Unexpectedly Friendly
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4/22/2011
I've lived in several states including NJ, HI, and CT, as well as in urban Baltimore. In most of these locales, your quality of life was pretty deeply dependent on the quantity of your income. Unless you commanded the upper five salaries, it was hard to find a place to live where kids play outside together without concern, or where your neighbors would watch out for you.
At the Kirkwood apartment complex in Hyattsville, we have just that, and for considerably less monetary outlay. The largely Hispanic community here includes many young families. Just the other day, I was watching a dozen young children play soccer in one of the complex's many green spaces. There are safe, colorful playgrounds for smaller children to play in, as well, and their parents are generally outside chatting with each other while they watch them play.
This would be a positive enough indicator to me, but in the year and a half I've lived here, I've also had people be friendly to me personally, even though I'm an overweight white girl who doesn't speak Spanish. Once, when I was locked out, I went around the back to our neighbor's window and asked them to let me into the main building. They didn't speak English, but we gestured it out, and they were nice enough to let me in. Another time, they questioned some friends of ours who were watching our cats because they hadn't seen them around before and were concerned about them entering our apartment.
There's also a beautiful park across the street that connects to one of the nation's major bike trails. The DC Metro is a 10 minute walk from our front door, and the Post Office is just down the street, as are two supermarkets and a number of other shops.
Our neighborhood isn't perfect. There's some crime, and we certainly don't leave our car unlocked. Still, I feel safe walking alone here at night, and when I look out the window, I'm happy with where we live.
Abigail | Chillum, MD