Tag: quality of life

The Life You Plan to Lead & the City

On another blog, long, long ago, like a couple of weeks, on the topic of crime and neighborhood safety someone had mentioned safety relative to lifestyle. That got me thinking about how some of my neighbors live and how certain aspects of crime doesn’t really apply to them. They don’t use metro, the most they walk is a block or two in the daytime, like most of us they have window bars, and they don’t leave stuff in their cars. Yet the central location of the neighborhood works for them in their careers. Living in a transitional neighborhood comes with a load of negatives but the positives that tend to outweigh those, and there are the parts that strengthen and promote the type of life we plan to live, and the people we want to be.
For myself, I wanted to be a homeowner who lived close to work and someone who wouldn’t need a car. I looked for an affordable, walkable (because I have no car) community along the green line. Being aware of the financial limitations of my profession, affordable was key. And in 2000-2001 when I bought, there were houses going from $80-150K that needed a little or a lot of fixing, it was affordable for the expensive walkability that I needed. Expensive, emotionally because I have to be aware of my surroundings and I walk by depressing situations. It is a price on my mental health I am willing to pay as the dividends of running into neighbors and discovering neighborhood gems compensate. The green line is important to me so I can go to Archives/Navy or West Hyattsville or College Park or PG Plaza or Greenbelt and I can see the people I want to see and do the work I love to do.
But enough about me, who do you want to be and the life you want to live.

Pondering the Commute

I remember one of my first arguments on commutes. It was with my college roommate when we decided to move out of the dorms and off campus. She wanted to be closer to her boyfriend (later husband but no matter) over in one of the big student dominated apartment complexes on the butt end of the undeveloped part of campus. I wanted to be close enough to campus to roll out of bed 15-20 minutes before class. I won and we got a 2 bedroom across the street from the active part of campus.
I believe then as I do now in living as close as you can to the place you have to drag yourself to most often. But in the 8 years I’ve lived at my house in Shaw, I’ve had three different duty stations, and I think I live as reasonably close to them. The commutes have ranged from 1 hour to 20 minutes, Old Town Alexandria to College Park, MD. I picked my neighborhood based on the idea that I would seek employment at certain agencies or places based on my profession. Nearby bus lines could directly take me to the Library of Congress, or Catholic U or Georgetown should any of those places have openings, and for a while a friend was strongly encouraging me to apply at the LC. My current employer the Bureau of Fight Club has locations along the green and yellow line so my current location really works for me, particularly when given cross department assignments. And my boyfriend who works up in College Park has been pondering some “what ifs”, including his commute should it come to his relocating to the house. I sort of win in this scenario because he’s a renter.
However when chatting with others, I’ve been lucky. Job changes or conditions may create a need for a car when the job moves or you’re reassigned to say Dulles from Alexandria. In two income households I’ve known one partner who may work in the outer regions may start looking for something closer in. Of course there are people who hate the city and won’t move in for love or money or even a better commute.

I ‘heart’ the Nextbus App

I’ve been using the NextBus iPhone app for little over a week now and I just love it, love it, love it, LOVE IT. Mainly because it saves me that precious thing called time.
Here’s the thing, I don’t have a car. So I depend on public transit, walking, friends with cars, or biking to get around. Most of the time I use the bus, especially when I think there is a possibility of rain. The problem with the bus is for some routes the posted timetable is a work of fiction or wish list. I’ve encountered buses that showed up early, late or not at all.
Anyway, I’ve been using the NextBus app to figure out how fast I need to walk to the bus stop. It takes me 7 to 10 minutes to get to the Shaw metro station to pick up the 79, if I see the bus is going to show up in 9 minutes I keep my walk brisk, any more than 13 I take the train to the mess a station that has no stairs and only one stationary escalator. This weekend I used the NextBus app to run errands in upper NW, get back home, go to the Florida Ave/ Capital City Market and so on.
Knowing when or if a bus is going to show helps me decide if I should hoof it, take a cab, take another bus to get me closer to a metro station or wait. It also helps me decide if it is time to go or if I should stick around somewhere a little longer for shopping, watching, etc.
Another great feature is the “Nearby Stops” which uses the phone’s GPS to tell me where the nearest stop is and what buses stop there and then when those buses are going to show up. I have my favorite stops bookmarked but when I’m running around other parts of the area, I have no clue of where the nearest stops are. Luckily the phone figures that out for me.
It isn’t perfect. This weekend I was up near the Washington Cathedral waiting for the 96, trying to decide if I should find lunch, catch a 30 bus to connect with the G2 or wait 50 minutes according to NextBus. The posted schedule said the next 96 was coming in 10 minutes, so I waited. Lo, the NextBus was wrong. Apparently the bus I caught didn’t have NextBus.

