Run Away?

Post written by Pete Strub. Pete writes a weekly article published every Thursday.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I woke with a start at 4:00 am to yelling on the street outside of our house. At first, we tried to shrug off the yells and go back to sleep, but this wasn’t just some ordinary loud mouths, so we cozied up to the window for some drama. The yells were coming from two thirty-something men standing on our sidewalk. Without my contacts, I only see blobs and blurs, so my wife had to give me the play by play. The men were standing about thirty feet apart and gesturing toward each other. They were both shouting insults, challenging each other to fight, so my wife, being a responsible citizen, called the police and informed them of the incident. We, of course, continued to watch. After a couple of minutes of yelling, it became apparent that one of the men, we’ll call him Sissy #1, had apparently slept with Sissy #2’s wife, or at least claimed that he did. After a particularly bad insult, Sissy #2 ran to his van and came running toward Sissy #1 with a baseball bat. Finally some action, I thought, but no such luck. Sissy #2 just stopped running about twenty feet short of Sissy #1 and started yelling challenges again. During this argument, it also became apparent that Sissy #1 had a knife, so now there were two armed men just yelling insults and challenges at each other. It got to a point where my wife and I wanted to start yelling challenges, too. For all that noise, we deserved to see a fight at least, right? Apparently, we were only destined to witness the lamest verbal sparring ever seen. At one point, the argument dissolved into Sissy #1 yelling, “Your mom!” and Sissy #2 wittily replying, “Your mom!” Brilliant. After a good five to ten minutes of standing and yelling both men got in their cars and peeled out chasing each other. A few minutes later the cops called my wife back. They had picked up the men and wanted information about the incident. Apparently, as the cop explained with a chuckle, they were both paper delivery men who got in an early morning dispute.

White Flight
You might not be surprised to hear that when my wife and I talk about buying our next home, we have put a lot of thought into moving out of the city. Those of you who read article a few weeks ago about My First Drug Deal know that this isn’t the first time we’ve had some interesting activity in our neighborhood. The more we think about having kids and starting a family, the more we start to question the sense of living in our current area. What if our young daughter is opening the door to a drug addict looking for money? How do we explain the words the two Sissies were using to our young son? How do we explain my desire to see them fight (ok, maybe that’s a problem I need to work on no matter where we live)? I am clearly not a safety nut, but I already get nervous when my wife is walking alone in our neighborhood at night. If we had kids, I just don’t know how comfortable I’d be, especially when the sun sets. But if we move out of the city to protect our children, we will be participating in white flight, moving out of an economically and racially diverse neighborhood for the safety of the suburbs.

Love the City
When my wife and I moved into the city, we weren’t sure we really wanted to live there, but the house price and taxes couldn’t be beat. We were surprised, however, to quickly find ourselves falling in love with the city. There are the convenient things like being able to walk to businesses and restaurants, but there is something more to it. I grew up in a small town that had the diversity of vanilla ice cream, so living in the city has been a mind-opening, heart-opening experience that has taught me to see life from different perspectives. My wife and I are better people because we have lived in the city. Our minds are bigger. Our hearts are bigger. Our yard is smaller (yeah, that part stinks). There is part of us that really doesn’t want to leave. Part of us wants to be the people who stay and try to make the city better. People, especially middle-class white people, have been vacating urban areas since the 1950’s. There is a strong part of me that would feel very guilty following that trend.

Questions
I guess I’m not writing this article today to give answers as much as I am writing to ask questions. My wife and I probably have anywhere from five to ten years until we move and we will probably continue to debate a bunch of questions until then. Questions like if we move will we rob our children of an opportunity to be exposed to diversity? Is safety more important than experience? How will our cities ever improve if the economically successful people always leave? How will different races learn to truly understand each other and live like the human race if they keep moving away from each other? Is there a way to live in the suburbs and still be truly active in the city? If I stay in the city, is it legal to set up an underground fighting ring and make Sissy #1 and Sissy #2 fight? Considering the fact that I have no answers, I think we should get some major comments up for this article. Tell me what you think, especially about the fighting ring; I need to make a blueprint for my basement if it’s going to fly.

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