Living well

Together with our neighbors, we were delighted to learn that Money magazine has recently selected the Columbia/Ellicott City, MD area, where we live, as No 2 among its best small cities to live in the United States for 2010.   This, in spite of our noxious weeds ... .

It is true that this lovely area has much to commend it, although in many ways it is an isolated bubble.  One complaint that I remember from our earliest days here was that too many of those who worked in the excellent shopping mall at the center of Columbia could not actually afford to live in Columbia.  I am not sure whether that situation has changed markedly.  People here do tend to have good incomes.  Still, it is true that housing options are available, that homes here were not so overly inflated in value that their values have resoundingly hit bottom, that there are still comparatively affordable housing options and that those who do live here have not felt - at least, not yet - the worst effects of the recession, especially unemployment, to the extent that such effects are rampant elsewhere.  With the proximity of both Baltimore and Washington and the number of civil servants who reside here, it is more likely than not that this area may yet emerge well from the financial crisis.  We are indeed fortunate.  I recognize that our good fortune is in part a matter of choice and hard work but also in large part due to the luck of the draw.

One fact that I especially appreciate about this area, especially because I so much enjoy the international composition of Geneva in Switzerland,  is its diverse population.  The selection blurb notes that the population is 17 percent black and 14 percent Asian.  I am surprised that the growing numbers of Hispanic citizens were not mentioned, although perhaps the percentage of their representation is not yet in double digits.  One thing that I was gratified to notice last week is that there is even a growing Muslim presence here at Dar Al-Taqwa (DAT).   The more that any religion can be demystified, the better, IMHO, and bringing it into the mainstream consciousness is the best way to do that.

When HWMBO and I left here in 1994 to move to Switzerland for work, the area, while always de-segregated racially, was not nearly so diverse.  At the triangle intersection of Route 40 in Ellicott City, for example, there was a hodgepodge of little shops, many selling sports equipment or hardware.  Now the entire area is a complex called Lotte Plaza, where ethnic, primarily Asian, foods are sold in large quantities and shops sporting Asian characters abound.  One might think that one had stumbled into a suburban Chinatown.  It's great fun to see!

We do live in interesting times.  If one can welcome, learn about and embrace the differences, one is literally enriched.  If one cannot, one remains forever in a mental strait jacket, a prisoner of intolerance and ignorance.  That is a matter of choice.  Choosing to erect fences and stress differences instead of accepting human commonality and comradeship is simply not a way that I want to live.  Ever.