SuburbiaHey there, it’s me again – I’ll soon be 71. I live in the suburbs with my Vietnamese born wife of 68 years. We are very healthy and don't have any problems associated with aging. Our neighborhood has many sidewalks and trails. We briskly walk together almost an hour a day to stay fit. We eat healthy and keep our minds and bodies active.
The above home is where we live. This house is said to be an eclectic 80s contemporary style replete with vertical reverse board & batten T1-11 plywood siding. It was built in 1982 by a company called Kline Homes. The front facing garage extension was added by the prior owner in 2008. The left of the two front facing dormers was the former side entry garage. It was converted into a large room, my dream woodshop. Our subdivision is located near a typical mid-western city. It began as a planned community in 1975 and occupies an area once operated as a farm. At the time, it was considered to be the largest planned unit development in our state and was the first PUD in our county. The homes were built around an 18-hole golf course. The golf links are laid out end-to-end in a huge several mile-long perfect circle starting and ending at the plush clubhouse. Quite a few of the neighborhoods are located inside the loop. The community occupies the high ground to the north of the village center. The neighborhoods now comprised of a total of over 2,200 homes, 28 neighborhoods, 16 play and recreation areas, and more than 600 acres of open common space. I Was a City Guy After the first 6 years of my life until 2010, I was a city dweller – for 54 years. During that time, I lived in 6 houses in 2 cities. Then in 2009 after a particularly scary evening of bullets hitting the back of the house, I decided I had enough of decaying city life, So for the first time in my life, I started looking in suburbia. Moving here was my first foray into the burbs. Contrary to the naysayers, it's a different way of life. How do I eloquently describe – here, where I live? Eloquently – fluent and persuasive – without prejudice or judgments. Can I do this? Can I be eloquent? My former city friends would say, no way. Suburbia A suburb (suburban area or suburbia) is a mixed-use business/residential area. Most exist as part of a city/urban area and often have a large employment base. In many metropolitan areas, suburbs developed as separate residential communities within commuting distance of the city. Suburbia can have diverse income levels. However, most planned unit developments built within the last 40 years are attuned to the middle to upper income strata. Very few neighborhoods are considered low income. The lower income housing may either be rural or scattered between planned developments. The majority of low income Americans reside in cities or towns. Before I begin, I want to be perfectly clear about the suburban place I live and the people who live here. In fact, the place I live is typical of most white collar suburban life in the US. People who live in middle-upper income suburbia are a small minority of the world’s population as a whole. The US senses says 176,000,000 out of the 350,000,000 US population live in some form of car dependent suburban communities. However, when compared to the global population, the average US suburbanite lives significantly better than the vast majority of the world’s population. As for the people in my community, they live better than the average in the US. Household incomes here average between 100 to $350,000 a year with both spouses working. As for me, I was very fortunate. The only reason I could afford to live here was due In part to the housing crash of 2008 and the fact that this house was in rather poor condition. In December 2009, I paid $158,000 cash for the house with savings and proceeds from the prior paid off inner-city house. At the time my salary was less than $60,000 a year, but I had no debts. Also, my wife didn’t work. Car Centric Suburbia I very much dislike always having to drive somewhere to do things. As for my wife, she has anxiety issues with driving. She didn’t learn to drive until 2008, 4 years after she came to America. Prior to that, she never drove a car. In most of America, the automobile is the only form of transportation broadly used on a regular basis. There are city residents who do use public transportation. But these people are a tiny proportion of the US population. As for the suburbs, any type of public transportation is normally used to go to and return from the city center. There really aren’t any suburban communities that are serviced by public transportation. The reason is, suburbia was designed with the car in mind. Roads within a subdivision are designed in lengthy curved layouts ending in a cul-de-sac, thereby significantly reducing traffic flow past houses. A bus would have to navigate such as to do a lot of backtracking trying to cover every street. Also, these roads are often very long making walking to a bus stop difficult and unpleasant. In places where public transportation is more