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The Nation's Pulse
Can We Go Home Again?
That depends on the town.
Mark A. Signorelli has an interesting piece up over at Front Porch Republic on the theme of going home.
Several writers associated with FPR (Rod Dreher, Bill Kauffman, among others) have written extensively about their journeys from small town to big city and back again, where they had to convince smug townsfolk that, no, they were not slinking back home having failed to make it in the big city. Rather, they had chosen to trade wealth and status for the pleasures of small town life.
Going home, however, is a luxury not everyone can afford. One must have a hometown worth returning to, one that hasn’t been changed for the worse by time and circumstance. Certainly, if one has managed to escape the ghetto, the trailer park, even Signorelli’s sprawling soulless suburbia, it unwise to go home again. Not all of us hail from Kauffman’s beloved Batavia or Dreher’s quaint St. Francisville.
As the wife and I continue house shopping, we have had many of the same thoughts as Signorelli. I am unlikely to move back home, even though home is but a short drive away. As Signorelli notes, going home narratives “underestimate the extent of the cultural wreckage wrought upon our communities… they overestimate the amount of genuine civil society remaining in our local communities…”
Home, in other words, ain’t what it used to be. My hometown certainly isn’t. The Belleville, Illinois of my youth was far from idyllic; rather it was an ordinary working class town, with very little charm, but a good deal of local industry. The nearby Stag Brewery employed several generations of my neighbors. The schools worked. Families were largely intact. Serious crime was a rarity. My parents had no problem letting their preteen children sleep on the front porch or in a backyard tent. We walked ourselves to school and rode our bikes to baseball practice.
All that changed in the 1980s. The brewery was sold and shuttered. The mall in a neighboring town doomed our downtown. Soon, we were no more than a bedroom community serving nearby St. Louis. Then the prosperous commuters began to drift away to new housing tracts in the surrounding countryside. Housing prices plummeted. As ethnic diversity increased (and economic diversity decreased) racial tensions rose. The schools suffered from the cultural gap, including the loss of competent teachers and the loss of a strong tax base. The Catholic schools and churches began consolidating and closing.
This is how towns die.
ALL OF WHICH BEGS the question: when is one’s hometown no longer one’s hometown? Writes Signorelli:
The town where I grew up has been utterly transformed over the years into a place embodying all of the destructive and inhuman tendencies of modern American life…the atomization of our neighborhoods; the crassness and destructiveness of our greed; our lack of stewardship towards the natural world; our obliviousness towards our intellectual heritage; the rancid divisiveness of our politics; the frivolity of modern American religion. My hometown is an absolute epitome of everything a Porcher loathes about contemporary America, a veritable minor kingdom of economic, cultural, and theological individualism. So as someone who loathes these things as much as the next Porcher, I must simply say that I have no place to return to. To return to my hometown, to settle down there and raise a family, would represent, to my mind, an act of surrender; it would subject me and my family to all of the malign forces in our culture I wish to defy.
Signorelli is perhaps too gloomy about our present situation. “We are unlikely to find a real home at this time, perhaps even in our lifetimes,” he writes. Well, the author is a playwright and used to ramping up the melodrama, so he is forgiven. But he lost me completely when he avers that we are only at home when we live and work among people who are our mirror image, who possess the same world-view, same tastes, same affections, same ambitions, same goals. Isn’t he describing the dull suburban conformity he longed to escape?
I, too, am one who feels that Americans are too placeless, too hypermobile, and that if we genuinely believe community and family are fundamental we need to become more rooted. I am, however, more optimistic about the future. I believe it is still possible to “find a real home.” Especially if one is not seeking perfection. Just a place with a strong sense of community, of law and order, of walkable neighborhoods, good schools, some greenspace. If my hometown no longer affords that then it is no longer home. And it’s time to find a new one.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (42) | Leave a comment
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Pseudo-Macarius| 3.20.13 @ 6:51AM
Ref. "Willoughby" episode of Twilight Zone and 'You Can't Go Home Again" novel by Thomas Wolfe.
Alan| 3.20.13 @ 7:52AM
Your referring to the TZ episode called "Walking Distance" played by Gig Young. One of the best episodes they ever came up with.
