Sometimes it's a news report. Sometimes it's that casual recognition of something different on a familiar piece of landscape. It can even be the five minute, 5 pm, drive to a convenience store for a loaf of bread.  It can be a lot of things, but I always know what it means.

 

It's the inner knowledge that once again a small piece of my community memory is being wiped away, supplanted by more of the planned sameness of today's automobile centric lifestyle.

 

Trip the trigger, and the voice inside of me screams, "There goes another neighborhood!"

 

When did we decide that every community must have streets with the same names; stores with the same merchandise; and restaurants with the same menus?   Why did we give up on spicy individualism and submit to a coast to coast stream of franchised, and homogenized, blandness?"

When did neighborhoods, and their unique takes on the American dream, become obsolete?

 

In fact, I'm not sure we even know what a neighborhood means anymore!

 

Let's start with the definition of the word itself.

 

Webster defines neighborhood as "condition of being neighbors; neighbors collectively, vicinity, locally".  Neighbor, then, is simply "one, who lives or dwells near; or on friendly terms with another. To be near, adjoin".   Yep, just like I remember it!

 

Of course, I didn't define neighborhood as scholarly as Webster when I was growing up. Fact is, I didn't even think about defining it. I just knew what it meant. I understood what a neighborhood looked like, felt like, and sounded like.   It didn't matter whether you grew up in a coal town in West Virginia like I did, or in a city, like Buffalo. Our neighborhoods might have been as different as night and day, but the definition was the same.

 

"Condition of being neighbors" meant common bonds and outlooks. My dad was a coal miner and so were the dads of most of my friends in the neighborhood. We shared the fears of watching a loved one go into a hole in the ground each day. My friends, and their brothers and sisters went to the same school.  We played baseball on local ball field we prepared ourselves every spring.  We met each either at the corner ice cream hangout.  We carried the groceries home from one of the several corner markets owned and operated by the same folks who sponsored, and cheered us at our ballgames.  Shared homegrown tomatoes, onions, apples, grapes and potatoes graced all of our dinner plates.  Our parents actually knew each other, liked each other, enjoyed talking to each other on a regular basis.  I suspect your memories aren't much different.

 

Neighborhood was our village within the town. Our front porches were our unwired connection to the world.  We didn't cocoon in our back yards.  We participated, and rejoiced with the folks who lived next door or down the street.  Looking out for each other was a given, not an exception.  We were all, after all, part of something communal, and comforting.

 

We knew every inch of our village.  We didn't need a map to find our way around. We instinctively knew where the neighborhood began and ended.  We recognized all the natural boundaries. We didn't need a survey. Our neighborhood wasn't defined by the "suits" in city hall.  And, it certainly wasn't defined by Google.  We defined it.  It was simply a couple blocks to the east and west, a few blocks past the school to the north, and a half mile south to the river and railroad tracks.  Inside we stayed true to Webster's definition.  We were all "neighbors" who "dwelled near, or adjoined each other!"

 

Neighborhoods in our 20th century world had a sense of place and arrival…a mixture that's becoming nearly extinct as one town morphs into the next along ever widening superhighways and endless row of strip malls, shopping plazas and "welcome to" signs.

 

My old neighborhood didn't try to be the same as the others in town. We shared common values, but our neighborhood cultures were unique.  We defined our individual comforting sense of identity and home. We didn't feel the need, or envy, to be the duplicate of some other neighborhood. We weren't any better, or worse, than anyone else. We were secure in who we were, and celebrated our own community personality.

 

We supported our local mom and pop gas stations, diners, drug stores, movie theaters, and candy shops.  Neighborhood was the place where we lived and belonged …with our friends… next door, down the street, around the corner by the school.

 

Our neighborhoods were made up familiar people, with common interests and values. We knew who we were and where we were. We were in our neighborhood with our friends, our families, and our common heritage. We were home.   

 

We loved our neighborhood. It was secure.  It was comforting.  It was our place, and it was always going to be there…or, at least that's what we thought.