Like many young urban professionals, I grew up in the sterility of the suburbs. Cherry Hill, NJ is one of those places with manicured lawns, great public schools and a strip mall with a convenience store at every major intersection. Great place to spend your fort-building-in-the-backyard years. Having Philadelphia so close was a nice luxury, but I never thought that I'd actually live there. When it came time to pick where I would go after high school I selected a University in a suburban setting near a big city — comfortably similar to my hometown.However, at some point during my time at Towson, something changed inside of me. The car dependent lifestyle started to not make sense to me — I would wonder, "why do these 1,000+ people who are all going to the same office park at 9am need to drive individually? Why is the office park so far away from mass transit?" The abundance of corporate chains and big box retailers versus the lack of local ma and pop establishments made me angry — "What ever happened to the American dream of owning a business and treating your customers like family?" It all just didn't add up to me. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what was missing from my life but I knew I needed a change of scenery for my own sanity.
During summers and long breaks from college I would come back to South Jersey and spend a lot of time in Philadelphia. I would go "urban hiking" with friends and walk the pristine streets of Society Hill and Rittenhouse Square and even explore what seemed like the great-unknown: Queen Village and Northern Liberties (cut me some slack, this was 2001ish and the mentality was don't go below South Street or above Spring Garden, ever). I became enthralled with the architecture, the grit, the grid, the buzz, the intensity and the density of it all.I was home.
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"A house in the 'burbs and a bitchin' SUV is how I'm never gonna wind up" - Jonah Matranga
