The Local Lifestyle
A Personal Perspective on Commuting and Living
A couple of years ago I found myself giving fitness advice to a friend and suggested that he get a bike and use it as his primary mode of transportation. What I'm advocating here is creating a local lifestyle where you live not far from where you work. Michigan winters aside, I've been using my car almost exclusively for long distances or heavy loads since the late 1980s. More than twenty years in other words! I didn't even own my first car until 1991. This is all actually very unusual in contemporary America. Outside of New York and other Northeastern cities, most folks are in their cars and they tend to spend forty-five minutes to an hour and half in them each way. Not for me, man. I just didn't want to fall into the commuting trap like my parents had. Year after I year, I saw them waste their lives on the highway going to and from work. They spent so much time getting to and from their jobs that I barely knew them. I swore that I would never get that way and left LA for good in the late 1980s. Instead, after college and an aborted attempt at grad school, I stranded myself in Ann Arbor, a small university town in Michigan. I was there just over a decade while I wondered what I was going to do with my life. There were worse places, but not too many better ones to tell the truth. Ann Arbor had everything I could have wanted in a twelve mile radius: gainful employment, culture, shopping, wonderful country scenery to tour through, and a readily accessible social life. In other words, a Local Lifestyle.
I happen to like the Local Lifestyle and not just because it's what I'm accustomed to. Riding to work helps psych me up for the day, especially when I have to dodge Philly traffic. In reality, as frightening as it is to be a motorist in this city, I have had few problems on my bike. Most days, I have a pleasant, low impact workout outside. That alone helps me to wake up and find my center. Because of that I arrive at work in a pleasant mood. Riding home gives me a chance to decompress and leave the office behind me. For some reason, that just doesn't happen in a car.
There are other benefits to staying local. For one, you actually care about what's going on around you. Thanks to being so much closer to issues like polluted streams, I wound up sitting on my local congresswoman's advisory council. You also take an interest in what's going on in the neighborhood because you don't have the car's steel armor surrounding you. That confers a sense of responsibility to be sure, but it also creates opportunities. That's how I discovered this great little Carribean restaurant back in Ann Arbor. Fantastic stuff for not a lot of money. I just looked up and said "Hey that looks neat and I need dinner". So I stopped and checked it out. I would never have done this from my car because I would have been focused on where I was going, not where I was at that moment in time. Keeping it local meant I could just swing by and see what band was playing at the Top of the Park when that was going on or investigate most any cultural event on the spur of the moment. The same holds true for Philadelphia. From where I work in University City, the cultural attractions of Center City are just a short ride away. Philadelphia is a city of interconnected small towns each with its own character and special attractions. Most of these neighborhoods are accessible by bike and all can be reached by mass transit. Many of the trains here in Philadelphia allow bikes aboard during off peak hours. Even more surpirisng, Philadelphia has quite a few semi wilderness areas within its city limits provide ample opportunity for recreational cycling.
I've yet to buy a house, since the prices in the places I've lived have priced me out of the market. Nontheless, I think the trade off I've made has been good for me. The conventional wisdom states that no matter how far you have to drive, you need to buy a house. I disagree with most the arguments for buying a house, any house, as a way to build assets. Treating a home as an investment is big mistake because if you cash it out, you lose your home and you may still have a mortgage. Borrowing against home equity is even worse. Besides, real estate can be a bumpy investment. I've seen boom-bust cycles turn prime property in something you couldn't give away and that was even before the recent bubble burst. My ivestments have done more for securing my future than a thirty year mortgage. And then there's question of just how affordable that house out in the exurbs really is. Take a look around. Are there any services? What's police coverage like? Do you see kids playing in the neighborhood? Does the community have culture or just chain stores? Is it in fact a community, or is it just a collection of cheaply built, overpriced houses? Cities have their problems to be sure, but they are truly communities, anchoring commerce, culture, and education for a region. Unfortunately, cities can also be expensive to live in, meaning that you may have resign yourself to renting for quite a while before purchasing a home. This situation is true both for big cities and small university towns. However, in return for renting and living close in, I seem to be happier than most of the commuters at my job. I know I have dramatically better cardiovascular health as well and that means living longer and healthier. I also have a greater amount of free time than many of my peers(enough time to write fiction and go to grad school part time). So, if you're starting out or just getting ready to make a change, I'd advise considering the case for staying local and commuting by bike instead of car. You'll be happier and healthier.