Letters to the Editor
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october271986...
Do you really think most people aspire to living in suburbia?
I've lived in North Carolina, Virginia, Arizona, California, Montana, and Minnesota. My parents rented owned homes everywhere except in Montana, where we own our own home, and now I go to school in Minnesota in a charming little college town with no suburban vibes. I have been in places where suburbia really is as bad as they say it is... driving through parts of Illinois, for example. However I think you'll find the majority of places that you go to are not like this. The majority of people who live in homes don't live places like this. I have never lived somewhere like that.
In the past couple years I've done driving tours of Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The only place I ever saw that suburban nightmare was a small part of Illinois outside of Chicago. I guess in some sense it's the people who want the best of both worlds... their own homes, as well as a life in the big city... that are really driving the need for these bedroom community, milquetoast suburbs. That is certainly the case here in Minnesota, where the Cities are fantastic and the small towns are wonderful but the sort of iffy big box crap is all right in between.