The Redstar Perspective

UPDATE (10:55 p.m.): Apparently I’m not the only one quitting. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson is expected to resign tomorrow. Wahoo!!! Ok, now I’m done. Read on.

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It’s with some sadness and some relief that I write this post: I will not be blogging anymore at The Redstar Perspective. This has been a difficult decision, and I’m still unsure what it means. I may retire this site entirely, or I may resurrect it at an unknown point in the future. I’m still sorting out the details.

Here’s what led to this decision, somewhat in order of importance:

a) It’s time to write my dissertation. After meeting with two of my advisors recently, it’s clear I can finish this thing in the next 12 to 15 months and GRADUATE!!! Especially since the New Year, but generally speaking, blogging has become my primary activity, and an enormous time suck for me. Yes, my stats are SLOWLY growing, and, according to readers, my writing is improving. But, in addition to feeling like I’m losing my way re: the content of this blog (more on that in a minute), I also feel like I’m investing so much time and energy in this blog and not generating the returns I want to get. It’s not ok with me that my readership grows when I discuss the general election, because that’s not my preferred content focus. The hours I’ve been spending on posts about Obama v. Clinton, etc., is distracting me from really focusing on the writing I need to be doing NOW - that is, on issues of social justice, urban recovery and contentious politics in post-Katrina New Orleans. In other words, my dissertation.

b) I no longer feel comfortable blogging without anonymity in the ’sphere. Given where I’m at in my still-emerging career, I’m not ok with folks’ ability to track down my thoughts and opinions on-line.  I regret not blogging anonymously, and any blogging I do in the future will strive for greater anonymity. For someone with deeply personal intellectual interests, the current context of the Democratic primary and the empassioned and often heated on-line discussions of race, racism, gender, sexism and misogyny, privilege and prejudice have left me feeling that the web is an even less safe space to really grapple with these issues. In our splicing and dicing interpretative world, I know my thoughts and perspectives on the primary, on poverty, on my family, etc. are up for grabs for appropriation and re-interpretation. Nonetheless, I plan to remove some of the content from this site, but will leave the rest up for the history books.
c) The RP has run its course. This blog began in part because of my work in New Orleans, because my buddy Jake urged me to blog rather than send long e-mails to everyone I knew about what I was experiencing in the city beginning in January 2006. With this dissertation, my work in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is coming to a close. This blog has grown from that original reporting, to cover topics of development, poverty, housing, inequality, activism, cities, and politics more broadly, but all of this has been mixed up with odes to my boyfriend, Grey’s Anatomy, and random (hopefully amusing) stories about my childhood and roots. Frankly, I’m not interested in writing a general interest blog that’s a mix of analysis and journaling. I need the latter for my mental health, but I’ll find another outlet. My priority is to examine urban inequality, especially as it impacts low-income women, households, and neighborhoods. This is what I want to be blogging about (and working on in my lifetime), and I know there’s a niche audience who wants more of this. I’ve got all kinds of ideas for blogging, but I need a new and fresh venue. That will come in time.

So there you have it. Just in time for what would have been the second annual RP History Month. I’m still figuring out how to keep my original New Orleans posts and select others on-line and available. I’ll probably make an announcement about that in the future.

If you’d like to stay in touch, please leave a note in comments. That will give me an e-mail address for you (remember, others can’t see it) if/when I launch another blog.

Thanks to all my readers and champions over the last two years, especially NYC Weboy, and other blogging allies such as Professor Zero, DonnaDarko, Pizza Diavola and Pocochina. It’s been fun, instructive, exhausting and mostly my pleasure. I have become a blogger. Look at me.

Until we meet again, I leave you with some highly recommended reading:

Please read this disturbing, enraging and graphic coverage of the brutal rape and assault of a woman and her kids in Dunbar Village in W. Palm Beach, FL, and how you can let the NAACP know where their legal, PR and activist resources really belong.

A pregnant man challenges people’s ideas about gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights. And shakes up the healthcare profession. (H/t Echidne.) Meanwhile, pregnancy discrimination complaints from women reach record levels.

A refreshing comments thread that asks bloggers to cool it re: their election coverage. Instead of all the collective hyperventilating, let’s all check out Insurgent American’s 35-Point Practical Guide for Action. (H/t Corrente.)

Read Brownfemipower’s WAM conference speech about centering feminist activism around questions of citizenship and the problems this creates for advocating for immigrant women. (How I missed this conference - held at MIT, the irony! - is beyond me.)

Be well, have fun, and stay safe.

Driving to school this morning in the NAS-TAY rain and slush, pass Brookline Liquors and read on the awning, “Go Celts”.  It’s been A LONG LONG time since I’ve seen that.  Pretty sure I was still shooting hoops in junior high during the last Celtics fervor.

