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.
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Who answered, and what did they say?
These are the speakers’ own words, as they said them. We have not checked their claims.
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Length 7:24
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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Length 5:31
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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Length 3:39
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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Length 5:53
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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Length 12:15
Just bigger.
“it’s just bigger, man. Like it’s sprawled out all over the place.”
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Length 14:38
More homeless people on the block.
“it just feels like there’s more homeless people on my block, but that’s just my block.”
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Length 10:03
Gentrifying; the kids he grew up with are gone, and he kept his mother’s house.
“The negative impact is that all of the kids I grew up with is now gone. I had the liberty of owning my house. I paid taxes like my mama taught me and I still got my mama house.”
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Length 2:26
An $850 two-bedroom, then the influx and the money.
“we rented a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. It cost us about $850.”
What else has the archive asked?
- What is the most important global issue today? 14
- Is the internet good for us? 11
- What made you smile today? 17
- What is Ethereum? 10
- What do you think of the United States? 13
- Do you have a message for the builders? 9
- What would you say to someone under ten? 12
- If you could ask people around the world one question, what would you ask them? 32
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.