Question of the day

[ayoub]

What kind of neighbourhood did you grow up in?

Comments

[f-l-i-r-t.livejournal.com]

Many different kinds, from urban to suburban to out in the middle of the woods, we moved a lot, hence the difficulty in making and keeping friends. I have no friends from my childhood that I am in touch with now, sometimes this makes me feel sad, or at least a longing. Anyway, you did not ask that, did you?

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Yep, I did...

Thank you for sharing :)

[evergladesqueen.livejournal.com]

Only one and still here. Very quiet, about 92% country, kids always playing in the street, no worries, etc. *hugs*

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

[avis-noctis.livejournal.com]

I grew up for the first 10-11 years of my life in an old downtown neighborhood on the side of a hill, full of houses mostly 100+ years old. The first house I lived in for that first decade was around 102 years old. It had tall ceilings, beautiful old wallpapers and a hardwood floor. It was classically-built and the rooms were large, but there were few rooms. Our yard was small. There was a considerably-sized sidewalk and many great old maples and magnolias along the road. There were no other kids my age for blocks around, as I remember. No children at all. I was well-acquainted with some of the elder people on the street though.

Down the hill was the downtown park, which had a wonderful black iron fountain. That fountain remains my favorite aspect that whole city. It was such a lush environment.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

It sounds wonderful :)

[avis-noctis.livejournal.com]

It was a pretty interesting place to live an early childhood.

[inmyocean.livejournal.com]

I grew up in suburbia in a small coastal city so the ocean was a stones throw away and the mountains on the other side. It was a neighbourhood where everyone knew everybody else and you could leave your doors open and no one would disturb you. :)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

That sounds amazing :D

That reminded me of something :D

[ex-nothingto835.livejournal.com]

We lived in a block of four council flats. We had drug dealers above and below. Fires happened once a month, and I remember running into my gran's bedroom with my cat in his carrying case to wake her up, because the ceiling was beginning to fall on top of us. They'd stay up to all hours, deliberately stamping on their floor to keep us awake as they played bob dylan badly on acoustic guitar. We were threatened routinely, there were beetles infesting the place. Footballs were thrown against our window.
My gran's sister died and left us a vast chunk of money so we were basically able to move to where we are now overnight. I left an old radio in my room and put my Chemical Brothers album on repeat at full blast. For all I know, it played that way for months. Even as a teen, I was a vengeful little bitch.

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

I can relate.
When I first moved out, I moved into an apartment complex that allowed for Section 8 housing. What that means is that if someone's on welfare, they might only have to pay $25 out of a $450 rent and the government pays the rest. These cunts beneath me would be partying and arguing until 4AM on a Sunday and Monday night, and the fucking cops wouldn't do a thing. I was never so happy as when one of the arguements escalated to the point when one of the cocksuckers got pitched over the balcony. After the music went off, I could hear him groaning in the shrubs below. I just smiled from my bed. Then I saw the flashing blue and red lights. I slept like a rock. The last 3 months were the most peaceful there.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Sounds a lot like home to me :)

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a nice neighborhood in northern Baltimore. When my mom worked at the church rectory, I spent most of my time in the rich neighborhood with the rich kids who went to the church's school because their folks wanted to save a buck, as opposed to sending them to the cathedral's school on the other side of the neighborhood that cost more for tuition. That might be why I no drive to get a huge paying job: the upper middle class are over-focused on keeping what they've earned, the nouveau riche are too much like us to be financially stable with their wealth, and old-money simply cannot relate to what average survival means to the majority of the masses. The old-money rich have totally different value sets than most people in the middle- and lower-classes.

I enjoyed growing up in both neighborhoods.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Thanks for telling me about them :)

[jeremyb.livejournal.com]

Until I was 16 or so, I lived in a small suburban subdivision. Smallish houses and friendly neighbors. I didn't really hang out with the kids in my neighborhood, but there was a nice neighborhood across the street. In general, it was a new neighborhood when we moved in, so the trees weren't very big, and it didn't have character.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a nice place though :)

[maeghanne.livejournal.com]

Until I was about 12 years old I lived in a village in Illinios (about a days drive south of Chicago) with a population of about 250. Then, due to my mother's job, I moved to L.A! CULTURE SHOCK. Turns out, I love culture shock. And big cities. sooo.. now I am here! :)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

[sabriel007.livejournal.com]

