I live without a car and have for over ten years. In the US, this means most people automatically see me as poor knowing NOTHING else about me because the US is designed such that in most places lack of a car equals personal challenges that de facto deny you a middle class lifestyle.
What is a middle class lifestyle? I've wondered how to effectively define that for a long time because I don't think "owns a car" really should be part of the definition.
I recently woke up to a burned out lightbulb and now I have my definition: A middle class lifestyle is one where minor problems, like a burned out lightbulb, are readily resolved.
Poverty is where a minor issue like a burned out lightbulb feels like a Sisyphean task. It feels like you will never get there from here.
I live in a small apartment and there are two overhead fixtures, one in the main living space and one in the kitchen nook. When I moved in, the lightbulb in the kitchen was burned out.
No big. Put "lightbulb" on the shopping list.
So lightbulbs get bought and the fixture gets opened up and it doesn't take a standard lightbulb. That was a waste of time and money. So then I made a trip to Walmart, looked around, couldn't find it. Asked staff, was told they don't carry it. Checked the local grocery store. They don't have it either.
So I asked management. The only store here that carries them is Home Depot on a street called Port Industrial which lives up to its name: long stretches of large plots of industrial stuff.
If you are on foot, this means there is no place to buy a drink or a snack or use the bathroom, which makes it more challenging than just the distance alone, especially if you have health issues.
Without a car, it's a thirty minute walk each way for me. And where I live, the weather is frequently such that you wouldn't want to walk an hour in it if it's NOT a dire emergency.
And I also have health issues and financial issues that add to the complexity of getting a damn lightbulb. So "lightbulb" stayed on my shopping list for months and wasn't replaced until the OTHER lightbulb in my unit burned out more than a YEAR after I moved in here.
With no light at all in the apartment, I felt forced at gunpoint to finally make the walk on a weekend when there are no busses running out that way on a December day with chilly, windy weather but it fortunately wasn't too wet and my health was better than when I moved in here.
So it was a giant pain in the butt and felt like a big crisis but did, in fact, get handled that same day but only because now I had NO light in my apartment (except the bathroom light) and had PREVIOUSLY done a bunch of research, so I at least KNEW where I needed to go. Had there not been a burned out a kitchen bulb when I moved in that I tried and failed to replace, it might have still taken several days to resolve this while I ate lunch in the dark and cussed about it.
At that time, I bought a two-pack of lightbulbs and BOTH fixtures got a bulb and this plus other changes was almost like "adding a small room" to my apartment even though no major renovations had been made. I was using the corner of the kitchen to a much greater degree than had previously been used.
Fast forward a year and I woke up to the main light bulb being out. It was a weekday, so busses out to Port Industrial were running, and I already knew where I needed to go to resolve this. I took the bus out, came out with my lightbulb to see the bus zooming past and had missed it. It's a thirty minute walk and thirty minutes between busses, so I began walking home and someone offered me a ride.
So it was a nuisance but not a big burden and was solved with a reasonable amount of effort. I feel almost like "I have a middle class life again" even though my income isn't more than it was a year ago and I still have no car and etc. but getting a LIGHTBULB was something readily resolved without much pain or hassle.
There are multiple factors there that made this such a giant headache to get that first lightbulb, such a headache that I never actually did just replace the kitchen lightbulb. I didn't replace it until I had to buy a bulb for the main living space and then bought TWO, solving that problem sort of incidentally in addition to a more urgent matter.
Lack of options -- because it's a specialty item and ONLY available locally in ONE store from what I gather. Lack of transportation. Lack of information. Lack of physical energy. Lack of funds -- because if I were wealthy enough, I could just hire a taxi cab to take me out there and skip all the drama with "Do I have the energy and is the weather decent enough to walk it?"
If you are doing community development work, you need to be solving for making it FEASIBLE for MOST locals to readily handle the day-to-day tasks of living. Ask yourself:
In rural enough places with few people and enough terrain and weather challenges, the answers that work in a robust and reliable fashion may look very different from "standard North American life." In some parts of rural Africa, blood supplies are delivered by drone to make sure fresh blood is available in a timely fashion without excess overhead in terms of money and logistical burdens.
In such places, making sure the basics are there is critical. As one example: In a place that cannot support the existence of a local hospital, it's more important that everyone eat well because a great many health issues are caused by or made worse by inadequate diet.
So focus on the basics and do not underestimate the importance of knowledge for leveraging limited resources or supplying locally viable solutions and do not underestimate the importance of spreading the word and educating people about what's available, what works, best practices and so forth.
In my case, a lot of the drama and initial wasted time and effort would have been eliminated if I had been notified up front that the ceiling fixtures require a specialty bulb only available at Home Depot. So, no, I'm not imagining things or exaggerating that a little info can, at times, go a long way towards minimizing drama in situations that might otherwise become stupidly challenging for some people.
What is a middle class lifestyle? I've wondered how to effectively define that for a long time because I don't think "owns a car" really should be part of the definition.
