There Goes the Neighborhood

(Initially written and published in January 2010 for Valley News Group)

One important “belated” resolution we all could make this year is to fuel the revival of American Community. Whether a New Years resolution or not, striving for better social interaction could truly enhance one’s life.  Oh, to revive the spirit of American community, which somehow dwindled over the past 35 years or so – a time when people were not disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures like the PTA, church, civic clubs and bowling leagues.  Why bowling leagues?   

I am reminded of a book published in 2000 aptly titled “Bowling Alone” by a Harvard professor named Robert Putnam and a just released film titled “Up in the Air” by director Jason Reitman (Juno) and starring George Clooney.  

Talk about disconnected and disaffected, Clooney plays a modern day hatchet man named Ryan Bingham who travels the country (via plane –hence the title) to arrive at companies for the purpose of “firing” their employees and presenting them with a severance “package” and “packets” of useful separation procedures to move them along in Life. For most people, a job is not just a source of revenue but brings friendship, purpose and feeling s of self worth. In spite of turning people lives upside down (or up in the air), this character’s goal is reaching the 10 million mile mark for frequent fliers of American Airlines. Only six others have that dubious distinction… Bingham also has no wife, no children and a one bedroom apartment in Omaha, Nebraska in which he spends 42 unhappy days (his words) a year – he’s up in the air the other 320 days – which in essence becomes his real residence; A world devoid of neighbors, relationships and community.  

Does this theme sound all too familiar in our present day social and economic climate?

While that answer is a resounding “yes”, it just adds to a long standing climate of a loss in social capital in our present day society.  

Think about our transient population – especially in California. Raise your hand if you know more than a half dozen Southern California “natives”.  Speaking for myself as a transplanted Easterner, it seems like we all come from somewhere else where our memories, close friends and loved ones still reside.   

So not only are we living away from our core support groups, many of our jobs are knowledge based and require frequent travel  or just commuting local freeways to reach “clients” (both external and internal). We are leaving our immediate families, if we even made time to build one, to fend for themselves during our busy weeks.  This is true for both men and women in today’s work force.  Many evenings are spent in hotels, bars, convention parties and client dinners or traffic… instead of little league, piano recitals, school functions or just “face time” with our families and children.  And we call this progress?  

Californians also have a knack for tuning out their neighbors.  We retreat into our garages, closing the door on the immediate world, and exist in our own cocoon. Weeks could go by without talking to a neighbor. UPS could deliver a package that could sit at   our front door for days as we enter and exit out of our “bat caves” on a daily basis.  

With the advent of advanced forms of technology, we don’t need to even speak with anyone. We can email from our computers, blackberries or iPhones. Even our cell phones are used not only for calling people but texting them.  Our caller ID feature allows us to screen all our calls at home and not answer.  These features are convenient but serve to further alienate us in our bubble environment. 

In a sick twist to this connection deficiency, it is almost a blessing that California has a number of natural disasters.  In my 30 years residence here, it was during the Northridge Earthquake in 1994 that I met and actually spent time getting to know my neighbors.  The other calamity was the Topanga fire in 2005 which prompted us to actually “pack” the things that mattered in the event of evacuation. That packing in and of itself is a great exercise in which to partake – we know to take each member of our family, our pets and pictures of our past.  Throw in some financial information, maybe a laptop and a few books including a Bible.  What other “stuff” is important in a crisis.  

Putnam’s account (in “Bowling Alone”) measures social capital rewards, communal activity and community sharing.  His findings are that social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction. Just getting married and attending a club meeting (or joining a bowling league) greatly enhances our social capital and is relatively the same as doubling and quadrupling our real income. His findings also foretell that communities with less social capital have lower educational performance, higher teen pregnancy, increased child suicide rates, prenatal mortality and higher crime rates.  Can we get an Amen? 

My own journey in life began in Philadelphia in what I refer to as the asphalt jungle.  We didn’t call it social capital but our environment was devoid of 3 car garages – we parked on the street sometimes blocks away… we lived in row houses (3 bedrooms and ONE bathroom) that were all connected (the town home concept of today) and we had porches in the front of these row houses that fostered communication with one’s neighbors on both sides and across the street.  In the summer, we didn’t retire to a pool in the backyard but got under a hose or a fire hydrant with the rest of our neighbors.  You ladies haven’t lived unless you have been dunked under a fire hydrant by the boys in the neighborhood.  It was character building and defined the concept of a good sport.  And yes, my mother actually belonged to a bowling league with the other mothers who lived on the street.  It now looks like an idyllic lifestyle… though far from perfect.  

As we revisit Ryan Bingham, our disaffected hatchet man, he has also returned to his hometown in northern Wisconsin to attend his young sisters wedding, we are treated to a nostalgic visit to his high school, a very meager but spirited family wedding; and yes a longing for the human condition of social interaction and fellowship...  and a victory in carrying another’s burden. As in life, not everything works out “happily ever after” for our protagonist but we find there is more than a “body in that suit”. Somewhere a soul was awakened and hopefully will emerge before it’s really too late.  That is a lesson for all of us to revisit. Get in the game.  Invite your neighbors over for a rousing game of dominoes, hold a block party, join that bridge club, have that beer bash… and of course, join a bowling league.   Let’s not wait for the next catastrophe to meet our neighbor’s.