If I could change one thing about my hometown, I thinkit would be the fact that there's no sense ofcommunity here. People don't feel connected, theydon't look out for each other, and they don't get toknow their neighbors.
People come and go a lot here. They change jobsfrequently and move on. This means that they don't put down roots in the community. They don'tjoin community organizations and they're not willing to get involved in trying to improve thequality of life. If someone has a petition to put in a new street light, she has a very hardtime getting a lot of people to sign. They don't feel it has anything to do with them. They don'tget involved in improving the schools because they don't think the quality of education isimportant to their lives. They don't see the connection between themselves and the rest of theircommunity.
People don't try to support others around them. They don't keep a friendly eyes on theirchildren, or check in on older folks if they don't see them for a few days. They're not awarewhen people around them may be going through a hard time. For example, they may not know if aneighbor loses a loved one. There's not a lot of community support for individuals.
Neighbors don't get to know each other. Again, this is because people come and go within a fewyears. So when neighbors go on vacation, no one is keeping an eye on their house. No one ismaking sure nothing suspicious is going on there, like lights in the middle of the night. Whenneighbors' children are cutting across someone's lawn on their bikes, there's no friendly way ofcasually mentioning the problem. People immediately act as if it's a major propertydisagreement.
My hometown is a nice place to live in many ways, but it would be much nice if we had that senseof community.