the deterioration of the american dream

it wasn't so very long ago when you could explore the neighborhood.  i remember when, growing up, i could not see my neighbor's house from mine.  i could not see it from the street.  i was living in the suburbs, then, and the suburbs today are a perversion of the ideal that may or may not have ever existed.  now there is nothing to explore, it is all the same. the american dream has changed, slowly, to be fair and give each neighbor the same land, with the same house with the same fence, and the same sidewalks separating the same streets from the same houses on the other side.  why did this happen?  what made us move to the suburbs and what is changing its definition?

the answer is the same thing that is ailing our cities, making transportation horribly deficient, crowding streets with little respite.  we all need space and social connection.  to greater or lesser degrees we are all dependant on others -- for survival as well as sanity -- yet also have a deep attachment to space and nature which we feel both mentally and physically when deprived of it.

the suburbs were an attempt to reconcile these two forces, living near enough to others yet having much of your own space.  the cities the same, but living very closely with others and nearby to open space.  we have not yet solved this problem.

why has a higher standard of living somehow failed to produce a better quality of life?

the challenges of increasing population are numerous, and extend to all reaches of our everyday lives.  we have a set amount of space and a set amount of resources that are straining under the load.  our response to this issue has simply devestated the fabric of our cities:  the automobile.  we put so much into this invention, using it to push our cities outward to accomodate the growing population because we could simply drive back into town when needed.  the result is that we love our cars so much, that we give well over fifty times the space we need to it.  meaning, without it, we could live in one fiftith the space.

of course, we rely on them.  we have vast transportation networks.  we need them to get food, to connect us to other cities, to go to a friends house, to get to big warehouses for supplies that are served by trucks that use the same roads.  so how do we fix something that we have spent so much money, time, space, and materials in while at the same time fix problems with our population and ammenities?

change their definition.

more to come.