I am sending out an S.O.S.: mayday, mayday. Can anyone hear me? I am being held prisoner: surrounded by rows upon rows of white picket fence. Food has not arrived for days and days - the trucks got lost in this maze of concrete in which the houses seems to repeat infinitely. I now inhabit a food desert where the local grocery store is but an oasis of twinkies to which I make a weekly escape. I am beginning to suspect that my bid for freedom will only be successful if I blast off into space - at which point I will look back only to find that the face of the globe has been sectioned off into nice, neat patches of lawn which seem to serve no purpose other than to make the neighbors green with envy.
I am stuck in suburbia. It doesn't matter precisely where - suburban developments all look and feel exactly the same. Distance is dead - and suburbanization is but one gang member responsible for its execution. But distance is not the only thing dead in the hands of suburbanization - we've essentially created cultural blackholes.
Actually, I'd like to retract that last statement. Culture is dynamic and constantly changing, any anthropologist will tell you this. The fact that the majority of the population now lives in cookie-cutter homes should not be lambasted simply because it is a change. But by whose standards is the culture that has emerged desirable? Suburbia is associated with all sorts of social ails - we have an epidemic of obesity. Why? Well, it's not as though you can exactly walk to your local McDonald's because even if it's fifty feet away, you probably need to cross sixteen lanes of highway just to get there.
We've fostered a culture of road rage - we are in constant competition to get there in time and that attitude does not dissipate when we leave our cars. I spend more time in a car than I do sleeping some days. All of the major events of our lives now take place in the car: people give birth in the car as they try to get a hospital. People die in their cars everyday - prematurely or otherwise, of natural causes or in the manmade jaws of life. Drive-thru your meals and your wedding if you'd like. It's more than likely that your first kiss will take place in the back of your parents' four door sedan. Our massive homes are just gas-stations where we refuel before we resume our place in the rat race.
We've built entire cities that stand empty from nine to five, Monday to Friday. And they could remain empty evenings and weekends without anyone taking notice. No one knows their neighbors - there is no chance of passing in the street for a casual chat. We isolate ourselves by locking the doors to the domain we've created. We are obsessed with our own private space. We are like dogs marking out our territory - it's just a race to pee on the biggest fire hydrant and then guard it for no apparent purpose.
And in the living room of these spacious dwellings, some nameless news anchor drones on about white flight. Hitler would be proud. We have created what are portrayed by the media as wild and untamed spaces which are somehow inhabited by lesser, inferior races. The inner-city is a jungle. Oh, we who shun our neighbors are superior. We who scorn high-density developments as being contextually inappropriate and outdated - what great alternative have we created instead? We have created a culture of suburbia that is intolerant to difference and that breeds paranoia and fear of difference.
We shall look back on history, to the era of suburbia and man shall bask in his glory: we have pillaged our earth to create wasteful but so-called safe communities. We have killed the very earth that sustains us to create boring, unstimulating and ultimately depressing communities. It is truly a testament to man's power that humanity could build such massive cities and hoard such material wealth and yet simultaneously destroy the very society we live in.
I will flee from suburbia - as soon as I find a way out. Mayday, mayday.
