essay about the neighborhood you grew up in

ESSAY | The neighborhood I grew up in is full of affordable housing, but that’s not enough

This article was produced with support from  City Bureau , a civic journalism lab based in Chicago.

Wet leaves sit idle on flawless concrete. Bright orange parking tickets tucked underneath windshield wipers flap in the wind. Small white children torpedo into mysterious piles of leaves. The brisk air hits my face as I sit socially distanced from a friend in the park. It is autumn in Oak Park. 

A year and a half ago, I moved into a charming, yellowstone apartment building on Taylor Avenue in Oak Park. Less than a city block away to the west are prairie-style homes designed by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Just a few more city blocks in that same direction is a bustling Pete’s grocery store and a strip of boutiques, quaint coffee shops and restaurants. Oak Park is calm. I like that it’s quiet, but not too quiet. 

The sounds of sirens do not allow me to fully escape Austin, the neighborhood I grew up in. Less than a city block east of my apartment is the intersection of Madison Street and Austin Boulevard. At this junction sits a 24-hour currency exchange, a hair salon owned by an Egyptian man that doesn’t allow children inside and a U.S. bank with a perpetually malfunctioning ATM. 

On my block, the quiet suburban enclave that is Oak Park and the boisterous and sprawling community of Austin seem to converge. The two neighborhoods perform a delicate and dexterous game of Twister, carefully avoiding one another. The guys camped in the intersections washing car windows with mystery solutions for meager fees never venture too far west on Oak Park Avenue. The paleteros ring their bells as they saunter past Ridgeland Common Park but never set up shop. 

Mere blocks apart the differing level of investment between Oak Park and Austin is more than a statistical curiosity to me. It’s my life. Deciding between the two communities means choosing drastically different qualities of life — fresh produce or convenience stores, a long life expectancy or a short one. 

Decades of disinvestment after white flight, redlining and multiple recessions are to blame, but where do we go from here? How can Chicago thrive if our only solutions are to ask Austin residents to stay in decrepit, predatorily loaned family homes or to leave to have safety and job opportunities? 

When I began looking for an apartment in 2019, Oak Park was not on my mind. I was barbacking at a fine dining restaurant in the West Loop. Carrying crates of wine, chopping citrus and being ignored by customers was grueling on top of the long hours that strained relationships with family and friends. I was desperately seeking community and thought moving back home to the West Side might be the answer. I combed through Chicago listings and found tons of affordable units.

East Garfield Park: 3 Bedroom, 1 bath, No pets, No evictions, $1200.

Violent crime rampant in East Garfield Park according to Chicago’s Data Portal. 

West Garfield Park: 2 Bedroom, 1 Bath, Wine Fridge (Wow!), Cats Allowed, $925.

Closest Grocery store 6 miles away.

Austin: 1 Bedroom, 1 Bath, Pets, Balcony, $875.

Low ridership on the CTA Green Line branch due to long wait times. No restaurants or bars in the vicinity at which I could make a living. 

Affordable housing 

Grocery store in close proximity: negative

Safe: negative

Living wage job opportunities: negative

So I expanded my search radius.

Oak Park: 1 Bedroom, 1 Bath, No Pets, Credit Score 600+, 6 Months of Pay Stubs, Income more than 3x Rent, $950.

Grocery store in walking distance

Neighborhood coffee shop

Bustling food and restaurant scene

No violent crime

I paused as a wave of excitement passed over me. This apartment, not much pricier than the apartments in Austin, met all of my needs. As I read over the qualifications and vetting process my initial excitement dissipated and I wondered if someone like me, Black and low-income, could secure an apartment in Oak Park. 

My search for desirable housing on the West Side waned. I decided to explore how the city and private lenders are attempting to mitigate the issues of neighborhoods like Austin. According to Daniel Hertz, policy director at the Chicago Department of Housing, last year $10 million in rehab loans were distributed through the neighborhood lending program. 

The South and West Sides received the majority of those funds. These Chicago neighborhoods are full of residential rental properties that are unsubsidized by any federal program, but are naturally affordable. I asked mission-based lender Stacie Young if the naturally occurring affordable housing in neighborhoods such as Austin is actually a good thing. “It’s great. In fact, it’s a commodity,” she said.

However, I wasn’t so sure about that. Especially considering the fact that Community Investment Corporation, the policy collaborative Young works with, has been giving out high-risk loans in the same neighborhoods for decades. I remembered all the affordable listings I had combed through; there had been quite a few two and three flats with new windows and doors. Those properties had most likely benefited directly from neighborhood lending. I pictured myself living in one of those freshly rehabbed apartments with big windows, surveying the boarded up businesses at the corner and used needles in the bike lane. 

Austin, which is predominantly made up of two- to four-unit buildings saw property sales go down drastically from 2005 to 2015. The percentage of properties purchased for less than $20,000 increased from .5% in 2005 to 7.9% in 2015. The millions the city funneled into low-income neighborhoods via high-risk loans and building rehab projects seem to have done little for property prices, actual homeownership or overall desirability for neighborhoods such as  Austin. Private developers would rather make money refinancing vacant lots on Madison rather than opening movie theaters or building brick and mortars for small businesses. 

The city’s efforts to combat decades of disinvestment does not stop at neighborhood lending. The Department of Housing’s focus on inclusionary housing aims to create affordable housing in high-cost neighborhoods.

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My own apartment search included a few affordable units in luxury developments in West Town and West Loop. However, grocery shopping at Fox Trot Market and a long commute via the Green Line back home to Austin to see family and friends didn’t seem appeasing. 

All developments built in Chicago beginning in 2007 have had the option to create affordable units on-site or pay an in-lieu fee. Nearly 11,010 projects have paid fees totaling more than $85 million dollars, according to records obtained by City Bureau through a Freedom of Information Act request. 

Most of these developments, which are privately funded and operated, are located on the North Side of the city. While high-income neighborhoods receive beautiful developments and new businesses, low-income neighborhoods receive Low Income Housing Trust Fund and Affordable Housing Trust fund donations. Those funds subsidize rents for low-income citizens through grants and reduced rents on units. 

But what if those funds were used to ameliorate the core issue? In 2019, I was searching for affordable housing because I was being paid $6.50 an hour working as a bartender. What if those millions went to a universal base income to eliminate low-income renters, owners and eventually neighborhoods? 

The woman operating a candy store out of her garage could open a brick-and-mortar shop. The community garden on my great-grandmother’s block would be able to expand and provide food as well as a safe haven for neighborhood kids. The small shops that often employ people who have been incarcerated might be able to keep their doors open and provide more opportunity. Small organizations such as 360 Nation, a West Side-based organization that utilizes education and mutual aid to promote positive development in the Black community, could expand neighborhood education for Black youth. 

Teach a woman to fish and you feed her for a lifetime. More aptly, pay her a living wage and hand her funds that have been allocated elsewhere historically and you house her and her family for generations. Subsidized rents, low-income housing, and privately funded high risk loans have existed for awhile. However, if the city isn’t increasing wages and providing higher incomes isn’t it simply perpetuating the need for those policies? 

The West Side of Chicago, despite its shortfalls, is my home. As a Black, queer woman, it’s invaluable seeing people who look like me and my family in my community. Conversely, it is demoralizing to have to leave my community in search of a living wage paying job, grocery stores and safety. 

This summer, as convenience stores, banks and luxury shops burned in the wake of police murders, I watched my community gallantly redistribute money, food, medicine. If my community —  historically defunded, redlined, and forgotten — can persevere in the face of such adversity, I have a duty to be a part of that effort. 

Neighborhoods such as Austin, North Lawndale, South Shore, and so many others deserve more than leftovers from private developments. We deserve capital and median income that will precipitate development and investment. We deserve grocery stores, neighborhood coffee shops and bookstores. We deserve safe morning jogs, bike lanes and city blocks unfettered by police barricades. 

I thought moving to Oak Park could erase the implications of growing up in a neighborhood like Austin. That wasn’t the case for me. Even though I’m still struggling, I plan to do it in and with my own community. A living wage job and owning property are less far flung prospects than they were in March and as those things materialize for me, I plan to do my best to make sure others in my community attain them as well.

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How the neighborhood you grow up in affects your future

Research reveals that Pittsburgh children who grew up just blocks away from one another have had very different life outcomes in income, employment and incarceration, among other results.

Power of Place

Stories about how opportunity or lack thereof may affect the future of Pittsburgh youth.

W here children live determines their chances of success as adults. That’s the conclusion that Harvard researcher Raj Chetty and colleagues came to after culling more than two decades’ worth of U.S. Census and Internal Revenue Service data.

Researchers found that children’s immediate neighborhood area has significant effects on life outcomes, and those outcomes can differ considerably compared to those experienced by children just streets away. In fact, their study claims that a child’s neighborhood has a greater effect on future income earnings than the neighborhood they end up living in as an adult.

The Opportunity Atlas draws from a sample of 20.5 million Americans born between 1978 to 1983 who are now in their late-thirties*. This data remains relevant for children growing up today, the researchers say, because “neighborhood conditions are relatively stable over time.”

David Williams is policy director at Opportunity Insights, the Harvard institute that hosts The Opportunity Atlas. “The research points to the fact that neighborhoods really matter,” he said, “and they are especially important for low-income families and their children.” He emphasized that the data reveals the effect that housing affordability can have on these outcomes, and “how it creates or doesn’t create access for families to different types of neighborhoods.”

