posted by Mike Madison at 7:50 AM /
The November 2007 issue of Mt. Lebanon ("mtl") magazine unintentionally acknowledges that Mt. Lebanon is not Lake Wobegon, Mayfield, Stepford, or Pleasantville. Sometimes people get angry here, behave irrationally, and generally act up. Sometimes expectations just clash. This is great news, in my opinion -- not that people behave irrationally, but that the town acknowledges a minor bit of imperfection. From Susan Morgans' "About this issue":
Merle Jantz has a short feature further on that talks about politeness in parking, leaf blowing, party planning, trash disposal, dog barking, and weed trimming, among other things. The general tone of the piece is that the Municipality has the power to force you to deal with these things, so please be nice and deal with them on your own. Don't call the police. Instead, have a friendly chat with your neighbors, or slip them a nice note, and in the worse of cases get in touch with the Municipality's Community Relations Board.
Like Susan, I'm puzzled by a community filled with would-be Captains Renault ("I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here."), but I'm not puzzled at all that we're not all related to Mister Rogers. Put 33,000 people in six square miles and how could you *not* have people disagreeing with each other and occasionally giving offense? Diversity of expectation is a sign of health -- people are living independent lives, rather than conforming to a single government-sponsored set of rules for daily living -- not a sign of problems.
If you take "government telling you what to do" out of the picture, then absolutely, it is annoying to see your neighbors not playing by unwritten neighborhood rules, and absolutely the best solution much of the time is to chat with your neighbors, who (we hope) will be reasonable. It is nice to use good manners, and it is nice to get along.
There is a big difference, however, between people who go about their lives and give offense inadvertently, on the one hand, and people who go out of their way to flout norms of decency, on the other. Your level of annoyance and the character of your response (if any) should be proportionate. Sometimes the failure to chat informally with your neighbor is itself the cause of the problem, rather than leaves or parking or dogs. And sometimes being annoyed is simply unjustified. Behavior that disrupts expectations is occasionally par for the course in a crowded suburb.
Do we all have examples of these things? I do. Intentional offense: A neighbor who didn't like elementary school children cutting through a corner of the neighbor's yard to get to school erected a fence for the sole purpose of keeping them out, rather than to protect plantings or protect the kids themselves from harm. (This was years ago.) Building the fence was legally justified, but socially offensive. Disproportionate response: I've had neighbors threaten me with lawsuits twice, once over this blog (as you all know), and once over a small heap of dirt and leaves in my yard. The threats were both legally and socially unjustified. Just suck it up: Other people park in front of my house. That doesn't bother me, but I know that that same issue bothers a lot of other people. Parking there is legally and socially justified. I don't own the street.
Here’s what I don’t get. We all chose to live in Mt. Lebanon with 33,000 people packed into six square miles. It’s impossible to avoid our neighbors. So why are we so surpised when their behavior affects our lives? And why don’t we think more about how our actions can diminish their quality of life? Mister Rogers got it; why can’t we?
Merle Jantz has a short feature further on that talks about politeness in parking, leaf blowing, party planning, trash disposal, dog barking, and weed trimming, among other things. The general tone of the piece is that the Municipality has the power to force you to deal with these things, so please be nice and deal with them on your own. Don't call the police. Instead, have a friendly chat with your neighbors, or slip them a nice note, and in the worse of cases get in touch with the Municipality's Community Relations Board.
Like Susan, I'm puzzled by a community filled with would-be Captains Renault ("I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here."), but I'm not puzzled at all that we're not all related to Mister Rogers. Put 33,000 people in six square miles and how could you *not* have people disagreeing with each other and occasionally giving offense? Diversity of expectation is a sign of health -- people are living independent lives, rather than conforming to a single government-sponsored set of rules for daily living -- not a sign of problems.
If you take "government telling you what to do" out of the picture, then absolutely, it is annoying to see your neighbors not playing by unwritten neighborhood rules, and absolutely the best solution much of the time is to chat with your neighbors, who (we hope) will be reasonable. It is nice to use good manners, and it is nice to get along.
There is a big difference, however, between people who go about their lives and give offense inadvertently, on the one hand, and people who go out of their way to flout norms of decency, on the other. Your level of annoyance and the character of your response (if any) should be proportionate. Sometimes the failure to chat informally with your neighbor is itself the cause of the problem, rather than leaves or parking or dogs. And sometimes being annoyed is simply unjustified. Behavior that disrupts expectations is occasionally par for the course in a crowded suburb.
Do we all have examples of these things? I do. Intentional offense: A neighbor who didn't like elementary school children cutting through a corner of the neighbor's yard to get to school erected a fence for the sole purpose of keeping them out, rather than to protect plantings or protect the kids themselves from harm. (This was years ago.) Building the fence was legally justified, but socially offensive. Disproportionate response: I've had neighbors threaten me with lawsuits twice, once over this blog (as you all know), and once over a small heap of dirt and leaves in my yard. The threats were both legally and socially unjustified. Just suck it up: Other people park in front of my house. That doesn't bother me, but I know that that same issue bothers a lot of other people. Parking there is legally and socially justified. I don't own the street.
Labels: living in Mt. Lebanon
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