How to Become a Local and Why it Matters
Everyone should be a local no matter where they come from.
What is a local? To me, someone who is local to a place. To others, it is someone who is born and bred in a town/county/region with deep ties. Unfortunately, humans are pretty notorious for picking up and moving based on their needs (food, clean drinking water, and safety from others) and this will always follow us no matter how much peer pressure tries to thwart that.
Why Being a Local Isn’t Actually Hard
There is an idea that being a local requires living in a place for 20+ years, having a family, and being involved at every level of participation. This is not the case. Being a local is simply interacting with the world you live in beyond your home.
“Zeke that is pretty silly. I go to the grocery store. I pump my gas. I go out to eat. Doesn’t that make me a local?”
No. Being a local isn’t about knowing where the trendy spot for hot pot is. Being a local is being recognized by your favorite barista and talking to your fellow regulars for an hour. It is running into someone you met at the gym, walking around your neighborhood, and planning to go together. It is helping someone at your church build a nursery for their next child.
Being a local is what removes the isolation of living in a city and replaces it with living in a community. Too often, our cities become mini fiefdoms of nuclear families in their white picket compounds who are terrified to talk to the neighbors for fear of the unknown.
While it might be hard for an introverted person to accomplish this, it is not impossible. Going to sit at a counter where a barista, bartender, or sommelier is paid to converse can help you break the ice in communicating with your environment, leading to a hopeful snowball effect for your social network.
“Zeke why do I need to create a community? I have friends I text and see once in a while. I have family I occasionally visit. I promise I am happy!”
Don’t Be an Anti-Local
It is very easy to confuse being a local and what I like to call an, “anti-local.” The anti-local does the things the local does, but without the intention of making a map of communion. They go to a coffee shop but they never dwell. They order pizza but it is always takeout or delivery. They love trying new restaurants but never think to interact with anyone at the restaurant.
The anti-local refuses to interact or engage with their environment because they think they live in a boring place and see it as a stepping stone to a “cool city” like New York or Los Angeles or Chicago. The problem with the anti-local is they see a city like a computer sees a basketball player: all statistics no depth.
The Introverted Dilemma
All of my advice on being a local is seemingly in plain violation of the introvert’s sensibilities. Talking to random people, initiating friendships, and spending time surrounded by humans is a death sentence to my introverted friends.
But to be social is to be human. While it might not be preferred, we cannot have the luxury of preference in every situation. To be uncomfortable or to be alone? Which would be your preference?
Being a local is more than just knowing the specials at your favorite dinner recommendation; it is to be a part of a larger community that has historically been completely normal. It reduces your anxiety about your neighbors because you know your neighbors. Now granted, your neighbors might not be Mother Theresa and her convent, but the devil you know is better than the devil you do not.
Being a part of your community makes you and your community safer because you are less likely to fear a friend or an acquaintance over a stranger. Am I saying this is completely without risk? Of course not! But the West was not settled on mere sure bets, but far far riskier bets than anything we can accomplish in the 21st Century.
Can You Be a Local in Suburbia?
While urbanists are the sworn enemy of suburban sprawl, there is a certain misnomer that all suburbs are bad. You will sometimes hear of the “streetcar suburb” aka a suburb generally close to a city’s historical center that was serviced by streetcars and are now generally very pleasant, walkable neighborhoods that fetch high prices. Yet, most times we are referring to the cul-de-sacs that seemingly sprout out of nowhere on former farms or other greenspace and bring with them cookie cutter homes, nosey HOA members, and car traffic.
Despite all of the negatives of a suburb, it is still very possible to be a local in the heart of suburbia. To be a local is to know the heartbeat of an area which is always the people. While the burbs are often just places people live, they are never purely so one-dimensional. The suburbs contain places of worship (some even monuments to beauty in a place otherwise lacking), restaurants, and small businesses that might require a car to reach but are still places you can form lifelong relationships.
The average urbanist may tell you that you are being robbed of forming these relationships because you cannot walk or take transit to do everything you like. They are simply wrong. Yes, driving makes your trips infinitely more intentional, but it does not mean you are by definition being robbed of a chance to have a flourishing social life.
If you live in the south, having a decent-sized SUV/pickup is borderline essential to your social life if you enjoy hunting, mountain biking, boating, riding/hauling a dirtbike, or anything else in the outdoors with your boys. Easier access to the outdoors can open your life up to a whole new set of friends/adventures especially with Facebook groups. There has never been an easier time to meet people even unintentionally regardless of where you live, you are only limited by your imagination (or lack thereof).
Obviously, I want more people to enjoy the joys of convenient transit, (safely) walkable streets, and locally owned retail, but I want more urban spaces to preserve the great outdoors and our relationship to it. Not because I feel that everyone *has* or should live in a strictly urban setting.
Whether you are in the heart of town or on the outskirts of civilization, there is a wellspring of humanity just waiting for you to tap into,
and I pray y’all find it! Fight with me in the comments if y’all think this rant was off base, I promise I will be civil!
Love this! Agree that
being a local has its perks!
I was waiting for the localism to blues crossover like, “You can’t play the blues if you’ve never loved something and you can’t love something if you’ve never dwelled with something, so be local because even if you lose what you love… you’ll always have the blues.”