Hi friends! This is the first entry in a new series I’m calling happier at home, about what we love and what makes us crazy in the places where we live. I’d love to hear from you: what helps you feel happier at home? when do you feel stuck? As you’ll see below, I’m interested in a really expansive definition of home—yes, the four walls in which we live, but also the broader communities that I’d argue often matter even more.
I’ve seen a lot of chatter lately about how community means showing up to things and helping people out even when it’s inconvenient—the whole “everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager” kind of deal. And while I agree with all that—it is less convenient to go to a school board meeting instead of chilling on your couch on a Monday night! and I do really feel, as Anne Applebaum argued when she was on Ezra Klein just after the election in 2024, that talking to each other is part of how we fight autocracy—I want to offer a more appealing, slightly snarkier reason for going to community meetings: it’s how you get the good gossip.
Trust me, friends, there’s no drama like zoning board drama. The last time I went to a zoning board meeting it was to support a local business I love that needed a variance to add a coffee shop and social space that would host pop-up events with other local businesses; a good portion of the zoning board had been like “pop-up what???” and so the business owner had to create a whole new presentation and wait until the next month’s meeting to elaborate. So I was there out of a sense of duty, to be part of a supportive crowd for a local business that’s meant a lot to me. BUT the drama, you guys—there was a homeowner who’d built a stone patio or maybe expanded their driveway in a way their neighbor claimed was causing flooding onto their property. The neighbor, who’d since sold their house and moved away, was still so mad about it that they came to the zoning board to air their grievances and share a whole bunch of photographs, and then ANOTHER NEIGHBOR stood up to basically say the other neighbor was a jerk and he’d moved out of town, so what was his problem anyway. All in the community meeting space above our senior center.
Truly nothing makes me feel alive in quite the way the public comments section of a local meeting does. You never know what’s going to happen! Just this past Monday, at our small town’s school board meeting, someone pointed out an error in the personnel evaluations system the district is planning to use for employees, my kids’ beloved music teacher talked about the many concerts the music program had hosted that year, and a mom who leads the secondary PTA described the great activities they’d hosted for graduating seniors. AND THEN someone stood up and decried our district’s social media and our DEI program (not really a major feature at this point but okay), called our superintendent “a DEI disaster” (I’m not a fan of our superintendent but that’s not why), and complained about our town library’s 250th anniversary celebration (not under the purview of the district but okay). It was like Fox News come to life. AND the best part? He’d driven in, from another town ACROSS A RIVER1, to share his complaints. I would like to say I applaud his public spirit but I do not. Air your grievances in your own town, buddy.
But here’s what’s great about even a total wackadoodle turn: nothing unites a room like a common enemy. I’m currently tending several hyper-local grudges, but even so, I’m on those people’s side over this guy who’s driven in to yell at all of us. It was a real “he doesn’t even go here” kind of moment.
If this all actually sounds in the weeds and boring to you, that’s kind of the point! You should go find your own hyper-local drama and pettiness. Find out who’s leading the campaign to allow backyard chickens and who’s calling the superintendent “dishonest” to his face.2 Go learn who has deep thoughts about the math curriculum and who cares the most about marching band. Figure out what your local commissioners’ top priorities are for the year ahead and what your neighbors think about that.
If you want to feel connected to the place where you live, like you’re a human being in a particular community and not just a set of eyeballs in front of a screen, you’ve got to log off and go sit with your neighbors in a meeting somewhere. You don’t have to know anything to get started. Sitting there and soaking it all in is most of the point.
And then—this is the second-best part—chitchat with a neighbor on the way out. Keep the gossip going!
I’d love to know: what’s your juiciest local drama? what’s your best tip for finding out what’s happening in your town?
If you live in south Jersey, or if you’ve ever lived anywhere that people feel intensely about their hyper-local communities, you will get what a big deal this is. (Also if you live in south Jersey, I’d bet you can guess where he came from.) (It was Cherry Hill.)
It was me, and I stand by it.
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