10 ms·

I'm curious to know why you see them as a guest in your home, rather than the other way around?

by moxie 14y ago

dewitt 14y ago
Are you genuinely curious, or trolling? I'll answer sincerely if you don't understand.
- nkurz 14y ago
  Hi Dewitt -- I presume Moxie's genuine. I'm not quite sure how to interpret his question, but I'd like to hear more of your thoughts. --nate
  - dewitt 14y ago
    Hey Nate! The way I see it is that we're all guests in any new environment when we first get there. Over time, after investing love blood sweat energy tears, these places gradually become our homes. Sometimes it feels like it happens fast, sometimes it feels like it takes forever. Sometimes we are embraced by whomever is there before. Sometimes we're not and we displace (ask me how I felt moving to Avenue D back in the day). Sometimes we're not and we're the ones displaced. For me personally, the Haight didn't start feeling at all like home for quite a long time. Years. But over time I started recognizing the shopowners. Getting to know them, their names, where they lived, what was on their mind. And my neighbors (those that stay long enough to get to know). And the cops (on the rare occasion you saw one). And the postal carrier. And the street cleaning crew. Etc. And, especially relevant to this thread, I began to recognize the local transients. I might see a handful guys over and over again who have been walking the streets of our neighborhood for a decade or more. (Which I guess technically makes them in-transient, but they're likely not under the same roof every night like I am.) This is their home, too. But what I don't see is the same faces among the street kids. I see new kids every day. They're here one day, gone the next. It's rare that I'd see a kid last a week. Maybe a handful I've seen come back after a year or two. But that's the exception, not the norm. So my point about it being "our extended home" is that, after these many years, love or hate the Haight, it has become my home, and it is the home for the others that have invested something of their lives in our neighborhood. For most of these street kids, the ones the author is writing about, the ones that I see every day, they don't consider it home. They don't treat it as their home. But I do. And so do my neighbors. Does that explain it a bit better? Edit: Moxie in another comment mentions the (true) squatter scene, which is a very important (and itself diverse) subculture to recognize. I agree completely. I'd suggest that the Haight is also their home as much as it is mine. Hell, a million times moreso if we're talking actual blood sweat and tears.
    - ynniv 14y ago
      This is an excellent response. A neighborhood is home to those who treat it as a home, which often coincides with material ownership.
    - nkurz 14y ago
      Thanks, this is excellent insight. My current role is as a business owner in Oakland. Many of the "transients" are fixtures of the neighborhood. Some we allow to charge their cellphones in the store, with others we call 911 as soon as they come in. The guest metaphor is interesting, but difficult to apply in the case of overlayed and possibly incompatible subcommunities.
Locke1689 14y ago
Presumably because he either pays property taxes or pays rent to someone who uses it to pay property taxes. Fundamentally, one can see people living on the street as belonging to a complex subgroup in our society: one which can be both symbiotic and parasitical. It is symbiotic in the sense that it provides a culture with which many can identify, especially those who have experienced hardship or difficult home lives as children. In this way street communities can provide a sense of catharsis -- almost a group therapy session. Belonging to a community can provide mental comfort which can seem even more important than physical comfort. In other words, street communities can take our tired, our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free. However, in many cases they can also be parasitical. Consuming societies' group benefits, in a way similar to herd immunity, while also spreading danger in the community, either through violence or excessive drug use. I think what many people, both in the street communities and not, may fail to realize is that it is entirely possible that a street community can represent a local optimum, but not a global one. There may be a way to provide people both the sense of community they desire and a way to integrate them into the larger community so that they can contribute in more impactful ways.
- moxie 14y ago
  There's an old wobbly story: A wobbly was riding a freight train across the midwest one summer, in between jobs. The train sided out in the middle of nowhere, and it was scorching hot, so the wobbly got off the train and started walking down a dirt road. After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple tree. The wobbly sat there enjoying the shade for 20 minutes, until a farmer came across him. "You can't be here!" exclaimed the farmer, "This is my land!" The wobbly looked up at the farmer and asked "Really? What makes it your land?" "What are you talking about you dirty tramp, I inherited it from my father!" replied the farmer, almost bewildered at such an indignant question. "Hmm, and what made it his land?" asked the wobbly. "Why, he inherited it from his father!" replied the farmer, now really angry. "It's been in my family for three generations!" "And what made it your grandfather's land?" asked the wobbly. The farmer, now barely able to contain himself, yelled proudly "Why! My grandpappy fought the indians for it!" The wobbly nodded, stood up, pulled back his sleeves, and replied "Uh huh. Then I'll fight you for it, right now." The point being that a lot of these conceptions about who belongs and who doesn't are based on private property, but that there fundamentally isn't any real justification for private property. Even John Locke's attempts to justify it break down. I can understand two groups being in conflict with each-other, but I can't understand conceptualizing one as the "guests" of the other group simply because they don't own property.
smallegan 14y ago
Probably because he contributes to society in his local neighborhood, likely cleaning up the steps that they so eloquently defecate upon. Paying the taxes that keep the green grass growing in the parks they chill in.
SilasX 14y ago
Probably because he produces the value that makes the land a desirable place to mooch, while the street kids don't produce any of the value that makes it desirable place for him to sell his services to others. And unlike in your Wobbly story, they wouldn't be able to produce that same value "if only" the greedy OP quit hogging that land he lives and works on. You ever wonder why the street kids don't exercise their freedom to roam in less wealthy areas? Food for thought.
- redwood 14y ago
  This isn't entirely true. While the street kids aren't specifically responsible for the neighborhood's legacy, they are part of a line that has given the neighborhood a certain magic for tourists and nostalgics anyway

