We lived in the town of Wyncote, until I learned that Wyncote is not a town; it is a CDP (a census designated place). A what? A CDP is “a statistical representation of an unincorporated community that is used to gather data for statistical purposes. CDPs are the statistical equivalents of incorporated places, like cities, towns, and villages.” In other words, it a government bureaucrat’s language adjustment for the term, “neighborhood”. Will I ever be able to remember that I live in a “Census Designated Place”? And if I tell prospective guests that I live in a CDP will they find excuses to avoid visiting? Is it a recently discovered disease, freshly introduced by bats in Madagascar? In any case, having lost possession of my town, I am feeling diminished, uncertain of my place and identity. To make matters worse, I found out that my CDP is a fractional portion of the township of Cheltenham. Not a town—a township. Isn’t a township something that docks at the edge of town? A township seems like a big town…but a town ship seems altogether too cozy.
Many of our friends think we live in Glenside. This is understandable since we’re only 100 yards from the Glenside border, and only a half mile from the center of downtown Glenside, such as it is. But it turns out that Glenside is only a CDP, too. Only Glenside, which is larger than Wyncote, can’t even decide which township it’s located in—it’s in Cheltenham township and Abington township. How does that work? Well, people who live in Glenside know which township they live in because it’s necessary to know your township in order to know your trash day. You can’t be mistaken on that issue for long. We figure the bureaucrats out when we have to.
What I meant to talk about, though, is Keswick Village. Keswick Village is a charming shopping area. I like Keswick village because it is about a mile from my house and it contains several affordable eating places, which is to say, sources of motivation for my walks. One of the eating places is the Village Diner. Why it isn’t called the Keswick Diner is beyond me. But the Village Diner is in Keswick Village, in the CDP of Glenside, in the township of Abington. I’m pretty sure no one knows where the borders are for any of these entities. Thankfully, we now have AI, which will provide us with incorrect clarifications. As long as we are all singing the same wrong note, right?
Keswick Village is charming for a few reasons. First of all, it does not look like a strip mall. It’s hard to look uglier than a strip mall, though the highway from the Philadelphia National Airport into downtown Philly has managed to do so for decades. (Where’s the kudzu when you need it?) Instead, it has its own curvy little road, Keswick Avenue, with its own cute little roundabout that pedestrians can navigate with little fear of being run over. Keswick Village has its own community theater that features live acts, such as Beatles and Genesis cover bands. But Keswick’s biggest charm is its dozen or so Tudor buildings.
I have been struck recently with how beauty folded into architecture makes a positive difference to a community’s soul. Government bureaucrats have noticed, too. For example, large builders in downtown Philadelphia were required to spend 1% of construction costs on site-specific art. Invariably this meant that some proposal writer would weld and dump a random pile of I-beams in a small courtyard adjacent to the building it was technically adorning. Or it might have been dump and then weld. Hard to say. Finally, a large plaque, “Empowerment,” would be bolted high onto the pile, in a location aimed at discouraging graffiti and avoiding the pigeon poop. This would make the plaque nearly invisible to casual observers, but that is probably for the best, given that only a government bureaucrat would be able to recognize the connection between a welded pile of I-beams and empowerment.
That same government has made it a practice to shoe-horn low-rise apartment buildings into impossibly small spaces all over town, like a vain woman squeezing her size 9 feet into size 7 shoes. These stick-and-particleboard cubes, unlikely to survive to the next century, loom over sidewalks and other structures like gargoyles, but lacking gargoyle charm. One of these boxes was recently awarded the Urban Ugliness Trophy, due to the windows painted onto its flat, gray wall. There is a sadistic brilliance to offending the sensibilities of passersby, while simultaneously denying occupants the benefits of natural light. Architecture is one of those areas where it’s difficult for government to hide the consequences of it decision-making and graft. As P.J. O’Rourke put it: “There are certain things we may reasonably demand of our political system, of course. But most of these things are negative rights. And often it’s the political system itself that’s violating those rights. The most sensible request we make of government is not ‘Do something!’ but ‘Quit it!’”
As corporeal beings, our spirits are lifted by beauty. Most people spend large chunks of their lives decorating, rearranging, and remodeling the places where they live. I suppose our culture’s growing tendency towards isolation, greatly encouraged by electronic gadgetry, is causing us to be less concerned about how anything outside our houses appear. Of course, the less effort we put into the exteriors of our properties, the less resources and thought we give to our public spaces, the more depressing it is to venture out of doors.
So I say, “Bully for you, Keswick! You buck the trends. You remind us that, however expensive it may be to build with quality and aesthetics in mind, it is more expensive to do otherwise.
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