Driving home from school this afternoon, still DISGUSTING outside, 93.7 Mike FM-”We play everything” delivers on that promise by playing Styx “The Best of Times.”  Picture me sitting at the Comm Av/Chestnut Hill Av intersection in Brighton in my turquoise love machine, “PONTIAC” lit up in red on the trunk since the lights are on, with Styx cranked and me singing right along.  I bet it’s moments like that that I’m at my most attractive.  (Guess the classic-rock-obsessed hs boyfriend was good for something.)

And then there’s this in the NY Times: a guy living outside Brighton Center receives a postcard dated 1929, addressed to the former owner of his house.  To quote the history-loving M.A.S.:  COOOL.

Good!

Bad.  Very bad.

I hear more about the “new” New Orleans these days (sadly, you can believe some of the hype, and not for the right reasons) than any “new” NY, but one need only satisfy one’s Law & Order addiction - as I’m doing as a side project to my PhD - to see how much NYC has changed over the years.  In keeping with the spirit of writing about not too much this week, this post is not a wonkish treatise about urban development and politics.  (I know, I know, you miss my lecturing ways.  Prof. Redstar will be back mid-January, after I shop my screenplay in L.A.  But I digress…)

I’m extemporizing here about my upcoming visit to NYC, which involves four nights of visiting friends in the outer boroughs.  And I’m not talking about the hipsterati in Brooklyn.  Nope, instead, with thirtysomething boyfriend in tow, I will be staying with friends and their families (collectively, three children under the age of five) in the Bronx and Queens.  Saturday night involves a trip downtown for a joint ABD status/birthday dinner with my best girlfriend from college and her husband.  And New Year’s Eve is still shaping up, but the likelihood of me blindly finding my way into a cab between 2 and 4 a.m. is about as high as one of the “lesser-known [presidential] candidates” debating on C-Span right now actually winning the election (someone take the remote away from the M.A.S.). 

Sure, I still have friends who live in Manhattan, and I’m still uncool enough that most of them live uptown (the married ones anyway…and I’ve never been cool enough to have less than a handful of friends living in Brooklyn), but really my NYC reality now is visiting my 22 year old cousin as she fashions her own version of my quarterlife adventures in the city.  Most of these friends are also out of town right now, on vacation with their young families, on mini-breaks with new flames, and just generally living their lives in the ways we know now, which mean that our paths cross less and less frequently, and generally only for special occasions such as reunions, weddings, etc.  My world is shrinking, and shifting. 

This post is not rueful, even if it is nostalgic.  This man of mine has a growing Flickr collection of us posed in front of extended family Christmas trees and dinner tables, at far-flung weddings, and in various leisurely settings.  Apparently, this is now my life.  And I’m wiser, and happier and fatter for it.  But what a kick, commuting from Boston’s own periphery of Brighton to the ‘hoods of Riverdale and Jackson Heights.  Places - mainly the latter - I’d consider living if I ever came back to NY.  A hope I still keep alive, even as I relax behind the wheel of my stepmom’s hand-me-down Pontiac, commuting between Newton and Quincy and Hanover and Connecticut in my own (re)new(ed) life in Red Sox Nation.  Who knew.

I’m off til mid-next week.  If I was more motivated, I’d organize a 2007 “Best of” collection of posts for your enjoyment; I’ve seen that around the web and wish I had done it.  Someone go through my archives for me, will ya?  But feel free to poke around here in my absence.  I can’t promise you’ll want any of the food in the cabinets, but there’s always some booze lying around.  Until I’m back on-line, I wish you all A Very Happy New Year - Be Safe and Have Fun!!

More or less cross-posted at NYC Weboy.

In my patriotic high school and hometown, we in the chorus learned all the Armed Forces songs, and performed a Veteran’s Day concert every year.  Firedoglake offers up the much more depressing facts on the state of veterans’ lives in the U.S.

I’m really late in even acknowledging the flood in Tabasco, Mexico (being a Katrina and 9/11 responder has not transformed me into a disaster specialist, by any means.)  Brownfemipower has the info, the photos and links to how we can help. 

Paul Krugman chides Reagan revisionists.  I don’t get the Reagan love at all (theoretically, sure).  Everything historical I read in terms of urban, economic and social policy in this country points to Reagan’s special powers of increasing inequality and insecurity, undermining civil rights, race-baiting, and eroding faith in government.  The guy makes me sick. 

This “newsflash” is sort of entertaining: smart chicks can’t get dates.  Not enough M.A.S.’s to go around, apparently.

Not exactly a disaster, though I’m disappointed Felix Arroyo didn’t get re-elected, here’s a breakdown of Boston City Council at-large voting by ward.  Ever heard of machine politics?

And prior to this post, I’m carrying on about housing as a human right and subprime vs. predatory lending.  Hope you all had a terrific long weekend!!

