it's the next logical step from flat

Putting the sub back in suburbia.

I recently came across a diatribe someone published on the net that contained an argument for blowing up the suburbs. Now, while I like to think that every right thinking hip urban youth shares a healthy contempt for the city outside of the city and the general cowardice, conformity, and shallow addiction to having cake while eating cake, I think this kind of wild talk needs to be addressed. If we just start blowing up things we don't like, well, gosh- where's it all going to end? That's like, I don't know, Nazi talk or something. And anyway, someone's gotta work all those office jobs in the city. To me it represents an unfortunate trend in rebellious youth, of simply rushing to an unworkable and untenable extremist solution in lieu of really thinking the problem through.

Does anyone really support the mandatory modification of behaviour to fit a supposed societal ideal? Well... yes, of course. But not the kind of person who generally advocates blowing up suburbia. I say, you have to accept all forms of deviance, even one as wierd as suburban living. Our goal shouldn't be to eliminate the suburbs, since there is a constituency who just want to live that way, and like heroin users and dog fuckers, prohibition only leads to a nasty black market situation, another cash cow for violent criminals.

I advocate a simple solution: out of sight, out of mind. Why not put the suburbs underground? What these people want more than anything is to be seperated from the city entirely, and yet still have useful access to it. Subterranean suburban living is the ideal solution. Instead of driving through a wasteland of decaying strip malls, each suburbanite would simply exit the freeway and follow a circuitous route to their own personal secret underground access (think Batman teevee show). Imagine, a vast underground complex of fast food joints, sports bars, grot merchandise emporiums, dry cleaners and health clubs, and of course ugly and inneficient split level dwellings.

The trick, of course is getting them down there... Although one imagines if they experienced a sufficient amount of antisocial urban incursion, why, they might just head on down by themselves! Imagine a wave of skaters, goths, anachronistic punks (God knows they need something to keep themselves occupied), and whiny college protesters, descending into the wunderbread kingdom... Night after night after night after night...

klik if you demand tedious explanations of every little thing.