After dallying in other neighborhoods around Philadelphia, I moved to the Riverwards last month. I’ll be honest — for a while, the only thing I knew it was that it has the highest rates of smoking-related deaths and childhood asthma hospitalizations in the city. But now that I’ve been here for a few weeks, I’ve learned so much more:

Apparently, this is where old guys go to chase each other around with Tasers.

At around 3:00 in the afternoon on the first day I lived here, I watched a group of deeply intoxicated middle-aged men smoke cigarettes and curse at each other outside a bar.

Then I heard a crackle and saw a particularly bleary-eyed man lumber toward one of his drinking buddies, arm outstretched, holding a Taser. They made it out into the street before the guy wielding the Taser got winded and they both went back to their beers. Welcome to your new home, Teagan! At least they were too drunk to get far.

Kids rule the streets.

I’ve lived in a bunch of neighborhoods since moving here five years ago, and each one had it’s own unique mix of people hanging out in the middle of roads.

In University City, it was 18-year-old Penn students, tottering around like newborn giraffes on their six inch heels, hailing a cab. Further out in Spruce Hill, it was young couples hauling bags stuffed with farmer’s market produce, aggressively refusing to stay out of the way of cars and cyclists, while Walnut Hill mostly had men stopping their cars in the middle of street to talk to their friends drinking lager on the stoop. East Passyunk — well, no one really hung out in the streets there, choosing to instead stay on the sidewalks, looking trendy.

But here in the part of the Riverwards where I live now (forgive me for being intentionally vague but come on, I’m not going to tell the Internet where I live), it’s packs of kids on bikes. And they do not care about you, the rules of the road, or wearing helmets. They care only about talking smack and popping wheelies.

People seem just a tad nicer here than elsewhere in Philadelphia.

I grew up in a state run almost entirely on tourist dollars, in a city touted as “a great place to raise kids,” and I try to be diligent about being not awful. Until I moved to Philly, I thought the world was generally cheerful with an occasional grump thrown in for variety.

And then I experienced our city’s famous rudeness. Philly’s nasty attitude really wears on me. However, here in the Riverwards, I’ve been met with less outright disgust at my presence and maybe 10 percent more half smiles than in my previous neighborhoods. It’s not Southern charm, but I’ll take what I can get.

I need to learn more about the history of Philadelphia.

I didn’t realize how industrial this part of the city used to be. Passing by the abandoned factories (which we all know will become unaffordable lofts in the next fifteen years) reminds me that even though I call Philadelphia home, I know embarassingly little about its past. If I’m going to be a contributing resident of the Riverwards, I’ll need to learn about how it used to be so I can be informed in my opinions about its future.

I look forward to sharing my adventures exploring the Riverwards and learning its personality. I hope you’ll join me. I promise to tell you if that guy starts playing with a Taser again.

Teagan Kuruna is a writer, podcaster, and public health obsessive who lives in the Riverwards with her husband and overly affectionate cat. Read more of her work at teagank.com and talk with her on Twitter @TeaganMPH.