I am involved in a Humanities class at Palo Alto College in San Antonio Texas. This class requires a series of essays covering different aspects of the city in which we live. We cover everything from the early history of San Antonio to the modern San Antonio in which we now live. This particular essay is going to be the most personal essay that I have been asked to do so far. We are asked to go more in depth and discuss the particular part of San Antonio in which we live. San Antonio is a large metropolitan area and the culture from area to area can be vastly different. I personally don’t even live in San Antonio however I live just a few miles out of San Antonio so I still consider myself a San Antonian. I will now go more in depth on my neighborhood in order for you to get a better feel of the person that I am and where I come from.

I live in Pleasanton Texas. Pleasanton is a town that has about 10000 residents. There are also two smaller towns that are about five miles from Pleasanton. These smaller towns are Poteet which has about 3600 residents and Jourdanton which has about 3200 residents. All three of these towns since they are so close are referred to as the tri city-area. To get to Pleasanton from San Antonio is not that hard. Palo Alto College is on the South Side of San Antonio. From Palo Alto College you will get on Highway 16 south and go about twenty miles. You will come to the town of Poteet which I mentioned earlier. You are very close to Pleasanton once you get to Poteet. Once the speed reduces to 45 miles on Highway 16 in Poteet you will see a Dairy Queen on the left side of the road. Take a left hand turn right before the Dairy Queen. You are now on Farm Road 476 this road will take you to Pleasanton.

Pleasanton is a working class town and is not as diverse as a big city like San Antonio. I think most of the people that live in Pleasanton commute to San Antonio to work. We do have a hospital here so there are a few skilled professionals that stay here in town to work. I would say that the racial makeup of Pleasanton is about 60% white 35% Hispanic and about 5% other consisting of African American, Asian and other. For the most part the houses in Pleasanton are medium sized houses for working class families. For the most part these homes are well maintained. There are about three neighborhoods in Pleasanton which I would consider Upper class neighborhoods. The homes in these neighborhoods are large, new and very well landscaped. My parents are business owners and are fairly well off and me and my family live here with my parents.

My neighborhood is one of the three upper class neighborhoods here in Pleasanton. My house is a large five bedroom three bath brick home. The yard is landscaped nicely with shrubs and new trees to go with a bunch of potted flowers. For the most part my neighbors are white. The neighborhood I live in has about 65 homes and all but maybe 5 are white families. Most of the people who live here are middle aged professionals with either teenagers or college aged kids. There are a few younger couples here with young children.

There are not that many things to do for fun here in Pleasanton. We are a small town so you can expect it to be pretty boring. However the fact that it is a small boring town is part of the charm of living here. We have a very low crime rate here in fact we have only had three murders here in the last twenty five years. Everybody knows each other here so you get a real sence of community which is also nice. If you want to have fun you simply make the twenty five mile drive to San Antonio and now you have access to all commodities of a large city. We get the best of both worlds small town living with a large city close by to satisfy all you leisure needs. Yes I have to commute to San Antonio to school but for me a twenty five mile drive is not that bad. I hope you now have a better idea of the place I lay my head when I’m not a school. It is a nice quiet town that I really like to live in and I would not have it any other way.