In the last month or so, I haven’t been much of a neighbour. I’ve been working hard on my own neighbourhood portal site Ulsan Online. It’s an attempt to bring together years of experience and knowledge into one site in a hope to rebuild a sense of community and togetherness. An, I hope to make a steaming heap of money. But, as I stare at the 180 exams I should be marking, I find my thoughts wandering around my neighbourhood.
I live about 100 meters from the university residences of a larger regional school in a remarkably urban country. Not quite as urban as Hong Kong, but a hell of a lot more urban than Thunder Bay, Ontario. It’s a neighbourhood of working guys, pretty poor students, and young families. There are too many apartments, not enough trees and a lot of ugly hydro wires. But, there is a certain feel to this area that makes it stand out in my mind. In a city of over a million, I’d rather live right here than anywhere else.
Maybe it’s the once-every-five-day market that pops up at the end of the street and has the guy that gives me a great deal on potatoes. Perhaps its the cheap chicken and awful beer just down the road, where you can put on weight and get a hangover for 10 bucks. Maybe it’s running into my older students who just want to chat and have a beer on weeknights that I like. It’s a neighbourhood that I’ve been living in and around for years, and at one point or another half of my best friends lived here. There are memories of first dates with my fiance, and throwing stuff of the roof of my old work. Is it the sharp corner where cars triple park? or the intersection that is impossible to walk through because of the 4 one way streets that all meet?
Is a neighbourhood buildings, that change slowly, or the people, who constantly buzz through. Is it that pothole that’s been growing year-by-year?
When I wander around the new apartment complexes springing up around the city (and I literally mean spring up, you park your car one night in an empty lot, and find it on display in a computer store the next) I find little or nothing that I like, even though these new complexes are designed for people, with open spaces and benches, and the cars neatly parked downstairs.
The theme song to ‘Cheers’ somehow wanders through my head, but everybody here just calls me ‘foreigner’.
At the end of the day, staring down bad beer and battered chicken, I still must ask myself: What makes a good neighbourhood?
In the not so distant future, it is predicted that as much as 80% of the world's population will live in urban areas and, by 2050, the population of the world will increase by as many as 3 billion people. Three billion people require a fair bit of food and current farming practices are unlikely to be able to provide the needed supply. Dr Dickson Despommier suggests Vertical Farms.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Ah Mugo-Dong… I do miss it… though I prefered my every day market over in Banga-dong. I could never remember what day the once-every-five-days market was on!
December 18th, 2008 at 7:15 am
You remember the stupidest intersection in the universe? near your old apartment? They’ve FINALLY turned on the traffic lights. Now it’s your normal, run of the mill, ultra dangerous korean intersection.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:50 am
just down the street? too bad, it was a real exercise in social interaction, YA! Balli Wa!