The Cars of Somewhere

Recently: another job in another suburban “community” with a large entrance sign that uses words like “woods” or “lake” or forced language like, say, “The Glenn of Tower Island”. These signposts are requisite before every new subdivision. They often use phrases (“hounds”, “manor”, “briar”, “woods”) meant to impart the fantasy of old world luxuries from the realms of the landed gentry. Here in the middle of the world as elsewhere - since these places are nearly identical regardless of geographical location - the reality is nothing of the sort.

The reality: winding roads of barren, badly constructed barracks meant to resemble someone’s idea of upscale dreaming. These sorts of places speak first and foremost to the car culture. Cars are everything here. The garages are not only front and center but, in fact, they mostly obscure the living areas, the place where humans - not automobiles - live. Most every car within view is new and many are large suv’s. My rusting wagon with the crumpled bumper is an outsider, a sickly invader. It impinges upon the world of the shiny and new, the world of maintaining a certain visible level of status.

I come here to work. My client is a wonderful person. It is easy to criticize this kind of living, I suppose, as it would be to find fault with my own way of going about things. But I cannot help but find these places sterile and odd and sad. In some newer housing, porches have actually made a re-emergence. Imagine: porches! Places to rest but also to engage with your neighbors. Partake in the life of your street. Imagine the cars out of sight. Imagine not caring what kind of car someone drives or whether or not it is squeaky-clean or new or expensive. Imagine being able to actually walk to a grocery store.

I grew up with Leave it to Beaver and Mayberry of the Andy Griffith Show. The cozy comfort, reliability, honesty, and unpretentiousness of those worlds was built into writer’s scripts and on Hollywood back lots. But the feelings they engendered were real and truly important to all of us in a million different ways. The phoniness comes with the territory: trying to build an ideal community. I think we instinctively know when these places are working and when they are pushing an agenda.