I’m chest deep in texts as I prepare for my general exams (3 weeks and 6 days and counting!!), hence the relative blog silence. Just now I finished reading the chapter “Los Angeles as Postmodern Urbanism” in From Chicago to L.A.: Making Sense of Urban Theory.* But perhaps more interesting to you, Redstar readers, is my own urban experience, observed with typical Redstar intensity as I extricate myself from my books at various intervals.

We begin yesterday morning, when I woke up to NPR telling me that the MBTA was about to undergo a major budget crunch, because its fixed rate on electricity costs was about to expire. Forgive me if I suggest they might have been prepared for this, and point them to the recently increased fares as a partial solution to their financial woes. It then took 45 minutes to travel the ~3 miles from my apartment to Kenmore Square, where my train abruptly terminated, due to a “medical emergency,” and I was reminded - again - of the unique decline in ridership the T is experiencing. Last night, after belatedly facing the truth that I’d never make it to my N.I.A. class after giving myself only 30 minutes on the T to travel the 5-6 miles between Cambridge and Newton, I disembarked in Cleveland Circle to see that the other refurbished storefront opening beside the forthcoming Citibank is a chain burrito place. Noting that it’s several facades down from Boloco, another burrito shop, I sent the M.A.S. a text noting that burritos (broadly defined) are Boston’s new pizza (we have two of those shops in Cleveland Circle already). Sigh. I had such high hopes for the ‘hood (I am pleased to see that Lint sells Paper, Denim & Cloth jeans, which Louis Boston told me two years ago were totally passe but I still love).

Fast forward to this morning (since my evening at home consisted of getting aggravated that my Comcast internet connection is still not working after Sunday morning’s power outage), where NPR now tells me that MIT is suing Frank Gehry for a faulty design of our egomaniacal Stata Center. Welcome to Cognoscente Celebrity Death Match. The wine and cheese is to your left.

After a morning N.I.A. class in Newton Center in which the group of us 8 or so white women put our jewelry in the middle of a circle in order to pay tribute to it (as symbolic of ourselves, according the well-meaning instructor), I headed off to vote. Having paid little attention to the candidates for the at-large City Council seats (Bad Planner!! Bad Activist!!), I voted quickly for the two non-white-Irish-male incumbents and then tried to recall any distinguishing information about the remaining Flaherty, White, Connolly, etc. choices before me. I did my best, then headed off to school.

Later this afternoon I had lunch with another grad student and friend at a new Sebastian’s in Kendall Square, where we agreed the place was NY-ish in its varied and pricey health-conscious quick fare, but absolutely Boston in its enormous scale (easily two stores deep). Shortly after I introduced this friend, originally from the Midwest, to the term “Masshole,” which I used to describe myself - as I backed up out of a parking lot onto Mass Ave across on-coming traffic and into flowing traffic through a green light - and the other drivers who didn’t stop but just went around me as if they’re used to this kind of bullsh*t shenanigan (they are). When I came out of the library several hours later to move my car from its 2 hour spot into the now available parking lot, I passed a homeless man with “Yankees Suck” licenses plates on two of his shopping carts. And I thought to myself, this is my urbanism.

*For those of you who care, the “Chicago School” has been the dominant theory of cities and urbanism in urban sociology (my field) through the 20th century. It’s modernist idea of the city as an organic, unified whole around which regions and through which individual relationships are ecologically (vs. economically) organized (the latter especially along the black-white “color line”) has been contested - most recently - by the postmodern L.A. School, which proposes that cities and urban form are shaped and linked by a global economic restructuring that emphasizes flexible production, deep welfare state retrenchment, and the subsequent, oft-violent polarization of a homogenized capitalist elite living in technologically-linked-but-geographically-dispersed-privatized worlds atop a multi-cultural, insecure proletariat, with both groups relatively placated by the media-disseminated mythology that this hyper-privatized, hyper-consumer, hyper-polarized world is normative and desirable. (As you can probably tell, I’m still piecing together a working definition of the L.A. school, which is sort of its point.)

[UPDATE, 4:11 pm: Just on the phone with customer service rep rolling over my IRA funds.  He noticed my Boston residency and we chatted about how fired up people up here are.  Turns out he’s originally from Quincy; I’m from Braintree, look at that.  Go Sox!!]

I’m already way behind in the on-line whoopin’ and hollerin’ over last night’s pennant win.  The Red Sox are going to the World Series!!!  In my house, this one’s for the M.A.S., a transplant to MA who arrived without a real team loyalty, ever since his childhood Orioles abandoned him after a manager whose name escapes me took over.  Already partial to the Sox by virtue of being a Yankees hater, and a true baseball fan the likes of which my family has not seen since my dad, the M.A.S. has found a kindred spirit in the beer-drinking, baseball-obsessed Red Sox Nation, not to mention an adopted extended family prepared to shower him with paraphrenalia (what 37 year old receives a mini Sox bat with his name on it for his birthday??) in the hopes it will strengthen our attachment to the city and stop us from moving away anytime soon. 