Pseudo-Macarius| 3.20.13 @ 9:15AM
That was good, but I was referring to "Willoughby" where the businessman gets off a train and finds a beautiful small town from the last century....a place to "live life full measure."
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.20.13 @ 11:00AM
In the end, though, he is placed in the hearse from the Willoughby Funeral Home.
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 12:51PM
As far as I know, you CAN go back home, again.
You just can Never go back to The Green, again.
Especially if you're the King and the Queen. (Billy Joel)
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.20.13 @ 1:18PM
Whoa-oa-oa-oa-ooooa- Whoa-oa
♭♬♩♪♫ ♬♩♪♫ ♬♫
(After the Whoa Whoaing, that's me whistling the opening and closing of "The Stranger"; having concluded the discussion of Brenda & Eddie).
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 4:32PM
You are The Man, Albert.
But, you already knew that.
alice921| 3.20.13 @ 12:24PM
Its definitely the most-financially rewarding I ve ever done. Make money with Google. On thursday I got a brand new Chevrolet Corvette since I been earnin $5269 this-past/4 weeks and-even more than, $10,000 this past month. I work through this link, http://tw.gs/YbVcey
Derek Leaberry| 3.20.13 @ 8:12AM
I certainly wouldn't be welcomed in Seabrook, MD, the town in which I was raised. It has been demographically transformed from being 99 % white in 1970 to about 20 % white today, all of whom are geriatrics.
Harry the Horrible| 3.20.13 @ 8:39AM
Visited my old neighborhood in Charleston, SC, Northbridge Terrace. A lot of stuff has grown up - more houses, etc. But it was almost exactly the same... I would love to move back!
AllAmericanAmerican| 3.20.13 @ 9:10AM
Born and raised in Filthydelphia---you can frigging keep it.
After serving my 21 years either overseas or in the South and West, you can not only keep Filthydelphia, but I never wanna go back.
There are towns out there that are still idyllic, with no crooked hats and gay prisoner pants wearers and gangsta rap booming from 1972 Impalas. More importantly, there are no teen members of the dominant culture who've embraced the characteristics of the inferior culture.
I found one. Moving there in about 100 days. :)
Pseudo-Macarius| 3.20.13 @ 9:13AM
AAA: What are "gay prisoner pants"?
Where is this place you found? I'm looking for a place to retire....Is it safe to retire to Mexico?
Thanks,
PM
JP| 3.20.13 @ 9:21AM
I think those would be those ubiquitous pants that drop so low that they display ones butt crack.
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 12:53PM
Ask Purp.
AllAmericanAmerican| 3.20.13 @ 1:36PM
The wearing of the pants so low you can see the wearer's ass started in prison as a way for gay prisoners to show they were, umm, open for business as it were.
The place I found is in the South, not a border State, and is west of the Mississippi.
I dunno about Mexico...never been.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.20.13 @ 2:12PM
Sounds like Arkansas...
JP| 3.20.13 @ 9:17AM
Chris, while I agree with your observations and sentiments I should also add that many towns die from suicide.
The urban neighborhood where I live was once dubbed Belgian Town. One hundred and twenty years ago it was filled with Belgian Catholics who worked at a nearby factory. The neighborhood survived the closing of the factory. But, ultimately was done in by taxes. As the eldery Belgians died off, slum lords (who took advantage of the tax code for Landlords) moved in. Within 15 years the once well kept, charming 5 blocks that made of this part of town was transformed into place for white trash, drug dealers, drifters, and low life. It happened one house at a time. Back when there was still time to stop this transformation, the taxes on a $100,000 home was $3000/year. There was no way anyone outside of a slumlord would purchase these homes. Today, most homes are either vacant or occupied by renters who stay less than 3 months. In the mean time, petty crime, drug deals, and the occaisonal murder have taken hold. The city fathers to this day refuse to grant tax waivers. And they have the chutzpah to complan about falling property tax revenues.
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 1:00PM
My Hometown was Ridgefield, Ct. and I wouldn't go back, even if they GAVE ME A house, and for just the Opposite Reason that you just gave.
