I intended this post as a giggly nod to the excellent Onion op-ed, “Sometimes I Feel Like I’m the Only One Trying to Gentrify This Neighborhood,” which has been linked by Jack at Angry Brown Butch and az over at goingsomewhere. Instead, it turned into a post in response to some of the events az referred to, and how the self-absorption that permits gentrification is also demonstrated outside the cities. I’m very familiar with NIMBYing, too–our high school had a closed campus because the shopkeepers didn’t want a bunch of teenagers who weren’t white buying lunch downtown. Just a few years ago, one of our neighboring towns tried to make it illegal to rent to people outside your family. Like az says:
What they’re doing to us. I love the victim mentality of people who own property. When you own a house, suddenly you become a hypersensitive entity at risk of all kinds of potential violations, real and virtual. Even the presence of a particular kind of person a few blocks away is violent. It’s bullshit: when I lived on a street with a rooming-house in Brunswick, the increased saturation of people walking on the street made it feel safer, especially at night. Sure, some of these people were obviously unhinged; but you say hello, you roll them a cigarette, you have a chat. We often sat in the window of my room, on the front verandah facing the street, and felt safe. Here in Coburg, people don’t hang out on the street. (Okay, with the exception of the kids opposite who play with their cars weekends, and who are, frankly, obnoxious: loud techno all day, incessant revving, squealing brakes, and no hello.) The blocks in Coburg are big, the front yards are spacious and everyone drives, so the only time you see the neighbours is when they’re climbing into their car. No-one knows what’s happening outside, because everyone keeps their front blinds closed.
When I was maybe fifteen years old, I would sometimes go to movies by myself at the theater in our downtown. Because we lived in the suburbs, everything was spread out–it was more than two miles to the nearest cup of coffee. The uniplex was about a forty-minute walk from home. I’d read in the bookstore for a couple of hours and then go see a late-evening movie if a friend was working the ticket counter. The downtown closed early, and the family homes between its shops and my front door were quiet and locked after six or so. In the suburbs, you never leave your house unless you’re in your car. I loved walking home in the nighttime silence, until the second time I was followed by someone in a car.
(I was about eleven the first time, walking home from the store with some emergency groceries. He pulled over to the sidewalk just as I was walking past the condos where my sister’s best friend lived. He said that he noticed me in the checkout line, carrying that heavy bag, and would I like a ride. I said no thanks, of course, and kept walking. He waited for a second or two and then drove on. I didn’t tell anyone at the time. I think I convinced myself that he might have just been a nice middle-aged man who didn’t want a little girl carrying groceries home by herself. I also have dim memories of a man asking me to help him find his dog when I was even smaller.)
That night, I walked home alone at about ten. The car drove past me the first time when I was just crossing into the residential area, still half an hour from home. The car drove past very slowly, which was strange on a deserted main street. And then it stopped, but a ways away–nearly seventy feet down my path. I kept walking. As I passed the car, I could feel him staring at me–I might have glanced at him, I’m not sure. When I was about ten feet ahead, the car started again and pulled past me–even more slowly than before–and then stopped to wait for me a second time, sixty or seventy feet ahead. I backtracked and turned left into the first street, which was dark. The car met me again two blocks later, just as I was reaching the second broad street that would take me all the way home. He slowed but did not stop, and as he drove past he called out the window, “Where do you live?”
The rest of that walk is hard to remember. I know I switched streets every block, walking in a long diagonal that would take me further from home. I know that the car kept circling me. There were perhaps five more passes, but he didn’t say anything else. I didn’t look at him. I remember a man in his thirties, maybe, with dark hair. His car is a junky sedan, and in my memory it is pink as a lung. Other than that, I can’t picture him or it at all.
During all of this, I hadn’t seen anyone else. His was the only car on the street. I was the only person on the street. I decided to go and ask for help. I was shaking. I turned right instead of left, into what I think was a cul-de-sac, and rang the first doorbell. Its door definitely was pink, and a motion sensor flipped on the porch light when I stepped onto the driveway. I jumped. I remember ringing the doorbell, and banging on the door. I was frantic. The house belonged to a married couple. I don’t remember which I talked to first. I think I talked to them both. I explained that I was being followed by a strange man. I think I said something like, “He won’t leave me alone.” They called the police. They did not open the door. I waited on the stoop for ten minutes or so. I kept talking, explaining that I was scared. I thanked them. I was embarrassed. The little circle of light made me feel safer, but I couldn’t see past it, and I was afraid he would find me. I wanted to get up and start walking again.
A policewoman showed up eventually to drive me home. I don’t remember whether or not she talked to the married couple. I think I thanked them. I was still crying. On the way home, the officer told me that I shouldn’t go out alone after dark. I remember thinking, A seven-o-clock curfew? Do you think my parents have time to walk me to the library? Do you think they can drive me home?She dropped me at my front door, and waited until I was inside to leave. I told her what had happened, but I don’t think anyone bothered looking for the guy. Maybe it sounded as though I had just gotten spooked by the quiet and the dark. I was a teenager, after all, and clearly emotional. I never told my parents what had happened. I did walk home alone after that; the alternative really would have been a seven-o-clock curfew.
This is why I am not overly fond of the suburbs–and why I probably do or will contribute to urban gentrification myself–and why I have so much trouble taking claims of suburban safety at face value. If that married couple had not been home, or if they had been a little more paranoid, or if that man or some other man had been a little more aggressive, I would have had no help. Had I been anyone other than a white teenager from a house like theirs, had I been in shock or in pain or showing obvious signs of violence, I probably would have been given even less assistance. They might have called the police on me. The suburbs I grew up in were not towns. They were a collection of beds for people who spent their waking lives in the cities miles away. People pretended to whatever distance their wide streets and thick walls did not allow them to achieve.