Billboards

At the corner of P and 4th or New Jersey (4th Street starts up again at that intersection), you may have noticed there are billboards there. BACA, I know has been working to do something about the billboards and the space that it sits on for several years, with limited success. There is another group trying there hand at eliminating the billboards called End Shaw Billboard blight. They’ve got a petition going, but I think their biggest coup is discovering that the billboards are not grandfathered in, which had been a stumbling block for BACA.

Random Lunchtime babbling on Bundy Park

A couple of weeks ago I signed a petition in favor for a dog park at Bundy. I don’t own a dog and have no plans to own one in the immediate future. However I do benefit from having a neighborhood with responsible owners with well trained dogs, like I benefit from living on a block dominated by homeowners. It’s not my house or my dog, but the actions that the homeowners and dog owners take, or have incentives to do, that improve the neighborhood and improve my quality of life here.
I will also note that I don’t live in Ward 2 where the proposed parking lot/field is. I’m over in Ward 5, so my opinion doesn’t matter or count. But I have an opinion and Ward 5 owners over in the Truxton area would more than likely use it, and it is very unfortunate that our voices won’t count.
One could say it is a children vs dogs, white vs black, adults vs children, greenspace vs pave the world, or a slew of other A vs B. For me ‘A’ is comprised of those residents who wake up within comfortable walking distance (everyone has a different comfort level) from the parcel of land in question. This includes white residents, black residents, Latino residents, Asian residents, multi-racial residents, grandmas on fixed incomes whose companions are little yippie dogs, single women who got dogs for security, kids that pestered their parents to get a dog, other people with dogs and their friends who may not have dogs, but like dogs. What I have noticed with the increase of having neighbors with dogs is there are people walking around in the morning when I go to work. Those people are more eyes on the street adding to my personal safety. There are people walking around in the evening when I run errands. There are neighbors, people I’ve met at BACA meetings or other gatherings, who are out, available for a quick word, a wave hello because they have to walk the dog. More people on the street encourage more people to get out and walk, dog or no, which improves the health of the resident community.
For a while my dog owning neighbors would walk their dogs in the alley, which in turn, discouraged drug stashing and other negatives that were problems.
I consider a convenient location as something that you can walk to at a regular pace in 10 minutes, 15 maybe. The Shaw dog park is past my 10 minute range and I walk fast, so a convenient location is Bundy.
Another point, Shaw as a whole has a lot, a lot of social service organizations of various sizes that do a lot of great work from providing day care for children of families with AID/HIV, homeless services, counseling, food distribution, poverty advocacy, you name it, it comes with the diversity of the neighborhood. One would hope that new social services moving to the area would become good neighbors. Unfortunately with the sensitivity of the function of Safe Shores, I can see how it could develop into a fortress to keep out the community in order to maintain privacy and security. That sort of thing would not make the surrounding area safer or secure. Besides asking for variances and other permissions, I don’t foresee much future interaction with the surrounding community. I can foresee walking by a darkened parking lot at night, making that corridor of P Street scary and dangerous.
The other thing is does Safe Shores really need 100 parking spaces? Since the organization’s parking space would come from government owned land that we believed slated for community (and one hope ‘community’ in this sense means nearby residents) use, the community should question the need for the number of spaces. Does it need 25 spaces? 30? and why. This isn’t Largo, MD or other parts of suburban Maryland where parking is a given. This is central, Old City DC, and free parking isn’t a guaranteed right. Nor should it be automatically given no questions asked to non-profits and other organizations no matter how nobel the mission. Safe Shores will not be the last social service locating to the area if history is a guage. I understand counsellors and parents coming from other wards will need parking, but how much?

Greener Than Thou

I’m taking a break running errands that got pushed back to today because of the rain, and because I don’t have a car. I haven’t had a car since 1993, and living a car less lifestyle comes with some pluses and minuses. The reason I don’t have a car has more to do with money and the hassles of maintenance and not some Green philosophy. The greenie-ness is more of an added bonus.
My posting regarding the 5 cent tax on paper and the ever hated plastic bags, did raise some ire from some readers. I’m perfectly OK with being in disagreement on this point, as I’ll let time prove me wrong. Also I’m not out to win any greener than thou awards, we all have a multitude of green sins, some known and unknown, some that are easily avoided, others too ingrained in our identity.
When I say our identity, I include the obvious, like cars and the not so obvious, like our jobs, and our recreational activities. The computer was supposed to render the office paperless, instead the volume of paper exploded, and it has become cheaper to produce meeting minutes, handouts, leaflets, menus, fliers and maps that people will look at then toss out. We are horrible water wasters, letting the tap run as we brush our teeth and lather. We shower daily, and flush away gallons of potable water to be rid of a cup of pee. Then there is the electricity we use to stay online, charge our devices, keep our food, light our homes into the night (how much energy would you save if you went to bed at 8:30?), cool in the summer and heat in the winter. Even though I don’t have a car, I’m still dependent on fossil fuels because the bus and the train use diesel. At some points these exercises in examining every single action and choice, seems like asking how many angels can dance on the pin of a needle? You can spend an infinite amount of time and energy on things that in practice may have very little impact and are quickly abandoned.
We should make the effort to be Green, but we should avoid those heavy burdens that would make us turn away, give up, and not bother.