accessible, streets are laid out in a grid pattern with relatively short walks to a main street. In the US, these neighborhoods were often designed prior to the automotive revolution. Most suburban communities lack sidewalks. It must be understood that if a person cannot drive, they must either depend upon a cohabitant who does drive or they cannot live in suburbia. That is a fundamental rule. Senior suburbanites who lose their driving privileges often end up in managed care facilities. It is a well-known fact that people sequestered in nursing homes, have an average remaining life expectance of three years. Who Lives Here In My Suburb As I’ve said on a number of occasions, the people who live in middle-income suburban America are very fortunate. They lead sedate complacent lives without significant trauma or strife. They live fairly simply from day-to-day enjoying their modern cultural heritage. Despite sociological myths, they have very little in the way of opulence. Instead they live in modest homes. They basically work at their jobs, raise their kids and take two week vacations once a year, and if they can afford it, fly to somewhere like Disney World. Most of their free time is spent shopping, eating out, visiting relations or friends, watching TV and shuttling kids to and from after school activities, hence the term soccer moms. Neighbors as Friends I have no friends here. I tried to come up with an answer as to why, but… To put it bluntly, I sense a kind of apprehensive mistrust cloaked in pretentious superficiality. The reasons theorized is the exposure most people have to the overall depressing and degrading violent glitzy divisive media. Also, there is the character of the neighborhoods they live in as well as their highly political adverse work environments. Also, most people here have had very little exposure to, shall we say, the less fortunate. All of this, it is said, contributes to their apprehensions. In every inner-city neighborhood I lived in, I developed friendships with those who were neighbors, all six neighborhoods. Over time, I grew to expect this. Then when I moved here, I thought I would do things with the neighbors. But after 11 years, this didn’t happen. Instead, I steadily became like them – reclusive. Of course, COVID-19 didn’t help. The Community Most planned suburban communities are now deed restricted home owner associations, governed by private land use regulations as stated in the covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs). HOA associations were formed and rules were adopted by most home builders and owners to curtail less than desirable conditions that are said to be found in lower income neighborhoods. These restrictions are seen as the last vestiges of segregation which would enable people of middle and upper incomes to live in supposed peace and harmony. The motivations are safety, value of one’s home and peace and quiet. I guess this is ultimately why I move to the burbs. Anybody with sufficient income can live here. But by a quirk, I could afford to move here because I was lucky and I could fix things. It is innocuously safe here. There’s hardly any theft, no murders, and no “crazy” people roaming the streets as there was when I lived in the city. However, the governing covenants and conditions tend to hamper those who wish to be creative with their homes. Instead, sameness and sterility of living are promoted. People are required to follow strict guidelines as to the appearance and use of their homes and land. This place is not the first neighborhood I lived in where there were some form of covenants and restrictions. I lived in two inner-city historic designated neighborhoods. There the city was concerned with historic preservation. It’s been almost 30 years since I lived in an historic district. So, I’m not sure if the restrictions have become stricter or even if they still enforce historic conservancy. I do know that the ever changing CC&Rs here are very strict. Political signs, religious symbols and icons, out buildings and privacy fences are a few of the things that are forbidden. Also, rules can change without notice rendering existing structures and features in violation. HOAs Exempt From Federal/State Statutes Another aspect of HOAs is what is protected by federal statutes or allowed by county or state ordinances can be legally forbidden by HOA covenants. A glaring example:
