Loathing the suburbs and the SUV

Between reading this article in The Stranger about how the suburbs that have latched themselves onto St. Paul and Minneapolis only to then lay an assault on the city by voting Republican and listening to my boyfriend explain why he loathes SUVs but still admires the hell out of people who rebuild old gas guzzlers, I realized that in my take of the rural/urban divide I ignored the suburbs. I did it on purpose. I don't consider suburbanites to be rural people and I have no desire to defend them like I do rural people. Yes, I have hate in my heart for the 'burbs.
The most common thing you'll hear from surbanites if you ask them directly why they like the suburbs is that you get more footage for your dollar, which is how we ended up living there for a year to save money. Now I live in a smaller house, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's amazing now that all it takes to be considered scandously Bohemian anymore is to express a desire for a small house that's easy to clean.

But simply wanting more house for your dollar can't explain why the suburbs around Austin, at least, are so thoroughly dominated by Republicanism, assholery, and populated by Suburban Assault Vehicles like Hummers and the like. There's a definitive trend and the SUV is its symbol, which is why it's easy to hate the SUV but not hate car collectors.

For one thing, collecting and rebuilding gas-guzzlers of old isn't exactly the hobby of huge numbers of people. Its relative enviromental impact is small compared to the SUV, especially if you factor in that car collecters don't commute an hour plus everyday, spewing fumes into the air the entire time. On a symbolic level, car collectors are appreciated because they aren't followers. They know why they do what they do, and it's out of pure love for the mechanics and aesthetics of cars. Their motives are transparent and completely understandable.

The problem with the SUV is not just that it's popular or that it guzzles gas. Neither of these things really explains the rage directed towards it. To my mind, it's what it represents. It's the big, fat symbol for the resentment we urban-dwellers have towards the suburbs that article from The Stranger describes so well.

For one thing, it's a tank. Someone who drives their SUV into the city is broadcasting loud and clear that they think we're all just skeevy criminals. You sit behind one at a light with its multiple locking and alarm systems and you just know that this is the sort of car that the suburban types at work who ask you, "You really live in that neighborhood?" drive.

The sheer size of the vehicles speak volumes about the feelings of entitlement to take up space that drives people to the suburbs, too. This, more than anything, will cause many an urban-dweller who lives peacefully on top of her neighbors to go bananas. We may be paranoid, but I know a lot of urban people think that the surbanites just want to suck up all the space and resources for themselves. When I lived outside of Austin, I even noticed it waiting in line at the grocery store--people would not make space for others. The commuters that my boyfriend works with complain constantly about having to share the road with pedestrians and bicyclists, which translates out politically whenever there's a fight over more bicycle lanes and more compact car spaces. And of course, it comes out when the suburbs want more of what we consider our water and other enviromental resources. Suburban commuters in their slow-moving SUVs also create traffic problems for city-dwellers, though I can't complain too much about that as they extend my drive time from 10 minutes to 15, whereas they have an hour drive ahead of them.

The SUV also symbolizes pre-packaged, mass-marketed "individuality". Choosing between which American-made gas-guzzling tank you want is like choosing between which of the shitty chains that are all over the suburbs that you want to eat at. It's all crap. I don't think there would be so much resentment for these corporate chains if there wasn't the overriding fear that they are trying to infiltrate the cities and run your local taco stand out of business. And it's the same thing with the SUV, the fear that the commuters will eventually win and have the streets widened and everything homogenized to their benefit with a bill presented to those of us who live here.

This post is long and rambling, but I think I have a point, which is this: For all the bleating about Red and Blue America, there is a real struggle that has gotten pushed by the wayside. Urban Americans have a beef with the suburbs and our beef is real. It's not that they are stupid or religious or whatever defensive posture is being taken today. It's that we urban people really, truly don't think the suburban people can manage to find a way to leave us the fuck alone.

And this is where I think an alliance between blue urban types and red rural types can be made, to bring them back to the Democrats. It's not just helpful rural policies, though those are critical. We can make a case that we are both under assault from suburban cookie-cutterism, when all we want is to be left the fuck alone to live how we please. Urban people have a lot in common with rural and small town people. The tolerance for eccentricity. The resentment of big corporate chains running the locals out of business. The friendliness--everywhere I go in Austin, I run into friends, just like I did in Alpine. Not so in the suburbs. My city houses and my house in Alpine both had front porches and friends who actually came and went in the back door. People walk to the store in small towns and in cities. There is a cultural alliance there that's just waiting to be grabbed at.

Of course, that probably means making a common enemy of the suburbs. Which is unfortunate, but is already underway.