Dinner Pictures on Line

see the Dinner Pictures link below. It's on Snapfish, and they ask you to register - sorry! - but it's free.

The Lawn/Micheal Pollan

I was looking through my notes for another class and saw a quotation given out in the context of the pastoral/urban pastoral:

"Lawns are purged of sex and death. No wonder Americans like them so much."

From Michael Pollan's book Why Mow?. (excerpt at http://www.history.vt.edu/Barrow/Hist3144/readings/pollan.html)

I know we are almost at the end of our discussions, but I think it would have been interesting to discuss the lawn/garden and how it can be both liberating and confining. It also would have been interesting to add the lawn into our discussions of the artifice of the suburb--another space where aesthetic overrides utility (a rigidly maintained lawn as a space where the suburbanite can enjoy nature is acceptable while allowing the lawn to grow naturally and "out of control" is shunned and even made illegal).

There is also some interesting stuff about American's "democratized" the lawn (in comparison to the enormous lawns of English estates) by breaking them up into surburan sized, supposedly affordable plots.

Anyway, this book/selection from it may be a good source for anyone writing a paper/memoir focused on suburbs--and even if you aren't its a pretty interesting read.

Suburbanites Censored

This is hilarious...and so true. Enjoy.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcC66gEtBLo

Conditional Happiness

I realized today that although last class-time I told everybody what I was going to talk about, I never actually posted my topic online. So here it is, for archival purposes. =)

For me, the idea of suburbia is on the whole a positive one. However, I also believe it is a completely unrealistic and impossible way for people to behave. Just like the ideals of communism, utopia, and the hippy movement, I think the suburbia concept is doomed to failure due to the inescapable reality of human nature. Chiefly, I find that on the whole people validate their existence by how much they must struggle to achieve something. Once they achieve it however, discomfort sets in and they become unhappy. Imagine you've toiled and saved your paychecks for the past five years in order to put a down payment on a nice house in a nice neighborhood. When the day finally comes that that house is yours, you feel elated. Unfortunately, inevitably you look at you neighbor's house and realize his patio is bigger, or his front yard is better landscaped, or his lawn is lusher. (The phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side" exists for a reason...) Eventually, after their "big struggle" to achieve the suburban middle-class dream is over, most people begin to quantify their happiness not by what they do or what they have, but by comparing themselves to what their neighbors do and what their neighbors have.
I had a friend in middle school who lived in a very nice brand new neighborhood, the epitome of suburbia, where all the houses where painted in the same color family and everybody's driveway had a minivan in it. When we were younger (and I suppose more innocent to the ways of the world), we both defined out happiness by what we had. She had a favorite doll, and playing with it made her happy. However, and we started to grow up, I noticed that she would increasingly define her happiness by how happy her friends were- if one of them got a new doll or a new dress, she seemed to suddenly feel inferior. It was almost as if she liked it when a friend was down about something because then in comparison she was doing much better than them, and that brought her happiness up. But when something went right for someone else, but not so much for her, that brought her down because now when she compared herself to that person, she was doing worse. This competitiveness in her eventually made our friendship a little cold, but I do think it's a good example of the contradicting nature of suburbia. Suburbia stands for harmony and equality and peace, but people need to struggle to feel alive and in such a setting, this translates to hyper-competitiveness and jealousy. We've all heard the stories of suburban mothers and the way they compete for power in their school's PTA.
Unfortunately, I have not escaped being touched by all this. I do sometimes catch myself becoming slightly depressed when on of my friends' life is suddenly coming together and I'm kind of just coasting along in mine. I am trying to be a better person though, and be happy for other people instead of constantly comparing my achievements to their own.

Carpooling and Videocameras

It seems that a lot of us have cars, but in the interest of minimizing pollution, gas consumption, automobile traffic, and lack of parking, as well as in the interest of promoting a more social method of transportation, I propose that we strive to use as few automobiles as possible tonight. Let's try to have at least 3 people per 4-5 seat car. I have 1 car with 4 extra seats, and I live 5 minutes by foot from Embarcadero Hall.

Also, I'm borrowing a videocamera from one of my housemates, but the more cameras, the merrier...

