December daily: New city

[resonant]

tevere prompts: What's life in your new city like? Is it very different from where you were before?

Well, I moved from a small Midwestern city to an even smaller Midwestern city, so compared to moving to an island or a desert or something, it's not a huge change. But there are some changes.

1. My skills at driving in snow, which I was proud of as only a born Southerner can be proud of such things, turn out only to apply in flat places. I'm having to re-learn how to drive a car on a slippery surface on hills. (I knew you could downshift even in my automatic-transmission car, but I had to get the owner's manual out to figure out how.)
   
   
2. Popcorn seems to be filling the same niche in office culture that doughnuts filled in Old City. About once a week a whisper will go around my office: "Pam went to Frank's! There's Frank's in the kitchen!" and then everybody goes in and comes out with a paper towel full of popcorn. I'm not complaining -- popcorn doesn't bother me, whereas the older I get the more I'm subject to Doughnut Stomach -- but it's kind of odd.
   
   
3. They call parking garages "ramps" and sledding "sleigh-riding."
   
   
   
   
4. The people in Old City either complained a lot about it or liked it but were a little defensive about it: "Oh, it's not as bad as everybody says." The people here love it.
   
   
5. On a related note, people grow up here and stay, or they come here for college and stay; people my age or older usually left for a while when the economy crashed in the '80s, but then they came back. This means that everybody's network is really deep, something that I'm appreciating as a job-hunter. I don't have to scrape around to find a contact at Dream Corporation; I could stop a random stranger on the street and she'd know somebody at Dream Corporation.
   
   
6. It's a very earnest city, very focused on making things better -- and they're doing it just the way I would do it if I were in charge. The City Council has a retreat every year where they talk about their five- and ten-year goals for the city. The development group goes to major employers and says, "Is your whole supply chain in the area?" and if the major employer says, "No, there are these little rubber hoses that we use, and we're having to buy them from New Jersey," then the development group goes to the factory that makes the little rubber hoses and says, "You ought to think about relocating here -- your transportation costs would go down."
   
   
7. Unfortunately, the population is so lily-white you wouldn't believe it. It's so white here that the City Council and the development group are making a great big push to attract some people of color (ideally ones with computer skills) -- because they realize that if you're a person of color and you do come here (maybe because you work for the company that makes the little rubber hoses), you're going to feel uncomfortable surrounded by so many pink-cheeked German and Irish people and you're going to quit your job and move back to New Jersey.
   

I like it here, I really do, and I need to keep remembering that, instead of letting my entire life be dominated by the fact that I don't have a real job yet.

Comments

[out_there]

Huh. I found those little details really interesting. Although I'm trying to imagine eating popcorn in the office.

Here, it's more about a little bit of catering leftover in the kitchen, and the trumpeting hoards running outside when the coffee man's van drives up.

[resonant]

I wish we had a coffee man. The coffee in my office is so weak you can see tho bottom of the cup.

On the other hand, there's a real cafe on the building's main floor, so I shouldn't complain.

Oh! That reminds me of two other differences:

Only two Starbucks in town, both in grocery stores.

A wealth of little independent cafes - every single one of which makes its mochas with some super-sweet, fake-tasting syrup, ugh.

[out_there]

I wish we had a coffee man. The coffee in my office is so weak you can see tho bottom of the cup.

On the other hand, there's a real cafe on the building's main floor, so I shouldn't complain.

Ah. We're a ten minute walk/2 minute drive from the closest cafe, so having the coffee man come Tues-Fri is a wonderful thing. Plus, he does a great double-shot vanilla latte... yum!

wealth of little independent cafes - every single one of which makes its mochas with some super-sweet, fake-tasting syrup, ugh.

I'm a fan of a mocha nad a fan of sweet tasting syrups, but I really don't think they should be combined. *pulls face*

[china_shop]

I don't believe I've ever said this to anyone before, but... I envy you your city council. :-)

[resonant]

Right? In 2000 they said, "better healthcare in this particular poor neighborhood," and now there's a clinic there.

Food co-op is scheduled for this spring. I've toured the bldg. It should be cool.

