With the exception of a short-term return to the nest after I graduated from undergrad with an oh-so-useful (not) but passionately prized degree in art history I have been living entirely on my own.
But with graduation from graduate school looming on the horizon I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to spend some "quality time," a phrase I've never really understood, with my parents before I plunge back into the work world.
It's been fantastic doing free laundry, not having to scrounge for meals or gas money, and all of the other cliche (but very much appreciated) perks one has staying at Mom and Dad's.
It's also been a time of reflection. Regardless of how famous or how smart or how anything you are today, your past makes up a part of who you are. Even the hypothetical self-made millionaire who went from rags to riches is keenly aware of where s/he is- or isn't- from time to time. The uber-hipster from Missouri who's living the bo-ho glam life in Silverlake may still feel a tug at the holidays as s/he isn't having a white Christmas. And the hard-bitten but non-native New Yorker from Kentucky, who fled the rural countryside, may wish, in fleeting moments, that one didn't have to visit Central Park to see green space.
I'm a self-confessed city snob. But I also love the countryside, especially down South. And every once in a while I feel the tug of the suburbs and its single family houses- the bane of planners' desire for utopia. It's a symbol of my childhood and of my concept of home. As I never lived in an apartment as a child, the Playskool/Fisher-Price house is a part of my memory make-up.
One of my primary interests in planning is seeing where my generation winds up living- even on a semi-permanent basis.
We all know that the cities have been usurped by the safe appeal of the suburbs yadda yadda- territory I've tread many times in my blog and won't rehash for you.
And there have been many attempts to try to "reinvent," "rebrand" the city- to highlight its cultural sophistication, to glamorize the bohemian appeal of it, even to try to turn it into a hipper version of the suburbs. Some attempts have worked in some parts of the country. Others are embarrassing attempts.
Joel Kotkin has an interesting take on this in his article for "the New Geography"-
And Christopher Leinberger has an equally provocative rebuttal-
Here are the Vimeo links-
FYI- if you walk around the halls of my school, USC's School of Policy, Planning, and Development- you'll see the same thing physically. For the most part the urban planning people are the equivalent of the Steve Jobs computer geeks- not unattractive, but a little scruffy around the edges. While the real estate folks look so youthfully preserved you wonder if they bathe in the blood of virgin unicorns. Though if anyone asks, my school has the best looking faculty, period. :) (Except for UPenn's Witold Rybczynski, who I wish taught at my school. But I have Bill Fulton so ehhhhh)
One of the most interesting things about twenty-somethings that I've observed, especially those desperate to throw off the shackles of their bourgeois suburban upbringing, is that they move to a city either during or after college. But once they have kids, they move back to the suburbs. Understandably a child's education is much better in the suburbs where the tax base is higher so the quality of education is proportionate to taxpayer income, an unfortunate but nevertheless true real-life ratio. But it doesn't make it any less amusing for those of us who don't have to get in our SUVs to "return" to the city on the weekend. Cuz we're already there. Observing the hordes of yuppies drive in through our hipper-than-thou oversized sunglasses from the 80s with a barely concealed look of derision and scorn.
Even Arcade Fire wrote their latest (as of this writing) album about the suburbs. They even called it "the Suburbs." You can take a kid out of the suburbs, but you can't take the suburbs out of the kid?
I've noticed that a lot of people in my generation, who I personally count from 1983-1988, have gotten married young and some have even started families young. Many more so than our predecessors, Gen X, who bore more of the brunt of their parents' freedom from the stigma of divorce, but didn't escape the effects divorce has on the children. Some Gen X'ers have gotten married, but others have opted for live-in situations, sometimes proceeding with legal formalities later on.
If pressed, the general consensus between myself and my peers my age (27-28 years old, again, as of this writing) is that there is a new generation every year. iPods and cell phones have a different frame of reference for myself compared to my brother who is four years younger than me and bought both items well before me. Another, more historic example- I vaguely remember the Persian Gulf War, I don't think my brother does at all.
Beloit College puts out its yearly "mindset" list citing pop culture touchstones that the incoming class has always known or has no idea what you are talking about.
In the spirit of democracy, I am also including this link from the WSJ critiquing said list. Though points are subtracted for journalists showing off their smarts and citing "Hecuba" for no good reason at all.
I also thought that this was an interesting complement to the concept-
I officially feel old now, but my closing point is that people will go where they want to go. And I'm curious as to who goes where and for how long. Time will tell. Until then, wristwatch? What's that? ;)
2 comments:
Harrumpf.
Childless-by-choice professional couples do not tend to move to the suburbs. Young couples raising a family move to the suburbs because of their children, only to see their children later grow up and bolt headlong for the city.
Some empty nesters then go on to embrace an urban lifestyle (or at least a more population-dense one, a'la the senior living community), to the consternation of their grown children who expect the old home place to be preserved ad infinitum.
Thoughtful parents, you can't win for losing. You're either bourgeois by staying in the suburbs after the kids leave, or acting too young by heading for where the fun is.
Do you envision a significant growth in "fringe" living, that is: those of us who would prefer not to live in the city or suburbs, but also not truely rural either....say within a 5-mile radius of the outer edges of cities/suburbs? And where do you see such a preference fitting into the minds of my generation, say 30-34 year olds? Am I out of the norm on this?
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