
Landscape Posting:
In Ilmenau, there is a division between the town and the university. A person has to walk a bit to go from one place to the next. If a person were not motivated, he or she could completely avoid the town. However, that is not a good idea: I like the winding main street of Ilmenau: it is a very human size, and it is pretty and comfortable. The same division is true of the Clifton campus of the University of Cincinnati. A person has to make an effort to leave the campus. That division of "people at the university" and "people NOT at the university" is very clear. At the Krogers, it is a meeting of these two populations in the grocery store. I suppose one could say Krogres is the Geneva of Clifton. On the other hand, the Blue Ash Campus of the University of Cincinnat, really is separated, all by itself. Because it is a commuter campus, however, there is no town/gown division: we are all part of the community, like it or not. I like that feeling of mutual belonging.

I think what is American about Cincinnati is the way it fragments into small towns. Americans do not travel much, in this part of the country, and I think that there is a tendency to emphasize neighborhood localities. Philadelphia does the same thing. It is always interesting how human beings need to create a manageable community. Even in New York, you identify yourself by neighborhood, but only in the company of New Yorkers. With people from out of state, you just say "New York". I also found this way of making things too big be smaller in England. So I wonder to myself, is this way of turning a big city into a small town the same in Germany? Is Ilmenau divided into neighborhoods? It seems too small for that to me, but maybe I am just familiar with bigger places. However, Leverett, my tiny hometown, does not subdivide further into smaller neighborhoods because it is already quite small.

So I conclude that human beings prefer a small economy of scale. We seem to prefer to belong to smaller communities, and if the community we belong to is too big, then we make it smaller ourselves.
Ruth - I agree with your comment on small communities. Since I have moved into Symmes Township, it feels very much like a small town inside of a bigger city. People seem to know one another and I have noticed certain communities do activities together like block parties and collective garage sales. Our neighbours even brought over cookies when we first arrived! This is something I hadn't experience before! In Edmonton, I never really felt the same type of "small town" atmosphere. Of course neighbourhoods exist within the city and certainly if one left the city out to the rural suburbs, you can feel the difference, but within the city limits, people still seem to identify with the big city as a whole, rather than just their piece of it. I must admit that to me, this feeling of a small town is very "American" (if I can use a cliché!) and quite charming.
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