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Front Page Gaston Gazette - Way to Go Runnymeade!
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Posted on Monday, January 13 @ 17:05:13 EST by Matt
Contributed by: Matt
Here is the body of the article. Click on READ ME to see the full text. I suggest we all run out and pick up the paper tonight:
Even new communities can nurture old traditions.
Take the Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating. On many American streets, it�s all but extinct.
Ask parents why, and they�ll say they�d rather march the kids around the mall or throw a party for an invited few. They don�t feel safe taking candy from their own neighbors.
Not so in Mount Holly�s Runnymeade subdivision, a late 1990s-vintage neighborhood with a nostalgic, neighborly atmosphere. There the sidewalks fill with costumed children, many from within the subdivision, many shipped in by parents looking for a safe, traditional Halloween.
"We have never, in the four years we�ve been here, had candy past 8:30," Runnymeade resident Judy Moore said.
Runnymeade neighbors say they don�t need the excuse of Halloween to ring one another�s doorbells. Barbecue dinners, play dates and all-night computer game fests known as "geek parties" can happen anytime.
"It�s kind of �50s, but that�s what we do," said Matthew Hawkins, who maintains the homeowners� association�s Web site. "We�re the Cleavers."
In many ways, Runnymeade is about as far from the 1950s as it can get. Residents say most people there are 35 or younger, so they don�t even remember the decade in which "Leave it to Beaver" made its debut. The whole area was farmland until about six years ago, when Mulvaney Homes started developing it.
In other ways, the 300-home subdivision shows a strong resemblance to those developed after World War II. It consists entirely of single-family homes. At one-third of an acre, its large lots are the reason many residents say they chose Runnymeade.
In short, sociable Runnymeade has some characteristics that experts say have discouraged the formation of neighborhood ties in America. Houses sit apart from each other and people leave the neighborhood to work.
But as its annual block parties and active Web site demonstrate, it also has some qualities that have created vibrant connections. Just by shopping for a house in the $110,000 range near Charlotte, Runnymeade�s residents could have ended up anywhere. They came to Runnymeade, and they became neighbors.
The word "neighborhood" touches a nostalgic nerve for on-the-move Americans, said David Walters, an architecture professor at UNC Charlotte. But it�s being used lightly.
"Every new subdivision is called a neighborhood," Walters said. "It�s become a marketing commodity, rather than a social phenomenon."
Walters and other experts say the social phenomenon of neighborhoods changed in the last 50 years, and is changing again.
Government zoning made sure sprawling suburban developments remained the norm in the postwar years, said Jack Kiser, Gastonia�s planning director.
These days, planners wonder whether that was such a good idea, he said. The standards ruled out apartments over downtown businesses, for example, and kept people from shopping and working near home.
"We were into regulating things that really took away true neighborhoods and replaced them with things that didn�t become neighborhoods," Kiser said.
But another trend that pulled people away from their neighbors was voluntary.
In the past, simple proximity was the basis of lifelong friendships. That�s changing. Younger people base relationships on common interests, often using the Internet to stay in touch with far-flung friends. Technology-supported "neighborhoods" can stretch around the world.
"The old social space of the neighborhood isn�t needed anymore," Walters said.
Or is it? Even people who feel at home in their virtual neighborhoods want to live in a place where they know the people next door, he said.
"At a very basic social level, we as individuals want to identify with a place," Walters said. "The more global we become, the more carefully we need to attend to our local roots, because we become psychologically displaced."
On the theory that certain kinds of construction can build community ties, developers are now offering communities built on the "new urbanist" model. Stores, offices and several kinds of houses share space. One of the so-called "traditional neighborhood developments" is slated for construction in Gastonia.
"What they�re marketing is nostalgia," Kiser said.
Cities, including Gastonia, have a bird in the hand, said Rick Smyre, a former textile executive and former Gaston County School Board chairman who now works as a professional futurist.
"If you could, in effect, create an environment, then the downtown area of Gastonia is a ready-made place to attract young people and diverse people into Gastonia," Smyre said.
