The Suburb Killed the Village

There are many kinds of love that make our world thrive. While we all fall short of the perfect love in our relationships, there’s another kind of love that we seem to always lose sight. This loss is killing us. I’m talking about loving thy neighbor. There was a time where our homes weren’t just structures. Home use to be the entire neighborhood. You shopped there, played there, slept there, and some even were educated in their neighborhoods. Your neighbors were like family. Your best friend’s mom, was very much like your own. Discipline was the responsibility of every adult. Every child respected every adult. Adults shared wisdom, knowledge and talents with children. For the black community, this was the nucleus, this was the Village. Somewhere in the aspiration to improve our lives with more education, better jobs and better homes, we lost sight of the importance of the Village. We started seeking better floor plans and cul de sac living. We sought suburban living. What was once the pride of culture and family, fell victim to developers, builders and greed. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying such aspirations are not beneficial. But in seeking things that only benefit self, we killed what was once a necessity to our survival. Let’s put it in perspective. Once homeowners left the village many houses fall victim to vacancy or rental. Every person that rents is not bad for the neighborhood, but in our society once a house becomes a rental it loses value, subsequently so do the neighboring houses. The houses become harder to sell. The leads to foreclosures and short sales. Houses are bought by investors who fail to care for them properly. These blemishes become permanent in instances. Our schools also suffer. When people leave the village with children, they take away a student that helps secure funding. In seeking out what they thought was a better school system, they indirectly began to contribute to the deterioration of another. Loss of funding equals loss of classes such art and music, or sports teams. Even more funding is loss that contributes to books, building repairs, and food programs. The children left in these schools suffer the biggest loss. They are unable to participate in programs that would help them thrive in higher education and eventually adulthood. The direct or indirect result are our youth falling victim to crimes, and in some cases becoming the criminal themselves. Today when we see a child doing wrong we look the other way out of fear, lack of empathy or even more sadly, we don’t care. We’d rather say that it’s none of our business, or that’s not my fight. Those who truly don’t want to be a part of the village, move to neighborhoods where if you’re considered neighborly if you say “hi” and “bye.” Instead of kids playing on any given evening or summer day, they have scheduled play dates. People prefer to be told what color to paint their houses and where to park their cars. People now choose to live where they are restricted by covenants and associations believing that they somehow have more freedom and a better lifestyle. Instead of loving thy neighbor, we are loving only ourselves. We live for financial outcomes and progress, but not for humanities progression. Yet more than ever people are crying out for the violence to stop, to end division amongst our cultures, and for love to prevail. Yet you shout these things from your computer screens and smartphones. Much like myself as I sit on my laptop in a subdivision on a cul de sac. Isn’t this progress? Yeah I know…RIP to the Village