Burlington and where we canvassed

On our way back to Chapel Hill yesterday I detoured through downtown Burlington yesterday to see how it was doing. On the one hand, it looked OK. There were some newer-looking restaurants and cafes. The used bookstore that Natalie and I had visited some years ago was still there, as was the funky co-working space where we had run into a chess tournament. One the other hand, almost none of the restaurants were open, and it was a ghost town on a Sunday evening. Tumbleweeds wouldn't have shocked me. There was one guy out running, a black guy in his 40s or 50s, that was it.

The neighborhood where we canvassed was like many I have walked. Very few people were out on a lovely fall evening, and of those the majority were Hispanic. As we entered the neighborhood there were a couple of Hispanic kids playing in a yard, later I saw a couple from a distance playing hoops in the rather nice and well-tended park where we left our car, lest we park on someone's grass. Later a Hispanic dad was walking pulling his two kids in a toy police car. 

At a few houses we came upon people napping or hanging out in there cars, presumably to escape either overcrowding, noise, or an asshole in the house. Not the first time I've seen it while out canvassing, but a reminder.

Almost nobody had windows open and most people had their blinds closed. A fair number of people had installed doorbells with video cameras in them, so they could see who had come to the door. Often when doors opened stale air redolent of smoke wafted out. A couple of women told us to be careful there in the neighborhood, which was actually a first for me. I have to wonder whether Burlington, like many places, has seen a rise in violent crime since the whole "defund the police" debacle, but honestly the closed blinds and crouching posture were nothing new, just a reminder of how different our lives are.