Where it once was a Beautiful Small New England Town? It is now a Home for Transported Yuppy New Yorkers, and they brought everything about NYC that everybody Hates, with them.
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 1:05PM
It's almost as bad as WILTON.
ncatty| 3.20.13 @ 9:47AM
Americans move a lot, its part of our character.
Frekki| 3.20.13 @ 10:39AM
My home town was a small fishing, farming community on the west side of the Chesapeake. It's totally gone now, all the land bought by city people and speculators. We raised out children in a small town on the Ohio, no chance this small town will die or be lost to city money, we are just for enough from Cincinnati to live, but not be consumed. That's the problem, were to call home in this exponentially changing world.
Petronius| 3.20.13 @ 8:07PM
Harrison has great curb appeal.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.20.13 @ 11:05AM
Actually, due to his failure to publish here for the last five to six months, I thought Chris Orlet had died off (I figured he caught a stray round or two from a gun battle in the crime ridden transitional St. Louis neighborhood he currently occupied).
Kwan| 3.20.13 @ 2:54PM
He must be wearing a Kevlar Vest and be driving a bullet proof automobile. He better hope it doesn't transition into the largest city in Wackofornia -Los Angeles- where bodies litter the streets and the meat wagons are constantly on the go http://projects.latimes.com/homicide/blog/page/1/ "The horror...the horror...", Colonel Walter Kurtz (Apocalypse Now).
Seek| 3.20.13 @ 3:58PM
Negroes have been known to have an astonishingly high propensity for violent crime, especially in the St. Louis area. Having grown up in that area, this is a problem to which I can relate.
Petronius| 3.20.13 @ 8:12PM
A south side family who were all police officers used to sit around the dinner table on Sunday evenings and argue about the gutter dwellers on their beats. The argument over, "mine are worse than yours ," was settled when the one who worked the 3rd District told his brothers, "want to work my area? There, the hill billies train 'em."
junkyard infidel| 3.20.13 @ 11:15AM
when is one’s hometown no longer one’s hometown?
my former hometown is Dearborn (aka Dearbornistan, aka middle east Dearborn) and my new hometown is on the coast of South Carolina...allahu akbar, y'all
William L. Gensert| 3.20.13 @ 11:30AM
I was born in Chicago. My father was a Professor of Criminology at Loyola University. When I was 2 or 3 years old, he died and my mother packed us up and moved us to her mother's house in the Italian, Bronx neighborhood of Morris Park.
I grew up in the Bronx and live 2 blocks from my mother's house.
When my son was born and his mother wanted to leave, I sold my businesses and bought the house I still live in today. I raised my son here.
My real estate taxes have tripled under Bloomberg and it costs a fortune to heat my 3,500 square foot home. And you know with Barack, fuel prices are only going up.
It's not that I can't go home again, I'm already home. It's just that, at some point, I will not be able to afford home.
But that's okay, I'll find another.
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 1:07PM
What're you waiting for?
The Next Attack?
Occam's Tool| 3.20.13 @ 2:40PM
Mr. Gensert: strongly recommend that you consider the Fargo-Moorhead area. Very reasonable cost of living, very nice people. Other than the winter weather, it is idyllic. Also, it has excellent schools and NDSU, a major doctoral granting university, is present.
And you would be where I could occasionally take you out to dinner. :-)
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 4:35PM
You left out 20ft. of Snow every year.
Petronius| 3.20.13 @ 11:45AM
Hi Chris. I missed your stuff while you were gone. Finding a municipality that is the least bit livable is next to impossible. The towns that are, keep it that way by keeping it secret. If you go house hunting and they know you're a refugee, you're toast. The only thing you could by there is a tank of gas to go look somewhere else. Buying and selling property is tightly controlled by the locals. If your grandparents aren't buried in the town cemetery, don't ask. Blame Carter and HUD for that. You seldom see for sale signs because the Federal government started buying houses in nice small towns and moving urban trash into them 40 years ago. The only saving grace was, those urchins didn't want to live there anyway.
