Front Porch Living

I mentioned in my last post that the lack of a front porch while I was growing-up is something I don't like now. I was a backyard girl and honestly that probably suited my childhood years well. We played everything in the backyard; kickball, baseball, football, calvinball, you name it. I think being in the confines of that fenced in backyard reflected what being a kid was all about for me; being free to be who I was in my own little bubble of hominess. But as a young adult, naturally, my tastes have changed and I prefer going outside my bubble to have new experiences and socialize with all types of people. And nothing forces you to do that more than sitting on your front porch.

Kyle and I had the pleasure of getting to know our neighbor just the other day and it was only because we were sitting on our porch and our neighbor was sitting on his. He invited us to join him and we moseyed on over to the porch you see above. So this experience inspired me to research the history of the front porch (and by research I mean Wikipedia). The best line I found in my "research" was:

The New Urbanism movement in architecture urges a reversal in this trend, recommending a large porch facing the street, to help build community ties.

Obviously I had to look into this New Urbanism stuff and found that:

New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types.

New Urbanism pretty much sums up our SoOh experience thus far. The warm weather, warm smiles and front porch living has helped us start creating community ties in just over a week. Here's to new beginnings and more front porch living.