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Living the Suburban Lifestyle
By Jay | March 21, 2008
Today I decided to take my bar code scanner to some thrift shops around the Hartford area to see if I could dig up any good book finds to sell on Amazon. It wasn’t a particularly lucrative day, but it turned out to be a fairly interesting one. I live in Brooklyn, NY, in a neighborhood where having a car is a burden. So instead of owning a car, I rent one when I feel like driving somewhere. This occurs about once every two months, so is definitely the right way to go for me.
I’ve rented a car this weekend to visit my parents’ house near Hartford. I also got a Garmin GPS locater thingy; I type an address into it and it tells me exactly what turns to make until I get to my location. Truly amazing. I plugged in the addresses of about 15 thrift shops within a 30 mile radius, and rather than messing around with a map like I usually do, I sat back and drove, doing what the GPS told me to do. It was correct every step of the way.
I don’t know if I’d want to use one of these things all the time; a couple times I stopped to go to the bathroom or to get some coffee, and it told me to turn around. The key is to have the GPS serve you, turning it off when necessary, because otherwise it can start to feel like you’re serving the GPS, obeying its orders!
As someone who rarely drives in suburbia (or anywhere for that matter), a few things struck me.
First, there was a LOT of traffic everywhere; lots of cars with only one person in them, and lots of big pickups and SUVs. For all the angst in the media about high gas prices, no one seems to be changing their driving habits, at least in Connecticut.
Second, it is awfully bland out here in suburbia. Everything looks the same. When I grew up in CT there seemed to be a lot more variety from town to town. Now it’s all the same Home Depots, Wal-Marts, Bed Bath & Beyonds, etc. I made my way through all that traffic and every 5-10 miles I came to another big shopping plaza with the same set of stores. There was no sense of place, no sense of personality to any of them. It was kind of sad, really.
Third, we get the impression watching TV that everyone in America lives in a house with a yard, a two-car garage and a picket fence. Nothing could be further from the truth, at least in CT. An awful lot of people in CT live in big wooden 3-family houses, or in bland condominium complexes. I never realized how high a percentage of people do not live in houses.
Much of New York City, especially Brooklyn, is old — from the 19th century. It’s designed for walking. Most everybody has a grocery store within walking distance, and a deli, a butcher, a baker, a bank. For such a big city, it’s amazing how quickly you start to recognize people and they recognize you. You may never get into a conversation with them, but you get into these “nodding hello” relationships. You walk by their stores, and they nod hello if they see you. For all its anonymity, New York can be a surprisingly personal place, and by walking, you’re always in the middle of things.
Here in CT I wouldn’t be able to survive without a car. But there was something sad about it, cocooned by metal as I sailed down the roads surrounded by other people cocooned in their cars. I felt separated, alienated, invisible, alone.
I’m glad I live in the city.
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March 22nd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Suburbia can be a dreadful place. I grew up in a suburb myself and without a car you really have to plan pretty much every activity. I think the whole gas crunch would come to a very sharp halt if rather than trying to fight over oil we would drop all that money into infrastructure and technological innovation. Think about how great a transit system could be put into place with just a fraction of the cost of keeping troops around the world. It would reduce the need for those metal tin cans we all love to hate but can’t live without.