The image of success

For our video, I want to talk about how the suburbs can be so highly image oriented. As we've talked about in section, it is often the appearance of wealth and success that matters. I had a friend in high school who drove a nice SUV as soon as she turned 16 and who's mom made sure to be driving a practically brand new Mercedes (thank goodness for short term car leases). However, this same girl lived in a small 3 bedroom townhouse with her 5 younger siblings that barely had enough room for all of them. Her mom often slept at her office because she had to work so much just to keep the family going. It was confusing to see such a misallocation of resources, yet it all focuses around presenting an image of success. While this may be an extreme example, I have also been guilty of wanting more than I have, simply to be viewed as something different (maybe something "more") than I am. This type of image obsession is manifested throughout suburban lifestyle, as I can even remember looking at model homes, as the developers put fake smiling family photos throughout the house, and make sure to have cookies baking in the oven so that it smells like a home. From the time a family moves into the suburbs they are highly aware that sometimes life can be all about presentation and nothing about substance. As we all know, the difference between what you see and what you get can be substantial.

The Suburban Burden

As a society we demand too much out of our suburbs. We expect them to be affordable, to be clean, to be safe, and to be homogenous. We turn their streets into playgrounds, their parks into birthday party venues, and their trees into makeshift houses. Adults see in them the California dream. Children see in them what their parents allow them to see, usually happiness, sunshine, and laughter along with the occasional butterfly or rainbow. The point is reality tends to be a completely subjective construction based on one's perspective. Choosing to hear, see, and speak no evil by no means prevents it from happening. We have been conditioned to believe that acknowledging the shortcomings of the suburbs is somehow a reflection on the people who live there. The true "reality" is that the suburbs often turn out to be more than some bargained for.

The secret of the suburbs that I came up with revolves around the idea of personal responsibility and accountability. Too often mischievous activities go unchecked or unpunished in the suburbs. Last year Tesoro High School in Orange County had a pair of students write in their assigned journals how they planned to torture, mutilate, and kill their teacher. Various articles go into great detail and get extremely graphic in describing the students' plot. Both students were suspended for a short period of time and as one article cited, "This being California however the two have continued to play on the school football team." In another copycat death threat, two students at my alma mater left threatening and graphic notes depicting the death of their teacher lying on their desk's after class. Sure enough my former honors chemistry teacher found them and reported the students, fearing her life. Once again the students went before a school board hearing and were allowed to return to school without any consequences. Even the principal of my high school had recommended the two students be expelled. My local paper noted, "We are astounded that a teacher could have death threats and the students be allowed to come back on campus with the perception that they got away with it," Sepulveda said. "They are back at our campus getting high-fives."

In the wake of numerous school shootings, I am amazed that more severe disciplinary action was not taken against these students. I guess what these stories really expose about suburbanites is their relentless avoidance of scandal at all costs. Acknowledging that a larger problem exists would be incriminating for many people. These children are products of their environments and their upbringings, nothing more nothing less. The real secret is that the suburbs don't always do their part to produce fine and upstanding citizens as most of us expect them to.

Here are the two links if anyone is interested:

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_334220021.html

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1152152.php

The knife

I have lived in the same neighborhood for my entire life. Have known all of the same people. And everything has always seemed so normal and safe. I would run up to my best friend's house every night to go play with her and my parents would not have the slightest worry in their heads. One night, my friend and I were sitting in my window-seat which looked out to the front of the house. I saw something move in the bushes across the street. The same bushes that I have just ran past a couple of hours earlier. "What is that?" We stared in the direction and the bush moved more. Then we saw a head of a man peek over towards us. He had caught us. Or had be caught him? Was this Jim who lived next door? Chuck up the street? No, this man was scared that we have seen him. He tried to hide, but we knew he was there. The next morning I woke up only to go outside and try to piece together what had happened the night before. I walk outside and am looking towards the bush on the other side of the road, when I notice something a little closer. I looked down on the grass right in front of my house and there was an huge, old rusty knife laying on my grass. Was this man trying to threaten me? To this day we have no idea who this man was or what he had meant by this knife.