[jesse_the_k]

Oh! I want to move there!

Our city council was like that in 1965, but we're still dealing with the fallout of the "War at Home" 1968 -- 1974, which fundamentally divided town and gown. (There were riots and National Guard and eventuLly bombing)

[resonant]

Sounds dramatically awful! In a way it sort of feels like 1965 in general here - all middlebrow seriousness and pre-Nixonian optimism.

[carolyn_claire]

Goodness, yes, the blinding whiteness. At least in yours they think it's an issue and they're working on ways to address it; here, they're fine with it, and even a little pleased about it in an offhand way. The girls really hated that, and the pervasive smugness; they'll never live here again unless they're forced to move back in with us.

[resonant]

I've seen a bit of smugness and a bit of conflating "not 99% white" with "not safe and friendly the way you remember from childhood," but at least the leaders are saying the right things. And they really are - they're not talking about diversity as a nice favor to do for the nonwhite - they're saying, look, life will be better if talented people can feel welcome here.

[tevere]

My palms are sweating just thinking about driving on an icy hill. How on earth! Every time I read or hear the words "black ice", I just assume it's shorthand for "you might as well shut your eyes and keep driving, because if you don't die it's gonna be pure luck anyway." (I'm sure it's not that bad. Or is it??)

Having also moved to a new city recently, my life is also dominated by the fact I don't have a real job (or any job). It's not bad having time to write for once, but slashy books aren't going to pay mortgages.

[resonant]

I've only encountered black ice in parking lots so far - where at least the prevailing speed is slow. I think the heavy salting takes care of it.

Snow you can strategize about. Ice ... You should just stay home.

Good luck in your job hunt. Maybe we'll both get lucky soon.

[travels_in_time]

Ha. I was reading along and going "Yep...yep...yep..." until I got to your last item. We are lily-white in our new (well, four years now...still feels new) place, too--a complete contrast to where we used to live. But our City Council--which is very progressive in other areas--likes it that way, and apparently so do most of the residents.

Something I've found since I moved up here is that white Southerners are more likely to casually say things that are insensitive or even outright racist, but they live and work and eat and tailgate and socialize right alongside people of color; while white Midwesterners are more likely to give a LOT of lip service to the idea of equality and non-discrimination, but oh, my, don't let "those" people move in next door to me!

[pauraque]

That was my experience of living in San Francisco. The people there, especially upper-class whites, are much better at talking about inclusion than they are at actually including anybody who isn't just like themselves.

[resonant]

You are so right about Southern vs. Northern racism. In my age group, you're never going to meet a white Southerner, however bigoted, who doesn't remember loving an African-American as a child. (In fact, that may account for some of the viciousness of the bigotry: if your social system depends on oppressing these people, you're going to have to develop a contempt that's as strong as that love you remember.)

[metaphortunate]

Oh wow, that makes sense. :(

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Yeah, I hated those hills, with the result that I stayed on the main roads all the time & never went downtown.

Regarding race- I did tell you about the nineties & what went on then, right? I'm willing to bet they're still consciously reacting. That town is still so white that for our forum on racism, when they tried to find a local person of color for us to talk to, they wound up with a British expat who'd only been in the US for a year or two. Who a prof had approached in a grocery store.

[resonant]

Hee - now they'd go to the director of the Multi-Cultural Family Center; I don't know how she has time to work in between explaining things to white people.

In reality, I can tell that some of the concern for diversity is lip service, and some of it is sincere but completely lacking a genuine emotional grasp of the fact that a gay black Muslim would still be a person just like you whose chief concern in the moment might be nothing more exotic and foreign than her property taxes or the fact that her feet hurt - but at least some of the visible people are saying the right things for the right reasons.

[riverlight]

This is a fascinating list! It's kind of weird to think about how different these little details of our lives are (by "our" I mean "everyone's", I guess). Probably why I find it so interesting to read these meme answers; it's like looking into illuminated windows at night and getting glimpses of other lives.

[resonant]

It's good to get a question like this five months into the move; any earlier and I wouldn't have had a chance to observe much, but if you asked me five years from now, all those things would have become so normal that I would have stopped noticing them.