Hopefully, this past week of spring break has been a long-lasting affair with the couch, with old friends and of course, with hometowns.
There is an unwritten law that declares hometowns off-limits to time; change is just not an option. In this case, like writer William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, the miniscule towns of some students are the most obedient to the law and hardly see a deviant wind.
But, if like many Americans, you grew up in mild suburbia, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise on your return home.
We expect our places to be frozen in time just because elementary school happened there. Putting too much faith in my theory (more of a wish really) of unchange, I dim-wittedly boarded my flight and waited to reach Fremont, a decent-sized suburb without serious traffic problems and with relatively safe residential areas.
But with new development plans, as soon as I got home I began to feel the prickle of the small changes such as spry young home developments.
Towns of this size all over America are facing pull and push factors of our fluctuating economy and many of us are seeing our hometowns get Botoxed into a false youth; Fremont is just one of them.
Ever since the end of World War II, Americans have been largely dissatisfied with the development and the redevelopment of suburban areas. First, it seems as if they do not grow fast enough to support all the families clamoring for white picket fences, but eventually, things spiral out of control and you have a triumph of the shopping center on your hands, and the bloody spot just won’t wash out.
I can feel Fremont going through the cycle and all evident changes are bad ones. For starters, the Albertsons I used to visit is now a Ross Dress for Less and something called dd’s Discounts. So instead of providing groceries for the Warm Spring area, this place will now provide a lot of nothing at a highly discounted price. This is just another negative addition to the town.
And according to numbers released by City-Data.com, the crime rate has increased significantly, as have real estate values all over town. An influx of new residents from all over the Bay Area due to the new housing developments is also obvious and unnerving.
When you leave empty fields behind, you don’t really expect to return to sporty little town homes painted to match, smugly occupying their trim little patches of land. Fremont might be a large town, but it still has plenty of open fields left and now, instead of seeing them, I see future dd’s Discounts and maybe a Party City or two.
The truly delicious piece of news is that they are bringing the Oakland A’s to Fremont as well. Call me bitter, but I am not ready to see angry traffic on the streets of this quiet town home to quaint places like “The Cheese Taster.”
The problem is that the construction and management of these urban communities has been left up to small, private builders. And over time this gets thrown in with some public policy, market prices and the hunt for the best school district.
The whole point of suburbia is that your home will have enough privacy and a neighborhood-feel without being in the backwaters of nowhere. However, being generally spoiled citizens of the 21st-century U.S., most people also want a Panda Express and nine Starbucks just waiting around the corner.
A viral corporate takeover of my town has already begun and I am watching as the hills, fields and even the schools degenerate into posters for some brand or the other. We need to pay attention to our towns and preserve them as we would anything else of value in our country.
The opposing needs of suburb citizens are tearing towns apart and changing their identities so rapidly that for those of us growing up in these communities, the feel of the encroaching corporate change is disturbing.
Anyone who has lived through the ’90s is aware of all the bad press and negative stereotypes of life in the ‘burbs.
But living in that kind of security can also help with self realization and basic harmony of life.
And, if suburbs are managed correctly, they can work as positive communities as well as serve to fortify their parent cities.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not extolling the virtues of cookie-cutter houses, but having grown up in a suburb, I feel as if there is a very real need for these suburban towns. It is sad that the power of business conglomerates as well as the town’s need for large taxpayers destroys the town’s character and personality.
To organize a field trip to dd’s, e-mail rjoshi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.