MWR : Where do you want to live?

Last updated August 31.

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August 31

North America Environment and agriculture

Where do you want to live?

By Darren Kropf

There’s a diversity of living arrangements in our communities, and the Pembina Institute did an interesting study examining where we choose to live and why.

While focusing on the Greater Toronto Area, many principles would apply to all communities.* No surprise that affordability and access to transit and services are major factors in choosing where to live.

Seems to me like trends are changing. Public, shared infrastructure is preferred if it can enhance one’s lifestyle and relationships.

Expanding one’s land ownership is no longer a sign of success in life, though certainly remains a practical choice for many young families, as the fact that 59 percent of families with children prefer detached homes that are car dependent suggests.

What do you think? What values are important to you when choosing where to live?

Darren Kropf of Kitchener, Ont., is community engagement associate with Mennonite Central Committee Ontario. This blog post is provided thanks to our partnership with Creation Care Crossroads.

*See similar studies of U.S. residents here and here.

Comments

At the top of my list is being able to live without the use of a car. Personal automobiles are evil. That may not be in the bible, but it should be. --Charlie Kraybill (car-free since '83)

- Charlie Kraybill (aug 31 at 3:29 p.m.)
I like close proximity to friends and family. Good transport, a good range of shops that are within walking distance. A place where neighbours know each other and there is a good vibrant community spirit.

- Erika Fels (aug 31 at 5:06 p.m.)
Oh man, where do I start??? I'll start by saying that the question of 'where we live,' is the single most important (and unfortunately most ignored) theological question in the 21st century. How's that for a start? 'where we live' has everything to do with stewardship, resources, and community life. But it is even bigger than these issues.

'Where we live' even has existential implications. To borrow a concept from Bioregionalist author Robert Thayer Jr., we all face three essential questions in life: who are we?, 'where are we?, and what are we supposed to do? We have been living as though we can answer these questions separately, but the truth these questions are INSEPARABLE and MUST be answered in consort. In other words, we can not know 'who we are' or 'what we are supposed to do' without thinking very seriously about 'where we are.'

I believe strongly that the calling of the church (and every other human institution) is to somehow create wholeness in the polarized, fragmented, atomized, desacralized, choose-your-own-adventure, reality of postmodern living. Honoring and serving 'place' is a critical piece of this.

- Andrew Gingerich (sep 4 at 3:30 p.m.)
Amen, Andrew! I couldn't have said it as eloquently as did you, but your concept of who-where-what being inseparable is something I think is essential to any meaning at all in one's life. And I believe that concept has been totally lost (or discarded) in the current "Mennonite" church.

- Debra Bender (sep 4 at 5:51 p.m.)
Very interesting Andrew.

Question: might it be missional to move to the suburbs and attempt to bring wholeness to that fragmented desacralized place?

-Joseph Penner

- Joseph P (sep 5 at 11:28 a.m.)

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