How has the place you live changed in your lifetime?
Asked of an elder in a Nigerian market by a contributor who went looking for the longest memories he could find, and asked in Denver of five people who had been there between four months and thirty-nine years.
The Nigerian answer is a structured account of a system that used to deliver and no longer does: education, work, safety, marriage. The Denver answers are shorter and they all say a version of the same thing, which is that the city got bigger and more expensive and that the people who made it what it was cannot afford it now.
The answers
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Graduates who cannot speak two correct sentences; a country moving fast in the wrong direction.
“some graduates cannot speak two correct sentences … things are changing rapidly and it is not favoring the whole nation at large”
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A lot. No more gang banging in Montbello, and rich white folks moving in.
“Denver changed a lot. … No more gang banging in Montbello.”
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Worse. Less diversity than she grew up with.
“I think it’s gotten worse. I don’t see a lot of people, if that makes sense, like I used to see, especially with diversity.”
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The streets used to be a lot better.
“these streets used to be a lot better than what they are now, man.”
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Just bigger.
“it’s just bigger, man. Like it’s sprawled out all over the place.”
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More homeless people on the block.
“it just feels like there’s more homeless people on my block, but that’s just my block.”
Other questions the archive has answered
- What is the most important global issue today? 8
- Is the internet good for us? 9
- What made you smile today? 9
- What is Ethereum? 7
- What do you think of the United States? 7
- Do you have a message for the builders? 5
- What would you say to someone under ten? 3
- If you could ask the whole world one question, what would it be? 22
Every answer on these pages is a quote checked against the transcript of the video it came from. To put a question to your own street, see One Question. To find a word across every transcript, search.