Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,297, Types of Neighborhoods.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1,297.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
This episode is a dialogue between Shari and Ron about different kinds of neighborhoods or sections in a city and what we call them.
Let's get started.
Okay, ready to see more homes?
I've lined up several for you to view this afternoon.
Yes, I'm ready.
It's hard finding just the right type of neighborhood to move to.
Yes, it's been difficult, hasn't it?
How long have I been showing you homes?
About three months.
That's right.
First, we looked at homes in planned and gated communities and in the bedroom communities around the city, as you requested.
That's right.
At first I thought I wanted a quiet place to live in my retirement.
That's why I also showed you homes in retirement communities.
Yes, but once I saw them, I changed my mind.
I'm retired, but I'm not dead.
I decided I wanted a livelier neighborhood, some place with more action.
That's why I showed you homes in the historic district and in the redeveloped waterfront area, both of which are very pedestrian-friendly.
Yes, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be in the middle of the action.
That's why today I'm taking you to the urban core.
We'll look at homes in the downtown area, the arts district, and a couple of ethnic enclaves.
We'll visit some high-priced neighborhoods and some up-and-coming.
Great.
I think house hunting has given me a new lease on life.
This is fun.
I could look at home after home after home.
That's what I'm afraid of.
Shari begins by saying to Ron, okay, ready to see more homes?
I've lined up several for you to view this afternoon.
To line up or to have lined up means to plan and make ready or to schedule.
In this case, we have Shari, who we learn is a real estate agent.
She's a person responsible for finding homes for someone to buy or rent.
She has organized or scheduled some houses to show to Ron, who is looking for a house to buy or rent.
I think he's buying a house.
Ron says, I'm ready.
I'm ready to view or look at the houses that Shari has lined up for him to see.
He says it's hard finding just the right type of neighborhood to move to.
A neighborhood is an area within a city.
Most large cities have several different sections, parts or what we would call neighborhoods, areas that usually are given a name.
For example, here in Los Angeles, Hollywood is actually a neighborhood within the city of Los Angeles.
It's not its own city.
It's part of the larger city.
Venice is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, and there are many different neighborhoods here.
Well, Ron is finding it difficult to know what kind of neighborhood he wants to move to.
He's been looking for a house for three months now.
We learn from Shari that first she and Ron looked at homes in planned and gated communities and in the bedroom communities around the city.
A community is another word for a neighborhood or area.
Sometimes community is used in a larger, more general sense to refer to a large group of people who have similar backgrounds or live in a similar area.
But here it refers to an area in a city. although it could also be used to refer to a single city.
Here in Southern California, there are planned communities that are their own city.
Irvine California, which is in the southern part of Southern California, if that makes any sense, is a planned community.
A planned community is one where someone has sat down and decided where everything is going to be.
In other words, it wasn't a small town that grew little by little over many years.
Instead, there was someone who had a plan, who drew out where all the streets were going to be and where the houses were going to be, and the parks, and the schools and so on.
Planned communities are often built at once.
That is, the entire area, neighborhood or even city, is built all over a short period of time, a couple of years even.
There are planned communities inside of cities.
There are also gated, G-A-T-E-D communities.
A gated community is usually a group of homes that is surrounded by a fence or a wall to provide protection and security for the people who live in that neighborhood.
There is often a gate, an entrance that you have to stop at and get permission in order to continue driving into the community.
The gate is typically closed. on one of the larger streets that go into that community.
We have gated communities here in Los Angeles, especially where very rich people live.
There are gated communities just north of where I live.
I live where the poor people live, and the rich people live up in the gated communities.
Hollywood stars, movie stars...
Those sorts of folks are the ones that live in the gated communities here in L.A.
Shari also refers to bedroom, B-E-D-R-O-O-M communities.
The bedroom is the area or the room in the house where you sleep, where you have your bed, of course.
Bedroom communities however, refer to small towns that are next to a large city, where many people move to when they don't want to live in the city itself, perhaps because the city is too expensive, or maybe it's not safe, or perhaps the schools aren't very good in the cities.
And so people who work in the city live outside of the city in what are called bedroom communities.
These are often simply called suburbs, although a suburb could be another city with something more than just houses.
Bedroom communities are areas where there are mainly houses.
There isn't a lot of business that you will find in a bedroom community.
Los Angeles has lots of bedroom communities, towns that are outside of the city of Los Angeles, where you will find mostly homes.
There aren't a lot of large businesses there.
Ron says that he thought he wanted a quiet place to live in his retirement.
Retirement is the period after you leave your job, usually when you are older.
Shari says, that's why I also showed you homes in retirement communities.
Yes, there are actually areas in a city, or in fact entire cities, that have mostly retired people in them.
This concept, this idea became very popular in the 1970s, I guess, 1980s also, where in the southern, especially southwestern United States, as well as in Florida, in the southeast part of the country, there were small cities built locally. mostly for retired people, for older people who wanted a place where it would be quiet.
Ron says he thought he wanted to live in a retirement community, but once he saw them he changed his mind.
That is, he decided he was wrong and had a different idea.
He says, I'm retired, but I'm not dead.
I decided I wanted to live in a livelier neighborhood, someplace with more action.
Livelier L-I-V-E-L-I-E-R comes from the adjective lively, which means there are perhaps a lot of people there or there are things going on.
There are small businesses and restaurants and cafes.
That would be a livelier area of the city or a livelier neighborhood.
Shari says.
That's why I showed you homes in the historic district and in the redeveloped waterfront area, both of which are very pedestrian-friendly.