In Pittsburgh, a city with neighborhoods heavily segregated by race and class, these findings reveal that children’s life outcomes vary broadly from children growing up just blocks away.

For example, adults born between 1978 and 1983 who grew up in this Point Breeze census tract were earning an average of $70,000 and 78% had a job, while less than 1% were incarcerated on the day of the last census. Adults who grew up in this nearby tract in Homewood were earning an average of $20,000, with 69% employed and 4.3% incarcerated on the day of the last census.

Similarly, a census tract in Shadyside reveals an average household income of $52,000, employment rate of 80% and an incarceration rate of 1.2%. The adjacent tract in Larimer – just across Penn Avenue and behind Bakery Square – had an average household income of $22,000, employment rate of 76% and incarceration rate of 7.4%.

Put another way, children born about 40 years ago in the Larimer tract are now adults earning less than half of what adults from the Shadyside tract now earn, on average. And the Larimer group was more than six times as likely to have been incarcerated.

Chetty and his colleagues wrote that these findings remain important for children currently living in each of these four sample neighborhoods because these conditions seem to carry over from one generation to the next.

John Wallace Jr. is pastor of Homewood Bible Church and professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as co-founder and board president of Homewood Children’s Village . “The context in which children grow up,” he said, “has huge implications for their psychological, financial and other metrics of well-being.”

While Wallace acknowledges that a complex set of factors affects life outcomes, it’s possible to pinpoint certain childhood circumstances as causal: “So everything from air quality to noise to access to food ... These things all matter for children who are trying to grow up in neighborhoods that are sub-optimal for children’s well-being.”

Chetty’s findings reveal disparity well beyond the East End neighborhoods cited above. In a tract comprised of Beltzhoover and Bon Air, children have grown up to earn an average of $31,000. Residents in a Brookline tract, just south across Route 51, earned about 50% more per year, at $46,000.

On the North Side, Northview Heights residents earned $13,000 a year, on average. In the immediately adjacent Reserve Township, just outside of the city, that figure is $58,000. Incarceration rates for the day of the last census were 11% and less than 1%, respectively.

So why do some neighborhoods offer better opportunities for kids to escape poverty while others may trap them? And what elements of a neighborhood most affect children’s level of success?

“Neighborhoods create a set of experiences, connect us to certain social networks,” said Anita Zuberi, assistant professor in sociology at Duquesne University. “Thinking about neighborhoods as contexts of development is probably a helpful way to think about it.” Zuberi points out that where you live as a child can determine how much you’re exposed to crime, gun violence and even mental and physical health hazards.

In a 2016 paper for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Zuberi and co-author Samantha Teixeira noted that environmental problems and disparities can negatively affect youth, acting as a “slow violence” over time.

Their paper examined maps, presentations and photographs made by Homewood youth, as well as interviews with them, to understand how they viewed their neighborhood. The youth had taken pictures of litter, illegal dumps, vacant lots and shuttered homes, and they talked about how gun violence affected them. Teixeira and Zuberi used this qualitative data to pinpoint elements of the neighborhood affecting them — using “youth perceptions to inform our understanding of what aspects of a neighborhood’s built and social environment shape youth well-being,” they wrote.

One participating youth, anonymously quoted in the study, said that, “[I]f we didn’t have all these abandoned houses and people started moving here ... Homewood would be a much better place.”

In turn, according to another article on this research by Teixeira for the Journal of Adolescent Research, “[T]he research has begun to establish a link between environmental features, and more specifically, abandoned properties, and health and social outcomes among adolescents.”

“Neighborhoods create a set of experiences, connect us to certain social networks. Thinking about neighborhoods as contexts of development is probably a helpful way to think about it.”

Still, many of the youth also felt the emotional weight of stigma associated with these issues and the neighborhood itself.

“The reality is, there is no perfect neighborhood,” Wallace noted, “and each of our neighborhoods has its unique set of challenges.” He emphasized the need to not only consider the deficits of any neighborhood, but also assets such as businesses and community organizations doing good work.

The presence of strong networks of social capital — networks of relationships and resources within social groups — also make neighborhoods work, Zuberi said.

Larry Davis, professor and dean emeritus for the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh, commented on the role of a neighborhoods’ social capital.

“It’s also the social support system. Mom babysits my kids. Uncle takes me to the barber shop.” People count on that system, he said, if they have it. If they don’t, possibly due to forced relocation or impoverished circumstances, then positive outcomes are more difficult to achieve. And that social capital can’t easily be created or recreated somewhere else.

“Sometimes it’s social capital that allows you to get by day to day, which is especially important if you’re lower income,” Zuberi said. She noted that neighborhood networks can provide connections to internships and jobs, for example.

Still, residents within a neighborhood aren’t going to respond uniformly to any set of circumstances.

In a 2014 literature review for the Annual Review of Sociology, sociologists Patrick Sharkey and Jacob Faber of New York University noted the need for “more complete evidence designed to capture the lived experience of individuals as they navigate their residential environments over time.” They advocate for “research that examines where, when, why, and for whom do residential contexts matter.” As much as data analysis can help us understand neighborhoods, it’s still important to consider other ways of researching how individuals react to their circumstances, such as through ethnographic studies.

Nonetheless, analyzing neighborhood groupings and even specific demographics within those neighborhoods can help. Sharkey and Faber found that girls moving from high-poverty to low-poverty neighborhoods tend to experience more positive outcomes than boys making the same move.

According to Zuberi, age can make a difference in experiences within neighborhoods. Small children may spend more time indoors, while older youth may spend more time outside and hanging out with peers.

Some research has looked at the effects of moving families from a high-poverty neighborhood to a low-poverty neighborhood by giving them housing vouchers. The Moving to Opportunity Experiment in the 1990s found that children in these families, in such cities as Baltimore and Chicago, went on to earn substantially more than their counterparts in the previous neighborhood. Chetty’s analysis affirmed these findings: “Moving to a neighborhood that is just a mile or two away can change children’s average earnings by several thousand dollars a year and have significant effects on a spectrum of other outcomes ranging from incarceration to teenage birth rates.”

Of course, the solution can’t be to simply have everyone move out of a neighborhood, Davis said, and, as it is, many residents don’t want to move, much less have resources to move. “Move to where? How do you move? Do you have enough money to move?” he said. “People don’t have enough to start a new apartment or buy a new house.”

In fact, poverty has been found to be intergenerational, he noted. What affects one family member affects other family members.

Neighborhood circumstances themselves are generational, Wallace said:

“If unemployment is high in a community, then multi-generationally people will have trouble getting jobs. If communities are over policed multi-generationally, then people from those communities will end up being locked up. If health care is denied multi-generationally in neighborhoods, then folks will be sick. If there’s lead pipes for decades, then those children in those communities will disproportionately have lead in their blood, which has implications for their thinking and their ability to learn.

“...So poverty creates and arguably recreates the results that people experience.”

Because neighborhoods change slowly, as Chetty’s research highlights, the possibility for real economic mobility is slim.

Chetty notes that their research has significant implications for civic leaders and policy, in the area of affordable housing in particular. Cities can use this data to help families choose where to live and, more specifically, where to use housing vouchers or locate programs, effectively using limited funds for the best results.

Williams described a recent meeting in Washington, D.C., where officials were kicking off a new affordable housing strategy that used this data to target neighborhoods with better outcomes for low-income children. “That really is exciting to see their housing department, the mayor’s office, the planning department, really thinking around all of the different policy levers they can pull to really create more access throughout the district for their residents,” he said.

Chetty and his research team are finding that it’s possible to determine which neighborhoods have helped people climb out of poverty. They suggest targeting voucher use there, rather than simply targeting any high-income area.

“So it’s not just that wealthier neighborhoods are better neighborhoods,” Williams said, noting that The Opportunity Atlas provides complex information beyond simple data such as poverty rates. “It’s really more about, ‘What is the tangible impact of these places on the kids who grew up there?’ ... So maybe in some of these places the low-income families aren’t able to tap into all of the networks of the high-income families. [The data] can give us a much more nuanced approach that lets us go beyond some of these surface-level factors.”

Williams also emphasized the need to ask, “[H]ow do we knit together all the different programs and services that can take [youth] from birth through college and into stable careers?”

Chetty’s team wrote that the data can help leaders determine programmatic investments: “For example, the placement of preschool programs or eligibility for local programs or tax credits could potentially be informed by these data.”

It’s this kind of investment that can help people transcend generational poverty.

In his book “Why Are They Angry With Us: Essay on Race,” Davis addresses any claim that people should be able to achieve success regardless of neighborhood circumstances. “... I ask, if positive life outcomes are so independent of the social environments of children and instead are due to individual initiative alone, why do the privileged spend so many tens of thousands of dollars per year on their own children to provide the most positive of environments? I would ask them why then don’t they let their own children take their chances with whatever environments they might happen to encounter.”

*The Opportunity Atlas presents the findings of a longitudinal study examining the roots of economic opportunities, locating them in the neighborhoods where children grow up. The study’s methodology accounted for several variables within the data set .

Mark Kramer is a freelance writer and creative writing teacher based in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at [email protected] .

This story was fact-checked by Matt Maielli.

Remy Davison produced the graphics.

This project has been made possible with the support of The Grable Foundation .

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My Prompt: Tell us about your neighborhood and how it has shaped you.

