I guess being alienated from your community is so common now, it’s being used as a sales pitch.  The letter below is a response I sent to Colorado Public Radio regarding a letter they sent to me (and presumably also my neighbors) recently.

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Today I received one of your letters asking for support in the mail.  As I love CPR and listen to it almost exclusively, you will be getting a support check from me.  However, I thought you might want to tell your marketing department they may want to alter the pitch of the letter when they are sending them to new urbanist communities like mine in Colorado.

 

The letter begins “There was a time when “community” conjured up images of town meetings on village greens.  We rocked on our front porches, bought lemonade from the kid next door, and knew the names of every dog on the block.  But times have changed. Sometimes we barely get to know our neighbors before we (or they) move on.  The kid next door is more liekly to have a website than a lemonade stand.  Still, the need for community is strong in us, so we have redefined it to fit our lives…”

 

Here in my community, and I know also in many of the other new urbanist neighborhoods in Colorado, these “times” are back.  We have town meetings, although in our town hall and not our village green (which we also have).  We do all sit on our front porches.  We all know our neighbors.  And I know every kid on my block, the block behind me, and the blocks on the other side of the neighborhood, as well as their dogs.  Admittedly, I’ve only seen kids selling lemonade at a stand here once, which was last summer.

 

The idea of longing for community may be effective in most of Colorado’s sterile beige box subdivisions, but it won’t work here, we actually have one.

 

Best Regards,
Petra Spiess

 

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A little snotty I guess, but I thought it was amusing.