Fear and loathing in suburbia
The Wall Street Journal produces some of the finest business and financial reporting in print and online. Unfortunately they continue to pair that with some of the most absurd social and political opinion pieces to appear in any major publication. About once a month they come out with something so shockingly idiotic that I question whether I want to keep supporting them with my subscription. But dissenting opinions are good, I remind myself. Especially when, as in this piece, they are expressed so poorly that they make it impossible for anyone with more than a third grade education want to agree with them.
Lee Siegel, the author of the piece, made a failed attempt to veil this shrill rant against art, urban life, higher education, modern literature and Hollywood as – of all things – a film review of sorts. He makes references throughout the piece to the movie “Revolutionary Road, based on Richard Yates's 1961 novel of the same name” which he summarizes as “the latest entry in a long stream of art that portrays the American suburbs as the physical correlative to spiritual and mental death.”
This reader comment seems to be the reaction the author was aiming for, and in that way I guess it hit the bulls eye:
This article was a good reminder of why I don't go to the movies or have a TV or rent movies. Hollywood does not share my values, so why should I share my money with them? What is wrong living in a neighborhood where families stay together, church is important and work is imperative. I like my SUV, boat, jet ski and trip on jets to other countries. But somehow Hollywood sees this as bad....
I mean really. Is this guy serious? I’m not even going to insult my readers by picking that comment apart. (Especially the last two sentences.)
Siegel goes on to disparage some of the finest writers and thinkers of the last century:
For Yates, Plath, Ginsberg and less gifted suburb-phobes like the novelists Sloan Wilson and John Keats, as well as hugely influential liberal sociologists and writers like David Riesman, William Whyte, Paul Goodman and Betty Friedan, it went without saying that the suburbs could transform the people who had committed the error of moving to them into the walking – make that driving – dead.
What an astonishing intellect Siegel must possess to be able to read, digest and distill into a single summary thesis statement the opinions of such a broad group of individuals! So what does he offer in support of his beloved suburban utopias?
Yet the Wheelers live in a safe and protected middle-class town with intact, well-to-do families; efficient services; and happy children gamboling in sprinklers and running among the trees…
To steal an elegant line from a colleague of mine, that made me throw up a little bit in my mouth. Does Siegel really take this sugar-coated Thomas Kinkade painting at face value? If so, his vitriolic disdain for all things urban and intellectual are matched only by his dangerous naiveté.
I grew up in a small agricultural town and have split my adult life almost evenly between living and working in the suburbs and in the city, around the U.S. and abroad. I’m fully aware that this could be called a gross oversimplification, but in my personal experience the difference is this.
The suburbs where I’ve lived and visited have broad streets and are sprawling areas meant to be navigated by car. When I used to walk in the suburbs in Seattle, people would occasionally slow down and stare, as though wondering whether they should stop to ask if my car had broken down – or just wondering what could be so wrong with me that I had to walk rather than drive wherever I was going. A unique dining experience meant eating at a regional chain rather than a national one. Running into the neighbors meant waving to each other between the house and the car – or from the car when passing each other on the commute.
City life for me was startlingly different from day one. As we were moving into our house in the city in Portland from the suburbs in Seattle, two neighbors came by to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood. A half hour or so later they came back by to give us a book on gardening they’d bought at the bookstore a few blocks away; they’d even written a note on the inside front cover. The first year or two after we arrived yard signs went up throughout the neighborhood protesting news that McDonald’s was planning to take over a space recently vacated by a local shop. The organized effort was a success and McDonald’s abandoned plans for the location.
It’s as though Siegel hasn’t left his suburban home in a few decades because he has current reality almost exactly backwards. He says that one of the most glaring ironies of American life is that, a quarter-century later, the cities have metamorphosed into the suburbs -- sans trees and grass. The fact is, the suburbs of the 50’s and 60’s are slowly disappearing as they’re reinvented to more closely emulate healthier, greener urban living. A July 2008 article in USA Today entitled Gas prices drive push to reinvent America's suburbs looks at the transformation of Maricopa, Arizona – a distant suburb of Phoenix:
"The people of Maricopa don't want to be a bedroom community, a city of rooftops," [Mayor Tony] Smith says. "They want a self-sustained community."
What Maricopa has been doing is unusual, especially for a distant suburb. This city about 35 miles south of Phoenix is asking builders not to develop just isolated subdivisions behind walls, but whole communities that encourage walking by including stores, schools and services nearby.
“Big deal,” I can hear the old school suburbophiles shouting from the windows of their Hummers. “Who doesn’t want another big-box retailer, strip mall or fast food joint?” Well, my non-ambulatory, wheels-or-nothin’ friends, you’re a shrinking part of the non-urban population in this country. Your more forward-looking neighbors recognize that traditional suburban living is not only bad for the environment and the pocketbook, it’s also less culturally enriching and socially satisfying, among other things.
The appeal of urbanism is spreading to far suburbs such as Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.(about 42 miles east of Los Angeles), and Huntersville, N.C., about 16 miles north of Charlotte. Centers that combine residential, retail, office and entertainment are becoming popular far from urban centers…
Mass transit is being embraced by towns that wouldn't have been born without the automobile…
The scent of change is in the air in Maricopa, even in the way city officials talk. Words such as "bedroom community" have become dirty words. "Green," "sustainable," "walkable," "mass transit," "conservation," "open space" and "energy-efficient" punctuate the suburban dialogue.
Guys like Siegel can bellow and throw insults all they want. The facts are in, the numbers have been run and Yates, Plath, Ginsberg and the rest have been vindicated.
LINKS:
Why Does Hollywood Hate the Suburbs? - Wall Street Journal
America's long artistic tradition of claiming spiritual death by station wagon
Gas prices drive push to reinvent America's suburbs - USA Today
If you're a regular OPB listener like me, you're probably about ready to throw your radio through the nearest window at this point. Just when I think it has to have been a full month since OPB started what seems like their monthly "give us your money and we'll only harass you for two weeks" campaign, I turn on the radio and they're still at it! I either have the worst timing ever or they spend fifty minutes of every hour doing everything from begging to guilt tripping to barking orders for listeners like me to show my support by calling right now. Well what if I gave a week ago? Do they give me a secret, pledge-drive free frequency to which I can tune my radio to get my regular programming back? No! Even if I'd been the first person to call on the first day of the programming hostage drive, I'd have to put up with the grating mess for just as long as the last person to call on the last day of the drive. It makes no sense!
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