We had our neighborhood block party Friday night. This was our sixth annual block party; our first one was in July, which given the heat and humidity in Saint Louis in July was a big mistake. Now its the first Friday in October, and you never know what the weather will be like. The weather this year was perfect — cool and crisp — and we had a great time eating, visiting, and admiring one of our neighbors new sports car. He’s a bit old for a mid-life crisis, but better late than never, I always say. We like our neighborhood — the builder left the original Oak-Hickory-Dogwood forest in the back yards, the houses aren’t too close together, people are friendly and helpful, and there is a real sense of community.
Contrary to the urban myth of the awful suburbs, we’re happy living here. We didn’t flee the central city leaving it to decay – both my wife and I were born and raised in the suburbs, and have always lived in a suburb. Many urban advocates talk of central city in terms of small town life – Ray Suarez in his “The Old Neighborhood, What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration” claims the virtues of urban living we’re identical to a traditional vision of small town life – everybody knows you, you have to travel only a small distance to get everything you need, and a sense of community. I find those to be the same virtues of where I live, even though it’s in the suburbs. Sure, there’s parts of the city with “more action”, but quite frankly I’m at a point in my life I’ve got more action than I can handle. Rather than denigrate suburban life, urban advocates would do better to improve modern urban life.