To me, my neighborhood is more extensive than just those whose houses are located near mine; my neighborhood consists of friends that I have known for years, and those adults who have touched my life. Those in my neighborhood are all dear to me, and without them I would not have grown into the person I am today. Some of these members have helped me to become more confident, some have helped me to grow as a leader, while others have helped me to learn how to relax and just have fun. All of the characters in my neighborhood are amazing in their own way, and I always love spending time with every one of them. One of my friends is someone I have only known since sixth grade, but if you saw us together you would believe that we grew up together. She is smart, driven, funny, talented, and sometimes just plain crazy. Since I have known her I have become much more driven, pushing myself as hard as I possibly can so that I succeed. I have also developed interests in a wider variety of activities, of which I may never have thought, if she had not prompted me. Not just this one friend, but all of my friends work their hardest, and their dedication has certainly rubbed off onto me. All of us spend our time striving to learn more, because learning is our greatest passion. Of those adults who have helped me to grow, most were introduced to me through my mother. My mother has, for a long time, been involved with many non-profit organizations. While working with these organizations my mother met many talented men and women and when I was brought to gatherings I met them too. These men and women are also dedicated to their work, and to many causes. They taught me how to stay focused, even when your competitors are strong and you may not win. They taught me that even if you do not win, sometimes you still succeed. All of the people in my neighborhood are incredible and they all have helped me to be someone who pursues goals and is willing to work to get what I need and to reach all of my dreams. I love my neighborhood, and it is the best neighborhood I could ever have.

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Favorite Quote: Anyone who says winning isn't everything, Has won nothing. ``Mia Hamm

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How to Write the Community Essay – Guide with Examples (2023-24)

September 6, 2023

Students applying to college this year will inevitably confront the community essay. In fact, most students will end up responding to several community essay prompts for different schools. For this reason, you should know more than simply how to approach the community essay as a genre. Rather, you will want to learn how to decipher the nuances of each particular prompt, in order to adapt your response appropriately. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that, through several community essay examples. These examples will also demonstrate how to avoid cliché and make the community essay authentically and convincingly your own.

Emphasis on Community

Do keep in mind that inherent in the word “community” is the idea of multiple people. The personal statement already provides you with a chance to tell the college admissions committee about yourself as an individual. The community essay, however, suggests that you depict yourself among others. You can use this opportunity to your advantage by showing off interpersonal skills, for example. Or, perhaps you wish to relate a moment that forged important relationships. This in turn will indicate what kind of connections you’ll make in the classroom with college peers and professors.

Apart from comprising numerous people, a community can appear in many shapes and sizes. It could be as small as a volleyball team, or as large as a diaspora. It could fill a town soup kitchen, or spread across five boroughs. In fact, due to the internet, certain communities today don’t even require a physical place to congregate. Communities can form around a shared identity, shared place, shared hobby, shared ideology, or shared call to action. They can even arise due to a shared yet unforeseen circumstance.

What is the Community Essay All About?             

In a nutshell, the community essay should exhibit three things:

• An aspect of yourself, 2. in the context of a community you belonged to, and 3. how this experience may shape your contribution to the community you’ll join in college.

It may look like a fairly simple equation: 1 + 2 = 3. However, each college will word their community essay prompt differently, so it’s important to look out for additional variables. One college may use the community essay as a way to glimpse your core values. Another may use the essay to understand how you would add to diversity on campus. Some may let you decide in which direction to take it—and there are many ways to go!

To get a better idea of how the prompts differ, let’s take a look at some real community essay prompts from the current admission cycle.

Sample 2023-2024 Community Essay Prompts

1) brown university.

“Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 words)”

A close reading of this prompt shows that Brown puts particular emphasis on place. They do this by using the words “home,” “College Hill,” and “where they came from.” Thus, Brown invites writers to think about community through the prism of place. They also emphasize the idea of personal growth or change, through the words “inspired or challenged you.” Therefore, Brown wishes to see how the place you grew up in has affected you. And, they want to know how you in turn will affect their college community.

“NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world-class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience.

We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.”

Here, NYU places an emphasis on students’ “identity,” “backgrounds,” and “diversity,” rather than any physical place. (For some students, place may be tied up in those ideas.) Furthermore, while NYU doesn’t ask specifically how identity has changed the essay writer, they do ask about your “experience.” Take this to mean that you can still recount a specific moment, or several moments, that work to portray your particular background. You should also try to link your story with NYU’s values of inclusivity and opportunity.

3) University of Washington

“Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW. (300 words max) Tip: Keep in mind that the UW strives to create a community of students richly diverse in cultural backgrounds, experiences, values and viewpoints.”

UW ’s community essay prompt may look the most approachable, for they help define the idea of community. You’ll notice that most of their examples (“families,” “cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood”…) place an emphasis on people. This may clue you in on their desire to see the relationships you’ve made. At the same time, UW uses the words “individual” and “richly diverse.” They, like NYU, wish to see how you fit in and stand out, in order to boost campus diversity.

Writing Your First Community Essay

Begin by picking which community essay you’ll write first. (For practical reasons, you’ll probably want to go with whichever one is due earliest.) Spend time doing a close reading of the prompt, as we’ve done above. Underline key words. Try to interpret exactly what the prompt is asking through these keywords.

Next, brainstorm. I recommend doing this on a blank piece of paper with a pencil. Across the top, make a row of headings. These might be the communities you’re a part of, or the components that make up your identity. Then, jot down descriptive words underneath in each column—whatever comes to you. These words may invoke people and experiences you had with them, feelings, moments of growth, lessons learned, values developed, etc. Now, narrow in on the idea that offers the richest material and that corresponds fully with the prompt.

Lastly, write! You’ll definitely want to describe real moments, in vivid detail. This will keep your essay original, and help you avoid cliché. However, you’ll need to summarize the experience and answer the prompt succinctly, so don’t stray too far into storytelling mode.

How To Adapt Your Community Essay

Once your first essay is complete, you’ll need to adapt it to the other colleges involving community essays on your list. Again, you’ll want to turn to the prompt for a close reading, and recognize what makes this prompt different from the last. For example, let’s say you’ve written your essay for UW about belonging to your swim team, and how the sports dynamics shaped you. Adapting that essay to Brown’s prompt could involve more of a focus on place. You may ask yourself, how was my swim team in Alaska different than the swim teams we competed against in other states?

Once you’ve adapted the content, you’ll also want to adapt the wording to mimic the prompt. For example, let’s say your UW essay states, “Thinking back to my years in the pool…” As you adapt this essay to Brown’s prompt, you may notice that Brown uses the word “reflection.” Therefore, you might change this sentence to “Reflecting back on my years in the pool…” While this change is minute, it cleverly signals to the reader that you’ve paid attention to the prompt, and are giving that school your full attention.

What to Avoid When Writing the Community Essay  

• Avoid cliché. Some students worry that their idea is cliché, or worse, that their background or identity is cliché. However, what makes an essay cliché is not the content, but the way the content is conveyed. This is where your voice and your descriptions become essential.
• Avoid giving too many examples. Stick to one community, and one or two anecdotes arising from that community that allow you to answer the prompt fully.
• Don’t exaggerate or twist facts. Sometimes students feel they must make themselves sound more “diverse” than they feel they are. Luckily, diversity is not a feeling. Likewise, diversity does not simply refer to one’s heritage. If the prompt is asking about your identity or background, you can show the originality of your experiences through your actions and your thinking.

Community Essay Examples and Analysis

Brown university community essay example.

I used to hate the NYC subway. I’ve taken it since I was six, going up and down Manhattan, to and from school. By high school, it was a daily nightmare. Spending so much time underground, underneath fluorescent lighting, squashed inside a rickety, rocking train car among strangers, some of whom wanted to talk about conspiracy theories, others who had bedbugs or B.O., or who manspread across two seats, or bickered—it wore me out. The challenge of going anywhere seemed absurd. I dreaded the claustrophobia and disgruntlement.

Yet the subway also inspired my understanding of community. I will never forget the morning I saw a man, several seats away, slide out of his seat and hit the floor. The thump shocked everyone to attention. What we noticed: he appeared drunk, possibly homeless. I was digesting this when a second man got up and, through a sort of awkward embrace, heaved the first man back into his seat. The rest of us had stuck to subway social codes: don’t step out of line. Yet this second man’s silent actions spoke loudly. They said, “I care.”

That day I realized I belong to a group of strangers. What holds us together is our transience, our vulnerabilities, and a willingness to assist. This community is not perfect but one in motion, a perpetual work-in-progress. Now I make it my aim to hold others up. I plan to contribute to the Brown community by helping fellow students and strangers in moments of precariousness.    

Brown University Community Essay Example Analysis

Here the student finds an original way to write about where they come from. The subway is not their home, yet it remains integral to ideas of belonging. The student shows how a community can be built between strangers, in their responsibility toward each other. The student succeeds at incorporating key words from the prompt (“challenge,” “inspired” “Brown community,” “contribute”) into their community essay.

UW Community Essay Example

I grew up in Hawaii, a world bound by water and rich in diversity. In school we learned that this sacred land was invaded, first by Captain Cook, then by missionaries, whalers, traders, plantation owners, and the U.S. government. My parents became part of this problematic takeover when they moved here in the 90s. The first community we knew was our church congregation. At the beginning of mass, we shook hands with our neighbors. We held hands again when we sang the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t realize our church wasn’t “normal” until our diocese was informed that we had to stop dancing hula and singing Hawaiian hymns. The order came from the Pope himself.

