The New and Not-So-Improved Suburbia

Because I am currently unable to run, I've had to find other alternatives to burn off the excess energy that I usually reserve for my workouts. I biked for several days last week, but now I'm sans velo so my only real option is to walk.

This morning, as I set out, I remembered that I like walking almost as much as running. True, you miss out on the runner's high (to which I'm quite addicted) but the tradeoff is that you find yourself with much more time and energy to devote to checking out your surroundings.

So as I began to wind through the streets of my hometown, I began to realize that it's not at all- anymore- the town I grew up in. The built or constructed town that I grew up in no longer exists. Whereas several years ago, a few radical millionaires began to level some of the town's older houses and replace them with McMansions, these days the modern castle is the norm.

I counted maybe a handful of the old relics of days past: modest, split-level ranches or Colonial style three-bedroom houses nestled in a patch of shrubbery with wide expanses of lawn rolling down to the street. Today, most of the houses in town are gigantic, hulking things, surrounded by scrawny, overly perfect landscaping and a tiny strip of newly-laid sod. Plots of land that once looked generous are now overflowing with house, house, three-car garage, and more house.

Of course I realize this is not a revelation. Like any cultural phenomenon, this movement toward bigger = better has been rolling along for years now. But I can't help but shake my head at the ridiculousness of it sometimes...