Big-Household City Blocks
Renters and owners in households of every shape, from three generations under a single roof to somebody living alone, keeping hours that rarely match.
Who lives here
Read on the street, not on a spreadsheet.
No two buildings here quite match, and neither do the households. Detached houses stand next to attached homes and apartment buildings, and about two-thirds of it all was built before 1980.
Office and administrative workers and sales workers are the largest groups here, followed by construction workers, cooks and food-service workers, managers, production workers, and cleaning and maintenance workers.
To be asked about something real and specific, like the new job or the kids' team, instead of a quick hello on the way past.
A neighbor you might meet
Invented, so no one is a case studyLate thirties, renting with two children in middle school. Four years in the same place, working days in a warehouse and picking up weekend hours whenever they come up.
Where it is cracking
Signs, not proof of anythingYou cannot know the reason from the sidewalk.
A sample from the guide
Three pieces of the full textThe rest comes with the guide.
What you'll hear at the door
We're good, thanks.
Said quickly at the door, and the door doesn't open much wider.
It's usually true, and it's also a polite way to end a talk with somebody who seems to be counting heads. Take it as the answer. Next time, ask about something specific, like the tomato plants or the game on TV.
What tends to backfire
Reading the full house as a crisis
You walk in, count heads and feel something you think is compassion. Keep it off your face until you actually know something. Five people in a small house may be exactly how this family wants it, and a look of alarm tells them what you've already decided.
The house next door might hold five people or one, and the only way to know them is to learn their names.
the guide
What to do this week, what to say, and why the news is good on this particular street.
The full guide carries the four first actions, three real conversation scenarios with the notes underneath each line, a story worth telling here, and the Gospel written into what this street is actually carrying. It is free, and it opens in the browser.
Where to next
Families, retired couples and renters in houses old and new, working all kinds of jobs on hours that rarely line up.
Long-settled families in older, fuller houses, living beside retired couples, working couples and renters who make the rent stretch.
Full houses of working families, retirees and night-shift couples whose jobs are done on site, on somebody else's clock.