I recently woke up to a burned out lightbulb and now I have my definition: A middle class lifestyle is one where minor problems, like a burned out lightbulb, are readily resolved.
Poverty is where a minor issue like a burned out lightbulb feels like a Sisyphean task. It feels like you will never get there from here.
I live in a small apartment and there are two overhead fixtures, one in the main living space and one in the kitchen nook. When I moved in, the lightbulb in the kitchen was burned out.
No big. Put "lightbulb" on the shopping list.
So lightbulbs get bought and the fixture gets opened up and it doesn't take a standard lightbulb. That was a waste of time and money. So then I made a trip to Walmart, looked around, couldn't find it. Asked staff, was told they don't carry it. Checked the local grocery store. They don't have it either.
So I asked management. The only store here that carries them is Home Depot on a street called Port Industrial which lives up to its name: long stretches of large plots of industrial stuff.
If you are on foot, this means there is no place to buy a drink or a snack or use the bathroom, which makes it more challenging than just the distance alone, especially if you have health issues.
Without a car, it's a thirty minute walk each way for me. And where I live, the weather is frequently such that you wouldn't want to walk an hour in it if it's NOT a dire emergency.
And I also have health issues and financial issues that add to the complexity of getting a damn lightbulb. So "lightbulb" stayed on my shopping list for months and wasn't replaced until the OTHER lightbulb in my unit burned out more than a YEAR after I moved in here.
With no light at all in the apartment, I felt forced at gunpoint to finally make the walk on a weekend when there are no busses running out that way on a December day with chilly, windy weather but it fortunately wasn't too wet and my health was better than when I moved in here.
So it was a giant pain in the butt and felt like a big crisis but did, in fact, get handled that same day but only because now I had NO light in my apartment (except the bathroom light) and had PREVIOUSLY done a bunch of research, so I at least KNEW where I needed to go. Had there not been a burned out a kitchen bulb when I moved in that I tried and failed to replace, it might have still taken several days to resolve this while I ate lunch in the dark and cussed about it.
At that time, I bought a two-pack of lightbulbs and BOTH fixtures got a bulb and this plus other changes was almost like "adding a small room" to my apartment even though no major renovations had been made. I was using the corner of the kitchen to a much greater degree than had previously been used.
Fast forward a year and I woke up to the main light bulb being out. It was a weekday, so busses out to Port Industrial were running, and I already knew where I needed to go to resolve this. I took the bus out, came out with my lightbulb to see the bus zooming past and had missed it. It's a thirty minute walk and thirty minutes between busses, so I began walking home and someone offered me a ride.
So it was a nuisance but not a big burden and was solved with a reasonable amount of effort. I feel almost like "I have a middle class life again" even though my income isn't more than it was a year ago and I still have no car and etc. but getting a LIGHTBULB was something readily resolved without much pain or hassle.
There are multiple factors there that made this such a giant headache to get that first lightbulb, such a headache that I never actually did just replace the kitchen lightbulb. I didn't replace it until I had to buy a bulb for the main living space and then bought TWO, solving that problem sort of incidentally in addition to a more urgent matter.
Lack of options -- because it's a specialty item and ONLY available locally in ONE store from what I gather. Lack of transportation. Lack of information. Lack of physical energy. Lack of funds -- because if I were wealthy enough, I could just hire a taxi cab to take me out there and skip all the drama with "Do I have the energy and is the weather decent enough to walk it?"
If you are doing community development work, you need to be solving for making it FEASIBLE for MOST locals to readily handle the day-to-day tasks of living. Ask yourself:
- Can they readily get adequate housing? If not, why not? Making sure that's POSSIBLE to achieve for MOST people of ordinary means is YOUR JOB.
- Can they get there from here? Is it walkable or is there cycling infrastructure, such as bike racks? Are there public transit options? Etc.
- Can they adequately feed themselves? Do you have a grocery store or other local food suppliers? Are there eateries or other options for people passing through and people who don't cook? Etc.
- Do you have adequate basic infrastructure such as water infrastructure, transportation connections, phone, internet, etc?
In rural enough places with few people and enough terrain and weather challenges, the answers that work in a robust and reliable fashion may look very different from "standard North American life." In some parts of rural Africa, blood supplies are delivered by drone to make sure fresh blood is available in a timely fashion without excess overhead in terms of money and logistical burdens.
In such places, making sure the basics are there is critical. As one example: In a place that cannot support the existence of a local hospital, it's more important that everyone eat well because a great many health issues are caused by or made worse by inadequate diet.
So focus on the basics and do not underestimate the importance of knowledge for leveraging limited resources or supplying locally viable solutions and do not underestimate the importance of spreading the word and educating people about what's available, what works, best practices and so forth.
In my case, a lot of the drama and initial wasted time and effort would have been eliminated if I had been notified up front that the ceiling fixtures require a specialty bulb only available at Home Depot. So, no, I'm not imagining things or exaggerating that a little info can, at times, go a long way towards minimizing drama in situations that might otherwise become stupidly challenging for some people.