Rural Banter

Author: ERICA GOODMAN

Suburban Sprawl. The phrase rings not quite the same pleasant value as others like "Happy Holidays" or "Bon Appetit." Although it conjures up images of "Leave it to Beaver" living, the spread of the urban periphery lends to more criticism. The intricate highway systems are nothing new to the generations of the 21st century. And of course, we have all been warned that Wal-Mart eats small children. Beware!

Aesthetically, sprawl harbors monotony. Big box stores, chain restaurants, cookie-cutter houses. Owning a house that looks just like your neighbors' in a development that looks like every other suburban neighborhood is comforting. Charming nature preserves, an attempt to resurrect the natural flora bulldozed away, are all that breaks the architectural ennui. Last year, my uncles sold our family farm to a children's all-star soccer camp. The view from our living-room window will change from fields of corn and hay to zebra-striped rectangles and steely dormitories. Better than a housing development. And yet the changing landscape is still a sign that suburbia is taking over.

I have long been a critic of commercial pressures on the countryside, of Home Depot and Target plopping down parking lots on once fertile fields. However, on a recent drive back from Boston, it occurred to me that the uniformity that is the curse of suburban sprawl is really nothing new. New England towns, admired for their quaintness of character are really identical communities speckled throughout the rolling countryside. Consider any main street in Vermont - a few privately owned eclectic gift shops here, an artist's workshop or two there, a ski/outdoor sport shop and the country or food store offering the best of local flavor to round out the business district.

The view out the window between the villages is itself quite repetitive. Mountains. Check. Cow pastures. Check.

So why is rural America praised for its uniqueness when in reality its uniformity is the same as its suburban foe? Well it seem as though with the metropolises continuing to expand, Americans want safe streets and they quickly look to places where nobody locks their doors for inspiration. Suburbanites want luscious green lawns; they desire a taste of the country but don't want to leave their vinyl-sided castles and shopping centers behind.

But trying to capture the prized natural atmosphere of rural homogeny within city streets is threatening. As the boundaries between city, suburb and country dissolve beneath highway asphalt, the repetitiveness of New England towns is becoming an endangered species, until one day they finally become extinct.

Survival of the fittest? Perhaps. Just something to think about next time you are stuck in rush hour traffic.