Historic H-I-S-T-O-R-I-C District D-I-S-T-R-I-C-T refers to an area in a city or town that is important for some reason.
Often, it's the older part of town.
A historic part of Los Angeles is the area near downtown where the first...
Spanish settlers came back many hundreds of years ago.
That's the historic part of the city.
The word district simply refers to an area within the city or within a town.
Shari also showed Ron the redeveloped waterfront area.
The waterfront, W-A-T-E-R-F-R-O-N-T, is obviously an area in the city next to some water.
It could be a river, it could be a lake, it could be the ocean.
Redeveloped means that it was an area that was perhaps old.
It had old buildings or buildings that people weren't using anymore.
And someone came and put new buildings there or they fixed up, they repaired the old buildings so that people could now live and work there.
Many cities have redeveloped their waterfront areas, especially those in the older cities in the eastern part of the US.
Shari says that these areas that she showed Ron, the historic district and the waterfront area, are both very pedestrian, p-e-d-e-s-t-r-i-a-n-friendly, f-r-i-e-n-d-l-y.
Pedestrian is is a word we use to describe someone who walks or someone who is walking along the street.
So pedestrian-friendly would be an area where it's easy to walk up and down.
There are some parts of the city that are not pedestrian-friendly, especially here in Los Angeles.
But nobody walks in Los Angeles anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
Ron says, yes, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be in the middle of the action.
In the middle of the action means where lots of things are happening.
An area, in this case, where there are a lot of people, a lot of excitement perhaps.
Shari says, that's why today I'm taking you to the urban core, C-O-R-E.
Urban, U-R-B-A-N, refers to the city.
The urban core of the city would be the main or central part of a large city, not the bedroom communities, not the suburbs, the opposite of that.
We'll look at homes in the downtown area, Shari says, the arts district and a couple of ethnic enclaves.
Downtown refers to the main central, usually business section of the city.
It's often, but not always, the older part of the city.
The downtown area in Los Angeles is, in fact, the oldest part of the city.
Shari's also going to show Ron houses in the Arts, A-R-T-S district.
In some American cities there are areas where there are a lot of artists who live, and perhaps because the rents are cheaper, since artists normally don't make a lot of money.
The Arts District is often an area that has cheaper places to stay, but it's also an exciting area because there are a lot of artists there painters and sculptors and other people who call themselves artists.
Shari's also going to show Ron houses in a few ethnic, E-T-H-N-I-C, enclaves, E-N-C-L-A-V-E-S.
An enclave is a small area within a city, with people who come from the same country or cultural background, or perhaps speak the same language.
These are often areas with immigrants, people who've come from other countries, since the United States is, for the most part, a nation of immigrants.
Ethnic is an interesting word.
Ethnic refers often to the country or region of the world from which you come or your ancestors.
The people who first came to the United States were from.
So I have Irish ethnicity.
I would say that's my ethnic group.
And there were, especially in cities such as Boston, New York, Chicago, and my hometown, St.
Paul, ethnic areas where the Irish lived.
There were other ethnic enclaves where the Germans lived.
So the word ethnic means national origin or sometimes regional origin.
Interestingly, the word ethnic has changed over the years when we talk about politics.
Back in the late 70s, early 1980s, when people talked about the ethnic vote, they were referring mainly to Southern and Eastern European voters or those who were descendants of immigrants from those countries.
Nowadays we tend to use the term to refer more, to say those who are from Latin America or from Asia.
But the term is a general one that can apply to any nationality.
Shari says we'll visit some high-priced neighborhoods and some up-and-comings.
The expression up and coming means that the area is getting more popular.
More people are moving there.
Ron says, great.
I think house hunting has given me a new lease on life.
House hunting refers to the process of looking for a house, usually to buy.
The expression a new lease, L-E-A-S-E on life means a new reason to feel happy to live, especially perhaps after you've had a difficult time in your life, or perhaps you've lost someone or simply have grown older.
A new lease on life would give you a feeling of excitement and some new reason to live.
Ranz thinks that this is fun, this house hunting.
He says, I could look at home after home after home.
In other words, he would love to continue just looking at houses, not actually buying one.
Shari says, that's what I'm afraid of.
Remember, Shari is a real estate agent.
Her job is to find a house for Ron, but she doesn't want to continue showing him houses forever.
She wants to get paid, and she only gets paid when Ron actually buys a house.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Okay.
Ready to see more homes?
I've lined up several for you to view this afternoon.
Yes, I'm ready.
It's hard finding just the right type of neighborhood to move to.
Yes, it's been difficult, hasn't it?
How long have I been showing you homes?
About three months.
That's right.
First, we looked at homes in planned and gated communities and in the bedroom communities around the city, as you requested.
That's right.
At first, I thought I wanted a quiet place to live in my retirement.
That's why I also showed you homes in retirement communities.
Yes, but once I saw them, I changed my mind.
I'm retired, but I'm not dead.
I decided I wanted a livelier neighborhood, someplace with more action.
That's why I showed you homes in the historic district and in the redeveloped waterfront area, both of which are very pedestrian-friendly.
Yes, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be in the middle of the action.
That's why, today, I'm taking you to the urban core.
We'll look at homes in the downtown area, the arts district, and a couple of ethnic enclaves.
We'll visit some high-priced neighborhoods and some up-and-comings.
Great.
I think house hunting has given me a new lease on life.
This is fun.
I could look at home after home after home.
That's what I'm afraid of.
If you want to be in the middle of the action when it comes to improving your English, you should stay right here with ESL Podcast and the wonderful scripts written by Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
