Consequence

What happens when I read the WSJ

I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “In Defense of Suburbia.” I would link you to it here, but the WSJ isn’t free online, which is another reason to prefer the New York Times. The article argued the American culture has a scorn for suburbia (Exhibit A: Revolutionary Road) which is completely unwarranted. The author is right in that we do have a scorn for suburbia, but it isn’t true that it is unwarranted.

The author of this article only caught the superficial objections to suburbia. He correctly observed that although suburbia is visually unnerving, the people who live there aren’t cyborgs. He also noticed that suburbs are also associated with traditional and bad social structures, but they are also fairly compatable with better ones, although he didn’t word that as strongly as I did. He did also say some other stuff, but none of it was memorable enough for me to remember it. So he really made only one good point, which is that suburbanites aren’t cyborgs, which really isn’t that interesting because nobody thought they were really cyborgs anyway. Duh.

However, since their residents aren’t cyborgs, I need another reason to object to the suburbs. That reason is that the suburbs are boring. The suburbs physically seperate people from the things they do, which has more importance than just the gas they waste. In the city I can go shopping or see a movie or ride my bike along the river or any number of other things, and if I want to, I can do them RIGHT NOW. In the suburbs, the most convenient activities are less active, less social, have less potential for adventures, and more likely to be watching television. In the suburbs, you have less reason to walk around the neighborhood because there is nowhere to walk. You need to make a point of it to meet your neighbors. So, author of the article on suburbia whose name I can’t remember and who is probably not out there reading this, that is why I scorn suburbia.