Original thinking!
Mr. Brooks evidently awoke in his pentium-condominium, "Mid-Town," and began to swing at the flies that have accumulated inside all his windows (which also give him a lovely view of the basic city food groups, also "dynamic").
That's what I hate about suburbia right there. I come from the country which is now one of these 'sprinkler cities'. I don't like the elitists. I can deal with the poor. I can deal with the rich that aren't elitists. The ELITISM I can't stand.
The people who used to live in these empty places don't like it; they've had to move further out in search of valleys still pristine. But the sprawl people just love it. They talk to you like born-again evangelists, as if their life had undergone some magical transformation when they made the big move. They talk as if they'd thrown off some set of horrendous weights, banished some class of unpleasant experiences, and magically floated up into the realm of good climate, fine people, job opportunities, and transcendent convenience. In 2001, Loudoun County did a survey of its residents. Ninety-eight percent felt safe in their neighborhoods. Ninety-three percent rated their county's quality of life excellent or good. Only a third of the county's residents, by the way, have lived there for more than 10 years.
ROFL. I remember the pre-walmart days, pre-mass subdivision days, pre-depos, and back when we had blue racer snakes and phesants.
For a time they do a dance about preserving the places they are changing by their presence. As soon as people move into a Sprinkler City, they start lobbying to control further growth
I know a lot of the stereotype 'patio men' out there. They are probably the most common people I see at gunowners and GOP meetings. No elitism(doesn't matter if they are a doctor, lawyer, or auto worker). There is a reason these people move AWAY from the city. Most I know don't care for a lot of the growth. "Brighton is too big...there's no space anymore between Brighton and Howell". When I'm not saying it myself, I'm hearing that all the time.
And the suburban middle-class folks in these places will again strike out as the avant-garde toward new places, with new sorts of stores and a new vision of the innocent hometown.
This is what scares me about Livingston County(particulary Brighton, where I'm from), and I have seen some of this coming already. Property values are skyrocketing, and some of the elite types are coming out here.
Anyone ever tell one of those elitists to GO HOME?!!!
I'd say more but I have to go downstairs and flip over the steaks that I have marinating. Also it's time to turn off those sprinklers and get the beer on ice.
There is something at once comfortable and at once revolting to me in the Patio Man culture: perhaps it is to shiny, to polished, to easy, to suit me. Which is rather hypocritical to say, as my family is quite affluent in our area, and live comfortably in a large, newly built home- but folks here tend to lack the suburban culture, even if they possess large homes that would fit into any Sprinkler City. My "through the woods" neighbor, Mr. Rielly, has a large, fairly new home that one could easily picture in a suburb- but he feeds catfish and brim every afternoon and grows a massive vegetable garden and shoots deer from his back porch. Some of our neighbors live in little trailer houses and have cars up on blocks. It's not the refined, beautiful world of suburbia- but I get to watch a spectacualr orange-boiling sunset through misty pine woods and overgrown privet hedges- though perhaps with log trucks roaring by up the road. Choose the life you wish to live. Patio Men have their place, and if someone chooses to live as such, good for them. But I think something is lost- and perhaps it is invietable that one day no one will be able to choose.