Suburban Sprawl

       The churning of the chain-driven tracks is an ongoing disturbance. Diesel equipment is pushing earth to and from. Across suburbia the expansion continues. Apathy abounds among those who are city dwellers or in older communities already full to the point of bulging. Still the heavy equipment continues its’ mission.

        I’ve heard it from neighbors and I’ve heard it from co-workers. Who is buying all these homes? Who can afford these prices?  In many cases it’s no longer locals, and sometimes not even people from in-state. Once the new neighbors are moved in, the complaints about the taxes start. Didn’t they look at the contract when they bought the house? Didn’t they realize what they were getting into?

        After a while it isn’t just houses anymore. The abundant homes are a precursor to a new wing on the school. Those taxes people were complaining about are due for a increase to pay for that, while surely schools elsewhere must be wondering where their students have gone.

        Still the building continues. What are the farmers doing now that the farm is sold? I can’t blame them for selling. Farming is a tough life. It takes a certain type of individual to work extended hours and make (sometimes) a meager living. The land holds them with a tight grip, but sometimes the fight gets too big, and the grip loosens. Do they move to a house that sits on land they once owned or do they become the out-of-staters buying in a development on land a kindred spirit finally sold? Either prospect seems grim to me. How do you move from acreage to a lot? How do you go from the solitude of a homestead to the cacophony of a neighborhood?

        Still the building continues. What do we sacrifice when the local farms are gone? We go to the farmer’s market and buy the produce unloaded from trucks that bring it in from the commercial farms. The small farmers, still trying to keep their properties can hardly compete with the prices of the trucked in produce, but the locals still have the freshness and the connection with their product. They can tell you it was picked this morning or this week with certainty; picked out of the ground or off the tree, not off the truck.

        Does the sprawl help the local economy? Builders build; their employees are bringing home local checks to support our economy. The commuters fleeing the city fill up their tanks often, stopping to buy their paper and a jumbo coffee, filling the air with the exhaust fumes that don’t get absorbed by the fields of corn. The roads fill with traffic, allowing us time to contemplate life and enjoy the view of the newest neighborhood, still being built.

        And still the building continues.

Rob Britt 2006