It’s a 30 minute drive to the mall to go back to school shopping, even though it’s the closest place you can shop for your favorite brands. Or maybe it’s a 10 minute drive to your best friend’s house, yet everyday you struggle to find a ride to get there.
As a Puerto Rican living in a small town in Georgia, I have to travel 2 hours across the state to even get a slight taste of my culture. It’s a 2 hour drive to see even more people like me, who wave their flag proudly.
“It could be worse.” I would always think to myself. Yet it wasn’t until I took a trip to The Adamson Square that I realised how badly humans yearn to live closer, shop closer, BE closer.

My first observation was how close all the stores were. I loved how I could just walk to grab a bite to eat. And if I had changed my mind, the record store was right next door. It reminded me much of a big city, for instance, New York. The city has always been my dream destination and I realized it was because it was so convenient to walk without worrying about a car or getting lost. Everything was closer together, or “a block away.”
I also noticed how there were sidewalks designed for 3 to comfortably walk store-to-store. I mean, this place was literally DESIGNED to roam around. And although the food didn’t taste exactly like home, there was a huge variety of different spots to enjoy a meal at. If you weren’t hungry for a meal, there were also plenty of spots to grab a sweet treat. Yet no matter how many restaurants there were, I still yearned for a familiar taste. I found myself wishing that my culture was closer, a walk away.

I find it interesting that humans have been complaining about how far their favorite food chain or store is, for forever, and we have still yet to fix this problem. Not one person on this earth has ever said, “I LOVE driving 45 minutes just to find something fun to do!”
I mean, this issue has been around for decades, and the earliest signs of it started with food transportation. In the book, Frostbite by Nicola Twilley, the author explains how the distance between supermarkets and factories was so far, and I mean across states and oceans, that meat would often spoil before even hitting the shelves. The same book goes through a million trials and errors throughout history, plenty of attempts to keep food fresh while traveling across towns, but I truly believe that this could be such a non-issue if we kept our necessities closer to us. Closer buildings and facilities would literally SAVE LIVES.
Truck drivers wouldn’t have to transport items over long distances, consumers wouldn’t have to worry about food that’s close to expiring. They wouldn’t even have to worry about driving out of the way to pick up groceries. Which just makes everyone’s job so much easier.

It’s important to understand that being in a closer vicinity with the rest of the world, also brings the community closer together in spirit. That’s exactly why everyone in New York knows each other. They conversate on the walk to the bodega, or going up the steps to their apartment. They know everyone in their building because they pass them everyday. And driving an hour away to get a taste of your culture? You don’t have to worry about that in the city. There’s culture on every corner of every street because everything, and everyone, remains nearer to each other. It’s convenient, and it doesn’t make you feel trapped. For these reasons, I stand by the fact that people, including myself, yearn to be nearer to each other.
Plus, I think we can all agree that in this state of the world, and economy, we need a little more closeness.