The Neighborhood

The neighborhood we bought our house in is very much a neighborhood of transition. There are definitely problems in our neighborhood, but there are lots of good things too. Ultimately it was because of those good things that we purchased where we did. The housing stock is very unique and there is a large variety of single family houses of different sizes, two-family and other houses. We've met fabulous people who care about the neighborhood as we do. There are business owners in their area who are investing to make this an inticing place to be.

It was largely because of our involvement in two political campaigns beginning in 2008, one national and one local we got to know our neighborhood and our ward better than we knew it in the first three years we lived in our apartment. (St. Louis is broken into almost 80 neighborhoods- most with subneighborhoods and 28 Wards each with an alderman.) As we looked at houses frequently one of us would say, I've knocked on this door, was it for Obama or Shane or both? Because of that we started to feel a real connection, not just with our apartment, but our neighborhood. I think I speak for both of us when I say we don't just want to come home and run into our house and not know anyone around us.

Currently the geographic subneighborhood of Dutchtown (our neighborhood) is without a neighborhood association, but our neighbors are working on that. Tonight Greg and I went to a meeting at to discuss forming a neighborhood association. I think people really get the power of doing this. There were some nay-sayers who attended the last meeting who didn't attend this one, but we will let them be the lazy dog and the lazy cat while we're the little red hen. We'll even let them share our bread when we're ready to eat.