Zatera Ul

Oh no, not another “Let’s all live together in happy urban communities!” exhortation. Especially with those heaping doses of “It’ll break down all those nasty prejudices you have!” and “Less waste, because everyone will consume less!”

Actually, living in the city has built up some of my prejudices. For example, a bus ride where I got to listen to several young men, of a race other than my own, complain about the long processing times at the police station (”Man, it shouldn’t take that long! I turned myself in!”), has inclined me toward avoiding that particular bus route. Another time, a guy was complaining that some unspecified female relative of his was keeping a close eye on the public records available on the internet, to make sure he and his friends weren’t getting in trouble with the police.

Transportation in general is very inefficient in the city. Sure, the city has more places to go to. The problem is all the places that you don’t care about between you and your destination. Not to mention having to work your way through all the people trying to get to those other places. Example: going to the grocery store. Here, there’s one about two miles away. Driving there takes 10-20 minutes, depending on time of day. Taking the bus is too painful to even think about, I’d have to transfer at least twice. From my parents’ rural house, the nearest grocery store is seven miles away. Driving there takes about 12 minutes, any time of day, and the drive is much less stressful for both you and the car. There are larger grocery stores about 12 miles away, in various directions, also easy drives.

Tuesday I took the bus to school, for the first time in weeks, and it took me an hour and a half to get home, from door to door. As the crow flies, the classroom is four miles from my house. Walking the whole way would almost have been faster. I did have a fair amount of walking to do, anyway, to get to and from the bus stops. Even in a best-case scenario, which Tuesday certainly wasn’t, it would have taken an hour. Driving home is bad enough–it takes about 45 minutes, counting walking to the neighborhood where I can park for free. When I lived two miles from campus, I occasionally walked all the way home, because it was nearly as fast as the bus, when you took the waiting time into account.

Also, if everyone really consumed less, there would be fewer jobs for these supposedly-happy urban people. Maybe she’s thinking that the increase in entertainment services consumed (by bored people desperate to get out of their apartments) would make up for that.

I do like walking, the problem here is where to go. The nearest park worth walking to is just far enough away to make it feasible to walk there, but not to walk around in once we get there. Other than that, there’s the tiny neighborhood library, the yarn store (expensive!), or just going through the neighborhood looking at houses. The sidewalks and park trails are all paved and level, and don’t give me much exercise value, beyond sore joints. I need dirt trails and hills for real hiking, and I don’t know of any convenient to where I live.

I also am old enough to know that I just don’t thrive in living situations with shared walls. As one of MFH’s friends said (heavily paraphrased), “Stereo equipment has gotten a lot better in the last thirty years. Apartment walls haven’t.” There’s nothing that can bring out the worst in me like being bombarded by unwanted bass.

Finally, I have to point out again that gasoline is still way cheaper per gallon than coffee at the urban coffee shops is.