What I Know

First let me preface by stating that as a science major, I have been intimidated by writing a blog that honors English majors could construe critique and criticize. However, I have decided to simply write about what I know, unembellished and unapologetically. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a very limited view, particularly concerning the suburbs. I was born not too far from my current home and I have never moved. I went to private school and grew up in a conservative, republican, Christian home with one older sister and two parents that met in high school and are still married. Despite the homogeny between my self and my family as well as between my family and others, we were different. I was different. I am a first generation Californian and even further removed, I am a first generation American. Being born and raised in California, I never viewed myself as “the other.” It wasn’t until I encountered racism at a very young age did I realize that I was different. The existence of racism in the suburbs is a secret that many would like to deny; however, it is alive and well. Racism is an area with which I am all too familiar. Hopefully with our generation being more educated than ever before, racism will slowly die out, and it will no longer be a secret of the suburbs.

Who's got a car?

Are their any folks out there who'd be willing to give us freeloaders a ride to Chris's house? Let's organize!

Horror in the Suburbs

This fall a 13 year old girl was raped by a man in his 20s. Apparently he had been hanging around the middle school for about a month. A week before the rape, the girl had stayed after school to watch her friends play basketball, and on her way to the bathroom the man approached her. She kicked him and ran away, but did not report the incident to her parents, friends, or school officials because she didn't want people to worry.
Both of the girl's parents work, so she usually walks home from school and spends the afternoon alone. The afternoon of the rape she did not lock the door behind her because she was in a hurry to go the bathroom, so it was easy for the attacker to follow her inside.
Two other girls knew about this and decided to keep it a secret. When the victim wrote her friend a note about how she was planning to kill herself, the girls told their parents, who then contacted the victim's parents. Over winter break the family moved to another apartment complex and all three girls had to give police reports and visit therapists.


This is so horrifying because people move to the suburbs specifically so that they will be able to protect their families from these kinds of incidents. Yet in order to afford to live in this community, parents must work full time, leaving their children home alone for several hours every afternoon. No one is really safe and even in the nicest communities, there are dangerous people. They can easily follow you home without you knowing it, it is easy to forget to lock the door, and you might assume that schools are a safe place with enough people around to notice something out of the ordinary.
Furthermore, this girl did not report this rape in part because she did not want to cause more problems for her parents. In the past few years they have had financial problems, job changes, and they have moved several times, so she thought that her rape to just add to the list of things they had to worry about. The fact that three 13-year-old girls tried to deal with this without the help of any adults also shows that the suburban attempt to protect innocence failed.

Film idea?

Hey guys! What do you think about this for an idea: I want to analyze the "politics" that exists in the suburbs. For instance, the measures that are taken in order to keep the homes in a uniform fashion, as not to disturb the flow and cause a stir up. Also, the actual politics that exists in the burbs, well at least these in places like the OC, that effects everything from the development of the city to funding of certain programs.

Is the suburb the place we think it is?

I believe that the stereotypical suburbia is represented through the idea of similar homes, families, and relaxation. These descriptions almost imply that suburbia is seen as a place of happiness, where all is equal, families are together and relaxes at all times. However, the reality of suburbia is actually far from these stereotypes. Through living in a suburb for all of my life, I have come to learn that not all is what it seems or is described on wikipedia. I have come to learn that suburbia is realistically described through the following phrases: 'spread-out entertainment', 'lacking nature', and through the idea of business parks. These realistic descriptions seem to pertain more negatively than that of the stereotypical image. The idea that there is spread out entertainment does not make entertainment extremely accessible as that of the relaxation of a stereotypical suburbia seems to exemplify. The idea that the suburbia is lacking of nature is interesting in that this place that is stereotypically seen as a nurturing place for a family. However, it is interesting that these communities are completely man made, and lacks nature. I believe that nature is important for individuals in order for them to appreciate, rather than simply seeing identical houses in rows over and over again. Where there is barely any means of reflection through the sights of the patterns of the suburb, nature provides a means for an individual to come to his/her roots and obtain a unique serenity.

Two ideas, one gossipy, one telling

have two stories, sorry for the lateness.