Eventually, I lost faith in God and organized institutions. I thought the banning of hula—an ancient and pure form of expression—seemed medieval, ignorant, and unfair, given that the Hawaiian religion had already been stamped out. I felt a lack of community and a distrust for any place in which I might find one. As a postcolonial inhabitant, I could never belong to the Hawaiian culture, no matter how much I valued it. Then, I was shocked to learn that Queen Ka’ahumanu herself had eliminated the Kapu system, a strict code of conduct in which women were inferior to men. Next went the Hawaiian religion. Queen Ka’ahumanu burned all the temples before turning to Christianity, hoping this religion would offer better opportunities for her people.

Community Essay (Continued)

I’m not sure what to make of this history. Should I view Queen Ka’ahumanu as a feminist hero, or another failure in her islands’ tragedy? Nothing is black and white about her story, but she did what she thought was beneficial to her people, regardless of tradition. From her story, I’ve learned to accept complexity. I can disagree with institutionalized religion while still believing in my neighbors. I am a product of this place and their presence. At UW, I plan to add to campus diversity through my experience, knowing that diversity comes with contradictions and complications, all of which should be approached with an open and informed mind.

UW Community Essay Example Analysis

This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt (“family,” “community,” “world,” “product of it,” “add to the diversity,” etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by addressing the complexity inherent in the community they’ve been involved in. While the student displays an inner turmoil about their identity and participation, they find a way to show how they’d contribute to an open-minded campus through their values and intellectual rigor.

What’s Next

For more on supplemental essays and essay writing guides, check out the following articles:

• How to Write the Why This Major Essay + Example
• How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example
• How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips
• College Essay

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

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Living in a poor neighborhood changes everything about your life

by Alvin Chang

In 1940, a white developer wanted to build a neighborhood in Detroit.

Table of contents

So he asked the US Federal Housing Administration to back a loan. The FHA, which was created just six years earlier to help middle-class families buy homes, said no because the development was too close to an "inharmonious" racial group.

Meaning black people.

It wasn't surprising. The housing administration refused to back loans to black people — and even people who lived around black people. FHA said it was too risky.

So the next year, this white developer had an idea: What if he built a 6-foot-tall, half-mile-long wall between the black neighborhood and his planned neighborhood? Is that enough separation to mitigate risk and get his loan?

When he did that, the housing administration backed the loan.

That was 75 years ago, but this type of racist housing policy helped create two divergent Americas

These policies are typically called redlining, in that they drew a bright red line between the areas where black families could and couldn't get loans.

Redlining poisoned the mortgage market for black people. It meant that black families were systematically forced to live in separate neighborhoods.

We often talk about increasing wealth inequality , with the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. That's certainly a problem, but something we should be even more concerned about is what is happening to our neighborhoods. There are now more extremely poor neighborhoods and more extremely rich neighborhoods.

We're seeing two divergent Americas , one with money, and one without — and the one without is largely black. And the residents of that America are increasingly living in neighborhoods of extreme poverty, where 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

These are neighborhoods that struggle with high rates of crime, unemployment, and community health issues.

As it turns out, living in poor neighborhoods isn't just an inconvenience. It's a huge factor in what our lives — and our children's lives — turn out to be.

Research shows it's like breathing in bad air; the more you're exposed to it, the more it hurts you. And it isn't just because of the lack of opportunity. It's that living in these distressed areas changes your brain — and your kids' brains.

And that’s what this cartoon is about: why it matters that black Americans have continued to be stuck in the poorest neighborhoods, even decades after the civil rights movement.

Let's go back 50 years: One in three black children grew up in extreme poverty during the civil rights movement

In the midst of the civil rights movement, between 1955 and 1970, about one in three black children grew up in very poor neighborhoods, where more than 30 percent of people were in poverty. Virtually no white children grew up in those very poor areas.

This is from a study by NYU sociologist Patrick Sharkey . Black families were in very difficult neighborhoods during the civil rights movement.

But then Sharkey looked at children who grew up between 1985 and 2000, presumably enough time for the policies from the civil rights movement to take effect.

What he found was astounding.

Among the younger generation, the same number of black children continued to grow up in the very poorest neighborhoods

Nothing had changed.

This study showed there is very little intergenerational mobility in black families. If you're black and your parents grew up in a poor neighborhood, then you probably ended up in a poor neighborhood too.

But is it really that bad to grow up in a poor neighborhood? Let's do an experiment.

In the 1990s, and the decades prior, there was a big argument among sociologists about whether growing up in a wealthy or poor neighborhood affected economic and health outcomes. It was unclear whether giving people the opportunity to live in better neighborhoods would actually help them — or if the same problems they had in their poor neighborhood would follow them.

So the federal government funded an experiment called Moving to Opportunity. They took 4,600 families living in very poor neighborhoods and randomly assigned them to one of three groups.

• One group received vouchers that could only be used in wealthier neighborhoods, where fewer than 10 percent of households were in poverty.
• Another received Section 8 vouchers with no restrictions, so they could live wherever.
• The last stayed in public housing.

Initially, it looked like living in a wealthier neighborhood improved health outcomes, but it didn't seem to help adults and older youth earn more money.

But last year, Harvard researchers Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz went back to look at how these people fared in the long term. And they found that the people who moved to the nicer neighborhoods were earning significantly more than those who stayed in public housing.

Other research shows growing up in poor neighborhood affects your brain

Researchers have begun to find evidence that growing up in distressing and traumatic environments can physiologically change the brain .

One way Sharkey, the NYU sociologist, looked at this phenomenon was by measuring how neighborhoods affected kids' IQ . He looked at where the kids grew up and where the kids' mothers grew up. Here's are the results:

On top of it all, if a murder occurred in a child's neighborhood — in an area of about six to 10 square blocks — their score fell by 7 to 8 points .

So a mother can mitigate effects of growing up in a poor neighborhood

But if the mother also grew up in poverty, then she was also exposed to distress and trauma — and children whose mothers grew up in poverty perform below average on the IQ test.

Not only that, but adverse childhood experiences — like abuse, family dysfunction, violence, and neglect — can have long-term health effects , both physical and mental.

Oh, another thing: Living in these poor neighborhoods makes you significantly less happy, less hopeful, and less healthy

In Connecticut, Mark Abraham of DataHaven surveyed 16,000 people last year in one of the most comprehensive state surveys ever. And one of the more personal questions he asked was: How happy were you yesterday?

There was an undeniable pattern. Living in a highly distressed neighborhoods — which are poor, unemployed, and undereducated — often meant you were quite unhappy.

Quite hopeless:

And less healthy:

And people who lived in distressed neighborhoods didn't think it was a good place to raise kids:

All of these things are correlated, according to Larry Finison of the Connecticut Health Foundation, who has studied neighborhoods indicators for decades.

If the neighborhood has a high crime rate and it's not safe for your kids to be outside by themselves, then you wouldn't let your kids play outside. This means they are getting less exercise, which leads to higher obesity rates. And more health problems. And so on.

In other words, living in these poor neighborhoods is really hard and unpleasant. And being poor means it's hard to leave.

So what happens when we let poor (mostly black) kids grow up in wealthier neighborhoods? One county tried it.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, there is a law that says if you're building a new subdivision of homes, about one in eight must be moderately priced. And for a third of the moderately priced homes, you have to give first dibs to the public housing authority so it can be turned into low-income housing.

So low-income families, who had an average income of $22,460 in 2007, apply to live in these homes. Rent costs about a quarter of the market value. And apartments are randomly assigned, which means they can end up in low-income neighborhoods or mixed-income neighborhoods.

Researcher Heather Schwartz thought this was a great opportunity to conduct an experiment: How much better do the kids in the mixed-income neighborhoods do, compared with the ones in low-income neighborhoods?

She looked at about 850 students with limited household resources, about 72 percent of whom were black. Because their housing was randomized, they went to school in a wide spectrum of environments. Schwartz analyzed what happened to them over a five- to seven-year span (from 2001 to 2007).

Going to school with wealthier kids helped a lot

What she found was astounding: The students who attended the schools with wealthier schoolmates (where fewer than 20 percent qualified for free or reduced meals) far outperformed those who went to school with poorer students.

The result is that by the end of elementary school, the poor students who attended the wealthier schools made a huge dent in the achievement gap between themselves and the wealthier students. Meanwhile, the achievement gap remained the same for students in poor schools.

In short, being in the wealthier schools helped students reach their full potential.

Moving to a better neighborhood also made kids more likely to earn more money as adults

That's the conclusion of a landmark study by Chetty and Hendren, the Harvard researchers.

Using tax filings, they analyzed the 5 million children who moved from one county to another between 1996 and 2012. Some moved to poorer places, and others moved to wealthier places.

What they found was that children who moved to a better environment ended up making more money when they grew up. Children who moved to a worse county ended up making less money.

One part of this is that places with higher housing costs generally had better outcomes, so only people with money could move to these areas. But the researchers isolated a neighborhood's effects by comparing people who were at the same level of income distribution. Below, we're comparing families at the 25th percentile:

The longer they were exposed to these places, the stronger the effect was

It furthered the idea that exposure to these poor environments was like breathing in polluted air: The longer you did it, the worse it was.

So should we start figuring out policies that urges poor black families to move to suburbs? Not necessarily.

That's what some advocates want, and this can be made possible with vouchers and where public housing is, and a handful of other strategies. This can be expensive but has shown to work with small samples.

But others believe this would create a void in the cities, and the people left behind would be disenfranchised even further — especially if this causes a greater concentration of poverty. So they believe there need to be policies that invest in communities.

When I brought this up with housing advocate Erin Boggs , who is in favor of giving people the choice to move elsewhere, she said she meets very few people who wouldn't move if given the opportunity.