Needless to say, we were up as late as the rest of the region, drinking it in and waiting for the Papelbon post-game victory dance.  And though we agree that Butch Stearns is a clown, I have to admit I loved his “he’s a little whacko isn’t he?” comment about Papelbon.  There’s just so much Fox/MLB hatin’ to do, it’s hard to dish it all out in the midst of all the celebrating. One of my other favorite asides was probably a McCarver malaprop, when he said there were 2 nations watching last night’s game: Red Sox Nation, and Japan.  Given I’m a politics buff, I’m looking forward to hearing Joe and Tim expand on the geopolitical significance of the Sox advancing to the World Series.  

Certainly, the Nation metaphor (it is a metaphor, isn’t it, Josh?) is getting a little out of hand.  Check this comment out in BU’s student paper, The Daily Free Press, re: the police presence around Fenway last night (which may be construed as another affront in the escalating war b/w BU students and local police):

“We figured we’d step out for a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Lasell University sophomore Seth Mantei. “There’s no reason to be kicking people out of the celebration. It’s Red Sox Nation, and Fenway is the capital. . . . They wouldn’t close down D.C. during the presidential election.”

Yeah, that sounds about right…except for the part where this kid doesn’t expect to see this kind of performance from the Sox again in his lifetime.

Go Sox!!!

Last Sunday, the M.A.S., Weboy and I had a terrific afternoon exploring the hot spots of my ‘hood: the brand new headquarters of WGBH (so cool) and the excellent Chinese food at Shanghai Gate.  On the B line back to our apartments, I said to the M.A.S. - as I almost invariably do when looking out the window at the endless rows of stately, dense old apartment buildings, “I like our neighborhood.”  He smiled and agreed.

One topic of discussion that Sunday was my falling blog numbers.  As I’ve mentioned, there are a few topics I cover that apparently few other bloggers do - New Bedford’s immigration woes, the NJ Turnpike’s Vince Lombardi rest stop, and FEMA trailers.  My love of Grey’s Anatomy also drives people to this site.  But increasingly over the last few months, regular readers have been disappearing, leaving Weboy as my main conversant in a sea of random Google-driven hits. 

This depressed me.  Contrary to friendly wisdom, this blog is not solely an on-line journal, but my attempt at creating conversation, and more so, finding community.  With rare exception, my closest friends do not live here in Boston.  After three years in the isolating confines of academia, I have yet to find consistently close confidants to fill the loss of having my peeps spread out geographically and busy with our reluctantly adult lives.  Though I can be charming and gregarious, I have a strong introspective streak, and an outsider nature - if you see me in a crowd, I’m much more likely to be standing on the edge of it, looking in, or not paying attention at all, my head in a book (this was perfectly in evidence at a family party this summer for one of my paternal cousins.  Every time more than 10 of my relatives surrounded me, I found myself escaping back to the less crowded room.  Back and forth I went from the kitchen to the porch in the course of an hour, instinctively seeking to find some space in the midst of 20+ kin).  I’m the type at the museum to get more out of the plaque describing the art than the actual piece beside it; the written word is without question my preferred and cherished medium.

So for me, blogging is a natural approach to trying to find communities of interest in which I can relieve some of the intellectual and inquisitive churn that threatens to keep me up at night and likely contributes significantly to my daily calorie burn (wahoo anxious energy!).  Although I often have to effortfully force myself out of my apartment to school for some mentally mandatory human contact, I rely heavily on the blogosphere for “conversation,” input, ideas and socializing. 

Truthfully, I don’t love blogging.  Like Weboy, I agree that it orients your mind around writing regularly, and that I appreciate.  But this is not a written medium in which I excel.  First, I am prone to longer arguments, which is the #1 killer for building your readership.  I am too meticulous to throw up posts most of the time without fastidiously editing them first; I loathe typos in others’ work and especially in my own.  While I can be funny and irreverent, my writing is as frequently sober, melancholy or angry - and I haven’t fully embraced the latter as my blogging tone.  I’m not out here to shock readers into awareness; what I’d really like is to leave people thinking, by imparting some wisdom or viewpoint that they hadn’t considered.   And I certainly don’t want to take my passion out of it, but I’d also really like to lighten up sometimes.  Basically, I’m still working on my voice here, unlike my academic and professional writing, which tends toward instructive, compelling and critical.  Overall, my aim is to be thoughtful and provactive, without abandoning my often dry and irreverent wit.  And after blogging for a 18 months, I’m still not sure how to populate a site devoted to policy more than politics, unless the latter refers to our racial, gendered and classist perceptions, with a particular emphasis on cities, neighborhoods (mine in particular), and the occasional tv or book “review”. 

So when Weboy repeated the useful advice about inserting myself in other blogversations to drive traffic to my site, a method I’ve tried with little results in the mainstream threads I’d been trolling for awhile, I knew I needed to find some other sites where the point of view was going to be more politicized, i.e., more likely to look at the world and our struggles in it from gendered, racial and class lens.  If this week’s hits are any indication, so far, so good. 

