People and Their Environment

People are influenced by their environment more than most people probably think.

Or at least, they're affected by their environment more than I thought they were.

I'm talking about the little, but significant, ways the environment affects people's behavior. I noticed this after my recent move to the middle of Queens. I started to notice some patterns in how people transport goods.

I grew up in a rural area. Most of my life, including time spent in college, was spent in a rural PA town. When we wanted supplies, we drove to a supermarket or to a Sam's Club; we loaded the car, drove home, and I'd make five or six trips between the house and trunk unloading supplies. Most of our transportation was car based; we were limited by the storage capacity of the car.

Then I moved to Manhattan for my job. In Manhattan it wasn't uncommon to see people pulling little carts behind them. The carts had two wheels and a stand-foot; the basket was basically a canvas-like bag, roughly three feet high with a clasp flap to keep items from flying out. IKEA calls them knallas.

These things are about as common in Manhattan as rolling suitcases. I never saw them while shopping back home; but they are very suited to life in Manhattan. Unless you have a lot of income, the average apartment is quite small and cramped, and the more affordable apartments are often walkups. The knalla rolling cart was big enough to carry a few bags-worth of groceries while being small enough to maneuver up steps and around sidewalks. They were common enough that you need not feel strange walking around pulling one of these rolly-carts.

Then I moved to Queens. I grew up in a rural town, where your neighbors were fields or trees. Manhattan was skyscrapers and pavement; everywhere you looked was a monument to mankind's craftwork. It was the polar opposite of my home.

Queens is another facet of NYC, one that you don't see in movies and television shows. It doesn't have the skyscrapers, but it is anything but rural. It's more along the lines of suburban sprawl; chain restaurants and malls interspersed among residential apartments and homes. While Manhattan was filled with skyscrapers, most of the area I moved to seems to have leveled out around five or six stories.

I noticed that the people here also pushed carts around; these carts are larger, though. Instead of canvas or plastic strapped to an inexpensive hand-cart frame, these are four-wheeled metal-mesh carts with probably twice the capacity of my little IKEA cart. I see these mesh carts around all the time filled with groceries and supplies; in some cases young children are sitting in them being pushed along by a tired parent; I never see the knalla-type carts.

It's a subtle change, but pervasive. It's like rolling into town and noticing that everyone is driving the same over-sized customized truck, or that every kid managed to afford a spoiler for their car in the high school parking lot. A group hivemind, if you will.

The strange thing is that this area of Queens is so diverse yet shares this little quirk.

But when you think about it, there could be a reason it makes sense. Back home your supply runs...groceries, or trips to bulk suppliers like Sam's Club...were limited by the car or truck you drove. In Manhattan, people tended to get more things delivered and actual shopping excursions were to places that were cramped to begin with; many grocery stores resembled what back home were convenience stores in size, or small bodegas. This area of Queens, however, you get access to full size Barnes and Noble bookstores, Kohls department stores, Staples, even a Costco. Back home is still very much a car culture and the shopping conveniences are geared for it. Queens and Manhattan have enough public transit that not owning a car is not so much a hindrance, but the larger stores (and sidewalk space) seems to be open enough...and the stores geared for...the larger capacity mesh 4-wheeled carts.

It's another little observation I've made about people and their environment since moving to the city. It's fascinating to me to experience things that I may have been told about before coming here but written off as rubbish speculation. Speculation until you come here and actually see what effects the city has on people. In the past I've summed the phenomena up as, "We used to laugh when people moved the country from a city and not know how to swim. What do you mean you can't swim? Then I came to the city, where the only pools you have access to are in places like Central Park or a school or a Y, and in many cases cost money to get access to. Kids can easily get the necessities within a few blocks of their apartment, and never actually move outside the city or even need to learn how to drive yet still function in society. And may the universe have mercy on you if your family isn't wealthy and you live in the city. That alone will cut your exposure to opportunities. Now it's not so surprising to have someone from the city move to the country and see them look around like it's a different planet. In many ways, it is."

Now I'm seeing the effects of pockets of culture within different areas. Shared community behavior, in novel things like common tools for helping you get groceries to your apartment. It's interesting to see how various areas share a common behavior and it's probably not even a conscious choice.

But what does that mean for other possibly linked behaviors by residents in certain areas? Are blighted communities breeding a particular mindset by residents? Do we have areas where stupid is not just common, but pervasive, where schooling is prevented not because the school system is inherently bad but the community mistrusts academic behavior? Do we have areas where there are so many people effected by a poor economy that poverty or lower-middle-class economic status is somehow encouraged among residents?

Maybe it's something to consider despite the idea that we are in charge of our own future and economic standing. Maybe we have our community influencing us more than we think sometimes. Take a look at your neighborhood and see how much you fit in. You may find that it's more of a mirror than you originally thought.