Ideal Place of Mind

Mar 03, 2008 - 22:46 PM PST

The suburb. Home of the quiet residential street where the newspaper is always on time, and dew settles nicely onto freshly cut manicured lawns. Aahh. The suburb. I hate the suburb.

All great cities have a moving, beating heart. This heart is a cultural hub where ideas are free to form and to mix. There are no restrictive zones. Residential, business and recreational areas appear out of convenience. All needs are ideally within walking distance. In the suburbs, nothing is natural. All aspects of human life are pre-planned. Schools, grocery stores and other necessities are only accessible by car.

I long for the seedy underbelly. I long for an art museum and a corner store located within several blocks of each other. I even long for great public transportation. I want to sit next to body odor, pregnancy, gold chains and black nail polish. I want to see suits and denim side by side.

Say no the same layout. Say no to Walgreen's and to McDonald's. So no to Olive Garden and to Old Navy. Say yes to a bookstore within a stripclub within a bar within a high fashion specialty boutique. Say yes to life. Say yes to personality. Say yes to the individual.

I know this is an idealist way of thinking, an idealist's dreams. But, the core ideas are what are important. Any day an individual accomplishes something over a corporation is a good day. And those are one in a million.