the neighborhood

today, driving 15 minutes from my parents' house to the closest atm, i realized something about neighborhoods.

new yorkers are obsessed with their neighborhoods. new york city is split into five boroughs, with each borough split even further into neighborhoods, like park slope, williamsburg, chelsea.

but what you might not know, or realize, is that each neighborhood, which are usually a 20-block square or so, is pared down even further by those who live there. if you get all your necessitiesfrom a nearby grocery store, deli, restaurant, liquor store and drug store you sometimes don't have to stray beyond a couple blocks from your apartment -- unless you have to go farther to go to work. with a gym, laundromat, pizza place and atm just steps from my apartment, i hardly have to leave at all on the weekends to get everything i need.

in towns like stamford where you need a car to get around -- and where shops are maybe 15 minutes away as opposed to a 5 minute walk -- i have found that people still like to stay as close to home as possible. for essentials, my parents usually visit a tiny "country market" close to their house instead of driving 20 minutes to big grocery store. and even if i wanted to go that far, i could stay near the north part of the city and never really go "downtown," unless i wanted to visit the mall or see a movie.

what i realized was that we are all creatures of the neighborhood. we want to simplify but will settle for a smaller grocery store, a smaller selection of wine, than drive a farther distance. we like to stick close to home.

when i was looking for a new apartment, this neighborhood mentality really bothered me. i like my neighborhood and wanted to stay, but i think i am all but priced out. moving to a cheaper neighborhood means not only have to reorient myself with the local shops and restaurants, but also sacrificing and maybe going without those close shops altogether.

for example, when i lived in my first apartment in crown heights, it was easier for me to pick up groceries from a store near the subway in union square and trek it back to brooklyn than to walk 5 blocks to the closest (crappy) grocery store near my apartment. that only worked because the subway was closer to my apartment than the store.

now, i still walk just as far to go to the grocery store, but i like my neighborhood so much more, so i don't mind.