What Makes a Local?

Eventually, I'll be a local of somewhere

I grew up in the suburbs of Greensboro, North Carolina, living there from birth until I graduated high school. For eighteen years, the foundations of who I was to become were laid in this mid-sized Southern city. The people that I knew and the food I ate (pulled pork barbeque sandwiches with vinegar sauce; Cookout and Bojangles; fried okra) were North Carolinian. The way I talk—although subtle!—does, at times, have a twang. I roamed from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Outer Banks, with the Piedmont, and Greensboro, anchoring me somewhere in the middle. Am I a Greensboro local?

I then lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, for five years. I went to college there, got a bachelor’s and master’s degree at the University of Virginia, and worked in town for a year after graduation. I lived on my own for the first time. I held my first full-time job. Through education and, more importantly, by befriending people from all over the country and world, I expanded my hitherto parochial understanding of the world. In developing my own sense of what was important, I decided that I wanted to invest my time in a career in clean energy and in outdoor recreation. If my time in Greensboro was spent laying foundations, during my time in Charlottesville I framed the home, installed all of the electrical and plumbing, and erected the walls. Am I a Charlottesville local?

I’ve lived in Boulder for almost four years. I’ve written enough about Boulder to paint a picture of what it means to me—whether implicitly, through stories, or through explicit description. It is a place that I identify with perhaps more than anywhere else I’ve lived: people here share my moral values, understand my lifestyle, and I feel motivated to pursue self-improvement here to a greater extent than ever before. The time in Boulder feels like doing the interior design of the house; with the house itself constructed, I’m now decorating it according to a newfound sense of taste for how I want my life to look and feel.

Skiing at Lake Haiyaha, where my sister is hiking today, earlier this spring.

Chad Shelton recently published a short piece, The Local, detailing a prototypical Eugene, Oregon local’s handling of a new guy in town. I felt resonance reading it because my twin sister just moved to Denver, just a few dozen miles down the road from me. I’m beyond excited to share Colorado with her—even as I’m writing this essay, she’s hiking through Rocky Mountain National Park using a Parks Pass she borrowed from me this morning. But I can’t help but notice that I’ve exuded some of the same braggadocious bearing as Chad’s eponymous Local towards her in her initial weeks here, especially when she’s asked me questions about skiing or climbing.

But, I wonder, am I even a local yet?

---

A local can be someone who grew up in a place, who has family there, who has spent most of their life there. That may sometimes be sufficient, but it’s far from necessary. A person can adopt a place—its culture, geography, ways of living—and embody its localism more than a lifelong resident. Someone like Ed Roberson, who like me grew up in North Carolina before he moved to Colorado and “found purpose and meaning in the striking landscapes of the American West,” may not have the claim on being a native. But the way Ed has integrated himself into his community—with his podcasting work, his Good News from the American West newsletter, and his outreach—makes it indisputable that he’s a local.

A common bumper sticker seen in Colorado.

In contrast, there exists a certain transience to how I have lived my adult life so far. I haven’t really become a citizen of any of the places I’ve lived. Instead, I’ve enjoyed my own friends and pursued my own ends. To the extent that has made me a part of any local community is purely happenstance. Lots of friends, too, moved to the major metros after college—New York City, Boston, DC, San Francisco—and many of them aren’t truly planting roots in those places, either. Are we joining the communities that we are living in or simply passing through? Are we becoming locals, or are we all still Chad Shelton’s New Guy?

The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom. The New York Times

A 2015 NYT article described how the typical American only lives 18 miles from their mother. These typical folks are almost certainly locals. As I’ve noted before, though, my friends and I are far from typical. Much to our own mothers’ chagrin, most of us are thousands of miles from where our parents live. My sister’s move to Colorado surprisingly puts her closer to mom—she was even further west, in San Diego, before.

I like living in Boulder and I definitely like living in the West, despite the distance from where I grew up. My sister will like Colorado too, I hope. In her first few weeks here, I’ve already seen her more than in the entirety of last year. I hope it will make seeing the rest of our family easier too. It makes living out here feel more permanent and less like a temporary adventure. Perhaps one step closer to feeling local.

Whatever being a local actually means, since, after all, it doesn’t actually mean anything, it feels like my sister’s relocation signifies some consolidation of place occurring in our lives. Eventually, I imagine I’ll feel confident in calling myself a local of somewhere. Maybe it will be even be here.

Me with Denver’s newest local at a welcome cookout last week.