The following post is the first in a series of posts that are being written in collaboration with M/I Homes, a homebuilding company based in Columbus, OH. M/I has invited me to share my own Realtor viewpoints over a series of blog and social media posts in conjunction with the grand opening of The Village of Minerva Lakes, one of their newest communities in Central Ohio. While M/I will help connect me to many of their employees who work behind the scenes and grant me access to their team members and community along the way, all opinions and commentary stated herein will be my own unless otherwise noted.
I hope you enjoy this look behind the scenes on the evolution of a new community.
What does “Neighborhood” Mean to You?
It always starts with the people that live in the house.
The house could be made of brick and mortar or some other material and is the shell that people see from the street. That shell could be a condominium or single-family, a duplex or a multi-family unit, a high-rise building or an apartment.
While people may buy (or rent) the houses they inhabit, they create their “home” inside the walls of that structure. They choose the paint color or wallpaper. They bring in furniture and accessories that help them live their life. They fill shelves with books and hang photos on walls. They load the cupboards with spices and stock the refrigerator with food and beverages that define their culture. They install televisions and stereos and wi-fi networks that will help send and receive the entertainment they demand. Every home is different.
These homes inside these houses are located on streets which make up city blocks. Micro becomes macro and the blocks expand, filling a larger area inside the community. These larger clusters of houses are called neighborhoods and, like the houses and homes inside, take on their own culture, personality and style.
Neighborhoods usually have defined boundaries based on certain roads, school districts, city or township limits or even superficially created by entryways, gates or fences. It’s not a hard and fast rule that a neighborhood has to begin and end at an exact latitude and longitude. Many people like to tell friends or family members that they live in “near (insert neighborhood here)” when the “near” plays the role of the “G” in gnat or gnome. Like “I live near Bexley” when they really live about 4 or 5 blocks from the Bexley city limits.
In rural areas where there could be huge expanses of farmland or woods between each house, the feeling of “neighborhood” is often missing. That’s also true in vertical living spaces like high rises and condominiums where each building could have its own culture and vibe. While still being inside a “neighborhood” on the geographic map, residents tell people they live in a specific building, not the neighborhood or part of town. In other words, the building speaks for itself and doesn’t need any other identifiers.
A Rose By Any Other Name…
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” wrote William Shakespeare in his iconic play Romeo & Juliet. Juliet eloquently argued that had her boyfriend Romeo had any other name than Montague, he would he have been an acceptable companion in her family’s eyes.
So as Juliet protested, does the neighborhood change if the name does? I live in a neighborhood called “Langport Valley.” That’s what I have always called it. It’s how my neighbors refer to it and it would be the name I would use if giving people directions or a generic description of the area. Yet when searching for properties in the local auditor’s website, the legal description is “Shelbourne Heights.” What? I’ve never heard anyone use that name for the neighborhood. My wife just walked past my home office as I am typing this so I asked her, “Hey, have you ever heard of Shelbourne Heights? Do you know where that is?”
She thought for a second and slowly said, “It sounds familiar but I’m not sure. Is that up near Cleveland?”
“Nope,” I responded laughingly. “It’s right here.”
“In Columbus?” she questioned.
“Not just here in Columbus. Here as in here” I said, pointing down at the floor. “Shelbourne Heights is another name for our neighborhood.”
I wonder how many of my neighbors know where Shelbourne Heights is?
The Definition of Neighborhood
According to FreeDictionary.com, “neigh ⋅ bor ⋅ hood” is a noun meaning “a district or area with distinctive characteristics.”
How do you define the word “neighborhood”? What are the distinctive characteristics of your neighborhood?
In Part II, I’ll share some of the definitions I got when I asked that question to real people…who have created homes…inside houses…within a neighborhood of their own.