Suburban Life

Let me give my readers a brief description of my background when it comes to where I've lived. I have never lived in the country, lived in the city for approximately three years, and have resided in what is known as suburbia for twenty-two years. With each year that passes, suburbia bothers me more than the previous one.

What bothers me? Let me count the ways.

1. No diversity- It's like in any play, commercial, film, or school anymore, there's the one "token black guy" and that's it. There might be a couple Hispanics or Asians spread out here and there, but, the majority are white and I'm not talking the regular majority. In the United States, whities make up approximately 70-80% of the population. In suburbia, one can up that percentage to 90-95%. Suburbia seems to be the place that Anglo-Americans ran off to when people of different ethnic backgrounds gained some rights. There's only one African-American living in my neighborhood (that I can think of) and I can't think of any Latinos, Asians, or Natives. Once they start moving into suburbia in greater quantities, the Anglos will either demand that we build a fence or wall to block them out or we will run off to another destination where there aren't any people of different backgrounds. That's when we'll run to gated communities! Having little to no diversity in the neighborhood bothers me. I'm sorry, but the one "token black guy" isn't enough to diversify suburbia.

2. Wimps- Yeah, I said (wrote) it, suburbia is full of wimps! How do I mean? Let me explain. I can't even imagine stories from the city or even the country with the hard work that farmers put in every day. Shootings, stabbings, drug dealings, overdosing, kidnapping, robbing, assaulting, and who knows what else occurs in the city at fairly regular intervals. For some, staying alive in a day is their goal. In suburbia? Parents get worried if they see a child riding his or her bike down the sidewalk and no one else is with them. They'll start talking to other neighbors about it and start asking who the parents are. If they find out, you better believe they'll contact the parents. Parents will go paranoid about their child getting too close to a dog. Yes, these are the things that people in suburbia worry about. What is a matter of life and death in the city is merely bike riding down a sidewalk in suburbia.

3. So close and yet so far- The housing may be close in proximity to several others, but that doesn't mean the people are very close to one another. Yeah, when I walk outside to get the mail, take a walk, or play basketball, someone might say "hi," but that's about as far as things go around here. If I say, "Hey, how's it going?", then that's going too far and they must ignore the question, look straight ahead, and continue on to their intended destination. When are we "closest?" When new neighbors move in next door or across the street. Usually, they greet people with some goodies and we do likewise. But, after that first week of greeting one another, it's back to the old routine of saying "hi" and nothing else to neighbors.

4. Chameleons- The houses just blend in together, as do the people. There are a lot of white houses, blue houses, with a couple windows up top, a garage that can fit two cars, a driveway that can fit up to four cars, a basketball hoop, a white-picket fence, trees, bushes, flowers, and lovely grass. What differentiates the houses from one another? Perhaps the coloring, but that's about it. What differentiates the people from one another? I'm not sure yet.

5. Fixing up- It feels like the majority around here are putting on a big show. It's reality TV at its very finest. We get to do our own lawn here (unless we hire someone), garden, do what we want with our bushes and trees, have a competition on Christmas lights. It's a beautiful thing, watching almost everyone doing the same thing in effort to show off their prized possessions and in the end, a person with 20/20 vision would have difficulty in distinguishing the differences.

6. Cops- They have nothing to do here, except eat donuts. All they do is drive around late at night, following different cars, in hope that someone does something wrong (even the slightest of mistakes), so they can turn on those cherries, pull the person over, and ticket them. They'll either be doing that or be parked in a sneaky little area with their radar gun. They have nothing else to do here. I was even pulled over in my own driveway one time, because I was trying to be courteous to my folks and neighbors. After he accepted my explanation, he began following another car around.

Suburban life is dull, drab, and monotonous, to say the least. Why is there a new genre emerging in cinema that shows the negative affects suburban life can have on kids? Because, I can see how it could hold true in some circumstances. It feels like one large gated community, where no one is allowed to say more than one word at a time to another ("hi"), and where people actually fear their child petting a dog. I'd like to see suburbanites swap places with those living in the city for a few months and see how they change when they're placed back in their suburban homes.