Comments on: Suburbs, Jesus and Teh Gay: Unliving the American Dream

By: Mike Haubrich, FCD

Mike Haubrich, FCD — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:22:21 +0000

One of the factors that leads to “samehood” among the suburbs is our mobile society. Towns like Woodbury, etc, are the homes of people who get transferred and live there for a few years and then get transferred to someplace else. Seeing the same stores in the suburbs of St. Paul as they do in the suburbs of say, Atlanta and St. Louis, etc, give them a feeling of “home” no matter where they live.

It’s like the Perkins effect. When people are traveling and get off the freeway, they may not necessarily love Perkins (or the Olive Garden,) but they at least know that the food they eat at the Perkins in St. Louis will be the same as what they get in Chicago. They don’t have to worry aboout the strange tasting food that they might find in a locally owned restaurant.

Incidentally, a town like Woodbury is also likely to be conservative because people don’t expect to stay there long, and so they defeat tax initiatives, not worrying about the implications for the education system after they have moved on.

By: Jadehawk

Jadehawk — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:38:18 +0000

I am trying to avoid chain stores. Living in North Dakota, this is somewhat complicated, but I try. and at least it results in my stuff breaking less often and actually getting experts with knowledge to work on my broken bike/computer/whatnot (as opposed to the standard, 1-week-of-training generic employee at a big box store). I also get funny looks from everybody for avoiding Walmart at all costs

anyway, I wanted to post about something else though… my biggest “cultural” thing about the Midwest are the recurrent, pointless arguments with my friend that go something like this

me:”so, how’s your soda”
friend:”it’s not soda, it’s pop!
me:”oh ffs…”
friend:”if it doesn’t have sodium bicarbonate in it, it’s not soda!”
me:”great. and I generally don’t have pops in public, because I’m not an exhibitionist”
*mutual glaring*

By: Spiv

Spiv — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:13:35 +0000

I currently live in standard suburbia hellhole (at least as far as culture is concerned. It’s very pretty otherwise.) All stores are chain, all chains are stores. I’m not far from urbia though, so it’s always possible to get to that.

What I grew up in, however, is very hard to describe. It was, and is no longer, Island; which is a strange mix of rural and urban life. Things are compact, there were effectively two major roads to which all things are a part of. It’s possible to ride your bicycle to nearly anywhere on the Island, save for the narrowness (automobile dangerousness) of certain roads. Unlike every other urban area I’ve been in though, it is very uni-cultural. It’s strange.

That has since changed, and the big chains have run nearly every local business out of ‘town’ (unincorporated area). Where there were once a couple of fast food chains struggling along with the multitude of locally owned businesses, there are now a couple of locals still hanging on in a sea of franchise advertising. In doing so it has still resisted multi-cultural status. Just, the same aging residents flock to Outback and the disney corporation owned mall every day.

By: Tony P

Tony P — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:50:45 +0000

RI is an interesting case study. In a 10 mile radius you have dense urban settlement and then suburban and rural settlement.

I much prefer the urban. I live in Providence and I cannot think of one chain restaurant in the city, other than fast food crap. And you can get Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Indian, Soul, and many other varieties of food at those restaurants too.

The city truly is mutli-cultural but also has a common thread pulling it all together.

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:00:06 +0000

Suburbs are set up as a place for bunch of people to all live the same dream. Yes, that dream changes from suburb to suburb, but if none of them are your dream, they might as well all be the same.