Suburbia

Imagine it, an idyllic little neighborhood filled filled with quaint little houses, occupied by perfect little families, children playing in the streets, neighbors walking their dogs, the scent of backyard barbecue wafting through the air.  How positively awful.  Neighbors getting in the way, having opinions; children making noise, spreading their germs everywhere they go; dogs with their derpy faces, the rabid beasts; pollen literally everywhere, POLLEN.  

Nope, not for me.  Give me a crummy apartment over a butcher shop condemned by the health department in a district with a triple digit crime rate in any city in the world (not L.A. I have some standards).  

As I see it, one of the fundamental flaws with modern suburbia is it produces an artificial community through forced proximity, reinforced by the idea of shared prosperity and shared identity, but completely lacking in shared history and experience.  When you move into a new house or apartment, the first thing you do is place furniture, inject your own identity into the space, make it your own.  In suburban developments however, you are often restricted in your control of the exterior form of your house, limited by standardized forms and colors.  In such a community built only upon proximity, where its is difficult to develop a spacial identity, it follows that social identity would suffer as well, leading to only two true options; to conform or conflict, both within and without.