December 2016

The Changing Shape of Our Neighborhoods By Richard B. Linderman, Esq., Ansell Grimm & Aaron, PC

M any of us will fondly recall growing up in our childhood home, usually located in a suburban neighborhood. This may have been your parents’ second home, the home they purchased to start their new family. This was a nice neighborhood with quiet streets on which you could play hockey or ride your bike. Your friends from elementary school likely lived within walking distance. Maybe there was a park nearby, but you would still have to jump in the car and drive to the grocery store or cinema. If you lived in Jersey City, Hoboken or the boroughs of New York, your home was likely a midrise condominium or apartment building, but it was still your neighborhood. You knew the people living on your floor. You went to school with the other children in the building. Your building or the block would have picnics closing down the street. Your neighborhood had a certain feel and energy that you still remember. In my neighborhood, the parents set boundaries for the chil- dren based upon the major streets that ran north and south of us. All the lands, backyards and woods between those two streets were fair game for our adventures. My best friend lived in a two bedroom apartment build-

"...the sprawling neighborhoods of the early 2000s are giving way to super high-rise condominiums and self- contained communities."

© iStockphoto.com

ing downtown. All the children in that building played together after school and I still remember racing down the hallways and riding the elevators up and down the floors.

But in cases above, those neigh- borhoods have become fewer and fewer over the last

three decades. Even the sprawling neigh- borhoods of the early 2000s are giving

way to super high-rise condominiums and self-contained commu- nities. These changes,

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