U.S. Birth Rate Hits All-Time Low. Recession may have pushed U.S birth-rate to new low.
Our August heatwave was, mercifully, brief, though intense. Here in Old Citrus City, inland fifty miles from the Orange County coast, the heat peaked at a record 110°. Yesterday, the heat broke. A cool onshore breeze blew in, dropping the temperature 20°. I worked with my trainer in the morning on stabilization exercises. I thought I had no more energy for the day; but the refreshing cool air invigorated me. I walked my regular 2.3 mile running route, through the neighborhood to the park and return. Walking, rather than running, I did not have to focus on my training schedule and my stop watch. I could observe the houses and think about the many people I knew with renewed interest. The neighborhood has seen some changes in the past half dozen years, but not, really, many.
T, a retired civil engineer, my neighbor immediately to our west on our street, moved out about three years ago. He had a serious brain disease some ten years ago and gradually became incapacitated. In the last several years, he required live-in help. A young Somali immigrant woman, who had won a US State Department lottery visa, moved in. We had T over to our home for Thanksgiving several years before he moved. His difficulty in eating--I should say, feeding himself--was sad to watch. He sold his house, just as the real estate bubble started to plateau. He and his aide moved to a less expansive home in the Moreno Valley. His house was a year on the market, was sold, then re-sold to an elderly Asian couple from Orange County. The couple are quite furtive. It is not clear that they live in the house all the time, or just use it as a country house. When they come to the house, they drive into the garage from which they enter the house, so no one sees who they are. As they are next to us, I have observed them weeding the lawn in the back yard. Several months ago, they sat in lawn chairs, sipping tea, wrapped in light blankets, watching the sun set over the golf course.
To the east of us on the street, our neighbors have been dealing with the Great Recession. C and his wife, D, are from local black families who have been in Old Citrus City for several generations. C has been in the title insurance industry for thirty years. He moved up slowly. His wife, D, is an administrator at the local UC campus. They moved into their house about fourteen years ago. Their eldest, a son, was already living independently, but the two daughters, younger, moved in, too. And stayed. The younger of the daughters had a child and lived with her infant boy in their parents' home until last year, when she married the father and moved out. The older, who just turned thirty years, still lives at home. She is beautiful and bright, but, as a mystery to us, has not married or moved out. And she probably won't be independent for some time. Two days ago, she had heart surgery, at Big LA Hospital. A valve replacement, we were told. And her father has his career ups and downs. The large title insurance office he supervised locally was shut down a year ago. His company moved him to a regional office, where he worked until a month ago. He left his old employer to take a career opportunity in Internet-based mortgages in Orange County, where he commutes daily.
Across the street, another neighbor's daughter, J, has had a volatile love life. She met the love of her life last year, married, and moved to another city with him. He is a black pastor for a black church. Shortly after the marriage, he and his bride moved to the South to work at a new church. She became pregnant. The marriage failed. He told her to leave. She returned home to her parents. My wife tried to set her up in a new job. She is bright, talented, personable, and beautiful, and perhaps the new career will work out. For the moment, she is working sales in prepaid legal services. She has much energy and optimism; yet, it is difficult to deny she has a high hill to climb ahead of her.
A few houses down the street, a young Latino couple, both school teachers, are dealing with limits to their prosperity. I see them as a models of the hope of our country. With two young children, they are hard working, church going, conservative, and committed to family values. A beautiful family. The husband, T, had depended on summer school to boost their income, but the school budget crunch ended that supplemental salary. They had talked about more children once, but I haven't heard them mention anything recently. It's not my place to ask. Across the street from them, a house that had been on the market for several years after the bubble burst, finally sold eight months ago to an Asian woman, E, from Orange County. The move was the result of a divorce, so I was told. I have not seen children around. I helped her move a patio umbrella, a couple of weeks ago. I joked to her, who would be sitting with her under the umbrella, having breakfast, and enjoying the morning view of the golf course? She laughed, oh she wasn't ready to date yet.
