Quantity has a quality all its own

I just got back from my first real trip to Dayton since moving a year ago. (A whirlwind Memorial Day last year doesn't count as it was dominated by a low-ball offer on our house.) For any readers who I didn't connect with, I will try to catch you next time.

I had a lot of thoughts run through my head over the weekend, and I will try to distill them here.

The most important thought is that there is no substitute for quantity time. I love the way my family can sit around the living room and let conversation swing from trivial to deep to silent. The silence is one of the most important parts. One part of the conversation might run its course, and there is no pressure to say something and keep it going. One person will do a crossword puzzle, another read a book and one get a cup of tea. Some time later, the conversation will open up again and wander wither it will.

It is so hard to capture that kind of feeling in a phone call or even a video chat. The comfort of silence is part of that. Even with the ease of technological connections, I still feel constrained by the device and pressured to not let the conversation dwindle. The "I call you when I want to talk, though you might be in the middle of something else" dynamic of a phone call is also a hindrance; with the time difference making that far more likely.

I feel so sad when I think that a comforting and stimulating experience was once so common and will now be so rare.


In many other ways, Dayton felt like a distant strange place. It didn't help that the weather was custom made for film noir. It was so obvious the economic and social pounding the city has taken over the last few decades. The starkest aspect was the number of empty and dilapidated buildings that have been husks for decades and will be for decades to come. As a patriotic Dayton resident, those fixtures blended into the background and I focused on the changes that happened little by little. As a visitor, though, the sheer mass of industrial, commercial and residential detritus are overwhelming.

One of the things that the high cost of housing in California provides is the benefit of high density living. (An economist will say that high density leads to high cost, but stick with me here.) In Ohio, if someone has an urge to build housing or a mall, the easiest thing to do is go pave over a farm. This leads to a Sherman's March of suburbia out from the city center trailing a path of plundered property. The city is a victim of the quantity of land available.

Here in Silicon Valley they paved paradise in favor of a parking lot a long time ago. Supposedly, this is the best ground in the world for growing citrus but the last commercial orchards stand like the 101st Airborne in Bastogne. The lack of elbow room and scarce greenery can get to me sometimes, but the trip back to Ohio made me appreciate that it is full. There are occasional office suites or store fronts that are empty, but they have the look of recent recusals. If they stay empty too long, someone with an idea will knock it down and build something else, because all the suburbs have smashed into each other and there is no place left to go.

I am not saying that full is better. It is just a dynamic that was really noticeable. There are plenty of eyesores here, from strip malls to dodgy neighborhoods. And the high housing costs have real consequences on the lives of people, particularly ones who don't work at nice high tech jobs. (My brain is petering out here. I will elaborate on this more later.)