The Burbs

We close on our house in a week as our inevitable move to the suburbs draws closer. I’ve been thinking a lot about this change that is coming up. I can’t quite yet put many of my thoughts into words, but I’m noticing a lot of pride and arrogance in myself about where I live. I am thankful that I now have to deal with that as God uses this move to further sanctify me. I am very excited to become part of the community in Mountlake Terrace. I read this great article by David Hochman in Details Magazine the other day that had some good things to say. Here are a few excerpts:

“But in the past decade, the distinction between city and suburb has become blurred. “Commuter towns” in places like northern New Jersey, the eastern shore of Seattle’s Lake Washington, and Orange County, California—once considered cultural Siberia—are now filled with work-from-home hipsters who care about things like independent cinema and what Arianna Huffington has to say. Long-ignored suburban outposts are being rebuilt with cool arts facilities and retro-chic cafés. In short, the things we always thought we needed cities for—decent sesame noodles, fabulous eyewear, lesbians—are now available where once there were only Aunt Goldie and her mahjong group. At the same time, America’s cities are becoming perversely suburban. Downtowns are being sanitized by wealthy residents who are pricing out the stragglers and bringing in block after block of Equinoxes, Starbucks, and Jamba Juices (behold the plan to open a Crocs shop in New York’s SoHo).

…From a cultural standpoint, cities are becoming less interesting and the suburbs are increasingly where the action is,” says Joel Kotkin, author of The City: A Global History. “Partly because of the freedom the Internet gives us, but also because cities have become homogenized, inhospitable, and expensive beyond belief, people now live by the ethos of ‘everywhere a city,’ even if they’re in an outer ring, an outer-outer ring, or beyond.

…The model of the city as patchwork, which so many urban dwellers see as a point of pride, is quickly becoming a relic of the past. “When you have Crate & Barrel and Whole Foods on every other corner, you don’t have the same sense of place, the sense that this block is distinct from that block, the way you did even 20 years ago,” Kotkin says. “The real diversity now is in suburban strip malls, where those who aren’t super-wealthy have been displaced and where you now find an East Indian barber next to a Persian grocer next to a young guy from a good East Coast college who’s selling earth-friendly furniture. And all that is next to the coolest Hindu temple you’ve ever seen.”

Read the whole thing here.

(HT Joe Thorn)

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