return to suburbia
Ten miles out of town, a cut-through from mall transit center to community college. Through residential neighborhood side-street-sides, past a high school. Conspicuously strange to not worry about surrendering peripheral vision by raising my hood to the cold -- no one else was out except the cars, (for whom the highway only ends at the driveway.)
According to health statistics, you're about twice as likely to be injured in a car accident as by physical assault. And you're much more likely to suffer that car accident in a sprawling exurban location where people drive more.
-- Safer and greener in the city, an email from GreenCityBlueLake
In the city, I feel safer on the street, in the open.
In the suburbs, on the sidewalk, out of traffic's way.
And what goes through the minds of people with the luxury of seeing these things from a "safe distance" -- white minds or black minds -- is this: "Thank God I've moved farther away, where nothing like that could happen."
-- Dick Feagler, Beating in Shaker leaves some ugly cultural welts (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
It had been awhile since I'd experienced that public privacy, safety.
Secure but desolate.
Still in my head, partly framing the experience:: an image of the great American disconnect conjured by Kate Sopko, reading from her new book last weekend: (Just $7 for local light, bright!)
Yet, suburban culture (especially as our suburbs move more toward the 'gated community' model) does not have much within it to encourage connection between people, and has a lot within it that encourages isolationism. If someone would like to disconnect from people, little will stop them: they can retreat into a single-family home, vast entertainment complexes, virtual reality an a daily series of scripted social interactions. This is far less likely for people who grow up in poorer communities, though, for sure, entertaining ourselves to death is becoming an accessible option across class lines in America.
-- Kate Sopko, Systems are Cowards, from Stewards of the Lost Lands
comments
To the Kate quote:
I live in a non-gated suburb and have a different perspective. I find community in my church, our community food pantry for the hungry, my kids school activities, the library, the rec center, coffee shops. I would think if I lived in the city (I did live in Minneapolis proper for a stretch) that I would find community it many of the same places.
Many community stems from the person more than the place. Nature or nurture kind of thing.
-- Steve Rucinski (January 23, 2008 7:33 PM)
Steve, you're right that a person can define his or her interactions -- overcoming environment and design.
And you're very lucky that your suburban neighborhood is constructed for mixed-use.
The vast majority I see are designed for cars; the rec center, coffee shop, library, and school all a drive-away.
The driveway~garage is entrance to the home. Drive-in, drive-out, enclosed and disconnected.
-- Jeff Schuler (January 24, 2008 2:18 PM)
I drove (my 1990 Toyota Tercel--with the driver side floorboards
almost completely disintegrated :) to Lorain Community College this
past week to catch the last days of James Messana March's painting
show. The campus is an abomination and the intersection area was
once all farms. No sidewalks anywhere. Scary, scary world.
-- lmcshane (February 3, 2008 9:52 AM)
I've been to LCC once: I rode out there a few months ago for Defrag Ohio.
The expanse of sprawl I rode through made me sick enough to mention here.
Square miles of lawn parking-lot; houses just shopping car shelters.
-- jeffschuler (February 3, 2008 1:00 PM)