What John said: a place of shared values is important in identifying a sense of home.
I don’t mean the knee jerk “political” red/blue values.Those are superficial stances, for me anyway.
Ditto on how important is it to the community to protect itself…a key value.
Since he brought this up 2 things came to my mind:
1. I saw the erosion of “protect the community” in our old neighborhood as the urban pioneers died off and checkbook rehabbers moved in. Painting a broad brush, I consider the checkbook rehabbers as those who were not passinate anout, didnt see or care about preservation of the old buildings as previous residents cared. And crime. There was a shift in how our neighborhood residents treated local police. Criminals will always be criminals, you can’t change that, but you can (and they did) change their involvement with crime fighting programs. Little to no personal involvement, write a check for professional police patrols, is what they wanted to do. And then, criticize the outcome.
I saw them as coddling the criminals and then being outraged when shit went down.
2. We looked for strong social organizations in the place where we moved and
Hermann has that. We see the same faces in the garden Club, in the Historical
society, at the Art Gallery openings…community engagement is strong here. There is always tension in giving citizens vs tourists what they want but promoting and protecting the unique characteristics of our little town is important for all.
When I knew I didn't belong in my home town was early on in all of the “rah rah aren’t we great” community vibe when I always objectively, considered it a not at all great place or even a good place. It was a barely adequate place and to this day I berate my home town and am aided by my brother and my cousin who live there. It is the worst of suburbia and I do not want to live among people who fancy it a “nice” place, they are not my tribe.
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