You know how sometimes when you tune into a talk show you like, and there is a guest host. This is kinda like that. Im too tired, and busy to write anything today, so I have cut and pasted Ryan's thoughts on modern day life in the suburbs. It was actually a paper he did in 1999 (was it really that long ago?). Its pretty interesting though.

"Suburbia"


“Turn right at the Golden Arches and hang a left at Sal’s Pizza, go down two traffic lights, and that will bring you to Winding Way.” Are those the direction to you house? If not, I’ll bet they’re pretty close. That’s how it is in the suburbs. Middle class suburbia, which I am and always have been a part of, has become in recent years a predictable and patterned society in which almost any town in the US can be moved to another part of the country and fit right in. There are fewer and fewer distinguishing features in these suburban towns that once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I know we all have grown very accustom to our food markets, fast food restaurants, and video rental stores, but its gotten to the point to where they all seem to be in the same order and the some distance apart from each other.

Suburbs are a product of the city and country. They are a breeding ground for contact zones. Mary Louise Pratt defines contact zones as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermath as they are lived out in many parts of the world today”(Pratt 530). These zones have become so abundant in suburbia, it is almost as if there are no contact zones but just contact.

Suburbia was a new concept in the early 1950’s. It seemed to be a perfect mix of city and country. The suburbs had the food stores and restaurants of the city without the inconvenience of bumper to bumper traffic to get to them. They had the clear skies and quiet nights of the country, but had not without the occasional carnival or celebration to break the silence. The houses were just far enough apart to where you can have your personal space but close enough to where you would be able to visit your neighbor without having to travel 5 miles. They definitely had the best of both worlds. Now that they have become a world of their own, I’m not sure if those “bests” are even there anymore.

Today, it’s a little different. First, another question. How many times have you gotten lost in a development? People think it is easy to get lost in the sea of cars and buildings that is the city. They also picture getting lost on that never-ending dirt road in the country. These both are true, however, the suburbs are now just as easy to get lost in. Let’s start with where the houses are: developments. The idea behind developments is that all of the houses are designed almost identically. They all look the same! Maple St., Oak St., Washington or Lincoln Blvd., Yale or Harvard Ave., it doesn’t matter.

On the other side of my town, there is a development and I get lost everytime I go in there. It is a maze of split level houses with bushes, basketball nets in the driveway, and American flags hanging outside front doors. If I get lost in my own town, what chance do I have in another one?

Then once you get out of the development, you have to find the thrift store and Marco’s Italian Eatery. Is it two lights past Evesham Ave. or three? Do I go right at the Wawa or stay straight? These are the suburbs of today. They aren’t a bad place to live in, they are just a little monotonous. Sure, there’s a lot to do, but its all pretty much the same.

Another thing that brings out the similarity of suburbia is the seasons. With spring there is gardening. Make sure your daffodils and tulips are in the ground and ready to bloom. Memorial Day comes around and its bar-b-que time. When you really think about it, everyone is doing the same thing. Dad is grilling burgers and dogs while mom is fixing potato salad. The neighbors bring the apple pie.

Summer rolls around and it’s the town swim club for passing those long days away. As August gets under way, it’s time to get to the mall for those back to school sales. Football and soccer tryouts occupy the kids while raking leaves and painting the shed occupies the parents.

Halloween is always nice as long as no one gets lost trick or treating in their own neighborhood. Thanksgiving is a chance where we can visit our relatives in a suburb out of state and not be too impressed.

Now the days are colder and the snow is falling. Santa is at the mall, along with the rest of the civilized world and the kids are making some extra cash shoveling driveways and sledding down the hill behind K-Mart.

It is pretty common knowledge that changing schools is a nerve-racking experience. This is true but to different degrees. If a student from a city comes into a suburb to a new school, the change may be overwhelming at first. But when they come from just another suburb, the transition is much smoother.

In her article “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Pratt discusses two different kinds of cultures. There is the conqueror and there is the conquered. What forms a contact zone is the blending of these two cultures. Languages, traditions, among other customs are given and taken from both sides. Pratt uses a quote from Guaman Poma’s New Chronical and Good Government to give an example of “a conquered subject using the conqueror’s language to construct a parodic, oppositional representation of the conqueror’s own speech.” In essence, this is an example of how a contact zone is created from two cultures, a conqueror and a conquered. The common ground here is language. The Andeans dream of the Spanish bringing them gold and silver from Peru. When they end up brining nothing, the Andeans say something to express their feelings of disappointment in a “parodic” manner.

In this particular case, the result of the contact zone is negative. The Spanish were depicted as a higher power in Puman’s book. The second half, which is called “Good Government and Justice,” “combines a description of colonial society in the Andean region with a passionate denunciation of Spanish exploration and abuse”(Pratt 533). The Andeans were being decimated “at a genocidal rate” (Pratt 533).
In the case of the suburbs, however, it is positive. As time went on, views of suburban life from city and country inhabitants become somewhat negative. The stereotypes began to form. For starters, there are the snobbish, lazy twenty and thirty-somethings living at the mall and coffee shop slash bookstores. Then there’s the high schoolers with their own car (but can’t parallel park since they never have to) who drive to the mall and spend hours walking its floor without making a single purchase and sometimes not even entering a store, are among some of the many. I’ll admit that I am guilty of the latter along with a countless number of my peers. That’s what’s happening in these towns. The mall, bookstores, Taco Bell, and Blockbusters are the things to do.

With the contact zones of the Spanish and Andeans, the Spanish were the dominant culture. It is hard to say which culture is the dominant and which is the conquered when talking about the suburbs. If I had to choose, and I pretty much do, I’d say that the city has had a bigger impact than the country has. Many of a big American city’s qualities can be found in suburbia. Today, there IS bumper to bumper traffic. Ever since that multiplex cinema and new deluxe Shop Rite went up across the street from each other, there’s gridlock pretty much anytime of the day. And as far as roads go, they always need fixing. When one gets fixed, another is shut down. This creates detours, which create more traffic, which creates a mini city, if you will. Because of this, those in the country have similar perceptions of suburbians as the city residents do, but for the opposite reason, since they are on the other end of the spectrum.

Autoethnography, transculturation, critique, collaboration,
Bilingualism, mediation, parody, denunciation, imaginary
Dialogue, vernacular expression-these are some of the literate
arts of the contact zone.(Pratt 536).

Miscomprehension, incomprehension, dead letters, unread
Masterpieces, absolute heterogeneity of meaning-these are
Some of the perils of writing in the contact zone.(Pratt 536).

Pratt said this referring to literature but these terms also fit the way we live in communities. As I said before the suburbs aren’t a bad place to live in, they just have become barren. Not barren in the literal sense, but in the overall feeling they give off. They are all I have ever lived in and don’t mind them at all. I’ll probably continue to live in them as I get older. I’m sure there are many people who live in cities and in the country who will agree that there habitats are all the same. It’s just that the suburbs were the new way. They were the mixture of two extremes. Now they have just become an extreme of their own.