Another idea is a universal basic income, which would pull everyone out of poverty. In short, the government would write a check to everyone, kind of like how Social Security writes a check to old people.

Another approach is to focus on poor mothers. Programs in Connecticut, and elsewhere, provide mental health services, basic needs, and job skills to mothers. The hope is to mitigate the effects of having a mother who grew up in a poor neighborhood.

Whatever we try, we're missing the point if we don't talk about race

We often talk about poverty as if it's only about the lack of money. But the most devastating part is that when a lot of people without money are pushed to live in the same neighborhood, it creates an environment that poisons a child's ability to reach their potential.

It's more comfortable to talk about inequality and poverty outside the context of race. More than half the country thinks past or present discrimination is not a major factor in why black Americans face problems today. But in the past, it was OK to literally build a wall between a white neighborhood and black neighborhood. That was a lot easier to point at and say: Hey, that's racist. Now, those concrete symbols of racism are largely gone and what's left are their systemic effects. Sometimes, that makes it hard to be as outraged.

But in this country, we forced people into toxic neighborhoods based on the color of their skin, and it still plays an overwhelming role in which people gets a real shot to be healthy, happy, and hopeful. In other words, the walls are still there.

Conversations with the following people, among others, helped shape this piece: Mark Abraham, Erin Boggs, Scott Gaul, Larry Finison, Steve Balcanoff, Elizabeth Krause, and Mariana Arcaya.

We know how to end poverty. So why don't we?

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The learning network | how much does your neighborhood define who you are.

How Much Does Your Neighborhood Define Who You Are?

Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.

• See all Student Opinion »

Does your neighborhood shape who you are? Would you be a different person if you grew up someplace else?

According to a recent Op-Ed article, where you live “profoundly shapes who you are.” In “Here Comes the Neighborhood,” David L. Kirp comments on the results of a study about affordable housing in an affluent suburban community. He argues that having the opportunity to live in a peaceful neighborhood with good schools can transform lives.

Suburbia beckons many poor and working-class families with the promise of better schools, access to non-dead-end jobs and sanctuary from the looming threat of urban violence. But many suburbanites balk at the prospect of affordable housing in their midst. They fear that when poor people move next door crime, drugs, blight, bad public schools and higher taxes inevitably follow. They worry that the value of their homes will fall and the image of their town will suffer. It does not help that the poor are disproportionately black and Latino. The added racial element adds to the opposition that often emerges in response to initiatives designed to help poor families move to suburbs from inner cities. Are the fears supported by facts? A comprehensive new analysis of what has transpired in Mount Laurel, N.J., since 140 units of affordable housing were built in that verdant suburb in 2000, answers with a resounding “no.”

Then the Op-Ed article continues:

Where you live profoundly shapes who you are. “I would go as far as to argue that what is truly American is not so much the individual but neighborhood inequality,” concludes the Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson in his landmark 2012 book, “Great American City.” The families that migrated to Mount Laurel — earning from 10 to 60 percent of median income — obtained more than a nicer house. They secured a new lease on life, a pathway out of poverty for the adults and a solid education for the children.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …

• How much does your neighborhood define who you are? Discuss ways that your neighborhood shapes your identity.
• Would you be a different person if you grew up someplace else? Explain.
• Imagine some ways your life might be different if you lived in another kind of neighborhood — for example, if it was more peaceful or crime-ridden, with better or worse schools, depending on your circumstances.

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name . For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

I probably would be a different person if I grew up in a different neighborhood, there would be different people and experiences, so of course I wouldn’t be the same. I would probably be in an even better school if I lived in my old neighborhood.

The type of neighborhood i live in is very peaceful. I love my neighborhood. It is nonviolent and all of us protect one another. I think if i was to live i another neighborhood where there is a lot of violence, I woud not have felt secure as i do now.

My neighborhood doesn’t defind who I am at all. I don’t live in the nicest neighborhood but I don’t live in the most beat up or dangerous neighborhood either. I guess in someways where I live it reflects me a little because I’m used to an urban or a prodomintley african american neighboorhood. However, I’m not the sterotypical teenage girl that comes out of an urban area, not even at the slightest.

I honestly don’t think my neighborhood defines who I am, I think everyone is their own person. I think you would have to let your neighborhhod define who you are.

My opinition, i feel something different on the street, i see someone who get durg on the street during, i am look lot messup on the road some of people trying drive very careful so, i look that really dangerous for me.. I dont want live near bad area.

when i think of neighborhood ,the word proximity comes to mind.proximity is nearness in space, time, or relationship. It has been proven that you only do better when you’ve been taught better.I feel that your surroundings shape you but they do not determine who and what you are,just circumstances.

My neighbors define me as being more polite and nice to them even if they’re not the same to me.Im not close to my neighbors but if I had lived in a safer and homely environment my interaction with my street would most likely be different.

My neighborhood use to reflect my personality, but now, it really doesn’t.

It used to be so quiet and clean and I loved it. I had many friends and played outside almost every single day. (I was so thin back then). But slowly, more negative people moved in and because of that my friends moved away and I rarely even go outside anymore.

My neighbors are so disrespectful and immature. I’m talking about parties on school nights till 4 in the morning, just when I have a quiz and yelling to other neighnors when they’re just around the corner from each other. What sense does that make? I’m going to yell at my neighbor that lives downstairs just to get his/her attention just so I can tell her what the weather is like. I need to move pronto.

I don’t think that my neighborhood totally defines who I am. It has created a few characteristics in me. Living in my neighborhood has taught me to be very careful and has also slightly hindered my people skills. There aren’t any people on my street that are my age so I have no one to talk to.

If I grew up in a different neighborhood I would probably be different. I would have different friends,a different personality, and different hobbies. A neighborhood shapes who you are. Have you ever heard the phrase “monkey see monkey do”?

I don’t think my neighborhood defines me. I live in a small suburbian area that is considered to be kind of stuck up but I am not. The way I was raised and the way I choose to live my life defines me. I don’t have to grow up struggling to understand there is a struggle and I am truely blessed. My neighborhood is just where I lay my head I define myself.

In my opinion my neighborhood doesn’t define who I am. I live in a very subtle and quiet neighborhood but I believe that regardless to where I live I would still be the same Marcus. I could say that your neighborhood defines your attitude to an extent because of what you may deal with but I don’t believe that your neighborhood defines who you are.

your neighborhood doesnt shape you but it can be influential if you gain.For example if a african american boy lives in the hood that doesnt mean he’s a thug but if he lets his neighborhood influence then he might become one.Being in a peaceful enviorment will also have influence in a neighborhood.

I don’t think that a neighborhood could exactly define a person. You could be practically rich and be living in a ghetto in Detroit because you just perfer to live a normal life with your riches hidden.

Your neighborhood doesn’t define you but you but as you grow up you grow more with who your around and the enviroment you grow up in. Some enviroments arent os good and that makes the kid sometimes at differnetly than kids in a good enviroment. Just becuase you dont live in a high maintenanace neighborhood doesnt make you any differnet than any other kid all kids are the same just some kids home life isn’t as easy so just becuase there neighborhood isn’t as nice as others you still shouldn’t judge anyone by thier neighborhood because your neighborhood doesn’t mold a person

Well i have always live in a nice neighborhood but it was always a fe people that was loud acting but my ma alwasy wanted us to live in nice neighborhood so we can be proper.

my neighborhood dosent always describe me it describes me when ever i get into a fight or argument i am overall a relaxed calm peson in a very violent wild neughborhood i learn from my neighborhood but i dont become my neighborhood i know how to act with civilized people my neughborhood has taught me the right from wrong and how to know who your real friends are and how to determine who are and who are not

My neighborhood does not define me at all. I would say that I am completely different from everyone in my neighborhood. I will ay that my neighborhood has made me very cautious and protective. It has also turned me into an introvert and I tend to keep to myself.

My neighborhood doesnt defne me because I have my own mind set and a way to carry myself from others in my neighborhood. To add on to that, I dont barely be at home anyway.

My neighborhood does not define me at all in any sort of way except the where i live . I live in a middle class/ porverish area and i feel like if i was to be around everyone in my community you able to point me out and say that i am unlike the other. Honestly i have never messed well with most groups of people.

i dont think my neighborhood defines who i am. I live in a calm neighborhood on the westside. i am calm. but i do have a fun side.

If I lived in a different neighborhood i would have different friends, hobbies, and a different personality.

I don’t believe my neighborhood has really helped me be the person I am today. However I definitely think if I grew up in a different neighborhood, I would be a little different. I’d probably attend a great, elite school where I’m the only African American in my class. I’d have neighborhood friends I’d grow up with and stay connected forever. Cant really do that now because there aren’t any kids my age on my block.

My neighborhood doesn’t greatly define who I am. The ways it does shape my identity are the people who live there who are perhaps the reasons that I don’t go outside. If I grew up somewhere else, I’d probably be different. If different kids, pehaps my friends, lived in my neighborhood, I’d probably go outside and hang out with them. Aside from the kids who live there, There aren’t may other ways my identity is shaped by my neighborhood.

My neighborhood is really quite and peaceful.i dont really talk to any of the people in my neighborhood so i dont think it defines who i am. if i live in a really loud ghetto neighborhood i think i would act the same way.

