THE SIDEWINDER – We have lost too many of those neighbourhood values and have devolved into a place where we live -- but it isn't home as we once knew it
Not that many decades ago, life out here in the suburbs meant that families
with three kids probably lived in an affordable 1,200 square-foot,
three-bedroom home with an unfinished basement on a large lot. I think it's an
important distinction that we called it home, not just a place where we lived.
Some families called the same house their home for several generations without
any need to build a bigger house.
As property values increased insanely, and more families were forced through
economics and other circumstances to live in townhouses or apartments, fewer
and fewer people thought of them as homes. They became just a place where they
lived, but it wasn't really a home.
Nowadays, that same family with three kids would be looking for a 3,000
square-foot, four or five-bedroom house with a finished basement and a bonus
room above the three-car garage, all on a postage stamp-sized lot.
Somewhere along the way, we slipped from being able to live our lives
contentedly, in those modest smaller homes, over to the dark side and the
insane demands of today's lifestyle.
As our communities grew, and the age of subdivisions and small lots emerged, it
seems that more and more people from the city were attracted to home ownership
-- even if it required two incomes plus commuting to keep up with the mortgage
payments.
While both parents worked when it was their choice, the negative aspects of our
expanding lifestyles didn't seem so drastic, but that eventually changed and
family life has suffered ever since.
Years ago, it was commonplace to have a couple of fruit trees and a small
vegetable garden on your own property. Some families even had a few chickens.
We were able to some extent to be partly self-sufficient but those days are long gone.
Small lots, huge houses and the requirement for two incomes has left the vast
majority of people with no time, energy or space for even the tiniest vegetable
garden or fruit trees ... and God forbid anyone who wants to raise a few of
their own chickens.
In our old neighbourhood, we knew everybody, their dogs, their kids and what
they did for a living. People chatted over their fences. We even communicated
without cell phones and computers and we didn't hold block parties to get
acquainted because we already knew each other.
Nowadays there seems to be such a lack of neighbourliness even in our local
stores. Years ago, when we did our weekly grocery shopping, we went to
neighbourhood stores where we knew the owners. Almost nobody owned a freezer
but many of us rented frozen food lockers from the local butcher.
We knew our local store owners, many of whom even carried some of their
customers on credit. It was no surprise when they became our friends and town
leaders.
Many people view mega malls and sprawling subdivisions as progress. That might
be true but, at what cost?
In the past decade or so most communities have witnessed the loss of small
community halls, neighbourhood schools, small local stores and many other
qualities which made our communities far more livable than what they have since
become.
We have lost too many of those neighbourhood values and have devolved into a
place where we live -- but it isn't home as we once knew it.
Where have all the flowers gone?
SANDY Macdougall ... is a retired newspaper reporter. He was elected for three consecutive terms to Maple Ridge municipal council in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and also ran for the Progressive Conservatives in Kim Campbell's ill-fated federal election campaign. He now makes his home in the BC interior community of Kelowna.
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