When you think about the saying “there’s no place like home’’ the first thing that comes to mind is the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz’’. Well in “There’s No Place Like Home’’ written by Joel Kotkin he talks about a new popular trend known as “localism’’. Joel Kotkin’s assertion of localism is that people are beginning to like to stay at home rather than moving from one place to another. He describes it as being rooted more in your community. He even goes on to say that the longer that people live in their homes or communities that they begin to identify more with those places, which helps local businesses and other institutions thrive. I agree with some of Joel Kotkin ideas of localism for instance I am very much rooted within the city I live in but I am very nomadic. In my twenty-one years of life I have never moved outside of the city limits. Joel Kotkin stated in his essay that people are wanting to stay at home more to stay close to their relatives, friends, local clubs, religious places of worship and just familiar surroundings. One of the main factors that keeps me rooted in Kansas City is my mother. My mother is at an age to where she is comfortable with the city she’s in so instead of her leaving the place she knows and calls home she would rather stay here in Kansas City and just move every so often. As an only boy I feel like it is my duty to always be near my mother and as close to her as possible she is the driving force for the reason I am so rooted or as I like to say stuck in Kansas City. As a nomadic man of my era, I have always resided in many different communities within the Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas metropolitan area. In the last five years I have lived in over twenty plus homes within the area. I have explored the depths of the urban core for majority of my life. Over my many moves, I have seen the violence between ones within the community and ones that are sworn to protect. Witness to the many peaceful rallies on the Plaza and Westport. Mothers strung out on drugs with children to feed and single mothers working two jobs to support their children. I‘ve witnessed and watched how the gay community has grown and is still growing throughout the city. With my many move I had to leave behind friendships and my relationships with people who worked in my community. As a result of me moving so much it has affected the way I deal with people and local businesses in my area. Recently I have become what some people might say a loner. I don’t try to build new relationships with things in my area because I don’t know how long I will be there. In his essay Kotkin stated “American’s are becoming less nomadic… In large part because opportunities to sell houses and find new employment have dried up’’. With great age comes maturity, the more I grow the more thoughts of me being stable and rooted within my community is becoming my reality. As I get older I realize how important it is to be stable in every aspect in my life. I have a five year goal on being stable and rooted somewhere. Due to my upbringing and me moving so much I haven’t been able to get a solid career for than six months. With that being said I have decided to dedicate all of my time and focus to my college education instead of working dead end jobs. I realized that completing my degree will lead me to a solid career and better rooted somewhere else. Being in college is my very step of me being more rooted and stable with something in my life. During my terms in college I have formed lifelong friendship with some of my colleagues. Over my years it has been very difficult for me to form bonds with people because of lack of trust but not from them but from me. When you move as much as I have in my lifetime forming bonds and trusting people becomes very difficult to do. With learning how to be more rooted I have finally mange to overcome those obstacles and learn how to trust and interact with people more. Beside the friendships that I have built over the past years I have now began to open up and to start new personal relationship with some. This relationship is keeping me very grounded and rooted it’s giving me a reason to be stable and something to have to call home. If everything goes as planned I hope to be in a new city planting a new seed in a new foundation. In his essay Kotkin states “We are seeing a return to placeness, along with more choices for individuals, families and communities’’. In the next five year I would love to see myself in a place to where I am done with college and I am settled in a home and starting a family. I would also like to see myself being more active within the community I choose to live in. It would be a really good thing to help the surrounding businesses in my area thrive just like the article said most are now. Life is already confusing enough without the confusion of finding out what it’s like to be stable. The older I am getting the more grounded and rooted I want to become. I am now looking at life differently than I have before based off of reading this essay I have seen how unstable my life is. In hindsight now I can see what steps are necessary to provide the steps to be more rooted and stable in a place I can call home. I have learned how to open up with people and be more interactive within my community. I have always thought that being rooted was that wherever my mother was that that was home. As I have gotten older I realized that you need to become more rooted in every aspect of your life to reach your goals and be successful. With my goals in place I hope that in the next five years that I can be rooted in a good clean community. So just like Dorothy said when she was done with her crazy adventure in Oz , I too hope that one day soon I can say “There’s no place like home”.