By joining the conversations more assertively and regularly at Feministe and Feministing, I’ve succeeded in generating traffic and at least one comment (keep ‘em coming people!).  I’ve also found, esp. in Feministe, a tone that is both provocative and erudite, and through these sites, links to other like-minded women.    At Shakesville, I’m laughing my a** off and appreciating the relentless critique of our current political climate. 

Now, what these sites are missing - knowingly, in the former case - is diversity in perspectives and topics.  There’s a noticeable split between middle-class, white feminist critique and commentary from feminists of color, where you can typically also find a broader range of class perspectives.  I can trace even less clearly the other divides (sexuality, disability, etc.).  The lack of integration of perspectives leads to a narrowing in the range of topics.  It seems I have to visit one set of sites for discussions of my reproductive rights, for instance, and another entirely to join conversations about poverty and spatial and class inequality, which are my preferred topics of conversation.  It’s not an easy divide to bridge, particularly because my skin can only thicken so fast against assumptions/realities of elite privilege (as a white person, as an academic, as a NE liberal, etc).  In my position, I long for more conversational breadth in sites like Feministe, but feel like I’m on constantly on the defensive in the latter sphere (see the “Update” and comments in the Feministe link above to see this “defensive crouch” in action). 

I realize the few sites I’ve linked to are only the tips of the blogberg out there, and I’m hopeful that if I apply myself to the task, I’ll find an intellectual community where I can speak comfortably from my feminist, neo-Marxist, anti-racist, coaliton-building lens, which I also hope to keep developing by sticking with the blogging.  If that means I lose my less political readers, I suppose I have to come to terms with that.  I like to believe I can be all things to all people, but it ain’t the case, try as I may.  For readers who appreciate the more confessional aspects of the blog, I hope you’ll check in occasionally.  For the others who want to hear more about housing policy, planning, equity and justice in the U.S., I hope you’ll visit the RP often.  Grey’s fans I expect will keep turning up. I should be so lucky if I have readers who are interested in all those things, simply because they’re coming from my, quite frankly, genius perspective (hi Weboy!). 

H/t to Outside the Toybox for directing me to this sustainability quiz developed by American Public Media.  It allows me to estimate my consumption footprint compared to the appropriate productive acreage per human on the planet (about 4.5 acres; they explain what “productive acreage” means), and then calculates how many earths are needed if everyone lived like me.  Oh, and I get to design a personal avatar and a neighborhood avatar. 

So how many earths are needed if everyone else lived in a little, one-person apartment and drove a sh*tbox back and forth 5 miles to school and within a 3 mile radius for errands a few times per week?  And went shopping at least once a month and ate mostly dairy, grains and veggies?  9.6.  Welcome to the Redstar Solar System.

Turns out, I can blame the T - that’s right, the public Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority system - for my one-woman path of destruction.  What, you don’t expect me to actually ride that thing regularly, do you?  Sitting here at my PC I rarely shut off, I was flying way under the tree huggers’ radar; I live in a small place, alone, use hardly any electricity or heat comparatively (of course, I don’t pay for heat directly, so that’s probably the culprit there), and recycle A LOT.  3 acres, 1 acre, and 1 acre for my home, power and recycling habits, respectively.  Look at me! I’m a mere spec on the world’s surface.

Then the questions came about public and personal transportation usage.  Miles driven per month, mileage to the gallon, monthly miles ridden by bus or rail, and hours flown yearly, and in what class (why the latter matters I have NO idea).  Well, DAMN if I don’t take up 21 acres with my monthly first class to the Gulf Coast (thanks FF miles) and intermittent T riding ways.  I went from 1.7 earths to 6, just based on public transportation ridership alone.  Together, the MBTA and I will put this planet out of business in no time!!

My eating and shopping habits apparently gobble up 3 more planets, though a major flaw of the quiz is no available stats when I’m asked to compare myself to the average American shopper.  Well, do they mean the folks living in FEMA trailers in the Gulf Coast or the women in Lexus SUV’s in the Chestnut Hill mall parking lot?  Or apparently some combination of the two.  And who knew coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil, and also travels huge distances?   Our caffeine addiction is obviously the lesser known cousin to the American oil addiction.

I’m curious to see how you all fare.  According the comparables they offer at the end, most Americans (Dems, GOP, Green, male, female, etc.), are consuming over 99 planets with their power usage.  But when you break it down by state, and most likely only the public radio listeners/Cambridge-Berkeley-Austin radicals in each, you get much much smaller figures.  Compared to folks in MA, CA, and NY, I’m ravaging 3 to four times the number of planets. 

All without leaving my kitchen table. 

Colbert on his ‘08 election prospects:

“voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.”

Hat tip.