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Describe a Neighbourhood [IELTS Speaking]

Posted by David S. Wills | Jul 11, 2022 | IELTS Tips , Speaking | 0

Just last month, Cambridge IELTS 17 was released and it contains a range of real IELTS questions that you can practise with to prepare for your next test. Today, I’m going to show you how to answer one of the questions in this book, which requires you to describe the neighbourhood you lived in when you were a child . We’ll look at some useful language and structures to help talk about this topic.

Analysing the Cue Card

Here’s our cue card for today:

Describe the neighbourhood you lived in when you were a child. You should say: – where in your town/city the neighbourhood was – what kind of people lived there – what it was like in this neighbourhood and explain whether you would like to live in this neighbourhood in the future.

There is nothing hugely difficult about this but of course you do need to know the meaning of the word “neighbourhood.” Cambridge Dictionary defines this as:

the area of a town that surrounds someone’s home

Other dictionaries point out that it is a part of a town or city . Indeed, you can see in the first bullet point that it asks you to describe where in that town or city is located.

This raises an interesting question… What if you don’t come from a town or city?!

In fact, I grew up in a village, so I’m not from a neighbourhood in a town or city. So how would I answer this question?

The important thing about IELTS speaking is that they are just trying to gauge your English level. They aren’t testing your general knowledge or life experiences, and they certainly don’t care whether you grew up in an urban or rural environment.

If you were born in a village, just tell the examiner this fact. Use this apparent “problem” as a way to introduce more communication.

Vocabulary about Neighbourhoods

As always, the vocabulary you will need to talk about your neighbourhood will depend entirely on where you come from! For example, my little village in Scotland would be described in different terms from a Beijing hutong or a district in Mumbai.

Let’s look at the bullet points, then, for guides to what we might need to say:

where in your town/city the neighbourhood was

For this, you need to be able to describe location. For example:

• My neighbourhood was in the west of Shanghai.
• I grew up in a neighbourhood on the south side of the Seine.
• The neighbourhood I grew up in is right on the edge of a little town in Yorkshire.

You can be specific here, using place names and directions. You can also be descriptive, using this part to talk about geographical features, like mountains, rivers, seas, valleys, forests, and so on. You can learn how to describe locations here .

what kind of people lived there

This requires quite different language and it’s important to note at this stage that “neighbourhood,” whilst most commonly referring to a place, can also mean the people who live there. This may also be referred to as a community.

• In my neighbourhood, most people were farmers because we lived in the countryside .
• It seemed like almost everyone in my neighbourhood worked in the tech industry.
• Growing up, everyone around me did different things.

Of course, I’ve mostly focused on occupation here. That’s because it can be a little harder to generalise about the kind of people in a place, but you may want to do that as well if people shared some sort of personality or ethic. For example:

• People there were hardworking and reliable.
• These were mostly honest folk with good intentions.

what it was like in this neighbourhood

This is much broader and in this part you can basically say what you like about your neighbourhood. It’s going to really depend on the place where you lived. For example:

• This was a tough part of town with a lot of violence.
• It was a really beautiful little area overlooking the sea.
• I was lucky to grow up in a good neighbourhood with honest people.

Again, your answer will totally depend on your life experiences here, so think hard about where you lived and what you want to say about it. Try to visualise your neighbourhood and then draw upon your vocabulary to give vivid and interesting descriptions.

Here’s a video on a similar topic that has me describing my hometown :

Structuring your Answer

I always say that you should begin your part 2 answers with a personal memory and that’s easy to do with a question like this. In fact, it would be the most natural way of beginning. You could say something like:

• I grew up in a neighbourhood on the east side of London…
• When I was young, I lived in a neighbourhood in the south of Paris…
• Growing up in a small village, I distinctly remember…

This sort of beginning allows you to easily transition into a description of the neighbourhood where you lived. Try to incorporate the bullet points on the cue card, but don’t be afraid to say other things if they are relevant.

Also, try to follow a logical sequence of ideas. If you just read from the cue card then you might give an answer that is jumpy and disconnected. Let your ideas flow naturally and concern yourself more with language.

Finally, bring your answer to a natural conclusion if possible. Obviously, don’t do this if you’ve spoken for less than a minute! However, if you’ve spoken for more than that then take the chance to add a final sentence or two that nicely concludes your answer. Even using your tone of voice can be helpful here to bring it to an end.

Here’s a video about giving good part 2 speaking answers:

My Sample Band 9 Answer

Well, I actually did not grow up in a town or a city, so it’s impossible for me to describe living in a neighbourhood in one of these places, so instead I’ll describe the village I lived in as a child, which I suppose could be considered a sort of neighbourhood. It is a small village in the countryside of Scotland, not too far from a town called St. Andrews. In this village, people were generally quite friendly but there wasn’t a big sense of community because everyone seemed to live their own lives. Of course, there were certain community events and most of the children and parents knew one another, but it was not cohesive like some tight-knit neighbourhoods in other parts of the world.

The village was a very pleasant place to grow up in for many reasons. It was safe and quiet, with beautiful scenery surrounding it. As a child, there was always something to do there. We played football and hiked in the hills, and it was located pretty close to towns and small cities if you needed anything else.

I like to go back there but I don’t know whether I would live there again in the future. It was a wonderful place to be as a child, but as an adult there really isn’t much to do. It lacks the amenities of a town or city and doing almost anything requires at least a short drive. However, I would consider it because it really is a nice area with a special place in my heart.

You’ll see that this is one of the few answers I did not begin with a personal memory. I did that in order to explain to the examiner that I’m not from a town or city. I wanted to make this clear, and any sort of direct and open communication like this is a good thing. It’s better that than you talk and have the examiner feel that you didn’t understand the question.

After explaining the situation, I introduced the place I lived. I mentioned things that were listed on the cue card – where it was, who lived there, what it was like, and whether I would want to live there in the future. This allowed me to give a good answer in spite of not coming from a place specifically like the one mentioned.

I tried to use topic-specific vocabulary. Here are some phrases of interest:

• a sort of neighbourhood
• not too far from a town
• there wasn’t a big sense of community
• community events
• tight-knit neighbourhoods
• safe and quiet
• lacks the amenities of a town or city
• a special place in my heart

About The Author

David S. Wills

David S. Wills is the author of Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the 'Weird Cult' and the founder/editor of Beatdom literary journal. He lives and works in rural Cambodia and loves to travel. He has worked as an IELTS tutor since 2010, has completed both TEFL and CELTA courses, and has a certificate from Cambridge for Teaching Writing. David has worked in many different countries, and for several years designed a writing course for the University of Worcester. In 2018, he wrote the popular IELTS handbook, Grammar for IELTS Writing and he has since written two other books about IELTS. His other IELTS website is called IELTS Teaching.

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Where you grow up can have a big impact on your future. Here's why.

For a long time, parents were seen as the key factor to a child’s success, and longtime State of Opportunity listeners know there are a number of things parents can do to help their children get ahead. But even the most well-intentioned parent will tell you: It's hard to parent when you live in a neighborhood that's not safe.

When I first met Jalin Pitchford , he lived in Taylor, outside Detroit, in a low-income apartment complex with his parents and baby sister, Valencia. Jalin's mom, Irmitha Pitchford, says things were okay when they first moved to the area, "but as things started to get a little rough, you know, more people that didn't value things like they should started to move in, the neighborhood got pretty bad."

Pitchford says hardly a week would go by when she wouldn't see police cars outside the complex, and after a shooting at the "kids" playground, she stopped allowing Jalin to play there. She knew she had t o get out of their neighborhood. So she and her husband worked hard and saved their money for a down payment. They bought a tidy brick house in nearby Wyandotte.

Now, Wyandotte is just eight miles from where they used to live, but in Jalin’s eyes, it’s a whole different world. "It's fun 'cause everybody can go anywhere to play," says Jalin. "They can do ... like, it's not no shootings or nothing like that, or fights. It's just everyone here takes pride in their neighborhood."

And the statistics bear it out. According to city data, Jalin's new neighborhood is better than his old one by pretty much every measure -- academic achievement, safety, and income, among others.

Intuitively we know that neighborhoods matter, right? The Jeffersons knew it when they moved to the upper east side; the Fresh Prince of Bel Air's parents knew it when they sent him to sunny California ; you probably knew it when you looked for a place to live. I know I thought about it.

And now there’s research to back it up.

The New York Times' The Upshot has a handy rundown of the current research out of Harvard on why neighborhoods matter. The takeaway : The earlier a child moves to a good neighborhood, the better their long-term outcomes will be, including how much they earn and whether they attend college.

Their findings are clear: The earlier a family moved to a good neighborhood, the better the children’s long-run outcomes. The effects are symmetric, too, with each extra year in a worse neighborhood leading to worse long-run outcomes. Most important, they find that each extra year of childhood exposure yields roughly the same change in longer-run outcomes, but that beyond age 23, further exposure has no effect. That is, what matters is not just the quality of your neighborhood, but also the number of childhood years that you are exposed to it.

Neighborhood effects also extend to parents. The Moving to Opportunity study from the 1990s was a randomized, controlled study that looked at families moving from public housing -- some won vouchers to move to better neighborhoods, some didn't. The study showed that parents who moved to lower-poverty neighborhoods experienced an improvement in mental health, some aspects of physical health, and perceived safety .

Mary Cunningham is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute , where she studies housing and neighborhoods. She says for so long, the question has been: Which matters more, families or neighborhoods? She says that question is no longer valid because they both matter so much and are connected in so many ways. "Think," she says, about how "living in a bad neighborhood ... can affect your ability to parent. If you're a mom and you're really stressed out about the crime in the neighborhood, about your particular unit and the quality of it -- all of that matters to being a good mom."

