The suburbs are bland. No, perhaps bland is a little too nondescript. The burbs are boring. By their very nature, they are meant to be living spaces and not much else. People commute to work, to the cities and offices and nightlife. The suburbs are perhaps meant to be boring.
Now I won't deny that the country beats the suburbs in bore factor sometimes. But the country tends to have something the suburbs do not. The country's got culture. Listen to any Garth Brooks or Lynyrd Skynyrd song. But even more than that, listen to any traditional music from "ruralities", such as rural Ghana or rural Ireland. Yes, the musics of Spain and India are built around populated areas, but the cultural wealth of some places are directly related to their rurality.
The point of all this rambling is that the burbs have no culture. They are neither city nor country; they are neither workplace nor nightlife. They are the desolate places people move to for solace and instead find stupor.
I am here and determined to find the culture.
Because, believe it or not, there are people who live out here because they have to, and these people have built a culture around the suburbs. They have brought the urbia into suburbia. Maybe they're here because of rent prices. Maybe they grew up here and never left. Maybe they're still in high school and live with their families. Maybe they're regular Suburban Joneses who really want to live here but secretly rap in their spare time. But there is culture here. Just have to hunt a little for it.
Got any ideas or examples of urbia in suburbia? I'd love to hear from you!!
No comments:
Post a Comment