Lacking any interesting topics tonight, I went to one of those writing prompt databases, and after refreshing through a couple of ideas for parents and one that was a little to fanciful for me, I found this:
If you could change one thing about the town you live in, what would it be?
There are countless things I wish were different about this place. I wish it were cheaper to live here. I wish it was less crowded. I wish earthquakes weren’t a constant threat. I wish being run off the road by a jackass in a BMW wasn’t a constant threat. I wish that the Governator’s constant hare-brained budget balancing schemes would just go away. Realistically, though, I don’t think changing any of those things would have the desired effects.
The Bay Area is what it is because of its good points, and that brings about the bad ones. If it were cheaper, it would be more crowded. If it were less crowded, it would probably be more expensive and less diverse. I think earthquakes are a deep-seeded part of the Californian identity; people aren’t afraid of taking chances here because just living on a fault line means you’re always taking a chance. The jackasses in the BMWs are probably like the appendix of urbanized California — we could take them out, but the scar would linger.
I was looking at one of those lists of “great places to live.” Only one Bay Area town was on the list, it was near the bottom, and while it’s a perfectly okay bit of suburbia, no one’s gong to write any songs about it. While we have a remarkable “quality of life” here: good weather, sophisticated cultural institutions, good schools in certain areas; the list was focused on good places to raise a family. The American nuclear family has fled most of California in droves because the air here is too rareified. Anywhere else in the country, you can work and commute less, your children can probably go to better schools, and you’ll be able to live in a safer neighborhood, surrounded by families just like yours, and you can enjoy a house with a back yard and room for a dog. Whether or not that nuclear family idea is sustainable any longer and that level of insulation is what children really need are two different problems all together.
I think the cost of living here is part of the formula that inspires greatness. People have to work hard just to scrape by. Part of the reason great things happen is because they have to happen in order to sustain this place, whether it’s in technology, food, or even entertainment.
So, dearest California, don’t you go changin’.