I do feel affinity for my birth town, but not because I was born there. We had family there and would go visit. It just reminds me of mom’s side of the family and thus mom. It has this plucky vine to it that kinda makes me want to wish it well.
I oddly have more affinity to the town I grew up in. It’s more of a “I want them to overcome and be better” vibe. Similar to the vibe I have for my state (Arkansas). I supririsngly still have a higher esteem for the country as a whole.
But note that it’s just affinity, not loyalty. The latter always seemed stupid to me.
I was born in Berkeley and we moved east to the suburbs when I was about 3, so I have no real memories of a childhood in my “hometown”. From 6-18, I was raised in a small farming community in the Central Valley, and with no family remaining in that area, I have no desire to spend time there. However, since I spent both undergraduate and graduate years in Berkeley, I have a deep affinity for Berkeley, and would move back if the circumstances were right.
In general I guess I do have an affinity for the old hometown area. Good family memories, opportunity to live there in a time before it’s population exploded and ruined the laid back character of the region.
But it’s also the only place I experienced bad things. Assault, attempted rape, stalking. theft, and road rage. I left when I was 28.
I have no affinity for the city I was born in as we never lived there. It’s just where my parents were when my Mother went into labor.
Now, the city I grew up in (West Bend, Wisconsin) I have great affection for. Ma still lives there as do a couple of my siblings. Lived across the street from a large park and a river in which to fish. Had a quaint downtown and even a man made beach we enjoyed for only a quarter. For that same quarter there were 2 indoor pools we could use.There was a small bottling plant that gave us fresh samples every day of the summer. Low crime and always something to do. It was truly anytown, USA.
I’ve kind of already been doing this, but have somehow been unable to escape the heat and smoke.
I moved to Redding, CA with my dad in 1994 and the summers were hotter than I ever experienced in LA. I moved to southern Oregon with my parents in 1997 and the summers became hot and smoky with alarming regularity. I moved 3 hours north to Corvallis, OR in 2019 and experienced the smokiest summer ever. I moved to Washington in 2021 and experienced the hottest days of my life in the 2021 heat dome. Today, October 15th, the forecast high calls for 81° F and it’s smoky outside.
None whatsoever. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa, but I moved to Ohio when I was only a month old, then moved to West Virginia shortly after that. My first memories are from West Virginia.
We lived in Point Pleasant (Mothman territory!) for a while, and in fact we were there when the Silver Bridge collapsed, which is most famous for being blamed on the Mothman (everyone in the area knows the legend, but I’ve never met anyone who actually believed it).
My father grew up in Richwood, and I remember going there to visit my grandmother. We moved to the Wheeling area when I was 5, and I lived there until I was 18. I then moved to Morgantown for college and after college I ended up in Baltimore.
I have an affinity for all of West Virginia, and Wheeling is the city I have the most affinity for.
Birth city? We didn’t live there, it was where the nearest hospital was. My dad and mom worked there (in the city, not the hospital) just like nearly everyone else in the little town where I lived.
Our little town of about 2500 was a convenient place for a kid in 7-12th grade. There was a grocery, pharmacy, ice cream shop, dime store, and hardware store just a couple minutes away by bike. Later, when I had my license, there was a decent auto parts store in town also.
Unfortunately for the city and my town, all the car parts factories were shut down back in '04. Now the area is just another rust belt casualty.
I’m not counting that, from my similar origins. When you live in a tiny regional place, you can’t argue where the local hospital was is “where you were born.” The locality generally is all your home, not just the medical centre building.
I was born in a small hospital in NY, adopted at 4 days old, and taken to live in CT. I sometimes miss the town where I grew up, but what I miss is the place and time where I grew up. All the beautiful back country estates are now cheek-by-jowl McMansions
I was born in a faceless suburb of the greater Los Angeles metroblob. Which happened to be the town containing the hospital Mom’s obstetrician used. Before / during the pregnancy they resided in a different nearby burb/townlet of rather more distinction. Neither of which municipalities I have any affinity to. The former simply was/is scruffy; the latter was/is at least beachfront in that raffish and now-worn-out 1950s boomtown style. Still a fun place as such, but no specific affinity for me.
By the time I was born they’d moved to yet another new 'burb further south and a couple miles inland, where I stayed through high school. That’s now long enough ago since I was a regular there that there’s nothing and nobody I’m attached to. It’s nostalgic and familiar in spots, but sorta more heart-achy than heart-warming. Similar story with my college & grad school years in central near-downtown LA. Absent familiar people to connect to, there’s only so much attraction to the few surviving old haunts.
Overall, IMO the greater LA / Orange County area is some of the best parts of the USA geographically, climatically, and culturally. I’m pleased and sorta proud to have been born and raised there in its heyday.
But it’s stupid expensive now. Armed with another zero on my paycheck & assets I might well return. Although the “vibe” is a lot different now. The casual coastal laid-back flavor has mostly been replaced by crowding and pushy hustlers reminiscent of NY or NJ even if they have a tan and (mostly) a west coast accent. Who wants that? Not I. And expense. Did I mention the expense?
My BiL insisted I watch the Mothman movie. Eh, it was o.k. But I only fairly recently had seen (I think) a Nova episode about the Silver Bridge collapse. So, almost from the start, I knew what was going to happen at the end.
Was born and grew up in a suburb on Long Island. I go out there to visit my parents often but I guess I don’t really know what is meant by an “affinity” towards it. It’s just a town I lived in, I don’t really feel any particular way about it.
I was born in my hometown and immediately moved to Blytheville AR AFB. We moved to another AFB on Cape Cod Massachusetts when I was 2.
I moved back to my hometown at 9 1/2. My dad had retired from the Air Force. I went to junior and senior high. A year of community college in my hometown before moving to Little Rock to attend university.
My mother extended family lived in that area since the early 1920’s. They’re buried there. That makes it special to me.
It’s also painful because my hometown has been in economic decline for over 30 years. Crime is up. I wouldn’t live there now.
Very little. I was born in San Jose, California, but my family moved to the Midwest when I was three months old, and I’ve only been back to San Jose once since then.
I used to have a t-shirt for the San Jose Earthquakes (the city’s MLS soccer team), and I remember liking Dionne Warwick’s song “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” when I was a kid, but that’s about it.
A little. Maybe even very little. I was born in Quezon City in the Philippines, and was only 3 when the family moved to the US. I speak only English, and a little Spanish from school. So I don’t really identify with Quezon City at all, but I’m a Filipino & Russian/Polish mix so while that does identify my ethnicity, it does not identify my habits and activities.
I’m a Londoner, born and bred, originally from one of the inner suburbs on the river to the west of the centre, now living in one of the inner suburbs on the river to the east of the centre. So need you ask😏?
I was out of London for university (Cambridge) and my first job (Stoke on Trent), and though I was quite content with both, an opportunity to move back to London couldn’t be missed.
On the other hand, I did have a Scottish grandfather, and though he died years before I was born, I have got the paperwork ready in case an independent Scotland might be a route back to EU status again…
Similar for me. Born there and remained until I left for college. Small rural town, idyllic, many generations of ancestors buried there, everybody knew everybody.
Reading the posts here, ISTM that a pattern emerges of people moving away early (and often) and the effect that has on establishing roots.
