Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Save me from the suburbs!

I work in Bala Cynwyd, an oddly titled little place whose name was most likely invented by the same annoying people who insist upon spellings like "Smyth" and "Jon" and the other assorted variants intended to make a boring name seem exciting. (I once worked with a woman who spelled her name "Sandi Whyte." Grrr.) Anyway, Bala Cynwyd is basically a giant office park with a few overpriced stores and traffic from the fifth layer of Hell. That's it. The surrounding area, however, has the same traffic problems even without the office parks. There are just too many cars on roads never designed to handle the volume.

I thought the idea behind getting out of the city was to leave the "hustle and bustle" behind, yet Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, Wynnewood and Bala Cynwyd seem pretty hustly and bustly to me. Same with Blue Bell, Plymouth Meeting, and King of Prussia. Country living I understand, even if I don't desire it, but suburban life I don't get. All the traffic congestion of the city with none of the vitality. Worse, there's something unutterably bland about most suburbs, as if you barely have to squint to see the hand of the developer who made a mint demolishing farmland and replacing it with cheaply built houses for yuppies who didn't want to live near black folks. Some of those houses are cheap, too, and they all look the same.

(No, Michael Moore has not hacked into this blog. It's me. Hopefully you aren't offended by any of this, but on my blog I'm allowed to make unapologetic social commentary as desired.)

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