I’d live anywhere that fit my criterea (walkable, affordable, lots of good restaurants, a good taqueria, near public transportation). For some reason I feel most comfortable in Mexican neighborhoods. I’m really not sure why, but they feel most like “home” to me.
I grew up in an absurdly diverse place, and I’m really uncomfortable now living in a mostly white city, although I think it is more of a class thing than anything else. You never see kids playing outside around here. They are all at yoga practice or SAT classes or something. There’s no ice cream man. I definitely want to live where there is a lot of public activity, and usually white neighborhoods don’t offer that (or the ones that do are absurdly expensive to live in).
It could be because, in white middle class communities, people seem to spend a lot of time in the back yard; front porches aren’t common in middle-class and more affluent suburbs and city neighborhoods. Where you find porches, you find more people in front yards; often, those are older urban neighborhoods.
I’m in a racially integrated, middle-class suburban neighborhood with a mix of houses built from the 1920s to the 1950s, many with front porches. There’s quite a bit of foot traffic on my block. Head over to a block where most of the houses were built in the 1950s, though, and almost nobody is out front.
Even in the worst black neighborhoods, I see more people walking around on the streets than in the majority of white neighborhoods. Good for them!
I would want to live in a neighborhood with similar social/cultural/work ethics. Realistically, if I wanted to live in Japan I would be on the next boat. And I would expect the Japanese to retain their cultural identity. Moving to a culturally isolated neighborhood doesn’t make me a minority, it makes me isolated (unless I want that experience). I can’t imagine retiring to another country and not embracing its lifestyle. The same applies to my country.
The bulk of American culture (historically) is based on English customs and law. Whatever America has become, its roots are English. What makes it a distinct culture is the “melting pot” infusion of other cultures. Neighborhoods that recreate a foreign culture may be considered diverse but their influence is minimized through self imposed isolation.
I’m white, and I live in a mostly black neighborhood, have for my entire life. However my neighborhood is a middle class black neighborhood. I personally think that your income is more important then the color of your skin, your sexual orinentation or your religion.
Hey Geobabe where in Lithonia do you live? I live closer to Lithonia then I do Decatur, about a mile from the Weasly Chapel / Flat Shoals Pkwy intersection.
I’m white, and grew up in white, middle class suburbs.
Bottom line, I want my future* neighborhood to be safe, middle class, and relatively diverse (with the exception that I’d move to a mostly-white area if everything else fit my requirements). Also, while I don’t claim it as one of my selling points, I’m not really comfortable in environments where I feel like I Don’t Belong–i.e. where pretty much everybody’s got a shared background that I’m missing. Even if people are open and welcoming, I just feel odd. These concerns together rule out moving into an [insert group here] neighborhood.
*Right now, of necessity, I live in a place where I don’t really feel comfortable walking alone at night. sigh It’s also largely black (with a fair proportion of broke grad students mixed in), but that’s neither here nor there; it’s the low-income thing that does it in.
You never know! I’ve known a couple of Dopers who discovered another SDMB member close by, one living next door, and the other in the next cube at work. It’s a small, small world.
This response got me thinking. For me personally, shared values would be much more important than shared skin color or orientation. And in practical terms, shared values would translate into shared political views. I would much rather live in a community full of gay black conservative* Republicans than one that had a lot of straight white liberal Democrats.
Though of course, things would more likely be the other way around. I’m not saying there are no gay black conservative Republcans out there, but I suspect there aren’t that many…
*[sub]Ok, not too conservative. Not religious right conservative. Libertarian conservative.[/sub]