Cunningham says, in terms of public policy, it’s important to focus on neighborhoods; to help improve the neighborhoods where people already live, or help them move into better ones.

Jalin's mom, Irmitha Pitchford, doesn't need a study to tell her how much neighborhoods matter. She's lived it. "If you don't feel safe or you're constantly in a place where there is turmoil and trouble, you'll turn to turmoil and trouble and then you'll mess up your chances of having a better life for yourself or your family," she explains. "It takes a village, and I'd rather be in a more positive village than a negative village."

My Neighborhood Essay

500 words my neighborhood essay.

As humans , all of us live in a society are bound to a neighbourhood. It is an essential place which has a great impact on our lives. So much so that it does determine where we are in life and how we are doing. It is a fact that if we are not happy in our neighbourhood, we will not live peacefully. Through my neighborhood essay, I will explain about my neighbourhood and the reasons why I love it.

All About My Neighbourhood

I live in a great neighbourhood. It is wonderful because it offers us a lot of facilities. The green park near my house makes the area much more beautiful. Similarly, the swings in the park ensure the kids get to play cheerfully all day long.

Moreover, my neighbourhood also has many other bonuses. A grocery store adjacent to the park makes sure people get all their needs fulfilled without having to go far. All my neighbours buy their things from that grocery store only.

The owner also lives in the same area so he is very cordial with everyone. The grocery store saves everyone a long trip to the market and also their time. The park in my neighbourhood remains clean at all times.

The maintenance team makes sure they clean and sanitize it from time to time. It allows my neighbours to sit and relax in the evenings and take walks in the morning. The clean and fresh air gives everyone a great experience.

Why I Love My Neighbourhood

Apart from the top-notch facilities available in my neighbourhood, we also have amazing neighbours who make our lives better. A good neighbourhood is not made of facilities only but good people as well.

I got lucky in this case because my neighbours are very sweet. They help in maintaining the peace of the area so everyone lives in harmony. I have seen very often that if there is an emergency at anyone’s place, everyone rushes to help.

Similarly, we also organize events from time to time so that the whole neighbourhood gathers and enjoy themselves. I have a lot of friends in my neighbourhood with whom I play.

Most of them are my age so we meet every evening to cycle together and play on swings. We also go to each other’s birthday parties and sing and dance. The most favourite thing about my neighbourhood is definitely the residents.

I always notice how we never let any poor person go back empty-handed. My neighbourhood also organizes a donation drive every year. In this, each family donates clothes, toys and other useful commodities for the needy.

Thus, we all live together as a large family. Even though we live in different houses, our hearts are bounded by the same love and respect for each other.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of My Neighbourhood Essay

All in all, a great neighbourhood is important to have a good life. In fact, our neighbours prove to be more helpful than our relatives sometimes. It is because they live nearby so they are most likely to offer help in emergency situations. Similarly, my neighbourhood is very clean and helpful, thereby making my life happy and content.

FAQ on My Neighborhood Essay

Question 1: What is the importance of a good neighbourhood?

Answer 1: A good neighbourhood is important because it helps in providing a safe and secure atmosphere . When people live in good neighbourhoods, they lead happy lives and spread joy around.

Question 2: Why must we keep our neighbourhood clean?

Answer 2: It is important to keep our neighbourhood clean because it will create a hygienic and serene environment. This way, everyone will be able to enjoy outdoors and it will also prevent any diseases.

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Economic View

Growing Up in a Bad Neighborhood Does More Harm Than We Thought

By Justin Wolfers

• March 25, 2016

The neighborhood in which you grow up is a major determinant of your economic success as an adult. That’s been known for a while, but new research suggests that the effects may be much larger than social scientists previously understood.

These findings could fundamentally reshape national housing policy.

The new insight is that much of our best evidence about the effects of growing up in a bad neighborhood comes from examining children whose parents work particularly hard to protect them from the dangers around them. The negative effects of a bad neighborhood may be much larger for low-income families with less motivated parents.

A recent research paper by Eric Chyn , an economist completing his dissertation at the University of Michigan, explores this idea. Mr. Chyn’s findings have received close attention from economists around the country. (Full disclosure: I am one of Mr. Chyn’s thesis advisers.)

It has long been clear that children from troubled neighborhoods have worse outcomes as adults. But it has been much harder to disentangle whether these neighborhoods cause the later disadvantage, or whether the hardships that lead families to bad neighborhoods are the problem.

The federal government’s Moving to Opportunity experiment has provided the clearest evidence yet on the effects of leaving a bad neighborhood. From 1994 to 1998, this large-scale social experiment invited low-income families living in public housing to enter a lottery that could reshape their lives. Echoing the approach that medical researchers take to clinical trials, the lottery randomly assigned a kind of experimental treatment to winners, while the losers served as a control group. The winners received housing vouchers that helped them pay the rent if they moved out of public housing. The losers stayed in public housing for as long as they remained eligible.

Lottery winners and losers were both tracked over the ensuing years, and an important study last year by the Stanford economist Raj Chetty, with Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence F. Katz of Harvard — a study I’ve previously written about — found that children who moved when they were young went on to enjoy substantially higher earnings than people of similar ages whose parents lost the lottery. (Another disclosure: Mr. Katz was my Ph.D. adviser.)

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Growing up in a rough neighbourhood can shape kids’ brains, so good parenting and schooling is crucial

PhD Candidate, The University of Melbourne

Associate Professor in Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne

Disclosure statement

Sarah Whittle receives funding from NHMRC.

Divyangana Rakesh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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Growing up in a poor or disadvantaged neighbourhood can affect the way adolescents’ brains function, according to our new research . It can alter the communication between brain regions involved in planning, goal-setting and self-reflection.

These brain changes can have consequences for cognitive function and well-being. But the good news is that we also found positive home and school environments can mitigate some of these negative effects.

A “disadvantaged neighbourhood” is one in which people generally have lower levels of income, employment, and education. Growing up in these conditions can cause stress for children, and is associated with cognitive problems and mental health issues in young people.

We don’t yet know exactly how this link between neighbourhood disadvantage and poor mental outcomes works, but it is thought that social disadvantage alters the way young people’s brains develop.

The brain during childhood and adolescence

During childhood and adolescence, our brains are dynamically developing . During this phase of life, we refer to the brain as being particularly “plastic”, meaning it is susceptible to change as a result of experiences.

Exposure to negative or stressful experiences (such as neighbourhood disadvantage) may alter brain development in a way that makes some adolescents less resilient in the future. In particular, exposure to neighbourhood disadvantage may lead to “ developmental miswiring ” – alterations in communication between different brain regions. Such miswiring is increasingly recognised as playing an important role in mental illness.

Read more: Living with neighborhood violence may shape teens' brains

Neighbourhood disadvantage and the brain

In our research, we studied more than 7,500 children aged 9-10 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study , a large long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States. This study features children from schools all over the country, with lots of diversity in race, ethnicity, education, income levels, and living environments.

Using these data, we tested whether neighbourhood disadvantage is associated with changes in the brain’s “resting functional connectivity” in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

Resting functional connectivity refers to the coordinated activity of different brain regions when someone is resting and thinking of nothing in particular. Even while resting, we typically see synchronised activity between brain regions that usually work together to perform tasks. That is, these brain regions are “functionally connected”.

We found that children who grew up in disadvantaged neighbourhoods had widespread alterations in functional connectivity, in brain regions considered important for learning and memory, planning, goal-setting, self-reflection, sensory processing and language. We quantified neighbourhood disadvantage using an “ area deprivation index ” — a composite measure of factors including income, employment and education for individuals in a given neighbourhood.

What’s more, 50% of these brain changes were associated with poor cognition and mental health in the children. This suggests that growing up in a tough neighbourhood led to changes in children’s cognitive function and mental health.

It is important to note that because the study was “cross-sectional” (that is, it included only one time point), these inferences about causation are speculative. What’s more, we don’t know what mechanism causes these changes in brain connectivity, and why some brain regions are affected but not others.

Reducing the effects of neighbourhood disadvantage

As part of the ABCD Study, children and parents also completed questionnaires about their living environment. This allowed us to look at whether positive home and school environments can offset some of the negative effects of neighbourhood disadvantage.

Crucially, we found that brain alterations were less pronounced in children who had positive home and school environments. This suggests that good parental support and positive schooling can buffer some of the negative effects of growing up in a disadvantaged neighbourhood.

Parental support comprised of things such as the parent smiling often at the child, supporting the child and making them feel better when they’re upset, discussing the child’s worries with them, and expressing their love for the child.

Positive school environments were characterised by the availability of extracurricular activities, healthy relationships between children and teachers, children feeling safe at school, teachers praising children when they did a good job, schools letting parents know when children did something well, and children having opportunities to contribute to decisions about activities and rules.

Read more: Teenage mental health: how growing brains could explain emerging disorders

The impact of the social environment on brain development during the early years is already widely recognised in early childhood learning. But the impact that parents and teachers might have on the brains of older children and adolescents has been less clear.

Our research shows that parents and teachers continue to be an important source of support for children as they move into adolescence. Although peers start to become important during this transition, parents and teachers play a role in promoting healthy brain development.

While disadvantaged neighbourhoods can negatively affect children’s brain development and well-being, this can be offset by giving children better home and school environments where they feel supported, receive positive feedback, and have opportunities to engage in different activities.

• Social disadvantage
• Child development
• Socioeconomics
• Brain development
• Teen brain development
• Magnetic resonance imaging

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Describe the place where you grew up in your childhood. v.1

Ielts speaking describe the place where you grew up in your childhood. v. 1.