If you find a place attractive, spend time and money there and let the populace get to know you. Then, an invitation could be tendered later. The areas between Springfield and the state lines are growing like weeds as people from this end of the state search for civilization that is no longer here. I have my eyes on a town there. And I'm not telling. The trade off is dealing with rural utilities and keeping the propane tanks full in winter.
Who Knows?| 3.20.13 @ 11:53AM
Try Portland, Oregon. It's full of depressing people, who are deluded in their happiness. They imposed a no growth policy.
The house my parents bought in 1958 for around $8K, an OLD one, now goes for over $300K!
My high school went from 1500 to 600 students---who can raise kids in such an expensive place?
cicero| 3.20.13 @ 11:59AM
Detroit. Nothing more to say.
TLP| 3.20.13 @ 1:08PM
Nothing more is needed.
You said a mouthful, already.
JP| 3.20.13 @ 1:49PM
I think most of these comments have a common theme. Most towns don't die; they commit suicide. Whether it is in my aging rustbelt town near Lake Michigan, or CT, or the Bronx, the theme is - American towns choose to die.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.20.13 @ 2:58PM
...or perhaps towns, like actual organic living things, have a life cycle, and we are just witnessing the tail end of it in many cases...
JP| 3.20.13 @ 3:53PM
Perhaps you're right. How else can one explain the utter ineptitude of what passes for city governance. As I posted above, my city leaders refuse to budge an inch on property taxes. When I politely reminded them that 15% of the houses in my neighborhood were vacant becuase of thier tax rates, their only response was to say they would "study" the problem. That was 5 years ago. And now the vacany rate is up over 20%.
They're zombies
Occam's Tool| 3.20.13 @ 2:58PM
Home was Niles, IL, a Chicago suburb. My Dad, last year, asked me if I would ever go back. I said, " I would prefer to have rabid weasels gnaw off my legs." He told me not to exaggerate. I said I was understating my feelings.
I live in rural NW Minnesota. They welcome educated people here. My house, which I pay about $3500 on taxes on a year (I think), is worth $280 K. I bought it, new, in 2008. It has 3300 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, two floors. My Mortgage/tax payments (pay by escrow) consist of $2047/mo. My utilities bill in Winter given our extremes of temperature can ratchet up to $350/mo (we have a heat pump system as an auxillary). Water is free. Phone/internet is $114/mo; we have no cable because we found it useless.
We have 2 and 1/2 acres for the kids to run around on, and they have a wooden fort structure in the back of the house.
As I make $350K a year, my kids are homeschooled. I put away $60K a year for retirement, plus I will have a pension that will pay me (with full survivor benefits for wife) $6000.00/mo at this time when I retire. The pension is invested well and is rock solid.
There is a 4 year university in my hometown, next door to the hospital in which I work.
I have a service which snowplows my driveway for me, another which does landscaping in the summer. I get my driveway re-sealed every year and my septic tank pumped out the same (never a problem with the tanks when you do routine yearly maintenance ($137.50/yr).
Con't
Occam's Tool| 3.20.13 @ 2:59PM
Why in the world would I want to live in a huge city with miserable traffic and overly aggressive people? I am home.
Crassus| 3.20.13 @ 3:02PM
Southwest Virginia. Never mind the name of the town. They're all pretty much the same. The region is supposed to have started dying in the 70's but somehow it's managed to hang onto life. Gotten worse in the Obama years as almost all of the coal companies have shut down or are making plans to shut down. To some here full employment means that everyone gets a goverment check in the mailbox. Pretty soon, I fear that the only ones remaining will be the retirees who sit on their porches all day with guns on their laps.
Seek| 3.20.13 @ 3:55PM
Methinks Orlet complains too much. Localism isn't a thing of the distant past. In every state one can find wonderful and unique places that coexist fine with "soulless" high-rise buildings, golf courses, shopping malls, TGIF restaurants, rock n' roll stations and other homages to individualism.
I'm a garage rocker. I'm a human being. I'm a clubgoer. I've got an identity. If I have to hit the road for the sake of hitting the road, I'll do it. I refuse to serve as meek chattel of some backward Politically Koresh extended family. This is the modern world, as the Jam once sung. And I'm proud to be a part of it.