Randi Rhodes Message Board > Big City Values

liljimmi

Sep 9 2008, 09:14 AM

Hello, long time lurker and first time poster

My wife and I got so fed up with the "Small Town Values" rhetoric coming out of the 2008 RNC that we made a site: www.bigcityvalues.com for people to submit their Big City Values and favorite community organizers.

Please visit and submit an entry! It's only been up for less than 24 hours so there aren't many posts. I know y'all ain't shy so please check it out.

Thanks!
-Tracy

5by5

Sep 9 2008, 09:49 AM

I like this bit, because it is very true, and demolishes that lame notion that somehow people in the ex-urbs are more neighborly:

QUOTE

Contrary to what some people believe, this sort of village life is hard to find outside of big cities. Most small towns in America today have been completely gutted by suburbia. The compact, bustling towns my great-grandparents’ knew have been encircled and strangled by shopping centers, cul-de-sacs and sprawling business parks. It’s difficult to find a functioning downtown today where people can work, shop and play. Even the most bustling towns rarely have the array of produce stands, clothing stores and corner pharmacies that my city neighborhood had. Few small town dwellers know the pleasure of commuting to work on foot or by bike. Even fewer can live comfortably car-free. And most importantly, the casual, frequent, unplanned social interactions of small town life have grown rare outside of urban villages.

Suburbia doesn't HAVE neighborhoods. They have houses. There's no CHARACTER there. Just repetition and an insistence on lawn maintenance.

The kind of diverse, cross-cultural, cosmopolitan interaction that occurs in cities, simply doesn't happen out in the sticks, and they are poorer for it, without even knowing it. Life is more stratified, compartmentalized because there isn't any of the kind of mixed-use spaces that there are in cities.

forrest

Sep 9 2008, 09:49 AM

QUOTE (liljimmi @ Sep 9 2008, 08:55 AM)

Hello, long time lurker and first time poster

My wife and I got so fed up with the "Small Town Values" rhetoric coming out of the 2008 RNC that we made a site: www.bigcityvalues.com for people to submit their Big City Values and favorite community organizers.

Please visit and submit an entry! It's only been up for less than 24 hours so there aren't many posts. I know y'all ain't shy so please check it out.

Thanks!
-Tracy

Checked out your blog, I like it! I left a comment too.

5by5

Sep 9 2008, 09:57 AM

It pisses me off that the Republicans have advanced this notion that people in these little towns are somehow more friendly.

Bullpucky.

The burbs are some of the least friendly places in America, because unless you fit the cookie-cutter, you're shunned.

GCurry

Sep 9 2008, 10:14 AM

There is a kind of small town, older farming communities mostly, where everyone knows everyone's business and people help each other. My ex-wife was from one of them in central Illinois. That community took care of her 90 year old mother when she was unable to. But most of the young people have left those towns and they and their "caring community" orientation is drying up. They're an anachronism (but I hope we see a modern resurgence , re-invented).

Suburbs are not the same at all. In the modern suburb, I suspect it's more common not to even know your neighbors. It wasn't that way in the 50s, but at least in my long experience, people are isolated today, by television, computers, and the rising demands of modern life.

5by5

Sep 9 2008, 10:28 AM

I read an interesting thing a while back about the kind of true small town you're referring to, GCurry, that posited the idea that one of the reasons (besides an aging demographic) that such towns were disappearing was because of the basic abolishment of the traditional Town Square in favor of the commercial mall.

A common public space where citizen's meetings could be held, and not shut down simply because they offended private business interests of a select few, was integral to the functioning of such places.

NamelessGenXer

Sep 9 2008, 10:28 AM

Just trying to keep it light... here is what I posted -

QUOTE

For me the best thing about living in a culturally diverse, big city environment is the actual cultural diversity. Sometimes I go out with my Black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish and/or Muslim friends to eat drink and be merry in a Mexican place, or an Italian place, or an Indian place, or a Greek place, or a Vietnamese place, or a Moroccan place, or a Kosher Deli, or a Hofbrauhaus. Sometimes we even go out to a nice old-fashioned American Bistro.

Motor-City

Sep 9 2008, 12:17 PM

QUOTE (5by5 @ Sep 9 2008, 11:09 AM)

I read an interesting thing a while back about the kind of true small town you're referring to, GCurry, that posited the idea that one of the reasons (besides an aging demographic) that such towns were disappearing was because of the basic abolishment of the traditional Town Square in favor of the commercial mall.

A common public space where citizen's meetings could be held, and not shut down simply because they offended private business interests of a select few, was integral to the functioning of such places.

I think you kind of hit it here the infringement of comercial driven activity and enviroment is successfuly snuffing out people driven activities and enviroment even in the smallest towns, their day is being dictated to fit a universal mold. one in which the choices and styles are made for them rather than by them. its the zombification of America and small towns arent exempt.

Tyo

Sep 9 2008, 01:07 PM

QUOTE (liljimmi @ Sep 9 2008, 06:55 AM)

Hello, long time lurker and first time poster

My wife and I got so fed up with the "Small Town Values" rhetoric coming out of the 2008 RNC that we made a site: www.bigcityvalues.com for people to submit their Big City Values and favorite community organizers.

Thanks!
-Tracy

I'm so glad you posted this. Based on my limited experience with rural small towns I find them claustrophobic, monochrome, and boring. Not to mention sometimes vaguely menacing. Too much Stephen King I guess

I like my small towns urban. Some of the best small towns I've ever been to or lived in are in the middle of cities.

liljimmi

Sep 9 2008, 06:34 PM

QUOTE (5by5 @ Sep 9 2008, 10:30 AM)

Suburbia doesn't HAVE neighborhoods. They have houses. There's no CHARACTER there. Just repetition and an insistence on lawn maintenance.

I hear ya. I grew up in the suburbs and could not wait to get out!
I really don't want the site to bash "small town values," but i have to say it's really tempting.

LMatos

Sep 9 2008, 07:29 PM

QUOTE (liljimmi @ Sep 9 2008, 07:15 PM)

Suburbia doesn't HAVE neighborhoods. They have houses. There's no CHARACTER there. Just repetition and an insistence on lawn maintenance....

I hear ya. I grew up in the suburbs and could not wait to get out!
I really don't want the site to bash "small town values," but i have to say it's really tempting.

Florida, where I live, is littered with cookie cutter neighborhoods, so, unfortunately that's where I live. I love my house but not my neighborhood so much. Especially the homeowner associations. I mean, sometimes these board leaders become neighborhood tyrants. Another drawback is the strip malls too. Every street corner has a strip mall on it with the same 10 stores as every other strip mall. I guess the good thing though about the big town is that the larger governmental bodies have to answer to more people, so it's a bit harder to have a power hungry wacko take over your town.