{"id":246812,"date":"2013-12-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/who-we-are-how-we-live-and-why-were-here\/"},"modified":"2013-12-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T08:00:00","slug":"who-we-are-how-we-live-and-why-were-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/who-we-are-how-we-live-and-why-were-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Who we are, how we live and why we\u2019re here"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life inside the bungalow, from an insider\u2019s perspective<\/p>\n

Por Michael Bueno | Visitas a domicilio<\/p>\n

I had a Sociology professor in college whose subject of study was a phenomenon he called \u201ctrouble.\u201d His theory: When things go wrong, the true social order becomes apparent. <\/p>\n

\"It<\/a>
It wasn\u2019t all single-family housing: This house in South Park was built for an ambassador and his many guests (Courtesy of Michael Good)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As an example, he told us about an experience he had in South America, following a devastating earthquake. He went to visit a government minister he\u2019d had business with before. The minister was frequently out of his office, but he went anyway, unannounced, because the phones were down. When he arrived at the minister\u2019s damaged building, he found a tent set up outside, and in front of the tent was a desk. Sitting at the desk was the minister\u2019s secretary, with his phone, which didn\u2019t work. The professor announced he\u2019d come to see the minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll see if he\u2019s in,\u201d the secretary said. Then he got up, went to the tent, unzipped the flap, entered, and then zipped the flap back up. Despite the noise of the chugging generator, the professor could clearly hear the secretary tell the minister he was waiting outside and hear the minister\u2019s reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell him I\u2019m not in,\u201d said the minister.<\/p>\n

The secretary came out, sat at his desk and announced. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. He\u2019s not in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Different<\/a>
Different time, different type of family: The remnants of Victorian family life, found inside the walls of an 1880s farmhouse (Courtesy of Michael Good).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As disasters go, few are as much trouble as home remodeling. It\u2019s a bit like a self-induced earthquake\u2014there is dust, shaking, falling plaster, screams and shouts. At some point everyone runs outside. The electricity goes out. Inevitably, something is revealed\u2014perhaps even the tattered social fabric of a shaken civilization.<\/p>\n

When I started my home restoration business, I hadn\u2019t really given much thought to the potential for sociological research. But over the years I\u2019ve come to realize that my job gives me a unique insight into the urban life in early 21st century. A few observations:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Family Structure:<\/b> My introduction to North and South Park was through Brooklyn Heights Presbyterian Church, at 30th and Fir, which my family attended every Sunday throughout my childhood. The families I encountered there were for the most part white, heterosexual, with three or more children, a working father and a stay-at-home mother. Today, that \u201ctraditional\u201d American family is not in much evidence.<\/p>\n

Among the families that have contacted me, either through this column or through my business: gay couples of either sex, sometimes married, sometimes not; opposite-sex couples who are not married but who live together; single gay men living alone; single gay men living together platonically; divorced straight women living alone; couples of different races; couples of different ethnicities; couples of different ages and so on.<\/p>\n

There are married couples with newborns; married couples with toddlers; married couples with a baby on the way; married couples with a kid in college. What I don\u2019t see a lot of is married couples with two or more kids between the ages of five and 18.<\/p>\n

Occupation<\/b>: If the traditional family seems on life support, so too for the traditional occupations: bank teller, accountant, teacher, lawyer, doctor, police officer, store clerk. Recently, I\u2019ve worked for a marriage and family counselor, a musician who plays antique instruments; a tattoo artist, an industrial designer, an automobile designer, a ballet instructor, two helicopter pilots and one charter pilot. There are clients who manage their investments, clients who manage their grandchildren, clients who provide expert testimony in court cases, clients who are advisors to the movies. Many people work from home doing things I don\u2019t fully understand. Ditto for those in the tech fields and bioresearch. Quite a few people are retired, which I\u2019m sorry to report doesn\u2019t involve much in the way of leisure. In fact, everyone I encounter seems to be engaged in purposeful activity all the livelong day.<\/p>\n

Home Entertainment:<\/b> The TV doesn\u2019t occupy the prominent place it once did in the household. Bungalow homeowners seem loath to modify their house\u2019s architecture to accommodate the television. In fact, two different clients recently told me they didn\u2019t even own one. People still watch TV\u2014statistics tell us that. They just never do it while I\u2019m around. Perhaps they watch it on their computer, which has taken over as the dominant household electronic device. People still read the newspaper, or at least they read this column\u2014but on their laptop.<\/p>\n

Communication:<\/b> Like a pesky virus, the preferred method of communication for the American teenager has now spread to the rest of the population. You don\u2019t need to invade anyone\u2019s house with hammer to know this. On every street corner you\u2019ll see someone staring intently at his or her palm. It is now possible to communicate with your contractor, or anyone else who needs pestering, at all hours of the day or night, without speaking, without connecting to the internet, without opening a laptop, without doing anything more than squinting at a tiny screen and stabbing at tiny little imitation typewriter keys.<\/p>\n

Despite all this communicating going on, spouses never actually talk. If I say to the husband, \u201cThe house almost burned down,\u201d I have to remember to tell the wife, too. Perhaps if I tweeted it, texted it, emailed it and put it on Facebook, everyone would know.<\/p>\n

Decoration and style:<\/b> Many of the houses I visit would fit right into any historical home tour, although homeowners don\u2019t often see it that way. Maybe they\u2019re comparing their home to something they\u2019ve seen on TV or in a magazine or to a very strict interpretation of an historic house type. Not that they don\u2019t love their old house, and relish its uniqueness, its quirks. But few attempt to recreate what might have once been, using antique and contemporary arts and crafts furniture, lighting, pottery, paintings, metal ware and rugs. I\u2019ve come across a couple of amazing art collections this year, and two or three homeowners have had some nice pieces of Mission-style furniture, both originals and reissues. But few people put it all together into one harmonious environment.<\/p>\n

Analysis:<\/b> The first paper I wrote for an upper division sociology class left something to be desired. \u201cAll observation,\u201d my teacher wrote, \u201cno analysis.\u201d I\u2019ll try to do better here: I\u2019m not sure why there are fewer \u201ctraditional\u201d American families in the neighborhoods where they once reigned supreme. Maybe it\u2019s the schools. Maybe it\u2019s the small houses and small yards. Maybe there are just fewer \u201ctraditional\u201d families left.<\/p>\n

And maybe there were always non-traditional families living in these neighborhoods. We just didn\u2019t notice them. One look at the city directories of the era and you\u2019ll see that not every house was filled with two parents and 3.5 children.<\/p>\n

Some people assume residents are drawn to neighborhoods like Hillcrest, North Park and Golden Hill for the diversity. But in my experience, people move to San Diego\u2019s older neighborhoods for the charm and convenience they offer. The diversity just happens. What the residents of these once-forgotten communities have in common is their differences,\u2014where there once was white homogeneity, there is now a rainbow of quirky colors. If they share anything else, it is their love for their old houses\u2014and their addiction to their hand-held electronic devices.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life inside the bungalow, from an insider\u2019s perspective By Michael Good | HouseCalls I had a Sociology professor in college whose subject of study was a phenomenon he called \u201ctrouble.\u201d His theory: When things go wrong, the true social order becomes apparent.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":246813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Who we are, how we live and why we\u2019re here","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}