Is There
Life on Our Streets?
Urban neighbors can use the front porch to break
down frontier-times feelings of isolation
C.S. Lewis,
author of “The Chronicles of Narnia,” also wrote
a book titled “The Great Divorce.” In this book
(it’s fantasy, not theology), Lewis describes hell as
a world in which human need no longer binds people into communities.
People keep getting fed up with their neighbors and moving farther
and farther apart, until everyone is leading an isolated life
(I mean “death”). Ironically, some Americans dream
of living out in the boondocks, with no neighbor for miles and
miles. Is this ideal an offshoot of American individualism,
or an indication of deep disillusionment?
Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote
the Little House series of books, grew up to be a world traveler
and was a prolific author like her mother. She wrote an article
titled “Give Me Liberty” (published by the Saturday
Evening Post in 1936), in which she said American farmers were
unique in their preference for building their homes far apart,
with each farmer living on his own land, rather than clustering
together in villages. My daughter Carissa and I enjoy reading
the Little House books, so we know the early homesteaders were,
indeed, individualistic and lovers of privacy – yet they
also enjoyed getting together with neighbors periodically to
share work and celebrate holidays. Some livened up the wintertime
with literary evenings where adults and children participated
in spelling bees, recitations and in various games and performances.
My grandmother’s family farmed in Colorado in the early
1900s, and she fondly remembered community Christmas parties
at the local schoolhouse.
“That was our whole Christmas,” she said. “Each
person brought a gift for the gift exchange, and each person
took a gift home. Christmas shopping was easy back then; it
never occurred to us kids to think we were entitled to more
than one present. We also had music, dancing, games, and food…
it was so much more fun than now, when each family tries to
make its own Christmas at home.”
In ancient times, cities were havens of safety. Old Testament
law instituted cities of refuge where people could flee to avoid
being unfairly executed for manslaughter. Also, young Hebrew
women were more at risk in the countryside than they were in
populated Jewish towns, where people were available to help
anyone being harassed.
In contrast, one Northeast neighbor recently said, “What’s
the point of having a Neighborhood Watch, if your neighbors
are the ones you’re scared of?”
How have things changed so radically? There is no simple answer,
but here is one simple idea: we are living in C.S. Lewis’s
hell. You and I may live in close proximity – but we are
truly miles apart. There is little or no sharing of lives. For
anyone who wants to get a better understanding of what went
wrong, I highly recommend the following book by Ray Suarez,
“The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban
Migration, 1966-1999.”
As my 1970s childhood begins to look like a strobe-lit museum
showcase, filled with bell-bottomed jeans, tie-dye shirts and
tubes of strawberry lip-gloss, I enjoy studying history more
and more. But as a mom, I have to move beyond reflections about
what I can no longer offer my children. Suarez says people used
to know everyone living on their block and the surrounding blocks,
because their kids played with all the other kids in the neighborhood.
Well, even if I lived in Mission Hills, Kan., there is no way
I would send my dear ones out to freely roam the streets. We
all know too much about the terrible things which can, and sadly
do, happen.
My grandmother (who became a city dweller in her adult life)
used to reminisce about the years when she, my grandfather and
my dad all lived in Kansas City at 3530 Mersington Ave.. Hot
summer nights were great fun, because people came out on their
porches to sleep in the cool evening air. When Grandma and Grandpa
moved to Prairie Village, Kan. in the late 50s, they grieved
over the loss of their front porch. The comfortable, screened-in
back porch was not a satisfactory substitute. For the rest of
their lives, they brought folding chairs to the front yard and
sat there on nice afternoons. They always had a couple of extra
chairs for any passers-by who might stop for a cold drink and
a visit. Grandma was idealistic in her desire for neighborhood
cohesiveness, but realistic in her expectations of busy, modern
neighbors. She’d say, “People won’t take time
to come in your house, and they won’t wait while you run
in to get them a chair, either. But if you’re out there,
and the chair just happens to be there, they’ll often
sit and talk for half an hour or longer.”
This realistic idealism seems to work for friendly neighbors
in Northeast today. One 10-year resident said she knows her
neighbors because she spends a lot of time on her porch, and
she talks to people as they head from houses to cars, or vice-versa.
“You have to be right there and be quick,” she said,
“because you have such a tiny window of opportunity before
they get in their cars and drive off.”
This woman, like my Grandma, refuses to waste time whining about
how times have changed. She values neighborhood friendships
enough to develop strategies that will work in Northeast now.
Although some Northeasters feel economically disadvantaged in
comparison to suburban dwellers, we need to realize what a resource
we have in our front porches. As well as enabling us to socialize
casually (without having to plan every get-together), these
porches – if we utilize them frequently – can make
our neighborhoods safer by deterring crime. Here’s how:
One caring resident recently gave me some information on Broken
Window Theory, developed by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling
(1982), and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED),
introduced by criminologist C. Ray Jeffery (1971).
When I studied CPTED, I realized our old homes are ideally structured,
in that they afford us a good view of our surroundings. One
CPTED idea which I hope to implement as weather warms up, and
my family begins spending more time downstairs, is to keep our
blinds open in the daytime. Of course, I love sitting out on
our porch as weather permits, too. We like having our children’s
play equipment in the front, so we can watch them easily from
the porch and get to know our neighbors at the same time.
Broken Window Theory offers a new perspective to me on code
enforcement. As the neighbor told me in her introductory letter,
it is not just a property-value issue: it’s about safety.
This theory explains how letting our homes, yards and streets
get run-down communicates a lack of ownership which invites
less-desirable elements to move in and “take over”
an area. For anyone who would like to research these ideas further,
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is a good start.
Some of us have overwhelming to-do lists to fulfill, before
our homes and yards will begin to look orderly. I find Jean
Van Booven-Shook’s Architectural Feature column (published
regularly in The Northeast News), very educational; she has
accomplished a tremendous amount of work on her own with limited
funds, and she cares about keeping Northeast’s historical
beauty alive.
My question for my next column is how do we communicate ownership
now – in the midst of less-than-perfect homes, yards,
and lives? My personal theory is that we can start adding pretty
touches right away (hanging wreaths on our doors, planting a
few flowers or putting plants in front, furnishing our porches
and enjoying them) rather than saying, “There’s
no point in doing the small stuff until the big stuff gets done.”
Yes, there is a point: life does not wait until we are ready
for it. If we are not living in our space, others will move
in and use it for their own evil purposes. Northeast will not
grow in beauty or safety, without our visible presence. Which
sounds like more of a crime-magnet, a perfectly-manicured suburban
street with no evidence of human life, or a city street full
of signs that people are working on the problems, where you
see people of all ages playing, chatting on porches and doing
yard work?
Please contact me with your advice about living in, and enjoying,
our neighborhood. Thank you!
Susan Stevens is a six-year resident of Historic Northeast and
a full-time mother of two. She lives with them and her husband
and is part of the Eclectic Northeast Homeschoolers, which meets
on the third Monday of the month at the North-East branch of
the Kansas City Public Library. Comments for Susan can be sent
to northeastneighbors@gmail.com.
