Local Emissaries United Looking Back

This is me taking some time to think back about out trip and think out loud of plans for the future, as related to a troy resident and supporter.

The Troy Ambassador program as some may call it (Local Emissaries United) went pretty well! It was a pretty serious undertaking and I started planning too late. There were three of us traveling - we managed to visit 12 cities in 3 weeks, and talk directly to around 200 people about their cities and ours. We spoke a whole bunch about where we are from, but it also turned into a big focus group on where people live the places they do, and why they value that. Pretty cool. We took a lot of video footage, but upon returning, all us got involved in jobs, our education, and other serious things that have kept us from editing it down to a documentary record of our journey. We will do this at some point. Overall, we found it quite economical to travel and spread the word. Perhaps the greatest enabler of our journey was couchsurfing.com, which allowed up to connect with people who gave us free places to sleep, and gave us a venue to talk about our project. For the future, it would be nice to endow/put together a program (just a few thousand, or even just a couple hundred dollars per year), to sponsor people to learn how to benefit our area. Intrepid local people could put together travel plans, submit a proposal, and bring back word of the successes and failures of other cities, or we could enable people to come here to experience this area themselves. After this trip, it is my strong opinion that our area needs a more intimate relationship with the "outside world."

Returned to the Capital Region

On Sunday July 29th, I made my return to the Capital Region after some separate activites. So far our fellow wilkinism has been accounted for, coming along with his own interesting stories of the return trip, and the days since. Our other fellow Brandon C-K, with whom I parted company in Richmond, VA (our last stop), has not been accounted for since our return. For all we know, he may still be out on the road, continuing the misson, or maybe just having a good time.

Life is different now that we're back. It's a slow process getting back in the old ways (and forming new good habits too!!) while catching up with everything that has happened in the meantime.

We will continue to post blog entries here for some time based on the notes that we had been taking as we traveled. A final count of all the people we spoke with will be forthcoming too. Our hours of video footage will be reviewed as we prepare to put it all together in a narrative of what we've seen, where we've been, how we've felt, who we've spoken to, What impressions people have of our area, what we've learned about each city, and cities as a whole, what can be applied to our own localities, and why this all matters to us, and to the world at large. A wholesale written account will be turned out. Our remaining photos will be made public. Our "artifacts" and material references will be brought to light. The work of the emissaries will yet continue on.

The Many Localities of Chapel Hill

Well we've been here in Chapel Hill for two nights at the luxurious accomidations of Brandon's college friend Ryan. The area has a nice college town feel, and the land is beautiful - tall trees, hills, windy roads - it reminds me of our beautiful upstate NY home.

The cities here seem to blend into each other geographically, yet they each seem to retain a distinct identity. There is no zone that I could distinguish as an interim between Carrboro and Chapel Hill, but speaking to the residents of each, they have different things to say about the character of each.

Chapel Hill: liberal, somewhat "preppy", college influence
Carrboro: More liberal, somewhat more "hippy"

this being based on center's of the towns being 10 minutes or less WALKING distance from each other. Also Durham, which apparently has more of an urban feel is about a 10 minute drive away. It feels more like different neighborhoods than separate towns or cities. Very often I feel that way about Albany, Troy, and all the cities in between. I wonder what parallels can be drawn or lessons learned...

perhaps that it's helpful for separate cities to maintain their own identities as places, but also useful for them to be closely and comfortably connected. Hmm...

Madison and Albany

Here in Madison, we’ve been noticing many similarities to Albany. First level: both capital cities for the respective states. First level, pt2: Both cities with a large university presence: in Madison, the major state university, in Albany, SUNY and all the other multitude of colleges in the area. These similarities that you can see lead to some similarities that you can feel, like the sensation of being in a small town and a big city at the same time, or the atmosphere of the large number of sports bars that cater to the college student population, just like in Albany.

This is Madison, which has a strong liberal community (though could be true in the political sense, I am referring more to the intellectual sense, i.e. liberal arts), that I know is there and saw elements of, but I certainly didn’t see when we were out last night. Maybe this is because we didn’t go to the right places – very possible and quite likely. Nonetheless though, this is another similarity that I noticed between our two cities – a solid mindless party scene. Anyway I may be too critical of both areas now. To know this situation is shared in Madison, a place renowned for being a beacon of intellectualism, gives me some more hope for Albany and the rest of the capital region, that we too can develop a strong, broadbased reputation as leaders in thought.