Stereotypes about suburban life unfounded

  Andrew Jones Actually, Jones grew up on
a semi-rural street far removed from the suburbs. But he’ll still
listen to your comments – [email protected]. Click
Here for more articles by Andrew Jones

In almost any L.A. social gathering, a joke about Orange County
or the Valley is guaranteed to draw a big laugh. To be certain,
employing stereotypes of suburban life in America is easy work. But
the intense dislike is difficult to fathom, and the jokes obscure
the real reason why the suburbs have been so wildly successful.

Part of the blame must be laid on pointy-headed academics. In
their traditional role of highbrow-for-hire, they led the snobbish
charge against a supposedly “anti-democratic
institution.” They compared the “sprawling,”
low-density nature of the suburbs against the golden standard of
the traditional multi-use village with its egalitarian town square
““ shops, restaurants and housing units all cheek to jowl.

It’s a lovely vision, no doubt. But there’s a raw
truth here ““ the big city is all too often the big
shitty.

The biggest myth is that traditional New England villages are a
standard to which America should aspire. In truth, these villages
are now often among the highest-rent areas within a particular
county. When they are not high-rent, they have invariably succumbed
to “slum-itis.” The fact remains that nearly any urban
area, with sustained high density, and without any
“gentrifying” trend, will eventually decline in
desirability. As the rent drops, so does the quality of the people,
from high-rent snobs, to upper-middle class, to working-class
families, which usually last the longest.

  Illustration by ZACH LOPEZ/Daily Bruin Once the
working-class families leave, the problems become nearly
insurmountable. Drugs infest the area, crime increases,
prostitution and theft run rampant. The failure of high-density,
low-rent housing has been catalogued nation-wide. At the beginning,
the projects were a social engineer’s dream ““
functional, high-rise buildings with occupants living in extremely
close quarters. The federal government funded construction of this
affordable housing but, barely 30 years later, finds itself
lowering the wrecking ball on these cesspools. It seems the
high-density, low-rent concept simply doesn’t work. What is
replacing these buildings? Lower-density apartment houses 3-4
stories tall, with semi-private yards in which a family can plant
trees and shrubs, and grow food in gardens. Too bad social
scientists didn’t realize the undeniable superiority of
“suburban-style” housing 30 years ago. Instead, America
was forced to learn an extremely expensive lesson in the basic
unfeasibility of high-density living.

The real truth behind the development of the suburbs is rather
mundane if you’re a fan of conspiracy theories. Simply put,
Americans were tired of the vagaries of urban living. The suburbs
have their down sides, but the sheer popularity of the concept
proves that Americans find them better than any other alternative.
All the subsequent academic posturing cannot refute the truth
behind their success. 100 million people simply can’t be
wrong.

To understand why people choose to live in the suburbs, you must
understand why people choose to leave city life. In high-density
rental properties, there is no cushion between you and your fellow
man. When your neighbor decides to play music at a high volume
at

3 a.m., you can be certain that you’ll be sharing in the
experience, willingly or not. In crowded situations, the
exhortation to “Let your neighbors know what you’re
listening to!” is not taken lightly.

Public transportation, the main ingredient of city life, remains
an unpleasant experience, despite all the utopian baggage heaped
upon it. With the exception of a few excellent systems, public
transportation is invariably smelly, dirty, unpleasant and, at
times, frightening, despite it being a daily routine for life in
the big city. What is unappealing about public transportation? It
rarely gets you exactly where you wish to go, it often involves a
good amount of walking, shows up infrequently in most places, and,
above all, is slower than transport by car.

Purchasing something that doesn’t fit in one’s lap
becomes an ordeal of nightmarish proportions. Throw in the paranoid
schizophrenic mumbling at you about the coming of the Anti-Christ,
and the obvious conclusion is anything but a utopia-on-wheels.

The negatives are not confined merely to public transportation
hassles. For example, New York is less the world of
“Friends” and more the world of “NYPD Blue”
and “Homicide: Life on the Streets.”

UCLA students might realize the effect that high-density living
has on them. Before students arrived in Los Angeles, the idea of a
neighbor standing in their driveway at midnight and screaming to
“blow off stress” would be ridiculous. But at UCLA, no
one seems to mind when, for example, someone leans out of their
fifth-floor Rieber room at 2 a.m. to carry on a shouted
conversation with a friend walking through the parking lot. This
devolution to the lowest common denominator is one of the hallmarks
of dense city living. There is no consideration for others ““
after all, someone else in your building has made your life
miserable at some previous point. Why try to be considerate when
others won’t?

No, the bizarre character of city living is meant only for a
select few. The rest of us, with time, will come to our senses, and
presumably move to a home with 15 feet between dwellings, and real
vegetation covering the ground. Suburban life has its own
peculiarities, the endless commutes and the rapacious consumption
of open space. But at the end of the day, a father and mother would
rather commute 90 minutes home and play with their children in
their own quiet backyard. Simply put, the positives greatly
outweigh the perceived negatives to suburban living.

One of the myths that Hollywood has lovingly perpetuated, in
movies from “American Beauty” to “The Ice
Storm,” is that of the morally bankrupt suburban family. But
like so many Hollywood confections, this stereotype is painted in
broad, careless strokes. There will be families without a center no
matter where in this country you look .

Think of your own experiences. You probably knew of such a
family: two parents with highly successful careers, who gave their
children all they desired ““ except their time and love. They
cared little for each other or for their children. You knew one of
the kids, famous in school for throwing wild, drug- and
alcohol-fueled parties when the parents were out of town. Such a
collapse in family structure is a legitimate cultural phenomenon,
but reclassify the parents from “highly successful” to
“drug-addicted,” subtract the lavish personal spending,
and you have the textbook story of a poor child growing up in the
housing projects. The circumstances may be slightly different, but
the result is the same. Collapse of the family because of parental
self-absorption is the cause, not simply the “isolated”
nature of the suburbs.

In fact, one major force holding our country together is
personal space. Let the fans of city life fester in their
overcrowded apartments, but don’t let anyone assert that a
desire for the quiet, open space found in the suburbs is somehow
bizarre or “elitist.”