Bars

This sort of is related to an earlier post “Is this neighborhood safe?”, but that was about the streets. This is a reflection about home.
My house came with bars on the doors and windows. The front 1st floor window had an AC cage big enough for a monster sized window unit. No air conditioner I’ve ever had ever filled that cage, and it jutted out so far I was constantly in fear of beaning myself on the head when gardening. When I had the big renovation done in 2007 a neighbor inquired if I was going to remove those bars, as others had done after so fix up. Uh, no. Fast forward to a month ago when I had the neighborhood handyman remove the A/C cage, with the idea of replacing the bars with something that was flush with the building. Well he removed the cage and left the bottom half of my window bar-less for 2-3 days. Those were 2-3 anxiety filled days.
Problem was that window did not lock. It gets stuck and you could break your fingers trying to open the damned thing, but it does not lock. Also a few months ago two houses on my block were broken into, and one of the burgled houses had just put new bars on the windows.
So honestly, as much as I would like to not have bars on my windows, I don’t think I’m there yet. I’m not at that place where I would feel at peace having no bars on my front first floor window. I know that our neighborhood would look much more inviting if there were no security gates on the doors or iron work on the windows. But despite the great and wonderful changes there is still that sticky element of crime. Even if the only thing worth stealing is the TV, I still want to keep out thieves (and zombies, but that’s another post). I do entertain the idea of changing, not removing, the iron work to something more aesthetically pleasing.

Why my block is cool

I am just now chilling out having been at a neighbor’s party for the past 3 hours. A lot of my other neighbors were there, and their kids. The toddlers used their cuteness to get picked up and held by random adults. The 3 to 7 year olds ran in bubble blowing screaming packs. The grown ups drank, ate and conversed. New neighbors were introduced (three new households moved on to our block in the last month). A good time was had by all.
Besides the odd party, a number of us do come together over various things. Just this morning the homeowners of the two houses on the end of the block were cleaning up trash from the sidewalks and gutters. We give advice, exchange information, share garden plants, and lend a hand as well as tools. There are parents who get the kids together. And being so physically close to each other, because our houses are only 12 to 18 feet wide and attached, we are constantly interacting with each other.
Most neighbors, provided they haven’t been completely shunned, do get a wave and a nod. And that makes the block pleasant. But what I think makes it cool are these deeper relationships that go beyond exchanging pleasantries. Yesterday I sat in my neighbor’s backyard, joining them for dinner, talking about anything from Justice Souter, LEED building, to what exactly is growing in that pot?
I thought of the party that was to come and the previous evening’s dinner when I read this morning’s Post’s “From Nod and Wave to Know and Share: How to Spark A Neighborly Connection. It got me thinking about my introduction to the block. It began with two of my neighbors serving as the block’s welcome wagon who encouraged me to go the BACA meetings. I met some neighborhood people there. Several people moved in around about the same time I did, so the general curiosity of asking about work being done (our houses were fixer uppers, some more than others) led to introductions. Oh, and the blog helped too. As well as puttering around in the front yard, having roommates who made connections, and seeing familiar faces in places other than the immediate neighborhood (Hey, don’t you live a few houses down from me?). And it builds, neighbors who you already know introduce you to other neighbors, breaking the ice and giving you a chance to find common interests.
Also, as noted in the article, there are people who are more private. Then there are those whose lifestyles are such getting to know the neighbors is hard. Or worse someone could get stuck in the middle of a bunch of private, superbusy, or reclusive neighbors.
I was chatting with one of the new people at the party, and he was telling me how he’d asked his Realtor about bars and restaurants in the area to get a sense of the place. Well we don’t have any bars and the nicest place to sit down is a coffee shop in the next neighborhood over. But what we do have, few real estate agents would know about and if they did know, they probably couldn’t tell you legally.
If you’re a friendly sort of person, couple, or family with really young kids and you want want to settle down on my block, and happen to have between $400-$500K to spend on a townhouse, email me. We have an opening, and I can tell you as much as I can that your Realtor can’t.

Small Spaces

When looking at the house at 1708 4th Street NW, which has an open house this weekend, I remarked how small space design requires talent. That idea was strenthened when I was reading the comments on the Tumbleweed Tiny House website when someone wondered why something so small could cost so much to design. An answer was that there was not as much wiggle room with measurements. You have to take in acccount how things fit together.
I love Apartment Therapy’s annual Small Cool Contests. I am really digging the Teeny-tiny (0-300 sf), Tiny (300-600sf), and Little (600-900sf) categories. The submissions in this contest prove you can live big in a small space, and the good life can be lived in less than 1,000 sf. Too bad the guy who designed the house on 4th Street didn’t study sites like AT.