The first speaks to the interconnectedness of the suburbs in Davis. I guess the moral could be "Everyone knows each other, everyone's sleeping with each other and everyone's in therapy"

My best friend since second grade was having a really hard time in highschool and would later on in college, dealing with various problems that she wouldn't get to the bottom of until later. In highschool though, her mom sent her to a shrink that she would talk to once a week. I ended up learning who this shrink (her name I think was Eileen) was because she was connected to my mom. My mom is in AA, and her AA sponsor knew Eileen, because the sponsor's husband had divorced her to be with Eileen. I found this out because my mom and I were cruising through garage sales and we saw the Ex husband and Eileen running one of their own. We stopped and looked through some stuff, (my mom was maintaining safe, non-ex wife related conversation) and I found a black pea coat and a green scarf. About a year later, I was hanging out with my best friend while she still lived in Santa Barbara and she was boredly looking through my closet. She found the pea coat and asked if she could borrow it.
So for about another year, my best friend was walking around, wearing her own former therapist's pea coat, and the pea coat of the woman who broke up my mother's AA sponsor's marriage, without knowing. I didn't tell her until a few months ago because I didn't want her to know that I knew who her therapist was. Turns out she really didn't care, she thought the whole thing was a riot.
Also, epilogue. My mom's NA sponsor might be this therapist's therapist.

This one is more about the hierarchy of the suburban community.
Our neighbor BK had divorced from her husband and was left to take care of three rowdy boys. The oldest was August, who despite being occasionally rough around the edges, (think a young Eminem), was a good kid who loved the outdoors and skateboarding. This was a little after the Columbine shootings occured and August was in highschool. It was after school and August was stopped by a school officer who saw that he had a knife hanging from his belt. Technically they weren't on school property at the time, but August cooperated with the officer and gave him the knife. It was a fishing knife, and his dad had given it to him. The officer later said that August was cooperative and respectful, but it was at the height of the whole zero tolerance fiasco, where kids who brought GI Joe guns to school were being suspended, so August had a lot coming to him, (even though it wasn't during school hours or on school property). They had a hearing where they called in his mom and reiterated every incident August was involved in, in addition to the current offense. His mom didn't have much money or power in the community. He was expelled from the district and had to go live with his dad out of state so he could go to school.

Then in my senior year of highschool, this kid Adam Liston got busted when authorities found a loaded rifle in the back of his truck while it was parked in the student parking lot, during second period. Unlike August, Adam's mom was the head of the PTA. When the school tried to expel him, she got the whole PTA against them. Adam was good at sports and popular amongst a lot of the football players, so they started their own campaign to keep Adam in school. Some of my friends started a campaign to keep him out and make the rules apply to everyone, but in the end, Adam was let back into school. He went to a good college but I don't remember which. The moral of the story:
If your parents are wealthy/still married/prominent in the community, it's okay to bring a loaded weapon to school. Have a blast!

Sex, Drugs, Rock n Roll: The Underbelly of Suburbia

Although I've moved around a lot, I consider my time in Ohio as most typically suburban. I lived on a cul-de-sac in a community with its own homeowner's association and its own park. I had a "gang" of kids on my street that I played house with, romped in the woods with, and played kickball with in the front yard. In high school in New York there were gangs of a different kind. Equally suburban but influenced more by its proximity to New York City, my Long Island community was less idyllic. We were not allowed to wear bandanas or gang colors to school for fear of fights. That didn't stop the three stabbings to occur, two of which I witnessed first hand. One involved two of my close friends, and the blood is still on the street in front of our neighborhood bookstore. Drugs are another facet of the suburbs that isn't much mentioned. Every boy I dated smoked pot, and many did harder drugs. One of my friends, a drug dealer, was the richest kid in school and clearly didn't need the money. Those cookie cutter houses were filled with just as much sex, drugs, and rock and roll as any urban apartment. You just don't hear about it in the media because suburbia is supposed to be a safe haven from all of these things.

Two Suburbias, One in the Same

I have always lived in suburbs. My family thought that they would be a nice place to raise a family, and they were right. I have fond memories of my childhood: barbecues, Boy Scouts, pool parties, Little League Baseball. Most importantly, my family living in a place where there were other kids my age. Having these immediate comrades enabled the neighborhood to grow up together. Most of the houses were the first to be owned by their inhabitants. Within a few years, a nice little community had been developed. Soccer moms and dads would all pile into their minivans and go to the fields on Saturday mornings and top it all off with an evening of drinking with the neighbors. Things were good...on the surface. After a while the darker side of humanity crept into our sphere of utopia. Divorce, adultery, alcoholism, rage...I knew not of these things until the family across the street began to crumble. Pretty soon, those kids had two families; neither one of them complete. I began to realize that things aren't always nice and clean. I became aware that man is evil and insatiable. The real side of people came out when comfort levels were reached. Lust and envy manifested as a result of the inequality of the separate islands of my little housing tract.