(Meanwhile, keeping in mind his own presidential aspirations, Weboy tries to goose my flagging blog #s…)

From the M.A.S.’s couch to mine, from Television without Pity to the blogs, to A&E’s Flip this House to VH1 Soul, I’ve barely moved a muscle as I’ve consumed a tremendous range of information this weekend (not to mention about 50,000 calories, thanks to birthday party and hungover consumption of beer, cake, peanuts, chips, hotdogs and Vitamin Water, the latter doing little to counter the effects of the rest). 

I’ve posted a couple belated comments over at Ezra re: communal living and unionization and gender, a brief shout out to Brandeis over securing Anita Hill as a professor, and more rambling about my new cable offerings at NYC Weboy (soon to be a reality, sadly).  But I’ve got Matt Yglesias to thank for introducing me to this fun, fun comparative data site: ZIPSkinny, where you can enter your zip code and see how your neighborhood’s demographic profile compares to those around you.

No surprise - especially to my suburban cousin who informed me Friday night she hates my ‘hood because it’s so “crowded” - to find that Brighton (02135) is the third densest zip among its neighbors, at over 15,000 people per square mile (bordering Brookline and Allston are first and second, respectively).  She’s not the first visitor to comment on how dense it is.  My urban planning pals love it, and the M.A.S. and I also dig the vast sprawl of mostly pre-war, low- and mid-rise apartment buildings all over the neighborhood.  But after NYC, Brighton feels still feels green and relatively uncluttered.  My peep Nikki compared it to Brooklyn, and I’m going with that. 

Compared to our swankier neighbors, which include Cambridge, Brookline, Newton, Chestnut Hill, Watertown and Allston, our only other Top 3 placement is in our poverty rate - third after two Allston zips.  So other than being one of the most crowded and least affluent (third lowest median income too) neighborhoods in western Greater Boston, we’re also more single, more transient, less educated (though this is relative, since over 50% of our residents have at least bachelor’s degree), and yet employed in greater numbers than our urban and suburban counterparts.  Did I mention I love my ‘hood? 

I leave you with a brief demographic history of my zip codes (numbers rounded) after the jump.  Each new neighborhood has been less white, had more households in poverty, and more single people than the last.

(more…)

Last spring, I anxiously speculated on how the storefront turnover in Brighton Center could impact the neighborhood.*  Readers of the RP know I love my ethnically diverse, mixed-though-mostly-moderate-income neighborhood, even if I’d like to see it sprinkled with some bougie accoutrements (What can I say, I’m a tortured Neiman neo-Marxist).  Readers also know I’d start with Cleveland Circle in any neighborhood upgrade: so aren’t I just tickled to see the “upscaling” slowly taking hold. 

In an odd but likely affordable location choice, the seemingly cheezy-trendy clothing shop Lint of Boston has opened its doors in a basement “storefront” (really, a door and a window) on Chestnut Hill Av.  A quick glance at the barebones website indicates that if Heather Locklear and Jack Wagner lived in the area, they’d be shopping here.  My 30-something a** wearily knows there’s no shortage of co-eds running around these parts who will sport these duds in the Melrose Place alums’ absence.  Whether I can squeeze into the jeans and fitted tees on offer, I’m nonetheless thrilled that there is a clothing boutique within walking distance of my apartment.  Surely me and my “early-middle-aged” boyfriend** will be fitting right in at Mary Ann’s in no time!

Especially if we adopt an all-sushi diet once Fins opens up the street from Lint (seriously, don’t you think this name would be better on a dry cleaner?).  Though I don’t actually like sushi, and thus have denied the M.A.S. the pleasure of dining more often on one of his faves.  (We haven’t even made it to Asahi in Brighton Center, which the Chowhounders claim is terrific.)  Still, any new restaurant seems an improvement on the sketchy Chef Choy that was there before.  The Bank of America ATM next door was busier than that place. 

Speaking of ATMs, I’m disappointed to see the former CVS in Cleveland Circle replaced by a Citibank.  WHERE IS MY STARBUCKS OR INDEPENDENT COFFEE SHOP???  I know the new folks over at the Waterworks spread need a place to put their fancy $$, but isn’t that what Bank of America and Citizens are for?  I can’t imagine the Citibank will be somehow immune to the indigent men hanging out in front of it like these other two, which may have been a turn off for our recent arrivals.  This smacks of a NY conspiracy; keep your eyes peeled for Yankees fans among us. (Though I’m also convinced that Dunkins has the Circle on some sort of coffee lockdown.)

I think room remains on the shuttered CVS storefront, and the Blockbuster between Lint and Fins is up for lease.  Stay tuned for continued coverage of the Cleveland Circle’s makeover, which, if the M.A.S. and I had our way after a few “Aquatrains” (Aquavit and ginger ale) at his place followed by beers on Cityside’s rooftop patio, would involve substantially scaling back the car-oriented intersection at Beacon St and Chestnut Hill Av.  I wanted to just throw up a few concrete roadblocks and see what happens; the M.A.S., the true planner in the relationship, had some more sensible solutions (I hazily recall).

