When I started driving rideshare, a friend had helped me find a used Hyundai Santa Fe. The exterior and interior were clean, it was easy to maintain, and it had been reasonably inexpensive to purchase so rather than the added expense of a monthly auto payment, the earnings from my small business would be profit with relatively low operational costs.
But the plan had always been to operate for a short time until I could buy a different vehicle which had third row seating, enabling me to accept Uber XL trips. With the help yet again of a skilled mechanic, after a couple of months I was able to change my vehicle to a used Volvo XC90 – which many in the St Louis area do not want to own because they are foreign manufactured vehicles. However, Volvo autos are well engineered, and like all used vehicles if you know how to assess them you can own reliable transportation which is a little older model and save car payments.
I had a rider who got in somewhere in the Midtown area, and lived not far away a little north of downtown St Louis. As I dropped him off, I accepted another trip a few blocks away. As I approached the address to pick up my next rider, I didn’t see him outside so I pulled up to the curb to wait for him.
As a habit, I didn’t pay much attention to the condition of neighborhoods, but paid a lot of attention to my attitude toward riders when they walked up to my vehicle. It was, on purpose, genuine respect and courtesy, whether they thought too much of themselves, were jolly, were grumpy, or were able to get a ride with this service when otherwise they would have to rely on someone who had a car amongst their family or neighbors – or walk. In this particular neighborhood, it would never have been a ride in a moderately late model Volvo, but something far more modest.
As I waited, a somewhat stern man of middle age approached my window from the driver side. He wasn’t happy to see me there, and made it clear he wanted to know my business in so many words. I opened the window and volunteered I was there to pick up someone for an Uber request, mentioning my rider by name. As this exchange was in progress, the rider approached, entered the car after I asked his name, and we were off to the destination. I didn’t ask him about the man.
At the time, rideshare was somewhat new to St Louis. On one other occasion something similar happened. In both cases in which the approaching man questioned my presence in the neighborhood, I acknowledged him and listened to him with respect, without challenging his inquiry and without fear or defense: after all I was there for a productive purpose. When this man understood my reason for showing up on the block in a vehicle no resident would have been able to afford, he stepped away as the rider entered my car. The reason for his concern was different from the other man’s reason, but that’s a story for a different post.
While I didn’t get a sense from him that I was in danger of him, the interaction lingered in my consciousness and I thought about it over the next few days. The houses in that neighborhood were old craftsman homes, but the place had fallen behind in upkeep in general. While they may not have had means, the people living there were sociable with each other. One got the feeling they looked out for each other, loved their neighbors, were good to one another because they knew how important it is for a neighborhood in the midst of a society of many challenges to stick together, shoulder to shoulder. After more thought, it was even as if they were protecting what they had been able to build as the strong social bonds of a small community who looked after each other, after recent generations of vulnerabilities. Although I did not yet know what those vulnerabilities were, I would learn the greater story of it from three other riders.
The people of this neighborhood did not have much, but what they had, they had created amongst themselves because they ventured to care about one another more than anything else. That was the feeling I perceived. So why was my appearance there a challenge to their safety?
St Louis is a city struggling to recover, and has been struggling for decades. Things get better for a little while, then they get worse yet again. At one time, things were much better. I have not made a study of all manner of attempts to restore the city to a prosperous, high functioning community, but like many of my riders from all neighborhoods, I believe the will is there amongst those who live in St Louis. In some attempts to foster new businesses, residential neighborhoods have been purchased – perhaps from the people who lived there, although I am not familiar with the details – leveled, and replaced with commercial buildings. The business, for reasons unknown to me, failed, and unfortunately nothing came of the plan, or if it was productive, someone other than those displaced reaped profit.
However the new business worked out, the people who had lived there suffered the destruction of their neighborhood and their social ties. Not just the houses they managed to live in, but the loss of all their friends who had common challenges amongst themselves, families, friends. Were they relocated to a wonderful happy place to live in which they would find an empathetic social safety network? Did they next have to rebuild this security which had been so precious to them amongst the turmoil they had experienced from years of unknown (to me anyway) challenges? Did anyone ask them?
Or did someone roll though the block in a relatively expensive vehicle and case the neighborhood for a renewed vision of value which did not include them? How many times had they relocated, had they had to get by on whatever they could find to live in, with very limited means, only to find themselves uprooted yet again by a new project envisioned by those of better means?
The longer I thought about it, casting through my limited knowledge of St Louis, and my expanding experience of meeting those who lived in all neighborhoods there, this explanation fit as a motivation to the guarded challenge behind the bold approach of a total stranger to inquire of me in so many words: What are you doing here? Who can blame him wanting to know?
My Volvo was certainly not that swank he would have suspected me of dealing drugs.
I’m not against urban renewal, new businesses, or businesses turning a profit. I’ve been a member of several start-up companies in a completely different community which have failed, and also which have succeeded. But what if we were to honor these people, make way for their struggles to grow into thriving neighborhoods? Wouldn’t it be great to see them in the same houses restored, with friendly stores on the corners, enjoying a better level of prosperity in peace? Couldn’t we find a way with them, for them, that begins with asking them what would work for them? What they want to solve?
I know there are those in the greater community of St Louis who would happily get on board with such an effort. People want to see all of St Louis thriving. I’ve had a rider from Detroit who smiled when I picked him up at his house in Mandan, ND, and said as we talked that Detroit has done it. After a while, he moved back there because he missed his people and his neighborhood, which he loved.
Maybe tear down and rebuild is not better than – rebuild. As one founder of a start-up in which I worked had said, “You have to sign up to get it done before you know how you’re going to do it.”