It's Electric!

Since moving to West Central 3 and a half years ago, I've found myself of a few minds on the neighborhood. It's an amazing community of people and I am so happy to have met them and become part of their lives. Even when it means that they are texting you and asking where you are because the SWAT team is raiding the house across the street that you've been watching for months as several people a day come and go. Those people are gone but there are still more. An occasional ambulance helping people walking down the street that have perhaps ingested too many opioids, or perhaps have imbibed too much. But then you see a couple walking down the street holding hands, each with a garbage bag picking up trash others have seen fit to just huck out their car windows on their way through.
Although it's all one neighborhood, I've always seen an invisible dividing line at Jefferson. (I suspect that people even further south of us see one too, although their line is probably the railroad tracks.)
I call the area north of Jefferson the champagne side, and our area south of Jefferson the beer side. (Nothing wrong with that- I like beer! But still...) The home values on the champagne side are exponentially higher, and that's to be expected. Many of the homes are quite a bit grander. Our homes on the beer side are simpler, more modest. They are the cottages of the blue collar workers perhaps, as opposed to the white collars north of Jefferson. I love our little village. I call it Electric Village. It has so much potential. People are beginning to see this potential. The city has run a few through one of their housing programs right in my two block radius. New faces are seen walking, riding bikes, and driving slowly through. And they aren't all looking for drugs! They've heard the news that the old General Electric campus is being sold and redeveloped. It's at the end of my street, and I am giddy with excitement. I imagine all the people that once walked to that campus to work, and think now there will be people walking there to do many things still undetermined. Will they be working out at a gym? Will they be taking college classes? Will they be eating at a restaurant? Will they be shopping at a farmers market? Will they be having coffee? Doing yoga? I DON'T KNOW but I cannot wait to find out.
Tonight will be the beginning of this: the developer is meeting with the neighborhood at Emmanuel Lutheran Church and I am certain there will be a lot of questions. I know several wil go unanswered as it is incredibly early in this process and so much is still undetermined. But I do know that I am so very excited to see the progress and see the vibrant village our beer side once was come roaring back to life. Someone turned the lights on. Thank you Greater Fort Wayne, Geoff Paddock, and all the others who saw this vision and found a way to make it happen.