I guess what I kept with me from the suburbs is an appreciation for the finer things and order. I have now developed an awareness of the valuable and retarding effects of living in cookie cutter houses. I didn't find myself in the suburbs but I know that they are a big part of who I am as an individual.

two different suburbias

High school was the time period when I got to experience the suburbs. Those four years where when I lived in Mountain View, a suburb type city in the Bay Area. It wasn't quite like the newer cookie cutter setup so typical for suburbs, but there were neighborhoods that had basically 4 versions of the same house on every street, or little condo communities like the one I lived in, where everything was strictly maintained to look exactly the same.
What always struck my as really creepy about my friend's homes was the coldness that hit me every time I went over. Maybe it was the fact that they all had central cooling systems that they actually used (whereas my parents were too cheap to plug our air conditioning in even when we were boiling hot). Or maybe it was the way their spacious, well appointed homes looked as if no-one lived there. Suburban architecture and the showroom furniture found in these homes always made me feel as if no-one actually lived there, and if they did, they touched their surroundings very gently so as not to make a smudge. This family disfunctional architecture, as I call it, always made me glad to go back to my own home, with it's cozy low-ceilinged living room and my little sister's toys scattered everywhere in controlled but exuberant chaos.

I wouldn't say my friends were all miserable, far from it- we all knew how lucky we were to be living in such a high cost area, to be going to such a good high school, and to have the leisure time and pocket money to enjoy ourselves. Though we weren't all in the financial bracket, we managed to get along without ever bringing money into our relationship. There was one thing I noticed however, tied to the richer and poorer of the high-school. The richer students felt the pressure to excel and succeed, to go to an Ivy league to get the six figure salary to afford the life-style their parents were giving them now but would cost five times as much in fifteen years. The poorer students felt the pressure of economic disadvantage, feeling like they would never be able to afford college so they'd probably potter around the community college for a while then settle down and never leave the town they went to high school in. For these two groups, success seemed to be defined in terms of suburbia- the affluent kids wanted to make enough money to be able to afford the suburban dream, while the poorer students feared being stuck in their suburban hell like something from the twilight zone. For one group, suburbia would be their success and reward, while for the other it would be their failure and punishment. The interesting thing is that both these groups delt with their anxieties in much the same way- quantities of alcohol and marijuana, liberally applied.

The Suburbs I Know

My experience of growing up in the suburbs very much coincides with Thursday's lecture in that I can see a stark contrast between the suburbs of my early childhood and the suburbs of my adolescence, which I suspect to be not only a result of my own growing teen angst, but of the rapid increase of immigration to the Silicon Valley from countries like China, India, and Pakistan, and the racial anxiety this triggered in the mostly white, long time residents of my hometown.

The suburb that I left three and a half years ago to go to university is marked in my memory as disempowered, cynical, and class segregated. While the economic and political climate of the entire country over the past 6 years has certainly been influential, I argue that the change happened in the mid-nineties. Growing up, I was surrounded by my mother and her community activist friends, going on hikes through the open space that they had just successfully preserved, working to creating a culturally integrated community through my mother's parent-participation community pre-school, working to ensure that the arts and music programs stayed strong in our schools despite budget cuts...but then, BAM, I went to middle school, in a different town, thirty miles away. By the time I returned to the public school system for high school, I heard talk of a different kind. I started noticing the warning signs of white flight: "They don't speak English...They are abusing the system...They don't want to assimilate...They're starting to outnumber us." Fear. We were class segregated because our schools were rated so highly. People moved here so their children could go to our public high school. Property values skyrocketed. Before long, you had to be rich to move in. But the disempowerment and the cynicism, I believe, resulted from fear. Our small little community kept getting bigger and bigger, and rather than embrace the newcomers as we (as progressive, left-wing Californians) once had, we separated ourselves from them...They were just here for the schools. They only talk to other Asians. We didn't know them. So they became the other. Different. Not us. The enemy. There grew the sentiment that things would only get worse (cynicism) and there was nothing we could do about it (disempowerment). Efforts to integrate were all but abandoned. The community was left more or less fractured, as it continues today. But I feel something good rising up from the earth. The grassroots are growing again. This time, I hope, stronger, because we have learned from our mistakes. People are becoming more and more empowered, the young activists are now old crones, quietly leading a revolution the best they know how. Through community.

