Why I Live in the City

When my husband and I came home last night there were at least four police cruisers with lights flashing blocking off the traffic on one of the main streets around where we live. There were also helicopters circling overhead. The next morning I asked my husband, who makes a habit of reading the police reports, if there had been anything about it in them. When he said, "No," I said, "How can there not be, with all that going on?" "Maybe it was just an arrest," he said.

Just an arrest. That's par for the course for this neighborhood. Not so much our particular street, which is made up of several single-family homes and a couple of doubles on one side and an elementary school on the other. But there are streets north of us where I don't even like to drive, let alone walk, and that's where the commotion was last night. That isn't to say that nothing happens on our street. Three houses down a windshield was shot out of a car and later a license plate stolen from another one. A couple of the houses have had break-ins, including an attempted break-in at our house. These are all things that have happened in even the best neighborhoods. But not everyone lives so close to violence and criminal behavior as we do. It's a price we pay for living in an inner-city neighborhood.

So why do we live here? The answer is complicated. Part of it is economic: I was able to find more house for the money here than in almost any other area of the city, and the house had already been rehabbed. But that's not the only reason that I was looking in the inner city for a place to live. I was attracted to it, for reasons that I can't easily articulate. Certainly I wasn't looking for an area where I would be treated to the sounds of gunshots every week or so. (At least it's not every day.) And I can't say that I was comfortable with the idea that most of the homes were in poor repair and rentals, rather than occupant-owned (a fact that doesn't usually bode well for the atmosphere of a neighborhood). But I loved the feeling that I would be in the center of everything. We are as close to downtown as you can be without actually living there. We can be there in two minutes by car, can even walk there. The bus line is conveniently located nearby and when I get on the freeway I can be anywhere in the metropolitan area--even on the other side of the outerbelt-- in no more than twenty minutes.

I also like the fact that I'm not living in a homogenized neighborhood. My neighbors come from all incomes and races, although predominantly low income and black and Hispanic. I don't socialize with them--but then I don't socialize with too many people period. Maybe that's one reason why I wanted to live here. I could keep pretty much to myself while still being around a lot of people. I say hi to the people who pass by my house while I'm working in the garden or sitting on the porch. And I know my immediate neighbors and a couple of not-so-immediate ones who circulate around or travel through the neighborhood. But I felt more exposed and more lonely when I lived in the suburbs, especially the new one that I lived in before I moved to the inner city. There I rarely saw a soul.

I also love the historical feel of this neighborhood. Most of the houses were built from 1890 to 1920 and many of them are in good repair. My own house was built in 1915 and when I bought it I was given the abstracts that go all that way back to the 1790s when this area was nothing but military land given out as rewards for service during the (Revolutionary) War. I have a record of every single person who owned this house and we have even been able to find records that describe that one owner was advised to build this house and two others just like it on her land for tax purposes. I loved my new house in the suburbs but it lacked the feel of permanence and history that my present house has.

I believe that some houses carry, if not the actual spirits, then the atmosphere of its past. When I walked into this house, I immediately felt at peace. Granted, it was a weekend and there were no schoolkids or buses around, but I still had the feeling that this was a small cottage in the country. In some ways, I was not so far off: we've had raccoons and pigeons living in the soffits of our house and have spotted woodchucks, possums and even deer (and fortunately no rats, although I'm sure they must be around somewhere with all of the dumpsters). There are nights that are noisy, but not as many as I would have thought there'd be and even though our street is a fairly busy one, the traffic is more interesting than annoying. All in all, at least there are sounds and sights of life!

I don't know that I will always live in the city or that I will always live in this house. I won't lie and say that I am never attracted by the loft condos that are popping up all over, for instance, or that I won't want more privacy (and maybe no staircase!). But for now this seems to fit me just fine and I have no intention of going anywhere. One thing I can honestly say about living here: I am never bored. And I abhor boredom.

Maybe that's what it boils down to in the end: I was attracted to a place that would always treat me to new sights and faces, that could put me in touch with the best the city had to offer without feeling cut off from that which gives it its life. If that's the case, it's no wonder that I gravitated here.