” The culture is very different, of course, but the mentality is the same. If you talk to someone from Charlotte or Oklahoma City or Nashville, however, you’re probably going to tell them you live in “Columbus” because the distinction between the Short North and Brewery District is as meaningless to them as the distinction between “Rutherford Estates” and “Grandshire” is to us.
Yeah…I guess I wasn’t really commenting on the article as much as the sprawling developments up there.
Yea, I agree with gramarye. To people in Columbus I tell them that I live in German Village, Clintonville, etc. But to those not familiar with the city I tell them I live in Columbus. Or even Ohio.
You can’t blame the developers for making instant “communities”. I mean, they bought all that land and want to squeeze as many houses in there as possible. Why not spin that into a positive and talk about how it is a “community”?
We’re talking about a much smaller scale though, and when it breaks down by HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS, I think that’s a little weird. It wouldn’t be like saying you live in the Brewery District. It would be like saying you live in Brewers Yard. :roll: And like I said… it’s one thing to have neighborhood pride… there is more to a neighborhood than just HOUSES. These developments are made up almost entirely of homes with sometimes a bit of a strip-mall development on the outskirts or main intersections.
Don’t even call them that. :evil:
I’m not blaming developers for anything, I’m just pointing and laughing at people who think that a “housing subdivision” is a “neighborhood”. I guess technically it is a “community” no matter how bland and vanilla it might be, but if you’re going to consider every housing development a “neighborhood” like the Short North or German Village, I think it’s really watering down the term.
Hahaha, that would make me cry too!
I think this article is dumb too.
Powell also has a transient professional population. So when families move in, knowing they might be transferred in a few years, they look for an ‘instant’ neighborhood with similar interests or lifestyles.
“You don’t put down roots. You don’t identify yourself with the (entire) community, but the ones you see most often,” Morrow-Jones said.
Just wondering, how many of these people actually talk to anyone in their “instant community”? I like this quote too because all of these “instant communities” aren’t meant to be permanent. How nice to buy into a housing development where your neighbors are changing all of the time. What a great sense of community.
The transient population of cities tends to be much more so than the transient population of suburbs, particularly the younger crowd that’s only planning to live downtown while they’re young and single. Neighbors change all the time in the city. In fact, I’ve always thought that was one of its primary attractions. The landscape, including the people, is always changing.
And Walker: would it be so atypical for someone to say they live in Victorian Gate or Burnham Square? If the building is large enough to be recognized, the word would likely come instinctively to many people’s lips as being the most specific logical answer one could give to the question “Hey, where’d you end up moving in?”
I definitely agree that there’s more to a proper neighborhood than just houses. However, the scale isn’t as different in some of these as you might think; some of our neighborhoods are fairly small (RiverSouth, Arena District, Market Exchange) and some of these subdivisions are ginormous (technical term).
gramarye is on fire..
I’m not saying that those wouldn’t roll off the tongue when telling someone where you live, but it would sound just as stupid if you were to say “Victorian Gate” or “Burham Square” was the neighborhood or community you lived in.
I’m not trying to look down on these people for living in the burbs. That’s their choice. I’m just saying that a housing complex is not a true “neighborhood” like some of the people in this article make it sound like.
I don’t think the issue is as much what physically constitutes a neighborhood, but what emotionally makes one (there must be a better word than “emotionally” to make my point but I can’t think of it).
So when I think of a neighborhood, I expect some sort of true bond amongst the people. The parents are social with each other, kids play together, your babysitter lives nearby, you go next door to borrow sugar, etc.
Now if a huge housing development has the cohesiveness that one might expect a neighborhood to have, then go ahead and call The Estates at Wilfordshirhamptington a neighborhood. It’s just with my experience that I don’t see much of this in housing developments.
For example (yes, anecdotal, make of it what you wish), my folks live in Pickerington. In their development, the speed limit is 25mph, and the sheriff roams regularly to enforce it. On one occasion, my mother was leaving the development exceeding the limit to some degree and came upon another car who noticed my mom approach, and made sure to go no faster than low 20s. Perfectly fine, right? Nothing any one of us wouldn’t do. But then this woman rolls down her window and signals back with her fingers – two-five, two-five.
Now, my mom doesn’t know this lady, probably never will, which to me is the most likely explanation for this. People are a lot more confrontational when they’re anonymous. And if a “neighborhood” is so disconnected that your anonymity is protected, then something has gone drastically wrong.
Possibly related, here’s a link to Rush’s “Subdivisions” video. Great song, and the video adds some great visuals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcNIdqSBrW4
:D 8) :lol: :P :twisted: :wink:
Fair enough, though “community” could have many different meanings in this context; if those subdivisions are governed by a homeowners’ agreement, they actually would make a fairly strong parallel to the condo complexes’ condo agreements. Homeowners’ associations and condo associations have a great deal in common. (Now I’m venturing into speculation, of course, since I don’t know which of those developments are actually HOA’s, but I’m guessing at least a few are, if I know anything about Powell.)
The issue is that the kind of person who moves into German Village, the Short North, whatever simply has different *expectations* for what they want their community to be and to mean than does your typical buyer of a suburban McMansion (or simply McHouse). As such, if each side insists on seeing the other through their own lens, there’s bound to be some skewed perspectives of one another. I’m sure some of them might be over there on Powell Aboveground ™ saying “why do those people want to live in tiny little places all packed in together when they could have twice the square feet and a third of an acre to themselves out here, and people would leave them alone and not be prying into their business all the time.”
All I know is that when I lived in the Brewery District, German Village and Clintonville, it wasn’t like I was all buddy buddy with my neighbors just because I was in a “true community”. And most of my neighbors never changed. Besides these districts were created to help divide Columbus up into specific areas. How else would you divide up Powell? The different subdivisions seem like a perfectly natural way. But I still don’t think I’d go around saying I live in X subdivision.
If I lived in, say…Miranova – or Parkview Condos – I would say so.
If I lived in Miranova, I would say so, too … assuming I were ever talking to you peasants in the first place. :P 8)
(Of course, RiverSouth is hardly a “neighborhood” yet in the way the Short North or German Village are, anyway. You’ve basically got Miranova, Waterford, and the juvenile detention center as the only three long-term residences there. :shock: )
Of course… who wouldn’t?
But if someone asked you what “neighborhood” you live in and you said “Miranova” you’d probably get some strange looks as if you didn’t know what a neighborhood was. :?