Brief Greetings from the SubExurbs

I'm not sure if my new address qualifies me to be a suburbanite or an exurbanite. There's a farm more than 2 miles away. But, there's also a giant development community across the street. The development community is like Disney World. In addition to the houses, townhouses, condos and apartments, there's a home improvement store, KMart, grocery, lots of little restaurants, Whole Foods, and an actual "Main Street" that sports independently-owned businesses. The only things missing are the piped-in Maple Leaf Rag and corsettes.

You have to understand that I have never, ever lived in a suburb. Just very large cities. This is all very exciting. Everything is very convenient and new and shiny. And cheaper. MUCH CHEAPER.

Comments

[Chris Clarke]

Frederick: Exurb
Gaithersburg: Exurb becoming suburb.
Rockville: Suburb
Chevy Chase: Urb.

When I lived there:

Gaithersburg: Exurb
Rockville: Suburb that had been an exurb not long before
Chevy Chase: Urb that had been a suburb not long before
Tenleytown: Urb that had been an exurb a hundred years before

[Kate's Mom]

If you're in Gaithersburg, you're in a suburb. Fredrick, Middletown and anything up the road on the way to Pennsylvania is Exurb.

[Chaz]

You live in a suburb.

Cheaper? OK, you have to drive a car to pick up a gallon of milk. You have to drive a car to see a movie. You have to drive a car to get to a cafe, and the only cafe's you'll probably like are in the city anyway.

Cheaper? You've probably got a house, with a yard, with much more squre footage, both inside and out. Let me tell you, every square foot costs money. To heat. To cool. To decorate, to re-decorate. To mow, seed, fertilize, areate, thatch, and then start all over again. You'll need to paint the house, and then paint it again. After three years, you'll look at your carpeting and say, hey, wouldn't harwoods be nice, then have to maintain those every few years. You'll think about buying a deck with a hot tub instead of going to the spa with your neighbors in the city. And, if you have a hottub, you'll have to pay for maintenance and replacement on that. Ditto for the deck.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Plus, many or all of those activities have costs borne by everyone else. Pollution streams into the air, water, and landfill, waste of resources in making all that stuff in the first place.

I have to stop myself.

Sorry for being such a depressing guy, here, raining on your newly found suburban parade. Grew up in one outside of L.A. Live in a small city now, with character, in the North West. I can't imagine going back to the 'burbs.

Read "The Geography of Nowhere" if you want to understand what you've done. It's a good summary. Pithy and a fun read.

[Matt F]

heh. apparently I live across the street from you, I'm in that "Disney Land" development.

The furniture store across from the diner is a cool place, they go out of their way to find interesting pieces. And the French restuarant across the street from the farmer's market pavillion is good.

Welcome to the area.

[Roxanne]

Hey, Matt. Yeah, that's the place. I've had my eye on the French restaurant already.

As for me driving around and ruining the natural world for the rest of ya's, I don't own a car and commute on public transportation. Everything I need on a regular basis is literally across the street. I commute to the "big city" --and in the case of DC, that's a misnomer-- every day. So I have to get my cafe fix from the all the bohemian cafes litering the streets of the District during my lunch hour. Oh that's right. There aren't any!

[Chris Clarke]

I bet the people in that little Pacific Northwest city just love the prospect of Californians from the suburbs deciding en masse to take part in their superior lifestyle.

I bet they love it almost as much as those of us who've been forced to the peripheries of the stylish urban centers (or, in Roxanne's case, DC) love being berated for thoughtcrime by people who won the bidding wars and can walk to downtown.

(The law, in its majestic equality, allows rich and poor alike to pay five hundred bucks a square foot for environmentally sustainable housing.)