Book Review: Death by Suburb

I finished reading this book called Death by Suburb. I mainly wanted to read it because A) I live in the suburbs and B) the author is actually from the suburb I live in. In fact, I think he lives not too far from me (from what I can gather from the book). It's a simple non-fiction book where the type is 14pt so it can span 150+ pages. You can read it in about 2 hours.

The book is mainly divided into the 8 ways a suburban lifestyle can "kill your soul" such as being too obsessed with material possessions, not appreciating each and every day, and searching for the perfection in life. Pretty obvious stuff. Note: This book take a Christian slant.

According to the author, the lifestyle in the chicago suburbs (as contract to his upbringing in rural Nebraska/S. Dakota) can kill the spiritual christian soul if we let it. First off, I take offense to transplants to Chicago who act like they understand everything about it here. But then again, I started reading this book destined to hate it. Why? Because his first chapter is bad-mouthing the very town we live in. Even the beautiful Prairie Path gets reverted to a 2-lane mulched freeway.

The author, himself a victim to the lures of the suburbs -- the SUV, the perfect children -- explains how he traded up to the SUV. It was when a fellow church-goer said, "Oh it was you driving behind me in that grandma car." All I have to say is 1) Sign me up for that church and 2) who cares what other people say, are you not secure in yourself? I say this all, living in this same suburb driving around in a 1998 Civic with an anti-Bush sticker on my bumper. I've got to be secure!

So the author is definitely someone who has been manipulated by the idea he is judged by others. He wants to drive a car that makes others envious, he wants his kid to be reading better than the others. But as a Christian, he's in turmoil with what he was taught. It's obvious he was taught to be accepting and live life simply. As a non-religious person, I read this as the church is just yet another social sphere for judgment and condescension, as he demonstrates in his book (the cliques divided by wealth). He's just as guilty as the rest of them and that's why he's easily able to ID the problems. When I read it, I kept on thinking, why do you care what they say? Shouldn't you automatically be nice?

But in all fairness, I think the 8 "toxins" you can fall victim to can be true - if you let them.

One toxin was "I want my neighbor's life." The idea here was the immortality vs. mortality symbols. An immortality symbol, the author explains, is the SUV, the big car, the smart and athletic kids, anything that positions you as perfect, untouchable. A mortality symbol is losing your job, a special-needs kid -- all things that bring you down to earth. Those who have never experienced mortality cannot understand what it's like to have, for example, a special needs kid (and you all know I have a special needs brother, my immediate family is the poster child for mortality.) The solution was to make friends with those with no immortality symbols. In other words, when you live a mortal life and you have immortal friends, their pettiness will wear you down. Make friends with those who are also mortal - after all, we all are no matter what car we drive, there are those who just wish to hide it.

But I don't think they are "suburb-only" problems. It's an affluence thing. The higher you are up on the feed-chain the more control you want over your surroundings (i.e. perfection), and the more you are to value material possessions because you can actually get them. If you go to certain areas in the city, it's even worse.

We met a couple who told us that there are people who want to live in the up&coming areas in Chicago but drive their kids 10 miles away to the better schools. How different is that to the woman who took her kid out of the public school in the suburbs because a private education would be better?

Oh yes, this book is chock-full of little stories of how horrible people can be. How about the family that up and left in the middle of a little league game (with their kid) because she wasn't being played enough. Or the mom who demanded from the principal the scores to the kids who were above her own to "prove" they were really reading at a higher grade level.

But there are these types of crazies everywhere, and at every time in life. The important thing is to recognize them for what they are -- crazies -- and try to limit your exposure to them. For the author it's hard when you have kids and go to church -- we have neither. For now, we've always been friends with those who are kind, non-judgmental, and are true to themselves. Those who aren't seem to have an automatic aversion to us anyway, so I'm not worried. Maybe it's my car?