A friend of mine recently moved, and she wrote me to say that my book, Alienated America, made a difference in where she and her husband moved. She realized she should look for a place where their family could contribute and belong. They should look for a place to plant roots.
I hope my friend talks to the writers and editors of The New York Times, who launched a little feature this week titled “Where Should You Live.” It asks you your priorities, measures them against various databases, and then prescribes where you should live.
“We want the quiz to be useful to anyone who’s thinking about moving,” the authors wrote, “not just affluent, highly educated people who are working remotely because of the Covid pandemic.”
What steps did they take to be inclusive? “We’ve included data on affordability, jobs and abortion rights, which could be relevant to young people deciding where to start their careers.”
Further, “transgender rights” and “gay bars” are two of the priorities you can choose. The writers, Gus Wezerek and Yaryna Serkez, explained that their criteria were a blend of things people actually care about and things Wezerek and Serkez think people should care about. This is an opinion piece, after all.
Still, I find it telling how they nearly totally exclude civil society from their criteria. What weight do they assign to places where people can get together, to community hubs, to places where you can find things to belong to?
Not a lot. The New York Times writers know you will care about schools. After that, it’s restaurants or gay bars.
Libraries, bowling leagues, volunteer opportunities, youth sports, civic associations — all of these things are measurable. The authors could get data for all of them. And these are all the things I would rank highest.
For me? I would look for Catholic parishes. It’s probably impossible for the authors to get a measure of the strength of a parish, but at least they could figure out how far I am from a Catholic church or how many parishes are within a 15-minute drive.
Also not included in the criteria: bars or nightlife that might not be exclusive to a single sexual orientation.
In fact, after my wife and I had lived in Silver Spring for seven years, we had our preferred parish, and I had my preferred pub. We bought a house halfway between the Stained Glass Pub and St. Andrew Apostle. What’s more, we were attracted to the place by its walking distance to the botanical gardens and being adjacent to a playground.
Sexuality-neutral bars, parks, playgrounds, and houses of worship matter to some people.
The neighborhood next to ours is overwhelmingly orthodox Jewish because there are two orthodox synagogues that they all walk to — driving being prohibited on the Sabbath.
I’ve traveled to Salt Lake City, where I’ve met plenty of folk who moved to the region to be at the center of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. I’ve been to many Dutch Reformed towns that similarly drew in people attracted by the churches.
This isn’t just about churches. Yelp distinguishes restaurants as “good for kids” or not. The authors don’t seem to think that matters to anyone — or that it shouldn’t matter to anyone.
I don’t expect a fun little holiday-season online Quizlet to include everything. But to ask “where should you live” and include almost nothing about community is odd. Perhaps its telling.
Millennials, especially urban liberal millennials, are especially prone to a sort of atomistic individualism. They are more likely to eschew what they call “tribalism,” less likely to join things, and more prone to seeking to define their own sense of meaning rather than seeking meaning by joining institutions and finding a role. What they belong to are often more impersonal “identities” — race, ideology, sexuality — and less little platoons.
I don’t begrudge these authors their test. I just implore readers to not listen to The New York Times.
