Solitude of days gone by

Gone are the days of quiet solitude in older neighborhoods in Apex, NC. In times past, living in one of the older houses in this former small country town would allow residents to sit on the porch or in the yard and have a little peace and quiet.

I remember well just how quiet it was sitting with my Dad on the front steps at home late in the afternoons after he returned home from work at the local Ford car dealership. The quiet, peaceful time sitting there was only interrupted by an occasional car on the way out of town.

Occasionally we would venture out into the street and make the two block walk to downtown, past the railroad tracks two blocks away, to the small, quaint neighborhood gas station to have a 10 cent coca-cola and sit around the pot-bellied stove to hear the latest gossip. An occasional car stopped out front to purchase gas at the astounding price of 15 cents a gallon. After filling up, customers would walk inside the one room brick structure to pay for fuel and look through the glass display cases for cigarettes or snacks to purchase. Afterwards we would make the short walk back home to sit for a little longer on the front steps until it was completely dark.

Fast paced growth has taken away the serenity of these old neighborhoods and being outside near the more heavily traveled town streets is always accompanied by the sound of approaching trucks, motorbikes and fast moving loud cars producing a constant roar of engine noise and the scent of air pollution that comes with greatly increased traffic.

The character of the central neighborhoods has changed completely now and most of the older residents have passed away or moved on after selling their homes to current residents. In many cases, buyers simply wanted to turn old family homes into rental houses that brought even more turnover and change. The families that lived across the intersection adjacent to my home in all three directions are gone and two of the homes are now rental properties. The turnover of residents in rental homes has produced the added effect of shuffling the neighborhood mix and character every couple of years or so.

With the passing of time, town planners and council members have approved changes, often driven by a desire to simply grow the tax base, allowing multi-family apartment buildings to be built in the middle of single family residential blocks, again changing the character of neighborhoods forever. Roads have also been changed to accommodate significant increases of commuter traffic along former small town streets.

Consider, for example, the neighborhoods around the intersection of Mason and Center streets. Long ago, Center Street was the end of state road 1010 and it served as the main path in and out of town from the east. Years ago only a small number of cars traveled the road into town bringing students, teachers and business employees into town along with customers for local businesses and shops. Center Street is now considered to be a "thoroughfare" to and from town, carrying thousands of cars a day, most from large new residential neighborhoods outside of town traveling to distant corporate jobs in Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Durham and the Research Triangle Park. Traffic into town to local stores continues but is far overshadowed by the huge volume of non-resident traffic each day.

The town planners, recently moving into a new town office building along Mason Street, recently chose to widen Mason Street to three lanes to accommodate the heavy volume of pass-through traffic rather than focus on adding new streets better designed to handle traffic through less populated areas and preserve the so-called "historical district" with so many older homes and driveways on the crowded streets. Much talk has been made of preserving the "historic district" but this gives way to approval of new development that might add to the town tax base.

Open land in this former small, rural town has been developed rapidly in recent years and the old practice of dividing land into one half to one acre lots has given way to builder "greed" and a desire to place as many homes in a given space as possible in order to generate profits and increase the tax base. The only homes with larger lots now belong to a few original residents or to those that purchased them and chose to keep the property intact. Builders choose a different path if they purchase older properties. they will frequently divide an acre lot into three or four smaller lots in order to maximize income with no thought given to bringing an end to another of the "small town" benefits from the past.