comments that need their own post
i made the following assertion in a recent comment thread here:
"it would be interesting to compare turnover per residence between the neighborhoods. for example, in my building downtown, supposedly the heart of the proverbial "blow-in" phenomenon, 32 of the units remain owned by the original residential owners going on 25 years later, and another 36 of them have only been sold once over that time. (only 9 of the units have been sold more than three times in going on 25 years). i'm willing to wager that this would compare extremely favorably with any other collection of 120 contiguous houses in the city, and i'd welcome anyone to dig into the assessor's records in their neighborhood to attempt to disprove it."
anyone want to take me up on it?
"it would be interesting to compare turnover per residence between the neighborhoods. for example, in my building downtown, supposedly the heart of the proverbial "blow-in" phenomenon, 32 of the units remain owned by the original residential owners going on 25 years later, and another 36 of them have only been sold once over that time. (only 9 of the units have been sold more than three times in going on 25 years). i'm willing to wager that this would compare extremely favorably with any other collection of 120 contiguous houses in the city, and i'd welcome anyone to dig into the assessor's records in their neighborhood to attempt to disprove it."
anyone want to take me up on it?
posted by kad barma at 11:13 AM
7 Comments:
Nicely done! And no, cuz I'd probably lose. (Though, we have a fairly low turnover neighborhood for the most part as well.)
Whoa. Had no idea there was that type of consistency in the building.
Probably worth adding that 26% of all Lowell's residents are foreign-born. I find it endlessly funny that to some people (but I still believe it's a SMALL number) those 26% have instant *credibility* but someone who had the good fortune of drawing his first breaths in Ridgewood, NJ, found about this community, nearly moved here and then came back 5 years later to finally follow through doesn't measure up.
Also worth noting that in the LiL candidate videos, look how many answered 'Eileen Donoghue' when asked who they respected most among past or present councilors. Just further proves the point I always run towards when this discussion comes up -- for all the nooks, crannies, pockets and corners I've found so far since living here, I'm still holding fast to my belief that the extreme self-consciousness about that stuff comes from newer residents themselves.
I know that may sound like wishful thinking, but I think I have enough anecdotes to back it up, though I'll save them for non-virtual discussion..
I don't dispute your numbers, but for some of those who were born here when the downtown was still part of Tewksbury, 25 years in the city is like nothing. While I take Greg's point about part of this being paranoia on the part of us recently arrived, there is also the attidues of the diehards. I remember an 80 something year old man who came here right after the war and married a local girl and felt the people in the neighborhood still thought of him as a blow-in.
All that said, this City needs the blow-ins to move forward. Bless them all. Bless them all. The long, the short and the tall.
Regards — Cliff
To be clear, no one alive was born before the downtown was still part of Tewksbury--and you can consult the 1860's assessors maps prominently featuring my lot to prove it. If anything, under that line of thinking, it's Belvidere, annexed later in 1834, that is is the real johnny-come-neighborhood-lately. Downtown has been downtown since 1826.
As for The New Englander's assertion that the "blow-in" label is somehow a figment of the imaginations of the newer residents themselves, I'll point him back to the videotape of each and every city council meeting in which Bud and/or Rita both insist upon introducing everyone with reference to their length of residency. It's almost without exception, which is to say, I've NEVER seen them not do it, though I'm guessing it's possible that one or twice they may have. I've just never seen it.
We could start another conversation about how Lowell used to be part of Chelmsford...
I find it interesting that many people who disparage newcomers also refer to themselves as "Irish-Americans" or "Greek-Americans"...
sounds like identity crisis to me.
Kad
Are you suggesting that those born here were not born when the city was founded?
I am shocked.
I still think of Lowell as Panama on the Merrimack. It is all about taking land from other entities to build a canal.
Regards — Cliff
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