I'm curious to know why you see them as a guest in your home, rather than the other way around?

by moxie 14y ago

I'm curious to know why you see them as a guest in your home, rather than the other way around?

dewitt 14y ago

Are you genuinely curious, or trolling? I'll answer sincerely if you don't understand.

nkurz 14y ago
Hi Dewitt -- I presume Moxie's genuine. I'm not quite sure how to interpret his question, but I'd like to hear more of your thoughts. --nate
- dewitt 14y ago
  Hey Nate! The way I see it is that we're all guests in any new environment when we first get there. Over time, after investing love blood sweat energy tears, these places gradually become our homes. Sometimes it feels like it happens fast, sometimes it feels like it takes forever. Sometimes we are embraced by whomever is there before. Sometimes we're not and we displace (ask me how I felt moving to Avenue D back in the day). Sometimes we're not and we're the ones displaced. For me personally, the Haight didn't start feeling at all like home for quite a long time. Years. But over time I started recognizing the shopowners. Getting to know them, their names, where they lived, what was on their mind. And my neighbors (those that stay long enough to get to know). And the cops (on the rare occasion you saw one). And the postal carrier. And the street cleaning crew. Etc. And, especially relevant to this thread, I began to recognize the local transients. I might see a handful guys over and over again who have been walking the streets of our neighborhood for a decade or more. (Which I guess technically makes them in-transient, but they're likely not under the same roof every night like I am.) This is their home, too. But what I don't see is the same faces among the street kids. I see new kids every day. They're here one day, gone the next. It's rare that I'd see a kid last a week. Maybe a handful I've seen come back after a year or two. But that's the exception, not the norm. So my point about it being "our extended home" is that, after these many years, love or hate the Haight, it has become my home, and it is the home for the others that have invested something of their lives in our neighborhood. For most of these street kids, the ones the author is writing about, the ones that I see every day, they don't consider it home. They don't treat it as their home. But I do. And so do my neighbors. Does that explain it a bit better? Edit: Moxie in another comment mentions the (true) squatter scene, which is a very important (and itself diverse) subculture to recognize. I agree completely. I'd suggest that the Haight is also their home as much as it is mine. Hell, a million times moreso if we're talking actual blood sweat and tears.
  - ynniv 14y ago
    This is an excellent response. A neighborhood is home to those who treat it as a home, which often coincides with material ownership.
  - nkurz 14y ago
    Thanks, this is excellent insight. My current role is as a business owner in Oakland. Many of the "transients" are fixtures of the neighborhood. Some we allow to charge their cellphones in the store, with others we call 911 as soon as they come in. The guest metaphor is interesting, but difficult to apply in the case of overlayed and possibly incompatible subcommunities.

Locke1689 14y ago

Presumably because he either pays property taxes or pays rent to someone who uses it to pay property taxes. Fundamentally, one can see people living on the street as belonging to a complex subgroup in our society: one which can be both symbiotic and parasitical. It is symbiotic in the sense that it provides a culture with which many can identify, especially those who have experienced hardship or difficult home lives as children. In this way street communities can provide a sense of catharsis -- almost a group therapy session. Belonging to a community can provide mental comfort which can seem even more important than physical comfort. In other words, street communities can take our tired, our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free. However, in many cases they can also be parasitical. Consuming societies' group benefits, in a way similar to herd immunity, while also spreading danger in the community, either through violence or excessive drug use. I think what many people, both in the street communities and not, may fail to realize is that it is entirely possible that a street community can represent a local optimum, but not a global one. There may be a way to provide people both the sense of community they desire and a way to integrate them into the larger community so that they can contribute in more impactful ways.

moxie 14y ago
There's an old wobbly story: A wobbly was riding a freight train across the midwest one summer, in between jobs. The train sided out in the middle of nowhere, and it was scorching hot, so the wobbly got off the train and started walking down a dirt road. After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple tree. The wobbly sat there enjoying the shade for 20 minutes, until a farmer came across him. "You can't be here!" exclaimed the farmer, "This is my land!" The wobbly looked up at the farmer and asked "Really? What makes it your land?" "What are you talking about you dirty tramp, I inherited it from my father!" replied the farmer, almost bewildered at such an indignant question. "Hmm, and what made it his land?" asked the wobbly. "Why, he inherited it from his father!" replied the farmer, now really angry. "It's been in my family for three generations!" "And what made it your grandfather's land?" asked the wobbly. The farmer, now barely able to contain himself, yelled proudly "Why! My grandpappy fought the indians for it!" The wobbly nodded, stood up, pulled back his sleeves, and replied "Uh huh. Then I'll fight you for it, right now." The point being that a lot of these conceptions about who belongs and who doesn't are based on private property, but that there fundamentally isn't any real justification for private property. Even John Locke's attempts to justify it break down. I can understand two groups being in conflict with each-other, but I can't understand conceptualizing one as the "guests" of the other group simply because they don't own property.

smallegan 14y ago

Probably because he contributes to society in his local neighborhood, likely cleaning up the steps that they so eloquently defecate upon. Paying the taxes that keep the green grass growing in the parks they chill in.

SilasX 14y ago

Probably because he produces the value that makes the land a desirable place to mooch, while the street kids don't produce any of the value that makes it desirable place for him to sell his services to others. And unlike in your Wobbly story, they wouldn't be able to produce that same value "if only" the greedy OP quit hogging that land he lives and works on. You ever wonder why the street kids don't exercise their freedom to roam in less wealthy areas? Food for thought.

redwood 14y ago
This isn't entirely true. While the street kids aren't specifically responsible for the neighborhood's legacy, they are part of a line that has given the neighborhood a certain magic for tourists and nostalgics anyway