Governing.com is a source of helpful news for anyone confused about how governments operate, or fail to operate — and that would presumably include bureaucratic parasites with their hands in the taxpayers’ pockets. And also, people interested in love affairs.
The online magazine’s official name is Governing: The Future of States and Localities. From their ‘About’ page:
The scope of topics we cover are as broad as the challenges we face: artificial intelligence, privacy, big data, security, the future of work, urban planning, financial systems and more.
And love affairs.
But only certain types of love affairs. This week, Governing featured an article written by Senior Editor Alan Ehrenhalt, with the evocative headline:
“Is Our Love Affair with the Single-Family Home Over?”
The article is illustrated with this photo:
It’s easy to imagine any number of love affairs going on in this compact little neighborhood, with its convenient sidewalk connections. But Mr. Ehrenhalt’s article doesn’t really dig into that part of the story. He instead takes a bird’s-eye view — not unlike the one shown in the photo — of ‘single-family homes’, taken as a somewhat abstract concept. His article begins with a quote from American poet Walt Whitman:
“A man is not a whole and complete man,” Walt Whitman believed, “unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on.”
Whitman wrote those words in 1856, and I have no doubt that most of his readers believed it, and most Americans have clung to that belief ever since. But is that creed losing its relevance in the 21st century?
Whitman was making an intriguing claim, (albeit in a somewhat male-chauvinist manner,) but he may have over-simplified the situation. He didn’t mention, for example, how much more whole and complete a man would be, if the house he owns has a roomy master bedroom and a two-car garage. And convenient sidewalks.
Despite Mr. Ehrenhalt’s evocative headline, the phrase “love affair” does not appear anywhere in his actual article. We instead learn about “co-living” and “tiny homes” and “accessory dwelling units” and “zoning reforms.” He asks whether the Millennials will be embracing new housing arrangements… without ever asking whether they are planning to embrace one another.
Now, I can wax romantic, as easily as the next guy, about zoning reform. But I wonder if the predicament America faces in the 21st century isn’t neatly packaged within the term “Single-Family Home.” Especially if we deconstruct the term into its essential elements. “Single”. “Family”. “Home.”
An awful lot of us — and I include myself as part of the “awful lot” — are single. According to a recent editorial in the Pagosa Daily Post, the US Census determined that only 54% of the households in Archuleta County consist of a married couple. (The Census makes no attempt, however, to track the faithfulness of those partners.)
Considering that Archuleta County has built out over the past 40 years as nothing but acres of ‘Single-Family Homes’ aimed at retired empty-nesters, we might find this statistic to be somewhat shocking, since it implies that nearly half of the adults in our little suburban community are ‘single’.
Which makes me think differently about the term, “Single-Family”.
Maybe that’s what I should be calling myself, now that I’m happily divorced? A “Single-Family”?
Maybe I’m currently living in a “Single-Family Home”.
One thing I know for sure. I am not a Millennial, and I am not having a love affair with my home. Regardless of what Walt Whitman might think.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.