Little Houses on the Hillside, Little Houses made of ticky tacky...
Posted 07-16-2008 at 04:26 PM by Austin Blue
Updated 07-16-2008 at 04:27 PM by Austin Blue (spelling)
Updated 07-16-2008 at 04:27 PM by Austin Blue (spelling)
All these little houses on the hillside and they all look just the same; there's a green one, there's a yellow one, there's a red and a blue one, and they're all made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same....
It's some song from the show called WEEDS which I'm totally addicted to. A show about suburbs.
I live in Willoughby, an upper class suburban section of Langley a city about 30 minutes drive from Vancouver. I've been here 4 years and hate it.
It's rows of rows of houses, townhomes and strip malls filled with BMW, Volvo, Audi, driving ex-urbanites with families and they all have ipods, the latest cellphones, perfect tonned tanned bodies, drinking iced coffees at Starbucks and all do their yoga and attend council meetings etc. Oh and they all have cute dogs they walk to Starbucks and uggghhhh!!!
Does anyone understand how numbing it is to live in a carboard cookie cutter house, designed by a computer and built with prefabricated pieces?
I just lost my job - so ok, why are there so many friggin' people at the local Chapters (sort of like Boarders in the states), a huge mega book shop on a weekday, all of them looking perfect and drinking Starbucks? Don't they work?!
I've no idea how they afford their $750,000 homes on the hills with perfect lawns and brand new cars.
It's some song from the show called WEEDS which I'm totally addicted to. A show about suburbs.
I live in Willoughby, an upper class suburban section of Langley a city about 30 minutes drive from Vancouver. I've been here 4 years and hate it.
It's rows of rows of houses, townhomes and strip malls filled with BMW, Volvo, Audi, driving ex-urbanites with families and they all have ipods, the latest cellphones, perfect tonned tanned bodies, drinking iced coffees at Starbucks and all do their yoga and attend council meetings etc. Oh and they all have cute dogs they walk to Starbucks and uggghhhh!!!
Does anyone understand how numbing it is to live in a carboard cookie cutter house, designed by a computer and built with prefabricated pieces?
I just lost my job - so ok, why are there so many friggin' people at the local Chapters (sort of like Boarders in the states), a huge mega book shop on a weekday, all of them looking perfect and drinking Starbucks? Don't they work?!
I've no idea how they afford their $750,000 homes on the hills with perfect lawns and brand new cars.
Total Comments 9
Comments
 |  You should ask those Suburbanites. |
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| |  Real estate in lower mainland area Vancouver is crazy with some of the highest prices in north america. I simply don't know how a couple can afford a house $750,000 plus two cars worth $45,000 each. They also likely pay someone to do their lawns and clean the house. |
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| |  its called being in debt up to your eyeballs. I hope it isn't as bad up there as it is here in the States, but our economy is crumbling b/c of people such as those mentioned by you. |
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| | It's about to happen here soon - the economy is fine (for now!), but I know the majority of them must be upto their eyeballs in dept and they must be maxed out on their credit. |
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| | I'm moving this summer out of here and back into Vancouver area. I'm not enjoying life in the suburbs at all after being here for 4 years. |
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| | I haven't seen the show, but that's a Randy Newman song. |
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| |  No, it is a Pete Seeger song. As for all the people at the bookstore, I asked the same question when I was laid off. I found that the answer is that some 3/4 of the economy of countries like the US and Canada is made up of very small business. Much of America's business takes place over coffee at StarBucks by salesmen and other small proprietors. That is why there is so much traffic out there duing the day. Those of us who have worked mostly in large companies think that corporate life is the dominant one, but that is not true. The best advice I got when I was laid off was to join the ranks of the self-employed and conduct my own business at StarBucks. Life is better on the outside. I also believe like you do that suburbia is a failed social experiment. It is stultifyingly dehumanizing. Give me the urban life anyday. I want to just go downstairs and walk to the neighborhood bakery or something. But in the 'burbs, the only thing you can do is drive to some franchise or other to get a prefab pastry. Suburbia has no soul. |
| Updated 07-17-2008 at 12:03 AM by JustAsking |
| | Austin, I understand what you're talking about. Its the same in Morgan Creek and so many other areas in Greater Vancouver. Some of those people could have sold their home in Vancouver and moved to the burbs. Anything on the west side will get you close to a million and up. $750,000 is a bargain. I live in Yaletown (which I hate) where a closet starts at $ 350,000. Greater Vancouver has been a developers paradise for years. Where's so much money in Vancouver now and everyone wants the huge craftsman style house. At one time everyone wanted a BMW, now its not uncommon to see a few Bentleys, Aston Martins and Lamborginis every day. |
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| | Where's Morgan Creek, the name sounds so familar? I used to live downtown at Davie and Howe street in a 500 sq foot closet for that is now worth $350,000. I'm looking to move back to SFU area, near Lougheed Mall. And yes the suburbs are a failed social experiment that should have been abandoned years ago. Interestingly I've been reading about towns in Denmark where they have no cars in the town. Everything is around a circle, so the cars park on the outskirts of the 'circle' part of town and the town centre is for walking only. It reminds me of Whistler where there's no cars in the town and all the parking is on the outskirts. |
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