Charleston
[Frederica Mathewes-Green  03/14 11:35 AM]

Jon, you're actually making some of my points. I'm sorry, I think I was being too cryptic.

Yes, Charleston houses have shot through the roof. (The house my dad bought in 1960 for $33,000 was recently on the market again for $5 million.) Over the decades, rising prices have nudged out native Charlestonians, and their places were taken by wealthy folks from the Nawth. Unsurprisingly, this has made the city more liberal than it used to be. The kind of people who value living in a setting like this are not necessarily conservative.

I was inviting Rod to spell out exactly why he claims the old-house, old-neighborhood sensibility as emblematic of Crunchy Conservatism. I think the answer is that conservatives conserve (they care for the Old) and they value the Small, Local, and Particular (homes are smaller and cheek-by-jowl with neighbors). It's not a sensibility that must automatically be ceded to the liberals. Of course, none of us can afford to live in old Charleston, but the same principle would apply in more affordable zip codes.

But I also wanted to explore why Rod has to recommend this choice of home setting in the first place. Why is it that people generally prefer a different arrangement of homes and neighborhoods, judging by what's being built? A reader sends three reasons why our cities don't look like Europe's, and the first two suggest that the minute people can spread out and have more privacy, they take it. They also prefer the biggest house they can get, so there's more privacy inside, away from other family members. Is the cozy community something people know they're supposed to want, but in reality would prefer to be left alone?

"Nobody wants to live in old Charleston" was an inept attempt to express this metaphorically. Yes, there are more people who want to live in that square mile than there are houses to go around. But the kinds of homes and neighborhoods being built are on a very different scale. I'm curious about what there is in human nature that, frankly, doesn't want to stroll the sidewalks and wave at the neighbors on their porches. What is the Crunchy Con idea of Home up against, exactly? Is it something new, or a part of human nature?