This section states that city, county or state ordinances cannot block an amateur radio operator from erecting an antenna just so long as that antenna follows the FCC’s regulations and guidelines for antenna safety. However, it has been 20 years since the FCC’s ruling, HOAs can still legally prohibit any type of ham radio antennas. Note. the FCC does forbid HOAs from blocking TV or satellite antennas. Me Here So, how do I fit into all of this? Basically, if I wish to have neighbors as friends or do ham radio, I simply don‘t belong here. Everything about the place seems - well, different. It is everything I grew up dreading. Golf, sports, neatly mowed chemically treated lawns, ingratiating smiles, superficial chit chat, credit card debt, etc. Everywhere – ensconced atop an altar prominently displayed in living rooms is the light of their lives – the television – thousands of channels – the central focus of one's spare time – when they are not driving to the store, a restaurant, or to their kid’s activities. With smart phone in hand, they go about their daily lives while driving. Well, seriously – the people who live here are basically good hearted souls. If I could, I’d forgive then, for they know not what they do. It’s just that – if these people knew about me – my woodshop, electronics lab and collections of vintage electronics and other oddities – not to mention, a home brew audiophile sound system in every room and… …and my eccentricities along with my convoluted political views… As a General Class amateur radio enthusiast, I cannot have any antennas. Also, I live in a house which was built in 1983 that now suddenly has a number of glaring violations. Will I have to work to significantly devalue this house in order to comply with HOA regulations? Next, as a friendly person, I can’t seem to form friendships here with people we can trust and depend upon especially in an emergency – as I could when I lived in the city. Finally, I am a human of depth, creativity, wonderment and I make things rather than watch TV or passively play golf. However, since the COVID-19 new normal, I have been yearning for some kind of connections. Ham radio would have allowed me to seek out hundreds of like minded enthusiasts all around the world. In seeking solace, I’ve resorted to digging out dusty boxes of old DVDs that were collected from family members, friend’s cast outs, garage sales, dollar thrift store finds, and returns from the last place I worked – hundreds of them. Old TV shows I never watched – without those numerous hideous commercials. Still, I feel empty. As for my wife, she seems contented with watching Chinese videos and texting her dozen or so former classmates on her smart phone. But, I know better. I think she misses the city. The Physics of the Burbs I guess by now you must be thinking I really dislike suburban life. Quite the contrary. Aside from the neighbors, I … really like it here. The neatly mowed lawns, the grassy knolls, the parks and other green spaces and the physical characteristics of the community are all very nice. Unlike the city, everyone takes pride in caring for their homes. In the city, there was only one park within walking distance of my home where there was some greenery. Also, dotting the neighborhoods were these houses that either were abandoned or needed a lot of work. Also, it seemed heating and cooling costs were much more expensive. I was used to uninsulated old houses with walls made of solid brick and stone. And, my cars were always parked outside on the street. On those bone-chilling mornings, there’s nothing quite like chipping and scraping ice off a windshield… Now? What's common about suburbia is there is a convenient place where one can park the cars out of the weather. It’s really nice to be able to go from the house right into the car inside a closed garage especially when it's 10 below outside, raining heavily, or there’s slippery black ice or snow on the pavement. Then upon returning home, one doesn’t have to get rained on or slip and fall trying to enter the house – while fumbling with keys holding an arm full of groceries. All the time I was living in the city, I didn’t realize things could be this good here. This house is gloriously warm. So, I absolutely don’t want to have to move into a managed care facility, much less back to the miseries of city life. Driving – Car-Centric Suburbia – Conclusion One last thing: Every four years since 1986* I go through a kind of traumatic experience. This February, I'm to renew my driver’s license. There is again a possibility that I may not pass the vision test. Then, what will happen? My timid wife cannot drive on the expressways. So, again, what would we do in car dependent suburbia? What would be my solution? See: Driving = Freedom. F November 7th, 2021 P.S. There are countless people who have no problems with driving who are eager to tell us what it is we should do. These are the same people who wouldn’t dare tell a black person how to deal with the black experience. * Sometime in the mid-80s, the Ohio legislator enacted mandated vision screening for renewal of a driver license. This was a kneejerk reaction to an elderly gentleman who, after moving to Florida killed two children while driving his car. His feeble response after being apprehended was, "I thought they were trashcans." Apparently he failed the vision test when he went to get a Florida driver's license. He instead renewed his Ohio license. At the time, one could renew licenses thorough AAA. At the same time, most state legislators still refuse to stiffen the penalties for driving under the influence, the cause of 22,000 vehicular death each year.
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