Comments on: Slinking Suburbs

By: Meagan

Meagan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:27:15 +0000

Jenna – should be an interesting trip! I’ve never succeeded in growing anything… but I figure having a regular schedule should help, so once we have the land, I’m going to just jump right in. I agree that home-grown is better for everyone.

By: Jenna

Jenna — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:15:31 +0000

Good on you and Matt eventually looking to be growing some of your own food. Basic resources, environmental and climate patterns are changing our world pretty fast. At some point the aspirational will be for home-grown food and veg and a handiness towards self-sufficiency.

By: Meagan

Meagan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:31:41 +0000

Gavin- I hop you’re right.

By: Gavin

Gavin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:09:20 +0000

That’s interesting. I can totally see real estate agents wanting to hire actors to make the suburbs seem full. I think it is a temporary thing, though. I think as the economy recovers, things will look up.

By: Meagan

Meagan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:38:05 +0000

I know what you mean.

By: rassles

rassles — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:52:25 +0000

I’m not anti-suburbs. I’m anti-thesuburbinwhichIgrewup. Because they frakked with all of my favorite things, and now they’re not there anymore. I don’t like it when the businesses I support go under.

By: Meagan

Meagan — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:32:44 +0000

Actually I agree with you totally, but I don’t think it’s really a suburb thing. We son know our neighbors at all, and we live in an appartment type setting. The dogwalkers in the area seem to have an edge there, but otherwise I think that sense of community is just getting harder to grasp. When I was a little kid we knew everyone on the cul-de-sac, then we moved to a busier street (still suburby) and completely lost any feeling of neighborhood.

I do see what you’re saying about covered back porches. That structure does make it that much easier to hide from the people who live next door. Even so, I suspect the reason you know your neighbors better now is because you’re outside walking Coco and ripping up your front lawn for a garden, an ongoing project.

Then again, I don’t see your old development in Parma being real welcoming of a front yard garden. Matt and I are looking for a neighborhood that seems a bit more open.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:31:03 +0000

I think what I hated about my house in Parma wasn’t really the same-ness. (Although that irked me a bit, too.) It was more that there was no sense of community. I felt more community in the house where I grew up, even though it was rural and there were hundreds of less people living within walking distance.

Part of it was the fact that more people just don’t go out and meet neighbors, of course. The kids play video games instead of roaming the neighborhood and visiting the local playgrounds. But some of it is the architecture of the suburbs. The parents, if they go outside at all, huddle in their screened-in porches or secluded decks. There are no front porches–and even if there were, it really wouldn’t matter, because few people walk on the sidewalk anyway so you still wouldn’t meet very many people sitting on your front porch. And really, where is there to walk to? It’s tough to walk to the local grocery store anymore, even…

Ah well. This comment isn’t to question your decision to look in the suburbs for a home, of course. It’s just a general “sigh” about there not being enough intelligently designed alternatives…
.-= Kim´s last blog ..The Backyard, October 10 =-.