Urban Life

So this is what I did today. Spouse and I worked out at the gym which is less than a mile from our home. This gym has the most beautiful scenary of any gym I've belonged to as it looks out on the Ohio River. This morning I watched several barges carrying coal up the river going to Pittsburgh and empty ones heading down the river towards Louisville. After the gym we headed to our neighborhood coffee shop for breakfast. As we were walking to Koka we ran into one of our neighbor/ friends and briefly talked about the Nature Show on this week about Cats & Dogs. I really think she is going to like it . She is a P&G executive and I think she might be a combo of Idealist / Observer ...but anyhow I think she'll enjoy the Myers-Briggs concept. Also on the way to Koka we passed the The Gilded Age (neighborhood shop) which had a handwritten sign posted on the front door that said "Gone to Mt Adams Business Meeting. Will open tomorrow". At Koka the employees don't have to ask our names to give us coffee credits. As usual, this morning we saw more neighbors in the coffee shop as well. Some of them we even know their morning routines. After Koka I went to work, a 5 minute commute , which is in a conservatory in the park adjacent to our neighborhood. Oh and I am particularly appreciative of working there this time of year as the weather outside is kinda gloomy. I came home for lunch today, as ususal, but since I have so much to do (lots of B-fly orders to place) I only took a 1/2 hour lunch. After work spouse met me @ Conservatory for a lecture. So the reason I recapped this "day in my life" is because of an article I read at breakfast this morning titled "Hard times won't push suburbanites back into old cities". It was written by David Brooks, New York Times and a regular contributor on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, who I think is an excellent (and interesting) reporter. Here is how his article starts: "You may not know it to look at them, but urban planners are human and have dreams. One dream many share is that Americans will give up their love affair with suburban sprawl and will rediscover denser, more environmentally friendly, less auto-dependent ways of living." But the answer is Americans will probably not move to the cities. Later in the article he cites a recent Pew Research Center study about where Americans want to live and the lifestyles they want as well. Turns out 1/2 of Americans want to live somewhere other than where they currently reside and they want to move outward. This study shows that urbanites are the least happy (only 52% of urbanites rate their communities excellent or very good compared to 68% of suburbanites and 71% of rural Americans.) And "cities are profoundly unattractive to people with families". Third thing the Pew study found is Americans want to move west, Denver, San Diego, Seattle, SanFrancisco, Phoenix, Portland and Sacramento (7 of the top 10 most desireable cities). So my first reaction to the title of this article (admittedly smug) is "their loss". I love living in an urban community so much I can't imagine living anywhere else. I'm also so looking forward to raising a child in this community. So I quess I forget how I don't fit the conventional mold. I do think it is sad that half the population doesn't like where they live. But ... at least as an American you can decide your own destiny.