Access Atlanta > The Newcomer > Archives > 2008 > May > 13
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Where we live, or where we say we live.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
During my college years in Michigan, it became very trendy to say that you grew up in Detroit. (Thanks for that, Jack and Meg White.) People raised in anonymous subdivisions an hour from the city would casually say, over cans of PBR, “Well, when I lived in Detroit…”
We have euphemisms for where we live: Arlington, Va. becomes Washington, D.C.; Oakland, Calif. Becomes the Bay Area; Plano, Texas becomes Dallas. Or alternately, a ritzy suburb becomes detached from the city. In Michigan, Grosse Pointe will always be Grosse Pointe, “a community nestled along the shores of Lake St. Clair,” which also happens to border Detroit, not that anybody touts that.
I hear the same thing happening here. One coworker mentioned a fellow who said he was from Vinings in Northwest Atlanta. His address? Mableton. Close geographically, but not quite the same, to say the least.
Another recent conversation revealed that landlords and real estate folks tout Cabbagetown, an the up-and-coming, tornado-fighten’ artists’ community, when what they’re really talking about Reynoldstown, which apparently doesn’t sound as good in an ad.
Even I’m doing it, really. I usually say my apartment is “near Candler Park,” although it’s on the border. Why? Because it’s much easier to give directions from the Flying Biscuit in Candler Park than any other nearby landmark.
Is it an identity issue? Convenience? Cachet? When do you just say where you live, and when do you stretch it a little?
But more importantly: why?