Diverse neighborhoods act like a magnet on the young professionals who fuel the modern economy, Smyre, Kiser and Walters said. They all cited a new book on the subject, "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It�s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life," by Richard Florida. The book explores the living patterns of people in creative professions, such as engineering, teaching and the arts.
"They�re looking for authentic places," Kiser said. "They�re turned off on typical suburban development."
Gastonia�s York-Chester neighborhood offers a taste of that diversity.
Volunteers from Gastonia�s First ARP Church set out to be good neighbors in York-Chester. In the homes, duplexes and apartments of the treelined historic district, they encountered everything from yuppie commuters to a house full of immigrants.
Two years ago, a new pastor with inner-city experience, the Rev. Eddie Spencer, decided to reach out to the neighborhood. The church dominates a large block in York-Chester, but many members had long since moved to the suburbs.
Spencer sent volunteers knocking on doors. Their goal wasn�t necessarily to pack the pews at Sunday services, he said, just to bring greetings: "We�re your neighbor. We want you to know that we care about you. Let us know how we can pray for you."
The neighborhood ministry has yet to blossom, but the welcoming attitude thrives, Spencer said.
"My heart is that we would be able to minister to anyone God sends to us," he said. "He seems to be sending us people from (the zip codes) 28054 and 28056."
Diversity can also be the key to a neighborhood�s longevity, Walters said. What will happen to the friendly feel of Runnymeade as the original families grow and want to upgrade to bigger houses?
"That means leaving the neighborhood," he said. "Because there is no bigger house in the neighborhood. You can�t age in place. You can�t grow in place. You move."
Side trips west show that neighborhoods age as differently as people do.
Juanita "Toby" Greene, 68, has spent 48 years in the West Gastonia neighborhood of Love Heights. In some ways, it resembles what Runnymeade might look like several decades from now if nobody moves.
"Basically the same people have lived here the last 48 years, except the past five years," said Greene.
But Love Heights homeowners are a planted bunch, unlike Runnymeade�s commuters. All those years in the same house have tied Greene securely to West Gastonia. She said she does no shopping in the eastern half of town, and looks forward to the arrival of a new Wal-Mart close to home.
The Love Heights retirees stay in touch, Greene said. But it took trouble to pull them together. Greene spearheaded a community watch group after her house was burglarized.
"It was March the 10 th , 1981," Greene said. "That�s when it alerted me. You should be a nosy neighbor."
In Love Heights, when a strange car drives by, people call each other.
Farther into the country, Glenn Paysour has seen his neighborhood age, too.
"When I grew up in this community, well of course I knew everyone on White-Jenkins road. I knew everyone on Costner School Road," said Paysour, 76, the retired postmaster of Bessemer City.
Paysour lives in the Costner School neighborhood, northwest of Dallas. In his childhood, farms dominated the landscape. Younger generations built houses on land carved from the family farm; Paysour�s house, where he built his house in 1973, was once the stomping ground of his father�s dairy cows.
Today, the neighborhood includes all ages. There aren�t any organized festivities, Paysour said, but people do come together at the elementary school or the two area churches.
Community Watch activities have dwindled as some of the founders have aged and died. But people there stay in touch, perhaps because they do live farther apart.
"It�s a quiet neighborhood," Paysour said. "Most everyone I know around here are friends. We kind of look out for each other."
If both distance and nearness can breed togetherness, how does construction influence a neighborhood? Of the elements of new urbanism, Runnymeade has exactly one: sidewalks.
Have those cement strips become the tie that binds? Demographics may be stronger. Homeowners� Association president Nancy Hellman, 36, says that many residents see themselves mirrored in their neighbors, because young couples and families find the price is right.
Whether the magic ingredient is sidewalks or statistics, something has made Runnymeade worthy of the neighborhood label. Time will tell whether the feeling lasts, but Hellman expects the block party, now in its third year, will make it to its 10 th birthday and beyond.
"This is a great neighborhood. I love it here," she said. "Even if I could afford a place on the lake, I wouldn�t go." |
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Re: Front Page Gaston Gazette - Way to Go Runnymeade! (Score: 1)
by NanOne on Monday, January 13 @ 17:18:08 EST
(User Info) | | I already got 4 copies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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