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I'm not PG (obviously), but I also see suburbia pretty negatively and want to chime in. To me, suburbia is that neighborhood with the tree-related name that of
by Xichekolas 18y ago
I'm not PG (obviously), but I also see suburbia pretty negatively and want to chime in.
To me, suburbia is that neighborhood with the tree-related name that offers four different house models and three different colors of paint. All the lots are roughly the same size, all the people are roughly the same, and the streets don't particularly go anywhere. When viewed from an airplane it looks like a giant millipede wrapped in on itself (driveways). You have to drive everywhere, and the only non-house structures within 20 miles are schools and chain restaurants.
Honestly I think suburbia works well for what it is designed for, which is raising families in a safe environment with a yard and lots of other kids to play with. I view it negatively now only because I'm in my mid-20s, without kids, and it's boring to me. I could take issue with suburbia's wasteful land/energy use, but I won't bother. My view is entirely personal preference.
I think what bothers me is that a lot of people don't realize there is any other way of life out there. Frankly, your opportunities in suburbia are mostly limited to working a 9-5 job and raising a family, so a lot of people I knew in high school just automatically went into that mode after graduating. If they went to college at all, they only did it because all their friends did, but they didn't have any goal for their degree. I think in the backs of their minds they knew that graduating from college meant getting married, moving to the suburbs, and having kids. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with marriage or kids, but why rush it? It just makes me wonder what those people might accomplish or see if that wasn't the automatic life plan.
- brlewis 18y agoI think "sprawl" might be a more descriptive term for what you're reacting negatively to. Boston has lots of suburbs that don't fit your description. (BTW, suburb's etymology is not tree-related.)
- Xichekolas 18y agoYeah to me suburb means tract housing. Does Boston have suburbs that aren't tract housing? (I said tree related because every suburban neighborhood I can think of has a tree related name... "Willow Springs" "Lone Elm Estates" "Pine Ridge" etc.)
- brlewis 18y agoSuburb means a city or town near a large city. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suburb http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suburb Those names sound like housing projects, not cities or towns. Boston has a lot of suburbs accessibly by public transportation that have walkable city centers.
- Xichekolas 18y ago> accessible by public transportation that have walkable city centers. Well that is good for Boston, but my experiences in the midwest and south are that suburbs = tract housing and schools. And yeah, the names were definitely of housing projects... in my original post I was referring to "neighborhoods with tree-related names" ... I simply misspoke in my second post (hope you don't mind but I'm going to correct that).
- menloparkbum 18y agoYes - most of the "suburbs" in Boston are smaller towns that have grown and run into each other.
- apu 18y agoA more general version of this I once heard (mostly in jest) was that "suburban neighborhoods are named after the part of nature that was destroyed to make the neighborhood." Mostly this includes various flora, although geographical descriptors such as "silver creek", "meadowmont", etc., are also used.