I grew up on a street that was half in El Cerrito, (a fairly good town- mainly old retired people,) and half in Richmond, (a reasonably sized city, mostly really really poor.) (I was actually BORN in Brighton- but I was only in England until I was two.) My neighborhood, when I was growing up, was full of kids my age. My best friends lived across the street, at the end of my block, the first house on the next block, and half way down my street. There are several parks around us, and we had a playgroup which would meet in different parks around every week. We all went to preschool together, close by, in this woman's house, (because we lived so close to Richmond we were in the Richmond school zones, and those schools are terrible, so we all went to private schools.) We had a piano teacher we all went to who lived a couple of blocks away and would organize big recitals and also may day celebrations and caroling and things. The elementary/middle school(s) I went to, (I switched once,) were only a mile away, right next to each other, and most my friends went to one or the other, and we could walk home, (though only did so once a week,) and all my girl friends did ballet with me near by. By high school everyone was scattered all over and my neighborhood wasn't really the nucleus of the world anymore, but it was a great place to be a kid.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great place to grow up :)

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a fantastic neighborhood. It's called the Carillon Neighborhood because it surrounds a beautiful carillon monument to World War I soldiers. It is/was one of the first integrated middle class neighborhoods in the city of Richmond and is within walking distance of several parks, the museum, city stadium and much more. My parents still live there. I wouldn't mind moving there one day, but the prices are super high now.

See a slideshow of the Carillon park (http://media.gatewayva.com/photos/rtd/special/discoverrichmond/2005/dogwooddell/index.htm)
Central Richmond Neighborhoods (http://www.ci.richmond.va.us/departments/c2m/neighborhoodguide/central.aspx)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

That's a gorgeous place :D

[photodiva02.livejournal.com]

Typical American Suburbia. Sprawling ranch houses that kind of looked alike, pretty manicured lawns.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Sounds idyllic :)

[huggscancer.livejournal.com]

a nice neighboorhood and hwen i was younger, there were other kids around. right in the heart of st paul. still live there now, but moms planning on selling the house

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Sounds great :)

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

The boring Middle-Class American kind, unusual only in that it happened to be located in Southern California, so I didn't realize that being within driving distance of mountains, ocean, desert and Disneyland was not average until I was a teen. Our public school system here in CA is inexcusably bad, but I was homeschooled for most of my childhood, so luckily, I didn't encounter too many of its ill effects. We were one of the few families in the area who actually owned our house, the majority of the houses being rentals, and subsequently I never had the same neighbors for very long. The kids in my neighborhood were not quite sure what to think of me, I'm afraid. I talked about fifty times as much as any of them, and I could be very bossy when I felt that they were not playing a game "correctly", but I was also scared of everything and would unabashedly flee for safety the instant I thought I was in any danger of being injured (for values of "injured" see stubbed tow, scrapped knee and hangnail).

I didn't realize it at the time, but the area where I grew up is what middle-classers regard as a not-quite-savory area (partly because of the fact that it's mostly rented-out...renters tend not to care for their houses like owners do, and people that move every few years have a higher likelihood of being undesirable neighbors). The area has since become even less savory than it was fifteen years ago. The neighborhood park is no longer a safe place to frequent alone and the street where I lived is more run down and shifty-looking than ever. My parents moved to a more affluent (and much safer) area some years ago, when they could finally afford it, and I'm very glad they did, or I would worry about them (well, not too much, as Dad's ex-Navy and collects guns...but I'd still worry).

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it was very cool :)

[pan16.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a somewhat rural neighbourhood with lots of hills and open fields. And my house was also up a gravel lane away from the road, so if anyone did drive by (which was seldom) we usually didn't hear it. Nice and quiet. And the stars really shone at night. I used to go out with my telescope and look at all the different celestial bodies for hours.
Moving away was certainly a sad occasion, as I'd spent the first 20 years of my life there. But that's the way it goes. Maybe one of these days I'll be rich enough to buy it back. :)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great place :)

[stardances.livejournal.com]

My father worked his way up from a very young "bagger" at a local grocery to owning his own business by selling industrial food processing equipment, we moved several times with my father taking a higher ranking job each time so the neighborhoods got better with almost every move.

Most of the moves were in New Orleans, and urban/suburban, it is the place I think of as home. I would say that most of the old neighborhoods would now be considered lower to lower middle class, but I always had friends of all races and creeds (my mother was quite the hippy). We would often go fishing, crabbing, crawfishing for most of the day and then invite half of the neighborhood over for a crawfish boil or fish fry. Most of my neighbors were blue collar workers, everyone brought a dish or beverage, the adults would tell jokes/chat and we would run barefooted and play very late into the night:).

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a fun place to grow up :)