In six weeks of canvassing, I have knocked on a thousand doors in cities and suburbs across south central Pennsylvania. I walked empty streets and sidewalks between those houses.
Empty.
It was not the weather. I canvas in the daytime. Generally the temperature was between high 60s and mid 70s. Wonderful weather.
No kids. No walkers. No runners. No bicyclists. Just the occasional driver with windows closed of course.
Is it social media? I can't tell, but it seems like a good explanation. I spend two or three hours in neighborhood. If anyone was going to walk, run, ride, play games, sit on the porch or something else outside the house, I am likely to have seen them.
Some of the houses I canvas have kids in the family. They peek out of the windows when I ring the bell or cling to mom's leg while she talks to me. But I have not seen kids outside.
A couple of times as I walked down sunlit empty streets I thought "The Last of Us" and other dystopian stories. Whole neighborhoods with no sign of life.
My Exceptional Neighborhood
By contrast, my own neighborhood in Lancaster city has walkers, runners, cyclists, people that sit outside, kids, dog walkers and other signs of live community. If there is a social media plague keeping everyone inside, I'm glad I live in a place with social media antibodies.
I'll be knocking on doors until the election; I will definitely write if I find a neighborhood besides my own with signs of life.
