Suburban Acid Blood

What a colorful title. Did it catch your eye?

Living on the farm, talking about global hunger and poverty, and connecting dots has made me think a lot about modern America. Specifically, living in a tight, twenty person community whose members live, work, cook, and play together constantly has really got me thinking. About the word, "community."

How many communities do you feel a part of? We ask this question a lot to our groups, and the answer is usually: family. Specifically, the nuclear family. Maybe a school group or two. And that's it.

The word "neighborhood" is hardly ever mentioned, and I'm left to guess that this is because neighborhoods don't really exist anymore. A modern suburban neighborhood doesn't have any common space, any local shops or restaurants. Kids from different households don't play with one another outside. Parents don't have other parents from down the street over for dinner. I myself experienced this as a kid. We had a park right outside our house, and I rarely ventured outside to play there with other kids, choosing the seclusion of my room and video game world instead. Why?

The lack of neighborhood troubles me, because neighborhood is, and has been for millennia, the most readily available form of community. I mean, come on. They all live with you and share common space (and resources) with you. So, if neighborhoods are disappearing, this leads me to believe that communities are disappearing. And this, my friends, worries me.

It is difficult to talk about the reasons for community's demise. At least not without rambling. So I'll focus on suburbans. A lot of us probably live in some type of suburb, which probably includes a large, one-family home, two or three cars, a few televisions, considerable front/back lawn space, a lot of commuting, and a lot of time spent alone. The suburb, if you step outside your house and look at it, is designed to keep people apart. Every house has an individual lawn, fences, driveways. It is so well designed to achieve this purpose that few suburban residents ever have to meet their neighbors. A walk from the door to the car, and back from the car to your door, without ever having to talk to another person. And industry is helping out. In the car, you've got your radio or i-pod to tune out to, while your kids watch a DVD in the back seats and text. You don't even have to look at one another. Your own personal paradise. After a stressful day and long hours at work (which more and more suburban Americans have), there are restaurants, and groceries stories full of prepared meals so you don't have to cook (one of the oldest ways in which people commune), and 5,000 television channels to help keep you and your family keep secluded and relaxed. Not to mention video games. No tiresome family games, or community meals. Sweet, sweet seclusion.

I recently saw an ad for Verizon's Fios TV, where even more personal televisions can link up with one box. Which means? Every room can have its own television so that every member of your family can watch a different channel, in a different room, at the same time!! The ad was clever enough, but if you step back, it's frightening. A house in which no one person is in the same room. (And parents, you WONDER why your suburban kids get into trouble?) Is this what we want? It's certainly what is being sold, and we, as consumers, are very good at buying what is being sold.

These days (returning to earlier point), most of us seem to associate these two things together: seclusion and relaxation. When we are stressed, which is often, we want quiet, alone time, which we promptly fill with distraction. Is this working for us? I can't help but doubt it, and I realize that, more often than not, I am most relaxed when I am with people, laughing, smiling, telling stories. Not sitting on a couch staring at a bright screen. People talk about the glory days of college a lot. Best times of their life. I suspect that this might be why. In college, you are constantly in community. Class, dorms, frats, dining halls. Then you graduate, move into a single apartment, get a family, build a cocoon in the suburbs (though it seems that today, more and more college students want single dorm rooms). I invite you to think about community and what it does for you, or might do for you. I invite you to observe how much time you spend alone, and I invite you to see the resources and consumption that is involved in you spending that time. Thus ends the first part of my tirade about community. Please don't think I'm being "holier than thou". I'm doing these things myself.