* I’ve since dined at Smoken Joe’s twice.  The food is fine - I’m no gourmet, and have this theory that I’m horizontally picky: I don’t like certain foods, but the quality of what I like doesn’t matter that much to me. (In comparison, the M.A.S. is vertically picky.  He’ll eat just about anything, but quality matters A LOT.) There are two things I like about Smoken Joe’s so far.  First is the local feeling; there’s a kooky waitress there who was pleasantly “yes’ing” a drunk woman out the door when I recently ate there, and then welcomed some friends from the ‘hood to the bar while I finished my meal.  Second is the portion size for the cost. For $10-12 bucks, you can get a third of ribs with two sides, all tucked cozily onto one plate.  For women who like to eat but don’t want to keep up with their 7 inches taller and 50 lbs heavier boyfriends, this meal is a great size.  Satisfying and filling.  I’d eat there again, right after I try the new Greek place across the street. 

**He’d like to thank Prof. Sennett for that one.

On my third straight day of shopping (it’s Redstar’s “buy my fall wardrobe” weekend), Weboy and I headed to the new Natick Collection.  “Eh,” is all I really have to say. 

I second Adam at Universal Hub re: the vertigo of standing in the old “Natick Mall” section at the doorstep of the suburban retail nirvana that is the new hall of shops.  Readers above the age of 22, beware the second story, where it’s one Abercrombie or their competitor after another.  I asked Weboy, when did we decide that the upscale wardrobe of today consisted essentially of sweatshirts and flip flops?  (If you do make your way out to Natick, check out Ruehl of Greenwich Village.  It’s as if Disney added a Village facade to Epcot, and let fans of shows like The OC and Gossip Girl decorate it according to what they’ve been told is fancy - that’d be fake fireplaces, college basement-party quality lighting and framed photos of half naked boys leaning against the walls.) 

The first floor feels more mature, definitely more pricey, and not quite at full throttle, given about one-third of the stores still are not open. They also need many more pushcarts to fill the dead space in the middle.  (I wonder if they’ll have the one where my dad can have his face emblazened on mugs for Xmas gifts for my stepmom and me.  You know, to go with the one I already have.)

As someone who lives closest to the Chestnut Hill mall, but about equidistant between Back Bay and Natick, I don’t foresee too much siphoning off from these other retail destinations due to Natick.  (I would be worried if I was the Atrium, which is the most generic of all the neighboring upscale spots, lacking the anchors of Bloomingdale’s, Barney’s, Saks, Louis Boston, etc., and having the most stores that I saw replicated at Natick.)  Boston should still have its international set and folks who prefer to shop downtown, and Chestnut Hill still has Jasmine Sola and Bloomingdale’s for the Newton/Brookline crowds.  Given that our parochialism means few of us like to drive further than 15 minutes to get what we need, I only see the Natick Collection adding to Boston’s fragmented retail market, rather than acting as a consolidator of sorts.  If anything, Natick should be avoided as it will bring together the over-caffeinated, hell-on-wheels rich suburban moms that roam the grounds of Chestnut Hill with the more slow-moving, easily confused, thick suburban crowds.

Ultimately, it’s about the kind of atmosphere in which you want to shop.  For the M.A.S., the perfect atmosphere is my living room with a beer in hand as I deliver packages I picked up for him that day at the outlets.  For me, it’s obviously a more sedate, preferably weekday experience where I can wander in peace and still find some deals.  Space and air matter; Newbury St., most outlets and the pseudo-downtowns of places like Mashpee Commons and the one in Hingham that my cousins love - all these are outdoors and offer varying degrees of “street life” and space.  In contrast, I hate “high-rise” malls like Cambridgeside and Providence Place where the stores are narrowly stacked and closing in around on you and the families and adolescent crowds.  Lighting is also key.  The Chestnut Hill Mall and Copley Place have pleasingly resisted the garish lighting that ultimately leaves the Natick Collection feeling stupifyingly similar to its traditional mall roots (or, as Adam at U. Hub put it, like the duty free section of an airport).   

I’m curious to see how the Natick Collection fares.  It’s not too often you see a Sears and Neiman Marcus sit side-by-side as you search in vain for a parking space between them.  It’s a long walk between JC Penney and Neiman Marcus, where the former has bi-lingual English-Spanish signage* and the latter’s snooty customers nonetheless ask for “Stella McCaHTney.”  I’m well aware of the $$ in the suburbs; visitors to the Natick Collection can browse the adjacent opening-in-2008 Nouvelle condos sales office as they wander from Nordstrom to Neiman’s.  But though I felt momentarily like I was in Soho as I passed the same chains that now consume that neighborhood, I thought I’d feel a lot more like I was in our version of Manhasset.  All I can say is, shame on this Masshole for being disappointed in our failure to measure up to Long Island luxury. 