MO Money, MO Money, MO Debt

Oh, the suburbs. God, help us all when the Pilates addicted mother gets out of her CL 300 Mercedes, picks up her dog carrier and goes inside Starbucks. As if the dog’s life is so hard that it can’t walk on the 4 legs it was born with. What is it about a suburb that aggravates me so much? Is it that I never lived in it? Is it because I moved 9 times in my lifetime thus far and don’t understand what a suburb has to offer. Well, I can say this much, I know people that live in suburbs and after listening to some people in class I have come to the conclusion that there are better environments to grow up in. Personally, the words usually not associated with the suburbs is dependency, 400 cc’s of ‘why the hell did u get them bigger’ at age 45, and the preposterous $2000 Louis Vuitton Dog carrier bag the lame excuse of a dog is going to shit in anyway. Again, my outlook on the suburbs is negative because I have a hard time disassociating places like the OC with other suburbs and products of that environment. Shows like “My Super Sweet 16” and the “The Real Desperate Housewives” makes me sick to my stomach. These environments create youth that depend on mom and dad’s credit cards, rarely creating relationships with people that don’t live similar lives. Meanwhile, the competition in that exists in the suburbs creates a long line of debt. The consumerism and over consumption that we are obsessed with distracts us from the poverty and tyranny that plagues the rest of the world, including our own country!

I don't hate the suburbs after all

The more we discuss the superficiality, conformity, and comsumerism that seem to define the suburbs, the more I think that our society has underestimated the integrity of the suburbanite. Its true we live in a "bubble," sheltered from the dangers and complixities of the outside world. It is true that there is little cultural variation, and it is true that one who seeks acceptance feels pressure to conform (mostly just in high school). However, I believe suburbanites are happy and not just because they are clueless. They are more socially and politically aware than they are given credit for and their lives are not empty or meaningless. In my experience the suburban dream of settling down, raising a family, and providing a bright future for the next generation is not lost in the homogeneity. As for my "not-so standard words":
1) Adopted Asian Kids- The majority of my suburb is white. But of my younger sister's 6 best friends, 4 are Asian, and of 2 of them were adopted. They were adopted by people who desperately wanted to build families and who embrace the fact that theirs is ethnically mixed. As a result the kids, in my sister's age group significantly more than my own, treat cross-cultural friendships as natural and normal.
2) Mom Makes More Money Than Dad- I try to fight the gossiping, latte-sipping, stay at home mom image, which is difficult because in her retirement my mom is becoming one of them. But many moms have high-paying jobs, intellectually stimulating jobs that even allow them to travel the world. Others are ex-hippie school teachers who truly believe that "children are the future." In my suburb women are encouraged to be independent and involved in both the local and world community, rather than aspiring to go to college for an "MRS."
3) The Arts- At my high school the cheerleaders were lame and the choir kids were cool. The high school musical was a bigger event than homecoming. Perhaps this is a movement towards "higher culture" but more than that I think it encourages self-expression through art as opposed to the competitive nature of sports.
-Ultimately I think that happiness and fulfillment can be found in the suburbs as long as suburbanites don't lose sight of what they really want out of life.

This isn't The Truman Show, or is it?

