Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect by Robert J. Sampson.
As I began to read the first chapter of this book Robert J. Sampson's views on "community" and "neighborhood" became more and more familiar. He has a genuine concern for the lack of "community" and "neighborhood" in a city considered to be the great American city, Chicago. Sampson proposes that neighborhoods give a city a unique element that makes it distinct from any other place. He calls this placelessness. I enjoyed his description of the city he made me feel as if I was walking alongside of him and he was pointing out the important buildings and the famous people who erected those buildings.
I think the author brings up a great point. The increased usage of social media has caused this sort of individualism amongst people. People sink into themselves and block out the world around them. I am guilty of this practice. Even as I sit here on my smart phone in the middle of my living room writing this blog post, my younger sister Elisabet who is only six years old, sits two feet away playing the latest version of the Angry Birds on a smart device.
Since my arrival to St. George almost twelve years ago I have witnessed first hand certain neighborhoods change when new neighbors move in. A neighborhood changed from primarily caucasian residents to mainly hispanic residents. The elementary school I attended when my family first moved to St. George there were only two other hispanic kids in my class. Since then, that same school has transformed completely by now providing a bilingual learning environment where students learn all of the material in english for one half of the day and in spanish for the other half. Now, when I walk my sister to her classroom I see five or six caucasian students in her class.
Most of my neighbors are Hispanic and I know almost every single one of them. I believe the reason why I actually know my neighbors is because of the lack of technology they may have and the socioeconomic level in which they live in. Most of them may not be able to afford the technology that drives so many to individualism. Or perhaps there is still a sense of family and community amongst my neighbors because of our similar ethnic heritages that causes us to want to know each other. Regardless of me knowing my neighbors there is a difference between knowing and actually spending time with them. I would say that my real community is at church. Those are the people that I relate to, that I spend time with, and that I make an effort to get together with. I have attended my home church, Calvary Chapel St. George, ever since my family arrived in St. George back in 2001.
Erica points out two intriguing complications to subjectively assessing a neighborhood's feeling of relative "closeness": ethnicity and faith. We can see similar challenges posed by Garrett, Collin, and Daniel on their blogs for this week (which I'm cross-referencing here to encourage you to go and read them and the comments on them). These aspects can, somewhat paradoxically, make a community feel more tightly drawn together if there is a _contrast_ with the background identities more common in a neighborhood. Does the neighborhood, then, still place us, as Sampson might say, even by making us more aware of our difference? Again, check out the other blogs before class tomorrow morning, and I think you'll start to see what I mean.
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