• Structure your answers in logical paragraphs
• ? One main idea per paragraph
• ? Include an introduction and conclusion
• ? Support main points with an explanation and then an example
• Use cohesive linking words accurately and appropriately
• ? Vary your linking phrases using synonyms
• Try to vary your vocabulary using accurate synonyms
• Use less common question specific words that accurately convey meaning
• Check your work for spelling and word formation mistakes
• Use a variety of complex and simple sentences
• Check your writing for errors
• Answer all parts of the question
• ? Present relevant ideas
• Fully explain these ideas
• ? Support ideas with relevant, specific examples
• ? Currently is not available
• Meet the criteria
• Doesn't meet the criteria
• 6.5 band What is your most vivid childhood memory? Are you still in touch with your childhood friends? What was your favorite toy when you were a child? Is it important for children to have fun? v. 2
• 6.5 band Unit 8: YouthWhat is your most vivid childhood memory? Are you still in touch with your childhood friends? What was your favorite toy when you were a child? Is it important for children to have fun? v. 1
• 6.5 band If you want to choose a place to live, what kind of location would you prefer and why? 1. A place close to school or workplace. 2. A place close to your parents ' home. 3. A place close to transportation hub (ex. airport, or bus terminal) Please exp v. 1
• 6.5 band 1665 where you grew up. do you think it's a good place to live? I born and brought up in Ahmedabad. and I really think it is the absolute place to live in because of the safety v. 2
• 6 band Describe people you know who you believe are good parents. v. 1
• 5.5 band Describe a plant, vegetable or crop that you are familiar with. v. 1
• 5.5 band Describe a film/movie you have never watched but would like to watch. v. 1
• 5.5 band Describe your favourite place to eat out. v. 1

Mother's Memoirs: my life story in my own words

My daughter, Jewely, gave me a book in which I fill in the blanks of my life. I thought I would blog about it instead for all my children to read. I hope my readers will join me and comment about their own memories as I have fun remembering my life story.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Describe the neighborhood you grew up in.

We have so much in common.

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Ielts cue card # 182 - describe the place where you grew up, describe the place where you grew up in your childhood..

• what type of place it is
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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-tim-walzs-past-statements

Looking back at Tim Walz’s record and past statements

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact .

Vice President Kamala Harris has tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, capping a historically compressed vice presidential search.

Walz rocketed up the list of finalists on the strength of his folksy relatability, gubernatorial experience and congressional record representing a conservative-leaning district.

READ MORE: Harris selects Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as running mate

“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate,” Harris posted on X Aug. 6. “As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team. Now let’s get to work.”

Walz rose to the rank of command sergeant major over 24 years in the U.S. Army National Guard and worked as a teacher and football coach. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by ousting a Republican incumbent in a heavily rural district in 2006. Walz was elected governor in 2018 and was reelected in 2022.

“He’s a smart choice if they deploy him in two specific ways,” said Blois Olson, a political analyst for WCCO radio in Minneapolis-St. Paul. “Send him to rural areas to counter the polarization and the idea that only Republicans can win there. And have him keep the deep left base satisfied, which could be an issue with a very moody voting bloc.”

Olson said Walz’s rural experience and regular-guy vibes might be able to shave 2 to 4 percentage points off GOP electoral performance in rural Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — three states considered crucial to a Democratic victory in November.

WATCH LIVE: Harris holds first rally with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after choosing him as running mate

“The most recent Survey USA poll taken last month for KSTP-TV had Walz’ job approval at a healthy 56 percent,” said Steve Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota. “That said, Minnesota is quite a polarized state, and Republicans in the state despise him. He initially campaigned as a moderate in 2018 but has governed as a progressive.”

Walz was one of several potential vice presidential options floated since President Joe Biden announced he’d cede the nomination and endorsed Harris. Other frequently cited names were Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Now that he is Harris’ running mate, we are on the lookout for claims by and about Walz to fact-check — just as we are for Harris and former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. Readers can email us suggestions to [email protected].

READ MORE: Fact-checking JD Vance’s past statements and relationship with Trump

Republicans have already begun to question Walz’s handling of the rioting following the murder of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody. Walz clashed with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over how to handle the unrest, but he sent the Minnesota National Guard to aid local law enforcement.

Who is Tim Walz?

Walz grew up in Nebraska but moved with his wife, Gwen, to Minnesota in 1996 to teach high school geography and coach football; his teams won two state championships.

He was 42 when he ran for Congress, a decision sparked by a 2004 incident at an appearance by President George W. Bush. “Walz took two students to the event, where Bush campaign staffers demanded to know whether he supported the president and barred the students from entering after discovering one had a sticker for Democratic candidate John Kerry,” according to the Almanac of American Politics. “Walz suggested it might be bad PR for the Bush campaign to bar an Army veteran, and he and the students were allowed in. Walz said the experience sparked his interest in politics, first as a volunteer for the Kerry campaign and then as a congressional candidate.”

Walz’s ideological profile is nuanced. The other highest-profile finalist for Harris’ running mate, Shapiro, was pegged as somewhat more moderate and bipartisan than Walz. An Emerson College poll released in July found Shapiro with 49 percent approval overall in his state, including a strong 46 percent approval from independents and 22 percent from Republicans.

When he was elected to Congress, Walz represented a district that had sent Republicans to Washington for 102 of the previous 114 years, according to the Almanac of American Politics. Representing that constituency, Walz was able to win the National Rifle Association’s endorsement and he voted for the Keystone XL pipeline — two positions that have become highly unusual in today’s Democratic Party.

During his first gubernatorial term, Walz worked with legislative Republicans, which produced some bipartisan achievements, including $275 million for roads and bridges, additional funds for opioid treatment and prevention, and a middle-income tax cut.

In 2022, Walz won a second term by a 52 percent to 45 percent margin. Democrats also flipped the state Senate, providing him with unified Democratic control in the Legislature. This enabled Walz to enact a progressive wish list of policies, including classifying abortion as a “fundamental right,” a requirement that utilities produce carbon-free energy by 2040, paid family leave and legalizing recreational marijuana. He also signed an executive order safeguarding access to gender-affirming health care for transgender residents.

After Harris’ announcement, the Trump campaign attacked Walz’s legislative record in a campaign email: “Kamala Harris just doubled-down on her radical vision for America by tapping another left-wing extremist as her VP nominee.”

Olson noted that Walz “only has one veto in six years. He doesn’t say ‘no’ to the left, after being a moderate. That’s a reason he’s now beloved by the left.”

Democrats have controlled the Minnesota state Legislature’s lower chamber during Walz’ entire tenure. However, Republicans controlled the state Senate for his first four years in office.

Walz’s meteoric three-week rise on the national scene stemmed after calling Trump, Vance and other Republicans in their circle “weird.”

In a July 23 interview on MSNBC, Walz predicted that Harris would win older, white voters because she was talking about substance, including schools, jobs and environmental policy.

“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said. “They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room. That’s what it comes down to. And don’t, you know, get sugarcoating this. These are weird ideas.”

Days later on MSNBC , Walz reiterated the point: “You know there’s something wrong with people when they talk about freedom. Freedom to be in your bedroom. Freedom to be in your exam room. Freedom to tell your kids what they can read. That stuff is weird. They come across weird. They seem obsessed with this.”

Other Democrats, including the Harris campaign, amplified the “weird” message, quickly making Walz a star in online Democratic circles.

Walz also attracted notice for being a self-styled fix-it guy who has helped pull a car out of a ditch and given advice about how to save money on car repairs . He staged a bill signing for free breakfast and lunch for students surrounded by cheering children .

Schier said he expects Walz to be a compatible ticket-mate who won’t upstage the presidential nominee. “Walz will be a loyal companion to Harris,” Schier said.

One thing Walz does not bring to the table is a critical state for the Democratic ticket. In 2024, election analysts universally rate Minnesota as leaning or likely Democratic. By contrast, Shapiro’s state of Pennsylvania is not only one of a handful of battleground states but also the one with the biggest haul of electoral votes, at 19. Another finalist, Kelly, represents another battleground state with nine electoral votes, Arizona.

Fact-checking Walz

We have not put Walz on our Truth-O-Meter. However, days after Floyd’s murder, we wrote a story about how a false claim about out-of-state protestors was spread by Minnesota officials, including Walz, and then national politicians, including Trump.

At a May 2020 news conference, Walz said he understood that the catalyst for the protests was “Minnesotans’ inability to deal with inequalities, inequities and quite honestly the racism that has persisted.” But there was an issue with “everybody from everywhere else.”

“We’re going to start releasing who some of these people are, and they’ll be able to start tracing that history of where they’re at, and what they’re doing on the ‘dark web’ and how they’re organizing,” Walz said. “I think our best estimate right now that I heard is about 20 percent that are Minnesotans and about 80 percent are outside.”

The statistic soon fell apart.

Within hours, local TV station KARE reported that Minneapolis-based police tallies of those arrested for rioting, unlawful assembly, and burglary-related crimes from May 29 to May 30 showed that 86 percent of those arrested listed Minnesota as their address. Twelve out of 18 people arrested in St. Paul were from Minnesota.

Confronted with these numbers, the officials walked back their comments that evening or did not repeat them. In a news conference, Walz did not repeat his earlier 80 percent assertion. KARE-TV wrote that Walz said the estimate was based in part on law enforcement intelligence information and that the state would monitor developments.

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