little ticky tacky houses

Little boxes on the hillside

Little boxes made of ticky tacky

Little boxes on the hillside

Little boxes all the same

There's a pink one and a green one

And a blue one and a yellow one

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same

And the people in the houses

All went to the university

Where they were put in boxes

And they came out all the same….

I never truly experienced the impossibility of telling identical houses apart until I dated someone from the suburbs of Philly and always parked in front of the wrong house with the other Eagles flag. If you are going to build identical houses in a neighborhood at least make them different colors for the front door or something. Anyways, what struck me most was not just the homogeneity of the architecture, but the people as well. 

I enjoyed the John C. Keats “The Suburbs: The New American Nightmare” reading where he argues how these communities on identical people fail to build real connections because they are too similar and too isolated from the functions of the town. The richness and vibrancy of a mix of housing types that you get within a city block is lost. Even with a single apartment building, you get diversity in those who can afford the the penthouse view opposed to those just above a merchant shop; not to mention the diversity when you walk a few blocks over. Social and economic stratifications created identical neighborhoods where slight deviations in housing prices could signal a barrier and create another isolated pocket of say, IBM working fathers with 2 kids and a stay at home wife. Relationships just built on convenience of proximity and superficial acquaintances. “But in an homogenous community, no one has anything to offer anyone else. What ideas are expressed? What values formed? What do you give to your neighbor? What can he give you?” I don’t think I need to even explain the issues of living only amongst those exactly like you; it was basically like Facebook where you only see the news catered to you and your worldview except it was your entire life.