Gainesville City as text

In the past few weeks, I had the privilege of speaking to the residents of the Duck Pond area of Gainesville. The area is Gainesville’s historic downtown. While the neighborhood shares a lot of similarities with other neighborhoods, there are a lot of stark contrasts.

One important contrast that I found out early on was that the people in this neighborhood were more involved in their community. Thirty-six year old James River said that there were a lot of different celebrations and festivals that went on in the neighborhood. Such things always enhance a sense of community within the society. Another difference that I found in the Duck Pond area was that the houses lacked a garage or their sizes were considerably smaller. This is probably due to the fact that the houses of the neighborhood were built at a time when automobiles were not an important aspect of people’s daily lives. This also signifies that walking might be a common habit of the residents. Another noticeable aspect about the houses was the fact that the houses tend to be smaller. This could be due to the fact that the houses were built before amenities such as TV and Living room and Computers were important.

The painting below is from the Historic Tomas Center Gallery:

The other aspect of the neighborhood was that there was a lot of greenery. A lot of houses had trees planted and there were small park-like areas. This is probably due to the relatively older age of the population residing there. As the people are old, they have more spare time and can engage in activities like gardening and sorts. The most distinct difference between the Duck Pond areas and the other areas in Gainesville is the size of the streets. They were either one way roads or two way roads which only had one lane. And they did not even replace the old names of the streets. They simply put the new names on top of the older ones.

The architecture of the neighborhood also seemed to differ from the modern houses. They did not seem to be wide enough and were two storied in a most of the cases. The houses also have fading paint which reminded me of the old nature of the neighborhood.

I consider myself extremely lucky to experience life through the lens of the people who live in Duck Pond. It allowed me to understand the history of the city that I am living at. It highlighted the contrasts that this neighborhood has with other American neighborhoods. It showed me that we might have a better option than letting the suburban sprawl of the past few decades continue. It showed how people in a neighborhood that encourage a healthy and harmonious lifestyle