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By Cityjoe (anonymous) | Posted November 06, 2010 at 12:44:24
I've often wonder why I end up living in the suburbs so often. The only answers that come to mind are:
1) I like really big trees! :)
2) I do not enjoy living cheek by jowl with neighbours.
I do not enjoy feeling that I have to tippy toe around, shut all noise making devices down @ 11 p.m.& that 'divorced from reality' feeling that comes from living on the 15th. floor. Yes you can leave your heating off until December because of the bee hive factor of a high rise, but if the elevators, power, or the water shuts down..then what?
I have lived in all 3 environs, & the Burbs seem to be the compromise that I take every time, even though I'm completely unsuited to suburban life & the blandness, sterility, & conformity that dwells there along side those trees. I miss having a Public Transit system that Works more than you can imagine!(Even more so, I miss the notion that 'We really ought to have one'.)
I miss seeing people wearing saris, colourful African clothing, & openly declaring who they are & where they came from. The Gap should not be our national uniform.
I am not ambitious, young, or energetic enough to try rural life again. (I don't think-?) It also has the component of 'required sameness' in some places, & requires a bigger carbon footprint to even get out of your driveway in the Winter. No public transit to speak of, & you drive everywhere to get everything except the food you have grown & stored yourself.
But I Do absolutely love the idea of waking up again to see a garden, of flowers & food, & nothing going on to disturb the quiet, unless I chose to crank up the stereo a bit. I like walking down to the mail box with my dog or cat off leash, without anybody having a raging hairy fit about a harmless animal.
The idea of moving into the City is tempting, esp. as you get older. Public transit, stores close at hand, a public library near. But there is always to possibility of moving next door to an alki wife beater, a crack house, or something worse that is totally legal & out of your control. (Been there.. had that happen. The wife beater moved in after we did.)
It probably makes a lot of Green Sense to put everyone in an high rise apartment, low rise, the Too Many Rules Condo Project, or row housing, but will they enjoy it & isn't that the whole point? More to the point, if they are not in a rent controlled building, will they be able to stay there? Who is building geared to income housing these days? Nobody.
I'm also worried about the growing crisis over the availability of rare earth minerals. There goes a sizable part of civilization as we know it & it will inevitably lead to much greater use of fossil based fuels, if it happens.
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