Eyes shut. Alarm. Eyes open. Snooze. Get up. Coffee, cigarette, morning paper, freeway, go to work, come home, dinner, movie night, Eyes shut. In the world of suburbia it is finding meaning in the mundane that distinguishes one day from the next. The lather-rinse-repeat cycle that brings comfort, also allows for growth on the daily level. When the seemingly repetitive nature of life is broken down and the stereotypes are re-evaluated, you are left with what is still real in the suburbs: People, humanity, and other Carbon based life forms.
Once you get past whatever side of the binary fence you are sitting on: “an oppressive, repressive, passive boring upper-class prison” versus “the best case scenario of the American dream: progress, development, and the picket fence,” then you are able to extract meaning from suburban life. Suburbia is more than a spot on the map, or a geographical location, the word itself carries connotations that are often applied (or projected) onto it’s inhabitants. It has become a spot of contention for those questioning the ethicacy of the lifestyle: a robotic rat race of a unified “vanilla” dream, the place where heterogeneity is replaced by homogeneity, where difference is leveled out by the bulldozer of peer policing, and meticulous attention to formula has allowed for the “one shopping center” theory of architectural ambition. The other side is that it is idyllic, a veritable paradise for the masses, where equality (albeit by virtue of rather strict cultural policing) allows for a peaceful existence without the feeling of inadequacy. A little side note: what has become problematic recently for the last theory is the “marketability” of the suburbs. Places like Orange County are distinguishing themselves as “la crème de la crème” of the suburbs, and slowly adding layers the suburban class system. For lack of a better word, they are considered “the suburban elite” and shows like Laguna Beach focus on making them appeal to national/international audiences the same way a city would…but I digress.
Let’s be honest, from the outside all of our days aren’t going to look that different. We’re probably all doing variations of a pretty short list of activities. That isn’t the point. The point is that what is routine becomes a clean slate from which people can find meaning, actively. By questioning, and wondering if you really do look ridiculous from outer space (read: alien perspective) when you are on the treadmill, freeway, or in the symmetrical tract home that is your neighborhood. The goal is to keep breaking down the stereotypes until what has meaning is placed back into the individual’s subjective hands, and to make “different” a word that doesn’t always imply judgment or power relationships.

Appearance vs. Reality

In these small towns and grassy utopias, the population isn’t necessarily as cookie cutter as the houses. While the residents are predominately upper middle class, they differ in race, age, and family make up. There is no such thing as the nuclear family anymore; rather, you’ll find broken homes, single parent families, and a divorce rate that seems to vastly surpass the marriage rate. Many suburbanites find their weekends occupied with Grande Nonfat Sugarfree Lattes, AYSO soccer games, and a general overexhaustion of the magnetic strip on their credit card as they jump from one shopping center to another. There are children playing in the streets and mothers gossiping with one another, but also an older generation of residents who choose to remain in the homes they’ve raised their families in. While the green landscapes and manicured lawns seem reminiscent of the liveliness of the suburbs, there is also a great deal of death that occurs in these picture perfect neighborhoods. The beauty of the suburbs easily masks the car accident fatalities, despondent suicides, and victims of old age that are taken everyday. As I’m looking out the window at my own neighborhood’s Starbucks watching the SUVs and BMWs drive by on newly refinished streets, I’m trying to remind myself that no one’s life is as perfect nor simple as it may appear from the outside.

Suburbs... Not that bad

As a person who has lived in suburbs most of her life (aside from 4 years of city life) I appreciate what a suburb is and means. I understand that the idea is repulsive to many, and I wouldn't even consider for a second getting a tract house with a nice little yard until I'm in my 30's. But there is a time and a place for suburban life- the time in particular being "family time" either as a child or as a parent. To me suburbs are a place where a family can grow. To repeat my example from last week's email, a couple with a young child can buy a house that they can't quite afford and work hard to save enough for that attic conversion or bathroom remodel. As the family grows and changes, so the house and the neighborhood do too.

This leads into my other association with the suburbs that doesn't seem to be supported by many others people. Waldie especially harps on the stagnance of the suburbs. Nothing ever really happens in Lakewood, and when something changes it is not for the better. Every identical street is lined with identical houses. This is not how I see it (although maybe Lakewood really is like that). Every house holds a story, every street has a personality. Every person is unique and the people of the neighborhood mesh and mingle to create a community. Someone living in the suburbs can consider their neighborhood, and in some cases their street in particular, part of who they are, part of their social structure. I feel like ever street has a unique story created by the people who have lived there and given it character, rather than the suburbs being a sea of bland homogeny. Although the houses and streets look similar on the outside, what they hold within is distinct.

