We All Sprawl Down

The Bay area is a conglomerate of races, religions, ethnicities and culture. I did not know the history of this phenomena until reading Margaret Crawford. The territories of the city and surrounding areas is directly linked to the technology boom of the US. I have friends that live in the Palo Alto and we recently discussed the adjustments that they had to make moving from the southeast, Mooresville NC. The transition has been fairly smooth says my friend Louie who is originally from the northern California area and is of Japanese descent. Louie also has a background in a technological field so it only seems normal for him to state that the transition was normal. Stephanie on the other hand, a childhood friend of mine from Blacksburg SC, of Native American descent, wasn’t so sure about the move they made a couple of years ago. She stated that while they were in Mooresville, they lived in a sub division that was sprinkled with many types of families, though mainly white, the residents were up and down the economic spectrum. Directly in contrast to what they experienced in NC, they initially rented an apartment in one of the many techie districts in Santa Clara, surrounded by young professionals. She said that she could walk down the street to the grocery store and rarely see the same race or ethnicity consecutively in passing during her stroll.

The sprawl in NC seemed to stem around the growing need for families to move just outside of the major city in order to possess a sense of ownership and privatization of their space. This privatization doesn’t mean that there was a mutual understanding when it comes to others private space though. One instance that she recalls is the night that the police were called to her house. Stephanie, a small, very petite, beautiful young wife and mother, was alarmed at her door, on her property by the police who were called by her neighbor. The police were called because her neighbor thought that because Stephanie, Native American, and Louie, Japanese heritage, were selling drugs out of their house because of the diverse friends that they had visiting while they were there. As outrageous as that story is, ‘Southern’ sprawl brings an identity of its inhabitants. The migration of people who have the same views, ideologies, beliefs, regions, and moreover, skin, into the same area promotes the sort of prejudices and discriminations that my friends experienced here. The stores were owned and run by the same people. The restaurants in the immediate area served the same type of faces seen in the neighborhoods. A whitewashed canvas painted over through biases and unconscious segregation.

In Palo Alto, Stephanie attends Stanford University where she studies Journalism. Her class is diverse, the neighborhood where they live now is diverse, even the daycare that watches their 3-year-old is super diverse. All of this, promoted by an urban sprawl that is inclusionary and the economic opportunities promote the diverse urban sprawl. As the housing market balances out, though very slowly, I can only imagine the area becoming a melting pot of skittles, m&m’s and rainbow nerds, all stirred in a cauldron of tech professions.