Suburbia: Another Visit To Facebook
Here's another facebook conversation I would like to save for posterity. This one deals with how suburban culture leads to a disconnect from the traditional sense of community, spurred on by someone posting about how blues music was the African American response to their separation from their traditional communities.
R: "Blues music is a music of free people who are broken and putting themselves back together with their cultural medicine. It's a free dance; a dance of working-out-freedom. That's what you're doing when you do blues - you're working out your freedom..." -Alyson Clingsong Clennon
...
SY: I have a pet theory that this is why the blues can speak to younger people today. American suburban culture isn't slavery, but it has also had a strong influence at breaking down traditional cultural ties.
R: SUBurban culture breaks down traditional cultural ties? How? You got some 'splainin' to do.
SY: The architecture and city planning of suburbia promotes isolation. It's very easy to live in a good sized house and never need to see your neighbors because you can get right in your car and drive to the supermarket or some other large store where you are just a consumer who deserves no individual attention. You don't exist as a member of a community unless you actively pursue it.
Instead of residential areas clustered around small city centers where people naturally interact we get sprawling housing developments with highways to giant strip malls and shopping centers. Houses aren't built with porches any more because sitting outside talking to the neighbors stopped being a common pass-time.
I'm a third generation American. My grandfather owned a neighborhood grocery store in a very Italian area of Staten Island. It made him a center of his local community because everyone nearby had to walk over for food. He talked to everyone. He cashed their checks so he knew when someone was in trouble and helped them out. My mom got to grow up in an area with a strong sense of identity (which can cause other problems with social expectations, but that's another story...).
I didn't really get that growing up in suburban NJ. There was immediate family, friends, and activities, but little sense of a continuous culture other than what came in on TV. I do really feel like I missed out on something. It's not like my family was forcibly transported overseas and endured generations of slavery, but it gives me an appreciation for a "people who are broken and putting themselves back together". Fortunately, now the internet exists so instead of being limited by walking distance I can sit here in Boston and consider myself a member of the same community as someone in --------.
SY: Here's a relevant TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html
R: Thanks Stephen, for your 'splanation. As someone who has lived either in cities, or way out in the boonies in my life, I've never quite encountered this suburban experience, except for a brief stint in --------. Actually, now that I think of it, I did feel really disconnected from my community. I needed space from humanity for a while, so my time out there was good, but when I decided it was time to get back to being more connected to people, guess what I did? I packed up and moved to the city.
Of course, one could describe the human condition as Blues. Although, George Carlin would have something to say about that too.
I'll check out the TED talk. Thanks!
R: "Blues music is a music of free people who are broken and putting themselves back together with their cultural medicine. It's a free dance; a dance of working-out-freedom. That's what you're doing when you do blues - you're working out your freedom..." -Alyson Clingsong Clennon
...
SY: I have a pet theory that this is why the blues can speak to younger people today. American suburban culture isn't slavery, but it has also had a strong influence at breaking down traditional cultural ties.
R: SUBurban culture breaks down traditional cultural ties? How? You got some 'splainin' to do.
SY: The architecture and city planning of suburbia promotes isolation. It's very easy to live in a good sized house and never need to see your neighbors because you can get right in your car and drive to the supermarket or some other large store where you are just a consumer who deserves no individual attention. You don't exist as a member of a community unless you actively pursue it.
Instead of residential areas clustered around small city centers where people naturally interact we get sprawling housing developments with highways to giant strip malls and shopping centers. Houses aren't built with porches any more because sitting outside talking to the neighbors stopped being a common pass-time.
I'm a third generation American. My grandfather owned a neighborhood grocery store in a very Italian area of Staten Island. It made him a center of his local community because everyone nearby had to walk over for food. He talked to everyone. He cashed their checks so he knew when someone was in trouble and helped them out. My mom got to grow up in an area with a strong sense of identity (which can cause other problems with social expectations, but that's another story...).
I didn't really get that growing up in suburban NJ. There was immediate family, friends, and activities, but little sense of a continuous culture other than what came in on TV. I do really feel like I missed out on something. It's not like my family was forcibly transported overseas and endured generations of slavery, but it gives me an appreciation for a "people who are broken and putting themselves back together". Fortunately, now the internet exists so instead of being limited by walking distance I can sit here in Boston and consider myself a member of the same community as someone in --------.
SY: Here's a relevant TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html
R: Thanks Stephen, for your 'splanation. As someone who has lived either in cities, or way out in the boonies in my life, I've never quite encountered this suburban experience, except for a brief stint in --------. Actually, now that I think of it, I did feel really disconnected from my community. I needed space from humanity for a while, so my time out there was good, but when I decided it was time to get back to being more connected to people, guess what I did? I packed up and moved to the city.
Of course, one could describe the human condition as Blues. Although, George Carlin would have something to say about that too.
I'll check out the TED talk. Thanks!