Where (and What) Is Your Home?

This article appeared on WorldChanging with slight modifications on September 25th, 2006.

I've been musing over the notion of home, because I actually went home this week, to western Massachusetts. I haven't figured out much, obviously, since I live in Seattle, Washington, yet consider home to be over 3,000 miles away. But then again, home is a fiercely individual concept: it's hard to articulate all the elements that make a 'home'; our location, and notion, of home may change over time; we may not live, or be able to live, for various reasons, at home; and how we are comfortable with the environment, people, and our place in the greater scheme of things, are all, I think, wrapped up in this notion of 'home'.

I muse a bit more about my home, and the concept of home in general, on the next page. Although many more brilliant writers have addressed the topic of home, then again, they didn't have blogs and commenting, so perhaps they don't matter! I'm kidding -- they do matter -- but they can't have the same kind of conversation that I'd like to have with you all.

What I'm really curious about is you, Oh Reader. Please write back and tell us about your homes. Where are you from? Where do you live now? Are they in the same place? If not, how often do you go 'home'? Does it still exist? How is it changing? Is it changing too fast, or too slow, for a brighter, greener future?

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My Home:

I'm from Amherst, which is a small college town in the Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. The town is about an hour and a half to Boston and thre hours to New York. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the population is about 35,000 residents, though estimates seem to vary wildly, because of the large number of students in the area. There are approximately 30,000 students in five colleges in the area. I was rather surprised to find that we have a Wikipedia entry, but you can also find out what is happening in town at the town's very own website.

I noticed a lot of things, since I've been gone for awhile. The maple tree in front of our house is now nearly four stories high, no matter that I can remember it back at ten feet tall. The whole town is overwhelmingly, lushly green, with vegetation spilling into the roads and streets near my home. Driving on a back road the other afternoon, I noticed a towering wall of clouds on the horizon on an otherwise clear day -- not a typical sight in New England, until I realized that it was evaporation off of the Connecticut River. Finally, we are at the beginning of fall in New England; despite the regular turning of the seasons, the changing colors of the autumn leaves never, ever fail to shock me. As the chlorophyll in the trees is slowly destroyed by the autumn's lower temperatures, for a few short weeks, all of the trees in New England are clothed in glorious, garish reds, oranges, and yellows.

There are also certain changes that I noticed that are less beautiful, too. The strip mall in the next town over continues to expand, with more than ten big boxes, all in a fat row. Behind my house, there's a subdivision on what used to be a farmer's field. My mom avoids the town center now, because of traffic congestion. There are a lot more SUVs than I remember, too.

Home & Environmentalism:

It seems to me that our (my) attachment to home has both positive and negative implications for environmentalism. I've written before about the long time scales in nature that we can barely perceive, and we regularly highlight in these pages how remote sensing has expanded our capability to envision and imagine our impact on the earth. At home, however, one has more opportunity to notice changes of all kinds -- environmental, economic, physical, social, aesthetic -- as part of everyday life. Changes seem to be more immediate, and the processes that change our environment may seem more in our control. We might be able to witness the changes in our gardens or local ecosystems. We may have time to go to our town meeting to protest zoning changes or new developments. At larger scales, candidates and issues may not always seem connected or relevant to our lives. Systems like schools and infrastructure are always hot-button local issues, because they affect people's children, streets, or businesses.

Of course, my attachment to home, and tradition, is not necessarily good. As time has passed, the town has certainly changed, but has it adapted enough? For example, my small town was once based on agriculture, but is now largely based on services. The town (and area) is still rather spread-out, and requires one to drive, mostly, to do anything at all. And whether or not I like it, my town remains certainly connected to larger scales. We didn't invent most of our ideas, our currency, our technology, our economic niche, or global warming, but all of those things will surely affect my town, as it will affect us all. (Unless we secede from the U.S., that is; I assure you that this has been discussed at the town meeting before).

Furthermore, even if we like our homes and the world is 'out there', the local scale is not always superior. This is what is frequently referred to in academia as 'the local trap': put simply, just because it's local, doesn't mean that it is good. Local agriculture and food, though it can be more tasty, can be much less efficient in production, which is no small concern in countries which don't produce enough food. Local farmers and homeowners can either be the best users, or worst abusers, of pesticides and chemicals. There are legitimate economies of scale, in food production, in infrastructure, and in energy production.

In social terms, also, the concept of home, and belonging to it, must accommodate both our attachments to places, and an expanding vision of universal citizenship, including awareness of the environment and human rights. In Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference, David Harvey criticizes the emphatic focus of communitarian theories on local self-determination, something along the lines of, there are some small communities in Arizona and Utah in which homophobia, polygamy, and child brides are the norm. So, how do we reconcile our local attachments and universal ambitions?

Please Comment:

I'd like to know, where is your 'home'? Do you live there? How is it changing? Do you want it to change?