Originally Posted by GreenElf
It seems low-income people are “street-level” in their mentality so instead of sitting inside and reading a book or watching TV, or relaxing in the seclusion of a backyard like suburbanites, they like to case the neighborhood.
Originally Posted By SuddenlyKestrel
You are kidding, right? C’mon, you have to be kidding. Please?
What’s your angle? How is being more entertained by watching neighbors walk to and fro their cars not more street-level than being entertained by reading a book or anything else? Are you an upper-crust snob who enjoys sitting outside your front door and staring people down as they carry groceries from their car?
People sit in front if they like people watching and if their front porch is more comfortable to sit on. People sit in back if they like more privacy and their back porch is more comfortable to sit on. People sit in their garage if they can’t afford air conditioning and it’s hot inside, or if they keep their place neat by not doing anything fun in it, and want somewhere they don’t mind messing up (renters with high deposit for example afraid of spilling soda on the carpet and staining it). And in every case people do what they have the habit of doing. Also, conformist people do what their neighbors do, and extroverts do what people they want to interact with do. Introverts will often stay indoors =D
Frank Lloyd Wright is often credited (blamed) for moving the porch to the backyard. It was a trend in the suburbs by the 50s to spend more of your time in the backyard, isolated from your neighbors. Cities, especially ones with old houses like mine in DC still have prominent front porches and people still sit on them (at least in my neighborhood).
People with money tend to have “things” in their backyard for entertainment. These include firepits, outdoor speaker systems, large decks with plenty of chairs for all, pools, etc. These things arent usually a front yard type of deal.
Poor people usually don’t have the luxuries mentioned above so they seek entertainment from the goings-on of the neighborhood. There is usually entertaining things happening in these neighborhoods. In more affluent neighborhoods there’s nothing going on really.
Backyarders. This is where most people do their entertaining, barbecuing, and the like.
Frontsitters. Generally this is limited to the very old or the really scummy.
Garage-dwellers, which seem to be either kids looking for a place to smoke pot or very weird loners.
Back yard use is so common it can’t really be ascribed to “yuppies.” It’s been the normal way of things here my whole life for almost anyone who can afford a decent back yard to use it. I know people who, during the summer, kind of expect you to just walk into the back yard rather than knocking on the front door.
We sit out on the driveway with lawn chairs at least 5 days a week usually drinking copius amounts of beer. Most days I get home from work to find my neighbor doing the same thing wearing no shirt and cut off jean shorts. Suburban Houston middle to upper middle class neighborhood.
Watching me? The squatters across the street don’t have such luxury. They either stand or sit on a very low porch step, usually alone at night. I helped clean up the place after the last squatters finally left (the landlord had been trying to get them to leave for some time), and the place was a mess. The couch had only springs with no cushions and a year’s supply of garbage covering the springs. I figured so that’s how the other half lives although I’m low income myself.
I’d kind of like to live in a world where having a couch on the front porch was a common thing, and no one thought twice about it. I’ve never had a porch with a couch, but it sounds damn comfy.
I’m sorry, street-level doesn’t mean to me what it seems to mean to you. I interpret it as “on the same level as the adjacent driving surface.”
What makes you think that when you’re not watching them watch you they’re not sitting upstairs reading a book or watching TV or performing physics experiments? Why do you think people with “street-level mentality” (whatever that is) are “casing” the neighborhood and not just idly looking at things and people within their visual fields. Maybe they’re saying to each other:
“Hey, there goes that paranoid guy from across the street with another bag of groceries.”
“That’s the third bag of groceries this week, and I never see him with anybody else. Every time I see him he’s watching us over here. It’s creepy.”
“Yeah, you’re right! I wonder if he’s holding someone captive in there. Y’know, paranoid guys living alone are just the type to do that sort of thing.”
“We should call the police. That’s what people do on CSI.”
See, po’ folks put couches in their garages or driveways or on their porches. Yuppies buy entire living room suites (including carpeting and outdoor flat-screens) and put them in the back yard. It’s completely different.
We had our first cool night last night after a spate of oppressive heat, and I found myself considering putting up a cot or a roll-away on the deck and sleeping out there to take advantage of the fresh air, but we’re not po’ enough to do that yet.
I’ve noticed it here. In middle class areas people aren’t in their front gardens unless doing something like washing their car or more often doing a spot of gardening. There seems to be a social taboo on just lounging around in your front garden, you might be seen. In more working class areas people sitting drinking tea, chatting, reading, drinking booze etc. is far more common in front gardens. One person explained to me that in a lot of working class areas homes either don’t have back gardens, or have tiny ones that aren’t pleasant to sit out in. I don’t know if this fully explains the phenomenon, I mean why aren’t there more middle class people enjoying their front gardens? Either way it’s something I’ve always found fascinating.
Well, often all their ‘stuff’ is going to be in the fenced in back yard. Pets, children, BBQ, vegi garden. The typical middle class back yard that I see is much larger than the front yard too.
Only chairs? I used to live in a small town where it was impossible to park at the curb after work, as people would take out the chairs, armchairs, sofa, TV and a couple of tables (one to put the TV on, one to put dinner on) and sit it all at the curb. Furniture and people would all head in around midnight; when I left for work, the curb would be looking sad and lonely and all the cars would be (illegally) parked along the row of mangy-looking trees in the middle of the street.
But many front gardens here are fenced in too. Mine doesn’t have a gate anymore but it used to. Most of my neighbours have a front gate. I’m not talking about anything as elaborate as bbqing or what not. I just mean people taking in a bit of sun or reading a book or whatnot. I’ve seen it precisely once and it was an old man who probably no longer gives a fuck about anything anyway.
Unless you’re implying that my childhood downstairs neighbors would have used a backyard to grow pot, I can’t imagine what more practical use you’re thinking of. Most city-dwellers probably wouldn’t be growing much food, least gaging by the ones I knew until we left the city.
But it probably is a money thing. When we lived in the poorer end of a poor city, the “yard” was a 6’ wide strip of land along one side of the building separating the 3 story apartment from the one next door.
The squatters across the street don’t have such luxury. They either stand or sit on a very low porch step, usually alone at night. I helped clean up the place after the last squatters finally left (the landlord had been trying to get them to leave for some time), and the place was a mess. The couch had only springs with no cushions and a year’s supply of garbage covering the springs. I figured so that’s how the other half lives although I’m low income myself.