On Sunday we canvassed in Willow Spring (or is it Springs?), NC. As had been the case in nearby Fuquay-Varina a couple of weeks back and also Roxboro, Stem, Butner, basically all the places we've canvassed this year, we were impressed with how integrated the neighborhoods were. Not so many Asians as Chapel Hill, but a broad range of white, black and hispanic people living next door to one another. Trump flags and Kamala signs here and there.
And then it occurred to me: it's not so much that these places are exceptionally well integrated so much as that Chapel Hill and the affluent ZIP codes where I spend my time are particularly segregated just by way of price.
Don't get me wrong, the subdivisions we've been in haven't been all that cheap. Houses in the one we visited Sunday were 10-12 years old and were valued by Zillow at $350k-$500k for 2500-3000 square feet. That's a lot more house than you can get for that money here in Chapel Hill.
So basically it would appear that we are more outliers than the places we are visiting.
I will say that the places we go have been generally pretty low on street life. Sunday was a beautiful day, temps around 70-72. We saw one kid out on a bike and two people out walking. They were visiting from Jamaica. A couple of guys working in garages on projects. Otherwise people were indoors or perhaps in back yards. Which is a shame. I suspect it's mostly because people are glued to one kind of screen or another, but that's bad.
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