What was your neighborhood like while you were growing up?

[fly girl]

Grew up in Lansing, Michigan late 70's to early 80's. Have to say, it was pretty darn great. The neighborhood was safe and multi cultural. Remember the saying, "it takes a village" that is how my neighborhood worked. Whatever house you were near, those adults were your guardian and you listened to their rules. You came inside when the street lights came on. We ventured all around the 8 block area (typically on bikes) - up by the school, church, and tiny strip mall with the Baskin Robbins and dime store.

Loved my neighborhood.

 

[wilbret]

I grew up on a farm, on a dirt road, miles away from anyone else. My grandparents lived "in town," which was as Main Street USA as it gets. I would spend weekends with them, and would get "dropped off" in town with my bike, and we all just rode bikes wherever we wanted and ended up at one friend's house or the next. Wiffle ball, football, basketball... games were easy to come by. We roamed the woods freely, and parents looked out for each other's kids. It was VERY common to eat at someone's house, and the favor was simply returned later. I was invited almost every Sunday to my friend's grandmother's house for Sunday dinner, I was a part of their extended family, and vice versa.

The town square had a toy store, hardware store, pharmacy, grocery store, jewelry store, men's clothing store, women's clothing store, family clothing store, auto parts store, a full service gas station, a convenience gas station, and more I can't recall. They had festivals and parades, everybody knew everybody else. It was a great place to live. Stores were closed on Sundays.

Around 1992, it really started to fall apart. NAFTA and offshoring killed the industry in the town. I mean, overnight there were no factory jobs left. There was agriculture, which was rapidly modernizing to the point 1 person could do the job of 6, so jobs weren't plentiful. Families encouraged kids to move away to chase their dreams. The town is sad...sad...sad now. The same town square is now government agencies, pawn shops, thrift shops, or empty. All of the convenience stores are run down and gross. The only "restaurants" are run down and gross. Locally owned stores have been replaced by Dollar General and Family Dollar. The lone grocery store is not bad, but it isn't great. When I go home to visit, I do not feel a connection.

 

[Adelle Dazeem]

My parents bought their house in 1974 in a suburb of Sacramento. At the time, it was a new subdivision and the majority of new owners were families with young kids. I think we had a group of about 10 kids give or take a few. We played baseball in the street, hop scotch, chinese jumprope, jacks, etc., in the driveway. We were the only house in the neighborhood with a pool so in the summers, we lived in the pool. Oh the power that pool gave me every year...LOL You did something to make me not like you, no pool for you! We walked up to Mart N Bottle convenience store for candy and then they put in an arcade next door and I remember always having to decide if I wanted to use my quarter for a pinball game or a candy bar. Decisions, decisions.

 

[Donnainnj]

From 10yrs old on I was in the same town Ozzy Nelson grew up, lol. I am sure it changed a lot over the years but it was still pretty good.

 

[slo]

I was born in 1971 so my childhood was during the 70s and 80s.

Our neighborhood was very safe and full of families that talked to each other and everyone knew each other’s names.
I lived next door to my best friend (she moved in at 2 years old) and 48 years later we are still best friends.
We rode our bikes everywhere and our parents didn’t need to worry about us.
These were good days - with many good memories

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I grew up in a subdivision. There were several kids around that were about my same age. I was so sad when my bestie from 2 doors down moved away. The kids in the neighborhood (myself included) would ride bicycles up and down the street and sometimes play kickball in one of the vacant lots. It was about as "typical" as anybody could imagine.

 

[NFLDERS]

All the adults parented all children if necessary, a village if you will.

 

[BrinkofSunshine]

I moved around a ton as a kid/teen, but always went to school in the same small suburb, so I consider that my hometown. Very quaint, safe and established. My elementary school was literally 3 minutes from WDW, and going on field trips there was normal. Spent a lot of my childhood on property, especially at Ft. Wilderness and what was then Downtown Disney and the Marketplace. It’s always been such a regular/normal part of my life that it holds its own magic as “home” for me, but sometimes I envy the people who get to experience vacations in “the bubble”.

 

[DisLiss]

I lived in a small town neighborhood full of kids. In the warm months we played outside together every moment we could. We'd leave home in the morning on our days off from school and only return for meals or snack. Then we'd go back out and stay until it got dark and our mothers started calling us from the front doors of our houses.
We played in our yards, neighboring woods, a pond down the road. We rode our bikes well out of sight of our parents and even played in the middle of the road, calling out if a car should happen to turn onto our block so everyone could scurry to the closest yard again.
In the winter our one neighbor had a long uninterrupted sloping hill for a yard and we'd sled out there for hours. Their yard ended in a small drop-off into a wooded lot, and even though we'd often find ourselves careening over the drop-off and into the twigs & branches of the plant life down there, no one was ever actually hurt.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

In the heart of our town. Population was probably around 75,000 then. I walked to school. The area of the school, playground and adjacent city park was HUGE. Kids were outside 12 months a year. There was also buses on a main road down the block from us. A movie theatre a block away, a bakery 6 blocks away, a library one way and another in the opposite direction. There was a tiny corner grocery/deli where we always bought milk, lunchmeat and fixings for homemade pizza. There was a laundromat on my block too. Our parish church was minutes away. I got to walk home from Catechism when I got older. "Uptown" wasn't far either. It was absolutely wonderful!! Now, I drive by and it's nothing special since most of all the things I remember are gone.