Suburbs #3

The Suburbs push us towards the sin of isolation.

Beyond the huge houses, cul-de-sacs, small backyards, and automatic garages,. . . with which we isolate ourselves. (those things are a whole different post)

There's also just a lack of identification with a "place".

When you live in a rural town, you say "I'm from podunk, USA" or whatever. You identify yourself with a town. You fight with kids from other towns, you put them down :). You wear your high school letter jacket until you're 26.

I am from such a town, and continue to claim it as my home town. It's where I grew up.

When you're from a city, you also identify yourself with that place. Watching MTV back in the day when they used to have videos on (hmmph, cough , cough) and live shows. The kids would always be yelling out "Philly!!!!" or "NYC!!!". They claim it. They are a part of that community.

I don't think my kids will be yelling "Canyon Creek baby!!!!" (our sub-division) at a t.v. camera one day.

When you live in the burbs you don't identify with a place as much, which is unfortunate.

It's healthy to identify with a place because it humbles you, it connects you with certain people (and perhaps alienates you from others), and when you're far away you still feel "roots" at that place.These are healthy things under the sun, even as the Apostle Paul encourages us to be "citizens of Heaven" as we go through this life.

To identify with a place helps us to stop self-identifying, and helps to kill our individual pride. Of course, this can be replaced with regional pride, which would need to be dealt with,. . . . . but, we're talking about the suburbs. :)

Also, there aren't as many central gathering places in the burbs. There's no city center, places for concerts, events, lectures, parades, etc. . . . You go to the city center for those things. So, we're kind of culturally cut-off from some things in the burbs. (also, a whole nother post)

Now, I live in Erie, CO. . . a small, rural town, and we have a city center, . . .surrounded by 10 miles of suburbs in all directions. My beef with that gets into city planning and sprawl and other things we don't have time for. The best things about Erie, in my opinion, . . happen at the schools and in the town center.

So, isolation happens alot in suburbia . . . .

don't worry, I only have a few of these left :)