*I’ve noticed many stores like Sears, JC Penney, and Best Buy now have bi-lingual signage, but at what I think was a Nine West I saw my first bi-lingual hiring sign today.

If you missed this on Friday, check it out, because it’s warm and fuzzy and earned me a much loved call from my cousin Friday night;

This should make you laugh as I stumble my way through a weekend of dog-sitting;

This shows you how life (and dog-sitting) is immeasurably easier with good friends helping you along;

and though it’s less about where you live than who you live with, it definitely helps to know what you like.

When Prof. Zero (you should really read her remarkable blog) posted a favorite cities meme, I thought she put too many parameters around the cities we could nominate.  I was particularly put off by the size requirements, as I’ve come to learn in school how varied cities are in size and scope, not least because the boundaries between cities and suburbs, and urban vs. sub-urban life is rarely as clear as we pretend.  And bigger does not necc. equal more urban.

In response to protests, including mine, she offered up what she called a “self-tagging town meme,” to which I finally responded the other night with a stream-of-consciousness thread of my favorite cities, that included a heavy dose of random memories and specific characteristics that matter to me in cities.

One of the things I love about the M.A.S. is that he and I both look at cities critically and value urban life deeply - mainly, we crave the density, walkability, accessibility and diversity that many cities offer (what is with suburbs and the absolute absence of sidewalks, for instance???).  I believe that if we go through life together, we will be able to live in a variety of places, because I trust our ability to knowledgeably evaluate and recognize if places have the characteristics that we seek at a much deeper level than a schools/taxes/property values equation (though all of that goes into the mix).

Though I hope you’ll read the professor’s posts and my comments, in short, I gave a shout out to:

1) Hartford and economically struggling but ethnically vibrant old NE/MW towns everwhere;

2) Boston, ‘cuz that’s my hood;

3) Krakow, ‘cuz its collegiate, historic and amiable personality - not to mention Krupnik honey liquer - nurtured me through the very dark hours of visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau;

4) New Orleans (though this is more of a love-hate relationship);

and

5) Memphis.

Seattle, Minneapolis, Houston, Bismarck, ND and Vegas (”Adult Disneyland”) got shout outs too.  L.A., London, NYC (public transportation “nirvana”) and Dar are in my big city category.

Cities I could live w/o:

- Chattanooga, though I did find its train-station-sized-airport charming;

- Ft. Worth;

- St. Louis;

- Philly (”somebody else’s Boston”);

- Atlanta.

Of course, there’s no place like home, or my couch, at this moment, for that matter.

What are your favorite cities?  Bonus points for your stories.

According to BostonMaggie’s Levels of Boston Irishness, I’m mint green:

Mint Green: Moved out of the city as a kid. Either has a government job or knows someone who does, especially cops. Likes a pint, but around the age of 30 developed a taste for Jameson’s. MP3 player is full of Dropkick Murphys and The Saw Doctors. Drinks in suburban places with neon shamrocks in the window. Hopes to visit the Auld Sod someday,but is saving for Disney. Might know someone who can get you off jury duty.

I’d venture to say my mint green roots have grown substantially intertwined with the bright blue of Brandeis and the pinstriped New Yorkers I’ve met over the years. This would explain why Zero 7 and Jill Scott crowd out the modern Irish bands in the iPod.  (And let’s not overlook the reddish-yellow tint I’ve picked up from all the foreign spice consumption in my past!). 

As for the drinking, hopefully the Irish bars of Brighton Center will have to suffice. 

Though I’m pretty sure I’m related by degrees to folks who can get you off jury duty.
Via.

Because we’re “wired, well-educated, and obsessed with politics.” Bostonist counters that it’s our Sox obsession crowding out those other chatterbox cities. 

In honor of these latest accolades, some news from around the Hub:

• GOP pres. candidate and former Gov. Mitt Romney apparently owns stock in YES, the Yankees network in New York.  Though there’s no love lost between the former pol and Massholes over his depiction of our lovely state as an “old fling he had, that doesn’t really mean anything,” now, it’s official: he’s dead to us.

• The opening of at least the 5th Dunkin’ Donuts in Brighton (I’ve got to be way too low on this estimate; anyone know the actual #?) dwarfs them all with its giant inflatable coffee cup that’d put any Anheiser-Busch-South-Boston-St. Patrick’s Day-parade inflatable Bud Light can to shame.  Brighton Centered nominates the new DD the “ugliest new business in Brighton.”   

• The latest in Boston’s best kosher food is out;

• Belated news flash for the unwashed public: the state hates you and wants to take away your phat ride, I mean, the T.  Rising resentment over crappy, inadequate trolleys and buses brings new meaning to the term road rage in Boston.  At least we’re all in agreement: the T blows.

Finally,

• BC hates its neighbors.  The feeling’s mutual.