A Tale of Two Cities

Well, one is a city, and one is anything but!  However, I am concluding that there are lots of similarities between the two. The place on the left is Salix, PA, the little town where I grew up.  The whole zip code of Salix has less people living there than just a few blocks of the area of Pittsburgh where we now live.  And yes, the place on the left is, the Northside of Pittsburgh.  Now that we've lived in Brighton Heights for a few months, I've observed some striking similarities between life in small town America and life in the city.  

One thing that is similar is the fact that people know each other.  In the suburbs, everybody pretty much leaves everybody alone, and you don't really get to know many neighbors.  But in Salix and in Brighton Heights, you know your neighbors.  You talk to them, every time you see them.  You share life a little...the joys and the struggles.  You talk from your back yards or on one another's porches.  The biggest difference is that you don't have yell as much in the city because the houses are so much closer together than in places like Salix.

Another similarity is the use of streets.  In the city and in the small town, you walk and play in the streets.  The obvious exceptions are the main throughways, but the side streets are play places.  I remember our life on "Center Street" in Salix...it was a place to play.  Same on Brandon Road in Pittsburgh.  People walk their dogs on the streets, play ball in the streets, ride their bikes in the streets, and you simply yell "car" in the rare times when someone is driving through the neighborhood.

A third thing that strikes me as similar is the sense of being somewhat self-contained.  Oh sure, there were the trips to the "big city" (a.k.a. Richland...a suburb of Johnstown) when we were kids.  Things like clothes and big groceries and such couldn't be found in Salix.  But you bought your gas, your main staples, got your mail, went to church, did your banking, and got your car fixed right there.  So it seems to be with city neighborhoods.  Oh sure we venture to Target or Walmart or, God forbid, Ross Park Mall when it becomes a necessity.   But we mostly live in our zip code.  We buy our meet, our groceries, go to church, do our banking, and even get our hardware supplies in walking distance from our front door.

There are differences to be sure, but I'm not sure we have felt this "at home" since we left Salix (or New Paris, another quintessential American small town that we love...).  Life in the suburbs, at least for us, has been the odd man out...