In the past several years, no more than four of three dozen homes along the street have sold and changed residents. One house sat on the market for a year and then sold at a reasonably high price before the bubble had completed its fall. To whom? I guessed, to speculators. But a year ago, some one moved in, fixed up the yard and landscaping, and hung drapes. I have not seen a woman in the home, only a man. No circumstances have provided the opportunity to meet the new resident. Another house that sold was owned by a real estate broker, T, who had earlier lived in the house in which we now live. He has a younger wife, they are both white. I figured they would be a permanent feature of the neighborhood. Then tragedy struck. The wife was abducted by a man for ransom. He entered the home when T was not present, took the wife out, and elsewhere imprisoned her in a coffin box, which he nailed shut. He took the box to a house he owned in a nearby city and left it there, planning his ransom note. Fortunately, neighbors at that house thought there was something suspicious about the coffin box being moved in and notified the police. The woman was freed and her kidnapper caught. Of course, she could not return to live in the home from which she was kidnapped. T put the house on the market and it sold a few months later. They moved to a different neighborhood. Who moved in? It is not clear to me that anyone moved in. Workers have repaired, repainted, and refurbished the house. The driveway has been repaved. But I have not seen anyone living inside. So I presume it was a speculation buy.
Across the street, the longtime black resident, C, had a stroke several months ago. I have known her for seventeen years, occasionally exchanging greetings as she waited with her grandchild at the corner for the school bus, or as she walked with her friend, V, in the park. I thought C's daughter had moved in with her, as I watched a moving van disgorge furniture that was taken into the house; but otherwise I've not seen her daughter around. For nearly three weeks, C's house was dark, curtains drawn, and lawn unkempt. I feared the worse. I recited out loud a prayer for C, every time I ran by the house. Then, yesterday, I saw C working outside. We talked. She had been on vacation. The effects of the stroke were obvious. Her right side was impaired. She has difficulty walking. She cannot manipulate her right land, to trim the plants in her yard. She has some difficulty talking; but otherwise she is mobile and independent and optimistic. She said she is working out in the fitness room at the community center in the nearby park, trying to restore functionality to her right hand. I was greatly relieved to see her determination.
In a house in the last block of my run route to the park has lived a long-time colleague at the UC campus and his wife. I have known him for forty years. He is a world-famous, now retired, mountain climber. He and his wife, in their mid-eighties, are avid and dedicated walkers. I have encountered them along my walk route many times. Sometimes, we have walked together, conversing about the illogical state of the world, a disappointment to any philosopher, but grist for the historian's mill wheel. Their health has declined, despite their vigorous exercise schedule. This week, he told me they are moving to Culver City, in Los Angeles, where the amenities of shopping, banking, and entertainment are within a few walking blocks. I don't know what they are going to do with their house, but I suppose it will sport a for-sale sign shortly.
Along my return route, I pass the home of an iron-smith who builds wrought iron gates for homes and businesses. For us, D, a black man, built several exterior gates for our house and repaired an eighty-year old fireplace iron screen. I have met his family, his brother and his wife, T, and their daughter and grand-daughter, who live in another city. Before the real estate bubble burst, D had a prosperous business, building iron fences and gates for new houses in the region. Of course, that work has disappeared. Now he keeps his family afloat by maintaining foreclosed houses for banks.
Finally, I mention a South Sea Islander family, who moved into a rental house, a block away from D's home. I approached them about doing some yard work, their business. They leaped at the opportunity. I had seen their truck, which they used to transport tree trimmings to waste disposal, sit idle weeks. P, the wife, runs the business. Her husband has diabetes and is nearly invalid. They have two sons, but they are not always available to work. Alas, our job was too much for them to do. I wanted badly to give it to them to do, however, as P poured out a tale of distress, woe, and need.
The mood of the neighborhood is to hang on, to ride it out. It is unnatural. Every neighborhood has a life cycle. The average term of residence of an owner in a house is seven years. Changing needs in housing, job opportunities elsewhere, motivate people to move out, selling their homes, to families for whom the houses represent their opportunity to move up and better their lives. But this life cycle has been broken by the Great Recession. Few people have left, and those who have left have done so for reasons of distress or death. No new young families with children, or about to have children, have moved into the neighborhood's for at least three years. This stagnancy of residence is unnatural and socially demoralizing. It produces a mood as stale as hot summer air. One wishes that the cooling breeze that breaks the heatwave would bring economic change as well.
Recent Comments