 Good Timing For Gratitude Seeking more community, |
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It's a little early to be writing Thanksgiving Day messages, but I’ve often been accused of premature disclosure. Sure beats being last. The timing's not too bad, though. This is our third edition in the new format, enough time for readers and advertisers to get a good feel for what we’re all about. The response has been very gratifying, to say the least. Of course, I can’t just say the least. "Everywhere I go, people are talking about your magazine; they really have high expectations," says Union Bank's Cathy Bridge. That's about the most anybody could say, the nicest thing a new publisher could hear. At the risk of appearing immodest, we’ll let the new "Darts and Letters" column run a little longer this month than what we intend to publish normally. The letters begin on Page 6 and most of them are congratulatory. Thank you. There are a few reasons for a good letters page, among them being the community and communication further stimulated when readers know who else is reading and what’s on their minds. It’s not easy communicating substance to 90,000 or more San Diegans at about the same time. But we think it’s important to do so if only because a lack of communication will deteriorate a community. (Communication and community are almost synonymous and derive from the same Latin concept. One begets the other. They're what magazines and newspapers are all about) Neil Morgan, associate editor of the Union-Tribune, San Diego’s best-known living writer, is one of our letter-writers. He gets singled out here because he, more than any San Diegan, has advanced the notion that San Diego is less a city than a collection of suburbs. I never liked that idea, and I’m not suggesting that Morgan likes it as much as observes it, having done so repeatedly over the years. It’s just ironic that he, the biggest communicator of them all, and therefore one of San Diego’s greater stimulators of community, seems to accept San Diego’s lack of community so blithely, rather than bemoan or resist it. Maybe it’s because he works out of Mission Valley, where, as in the Golden Triangle, it’s harder to walk outside and bump into people face to face. Outside of Downtown and Hillcrest, we tend to get right into our cars. Communicating on the sidewalk — bumping into friends while walking down the street — is more a part of the Downtown, urban experience, one that Morgan misses since the U-T moved to the valley in 1972. I’m inclined to hail Downtown and revel in the Centre City for its sense of community, using the San Diego Metropolitan to help build a sense of community among the denizens of Downtown, Mission Valley, Kearny Mesa and the Golden Triangle, the region's greatest business centers where hard-working San Diegans spend most of their energy and where this magazine circulates primarily. We know some of the things we have in common — we work in offices, mostly, whether we’re on the border with Barrio Logan or on the slopes of Sorrento. Mostly, we’re subject to (and subjects of) the same mass media, civic leaders, corporate chieftains, coastal clouds and fish tacos whether we work off Mission Gorge Road or Nobel Drive. For the most part, we have the same cost-of-living worries, face the same urban design challenges and share the same gratitude for San Diego’s superior amenities. San Diegans have a lot in common, many distinctive things creating a single sense of community. Now we have two more things in common, the revived San Diego Metropolitan Magazine and our Darts and Letters page. Thank you for your warm reception. May your holiday season be a healthy, cozy one. |
