In The Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time by Peter Lovenheim

Author:Peter Lovenheim
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-fiction, Sociology, Neighborliness - United States, Social Science, Neighborhoods, Neighborliness, Social networks - United States, General, United States, Neighborhoods - United States, Social networks, Communities, Essays, Communities - United States, Community - United States
ISBN: 9780399535710
Publisher: Perigee Trade
Published: 2010-04-06T09:05:08.751000+00:00

JAMIE had gotten me wondering if I could find other examples of individual homeowners sharing property, and the ways in which they might gather together and make use of their common space. Later, a little research showed that, while it’s not common, it does exist.

• “I’m lucky to live in Shore Acres,” Dan Postotnik, a resident of that mixed- income Cleveland neighborhood on the shore of Lake Erie, wrote me. The 168 Shore Acres homeowners share two park properties, which are overseen and maintained by their neighborhood association. One of the parks, the size of a city lot, is used primarily as a playground. Neighborhood volunteers installed swings and slides, benches, and “a giant barbecue big enough for the whole neighborhood to celebrate together on the Fourth of July,” according to association president Meg Doerr. The other property, covering three lots, had been used as a tennis court until recently when residents decided to convert it into another park with a large picnic shelter and community gardens. Residents pay just $50 annually to cover taxes and insurance on the two properties. Volunteers clean up the parks in spring and fall, removing tree branches and mulching around the playground.

The two shared parks are the center of neighborhood life, says Doerr. Some neighbors have held their weddings there, and recently many gathered in the park with one of Shore Acre’s most senior residents to celebrate his ninety-first birthday. The association is considering buying an empty lot on the opposite end of the neighborhood to create yet a third park, and also buying a vacant home to rent out to artists for living and studio space—a way to encourage arts in the neighborhood. “It takes effort and commitment to nurture and maintain such a community,” notes Postotnik, “but we prove it can be done, despite the broad changes in the society around us.”

• In the historic Center Square-Hudson Park neighborhood of Albany, New York, owners of six adjoining brick row houses have traded a bit of privacy for a lot of beautiful gardening. “Our tiny backyards were really shaded from the stockade fences between each unit,” recalls one of the owners, Kathryn Sikule. “With the shade from the fences, you really couldn’t grow too much.” Beginning in 2006, Sikule and some of her neighbors came up with the idea of taking down the fences and combining their gardens.

Over time, more neighbors agreed to take down their fences or trellises and merge gardens. The result was “a beautiful, unique garden that has brought us all together as a community,” says Sikule. Stone foot paths set among the joint garden allow each resident access to the full landscaped space, and an uninterrupted view of a sunny, garden scene filled with plants, shrubs, and annual flowers. Already, some of the original neighbors have moved away but the new owners have accepted the joint garden, says Sikule. In an article about the garden, writer Jane Gottlieb observed, “For about the same amount of work, each [owner] gets five times the yard and a kinship that gates and posts would never have allowed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.