The 1,100 sq. ft. Dream

Suburban life. What does that mean anyway? Good luck defining such an idea in one sentence or less. It's as elusive as the Holy Grail and nearly as coveted by most people. According to freeonlinedictionary.com, Suburban is defined as:

1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a suburb.

2. Located or residing in a suburb.

3. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the culture, customs, and manners typical of life in the suburbs.

So where does this leave us? Exactly where we started. The first two definitions give us nothing. The third offers a little more insight. "Culture, customs, and manners typical of life in the suburbs." Ok, that makes it easier to pin down, right? So what are these cultures, customs, and manners typical of life in the suburbs? Now that's a good question. If you haven't already caught on, my point is that the idea of the suburbs is very specific to individual experiences and not readily forced into one particular mold. Sure we can all picture in our minds what the "suburbs" look like from the outside; those neat little housing tracts conceived in the minds of wealthy developers. When I think of the suburbs I envision tons of little "bubbles" rapidly expanding as more and more people move in. Each of these bubbles has characteristic cultures and customs. They often represent a multitude of ethnic backgrounds and races. Some have high crime rates and some couldn't be safer. Some residents indulge in community BBQs every weekend while others might not know their neighbor's first name. In essence, suburban life is what you make of it. It's where you live. It doesn't have to be who you are.

Nowadays the suburbs where I grew up in are inhabited by all kinds of different people. Some elderly couples have moved in replacing the younger families. Some have extended relatives living with them. Other couples have young children and Golden Retrievers. Most of the people are happy at heart, or at least from what I can tell. The ones that aren't have a hard time concealing it. Try to have a shouting match with your significant other and see if you don't get a disapproving glance from your neighbor the next morning as you go outside to grab the newspaper. As much as you want to remove yourself from this constant scrutinization it may be impossible. Suburban life does require a certain amount of compromise, but in the end it's what you make of it.

The suburb: A shiny apple with a rotten core?

Life in a suburb generally consists of a (beautiful) home, bought with money you don't have, never had and probably never will. A shiny new car running on the cheapest gas that can be found. A family blessed with 2.5 children and is fueled by drugs--uppers, downers, anti-depressants, Ritalin, Adderall, a drug for every mood. All of this consumption, empty consumption, over consumption, in order to achieve the appearance of order. An attempt to fit into the great chain of being. Proving that you are ready to move on up when you really only have enough to stay where you are (albeit maybe a little more comfortably).

What is the meaning behind this? what is the motive? Ruthless ambition. If you're good enough to be in the suburbs you're good enough to dream of doing better. You had the advantages: you're probably white, you probably have clothes on your back, food in your belly and enough time and money left over to think about leisure. Staying where you were wouldn't be an achievement, it would be settling. If you are living next door to the Jones' you'd better be ready to try and keep up with them. No new car? No family vacation to Hawaii? No gardener? No housekeeper? What have you been spending all of your money on?

Are the suburbs only endless cycles of wasted consumption? I think that while much of the time suburban life manifests itself in that way, that is not the driving force of its existence. I also think that from my perspective it is hard to understand the value behind the consumption. While I enjoy and appreciate the material as much as the next person, I find the joy from getting something new is often transient and even opens the door for regret (buyer's remorse). I think that the relationship to the material changes when you are the parents, the ones who chose (or maybe didn't chose but ended up in) the suburbs. Right now in my life consumption is a selfish act. It's all for me unless its Christmas or some one's birthday (although when the rules of gift given are analyzed even those purchases can be seen in a selfish light). A parent, however, exists in a state of perpetual gift giving--food, shelter, clothing, toys, trips, cars--they work for it, they pay for it and they give it away with no (or at least unequal) compensation other than the pleasure of giving a gift. It is not consumption that drives the suburbs, but procreation.

How can a society built around family values ultimately be looked at as empty, shallow and meaningless? Although I have my moments of cynicism, I feel that as a whole we have been too harsh on suburban life. I admit that when I realize that one of my life goals seems to be to settle in the suburbs I feel a little shocked and even a little ashamed. Settling seems like settling--but that probably stems from the romantic notions that grow from being on my own for the first time. But when I imagine myself years in the future wanting children I am always in the suburbs. I don't think I would want to end up there if I remained by myself or even as a couple but out of brainwashing or truth the suburbs seem to be the place for the American nuclear family.

Where We're From