Wednesday, September 16, 2015

The Joy of Lakeville

It's the city vs. suburb thing again, this time in the pages of the Star Tribune:
I’m always disappointed that my urban acquaintances know very little of the suburbs surrounding their city. But I’m never more disappointed than when urbanites spout clichéd opinions about suburban living.

Not long ago a Facebook friend posted her feelings on the blandness of the suburbs, positing on the beige-ness of every house, the only difference in color being “beige, taupe, buff, butter, mushroom, ecru, linen and bone.” And she pronounced all of them ugly. I must admit, the statement really hurt. I happen to live in a beige house.

So forgive me if I sound defensive when I say that I live in the suburbs and I love my community, cream-colored houses and all.
The writer of this piece lives in Lakeville, a big outer ring suburb. I live in the suburbs as well, but am inside the 494/694 loop. And I can see it both ways.

There's no question that there's a lot of sameness in suburbia -- if you drive down France Avenue in Edina one day and Metcalf Avenue in Overland Park, Kansas, the next, you'd not notice any significant differences. I lived in the Chicago area years ago and keeping track of the suburbs there was a chore. Were you in Oak Park, Forest Park, Park Forest, River Forest, Riverside, Oak Brook, Oakbrook Terrace, Lake Forest? Hard to know without a GPS.

At the same time, there's nothing especially unique about Grand Avenue in St. Paul, either -- you can find similar districts in a lot of cities. Gentrification inevitably brings Restoration Hardware to the area.

I couldn't wait to get out of my hometown, Appleton, Wisconsin, when I was a kid. Nowadays the west side of Appleton might as well be Roseville. Do you enjoy where you live? I hope you do. Enjoy your town and your tribe.

4 comments:

3john2 said...

I'm in an inner-ring 'burb in the SE Metro. It has a downtown and local options to the fast-food and restaurant chains, but we're also a mile from Robert St. with everything you could want in terms of big box stores and restaurant varieties (though Chinese options seem to be proliferating the most at the moment). Meanwhile, we're also 10 minutes from cornfields and wide open spaces and 15-20 minutes from not one but two big-city downtowns. Oh, and our satellite dish and wifi internet service have no trouble bringing any entertainment or part of the world we'd like directly to us. I have major league baseball, minor league baseball and top-notch town ball all within 30 minutes of where I live and plenty of drinking establishments nearby offer the latest micro-brews or trendy mixed drink are handy and I usually don't have to risk being shot at at closing time (unlike a certain big metro area that's close by). Should I care to scratch that ballet/culture itch (about once every 7 years) there is that option as well in the area. So, yeah, I guess I'm pretty happy and never give much thought to whether I'm missing anything - either from living downtown or out in exurbia. In the words of Buckaroo Bonzai,"No matter where you go, there you are."

Gino said...

i dont know what it is about a certain class of urbanites that just dig all the big city stuff, and look down upon those 'from the sticks' as if they arent cultured enough or something.

i grew up urban. straight up. in what was known as the south central region of los angeles (but not THE South Central of movie fame, which was a more 'exclusive' neighborhood (LOL) a few miles north, where i generally refused to tread unless I had to).

currently, i live in coyote country. semi-suburban and semi-rural... i'm 7 miles from a grocery store, 25 miles from a movie theater, and 60 miles from anywhere else thats worth being. I like it.

sure, the urbans have their benefits of cool eateries and what not... but i appreciate the smaller stuff more:
the peace and quiet...
neighbors who really are happy to see you...
fresh air(lack of exhaust fumes)...
i can see the stars at nite...
but most importantly...
i can walk around, nite or day, and totally ditch the practice of 'situational awareness' that i grew up with.

we got nothing here, but nothing sure is something that cant be bought.

3john2 said...

Don't let your situational awareness down if you're walking your pet in coyote-country, Gino! A neighboring suburb to mine is wringing their hands and bunching their undies over a "serial killer" in their midst - a coyote in the area that has discovered how easy it is to dine on fresh dog or cat - some still on the leash!

Gino said...

Yup, it happens here all the time. When i come home at nite i see them prowling to neighborhood.