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What I'll be working on this year
I often write similar things in these “what I’ll be working on in the coming year” pieces here. It’s not surprising, because I write broadly, thematically similar pieces here in general. But I find it a useful and fun exercise to think and write down a few specific things I want to focus on and think about for the year.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the process of “newslettering,” and one analogy I came up with is that a full year of newsletter writing is similar in some ways to a studio album. Totally different product, but a similar creative process, in terms of random bits and pieces coming together to form finished essays. And also in terms of there often being several broad themes or chained, “storylined” series of pieces that I follow over periods of time. So in a way I think of one calendar year of my archives as a “product,” as much as each day’s piece is. (I like the Beatles, and their albums tend to be nice listening experiences taken whole, but each song also obviously works as a song; I think of it a bit like that.)
Anyway, one thing I’ve begun to do is revisit some of the better or more interesting stuff in my archive and either republish it, or in some cases revisit it with new research or updates. There are several “What Do You Think You’re Looking At?” pieces that are about buildings near me, but which I didn’t get to actually photograph. Some of them are no longer the thing they were when I captured them, or are missing some details in the history. Like I did here, I’d like to go back and write “definitive” profiles of these buildings/stories.
Another theme I’ve been thinking a lot about is the “urban” character of older suburbs. I’ve written about this a lot over the years, and I find it at least as interesting as exploring and writing about actual towns and cities. Older suburbs are an experiment of sorts in how people with different needs, wants, and assumptions inhabit places not quite built “for them.”
I’ve also been thinking about this “for them” point—how are you to react when the changes happening in your community feel like they’re for other people? Sometimes this can have a race or ethnicity aspect (other than racism, which it also sometimes has); an African beauty parlor, for example, might feel like it isn’t “for” white patrons, though of course it could be; same with small ethnic groceries and other stores which may feel foreign to people who aren’t there for a specific reason, or from that culture. It can have a generational aspect, with newer, trendier types of businesses not being appealing to older folks. This feeling that the identity of a community is changing and leaving old-timers behind animates at least some NIMBYism.
But of course, not everything is for everyone, and businesses that don’t build a customer base will fail. So there really isn’t any way to say the actual evolution of a place on the ground is departing from what the place “really” is. Things change. I guess on some level I want to find some way to explain that or square it, because I also don’t necessarily like it.
I think a lot about this piece in Greater Greater Washington from Mike English, a housing advocate in Silver Spring, Maryland, about embracing change even when you don’t like it:
Half the time anything goes wrong with my condo, if I have a fight with a friend, have a bad day at work, or a high stakes election comes up, I end up in an overthinking-induced whirlwind of anxiety and obsessive researching as I try to find the next nuggets of information that will make me feel “okay,” while simultaneously convincing myself that this time it really is different and I’m screwed.
And every time I’ve ended up okay. Maybe not “great,” but “okay.” And every time–Every. Single. Time–I fail to learn the lesson that things probably won’t be as bad as I fear. I unironically think, “Yes, things have worked out for 40 years, but here is why *THIS TIME* is probably different.”
He’s talking here about being an anxious person, but he broadens the point to the debates over development and housing: it’s okay to not want the change; it’s okay to mourn what was lost, to remember a bygone period with nostalgia, etc. The problem arises when people think their own feelings should determine public policy. When they think their income level, or their seniority, give them a kind of ownership over the commons.
But the even bigger point is that a lot of people who advocate for change in their communities are not necessarily completely excited about every change, personally. I think this is a really crucial point. Dan Reed, a Maryland-based urbanist, told me once about going into a Salvadoran pupuseria, and finding the boisterous, familial vibe of the place instantly familiar, despite its particular cuisine and culture being unfamiliar.
I think about that a lot too—how something that seems on the surface to be very different can in fact, in a more important way, be the same thing.
Another thing I’d like to revisit and write about is retail history. That’s one of my consistent interests alongside housing/land use/urbanism. I visited an old Walmart during my Christmas visit to New Jersey, and I found it very interesting, because it was much smaller and tighter than a new Walmart.
I was also thinking about, following my piece on Toys ‘R’ Us, how my old ShopRite in New Jersey used to sell televisions and small appliances and things, stuffed at the tops of endcaps and in other marginal spaces. I was also thinking about that kind of thing visiting an Italian deli in a 1950s strip mall, which has been there for at least as long as I’ve been alive.
I find it fascinating how over time and geography, retail styles and floorplans change, and how spooky it is, in a way. Je ne sais quoi is a real thing. I’ve never seen a store in Northern Virginia that looks or feels quite like those older stores in New Jersey, which probably inherited a little bit of their organization from their origins in the heavily urbanized areas around New York City.
Finally, I’d like to do a bit more writing about food. I’ve been holding onto ideas about 1) these interesting supermarket cooking magazines, which feel like 1950s American cooking updated with weird “hacks” or a handful of what we used to call ethnic ingredients; and 2) an old book (I have to go find it again, it may have been a Reader’s Digest volume) about, basically, home economics and food/cooking. It was fascinating to read about ways to save marginal amounts of money which would barely even be worth counting today.
Food is part of that, but culture is too, and also expectations. I think we probably discount just how different we are today from 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago. These are really two different areas of inquiry, but so be it. There’s no limit when you publish yourself.
I hope you find these ideas interesting, and of course I’ll be writing on these and many more.
I’m also curious if you have a piece of mine in mind that you really liked or remember, or some particular topic I touch on sometimes that you’d like to see more of. Leave a comment! And happy New Year!
Related Reading:
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Since this is a "to work on" post--where do your related reading links come from in your posts? Is that something Substack does for you, or do you do it yourself, and if so, do you have posts tagged/archived, or do you happen to remember related posts more organically? Thanks neighbor ;-)
Earlier in the century, a few of the older Safeways reminded me of some of the older stores I'd see at the Jersey Shore.
The Magruders chain seemed frozen in ember from sometime before the Mercury program. There was even a store in Alexandria that was so old that even Safeway had to abandon it for Magruders. That closed around 2015 I think.
There is so little in Northern Virginia that predates WWII. Vienna feels quaint for NoVa, but in the Northeast it probably wouldn't be noteworthy.