I know I’m on to something when I’m in agreement with a magazine that has pictures of hot women in it along with bodyspray ads. As David Hochman in Details Magazine pointed out a few years ago, the suburbs can be cool, too. Here’s the money quote:
But in the past decade, the distinction between city and suburb has become blurred. “Commuter towns” in places like northern New Jersey, the eastern shore of Seattle’s Lake Washington, and Orange County, California—once considered cultural Siberia—are now filled with work-from-home hipsters who care about things like independent cinema and what Arianna Huffington has to say. Long-ignored suburban outposts are being rebuilt with cool arts facilities and retro-chic cafés. In short, the things we always thought we needed cities for—decent sesame noodles, fabulous eyewear, lesbians—are now available where once there were only Aunt Goldie and her mahjong group. . . .
“From a cultural standpoint, cities are becoming less interesting and the suburbs are increasingly where the action is,” says Joel Kotkin, author of The City: A Global History. “Partly because of the freedom the Internet gives us, but also because cities have become homogenized, inhospitable, and expensive beyond belief, people now live by the ethos of ‘everywhere a city,’ even if they’re in an outer ring, an outer-outer ring, or beyond.”
And since we’re talking about Suma, we even have an example in Dade Hayes, a writer, who moved from Manhattan to Larchmont (in Westchester):
After decades of living in New York and L.A., Dade Hayes, an editor and author, recently did the unthinkable: He bought a house in Larchmont, New York, a mile from where he grew up. “When I was a kid, Larchmont was a sleepy town where the most interesting restaurant was probably Charlie Brown’s,” he says. “Now there are late-night martini bars, a singles scene, an indie movie house a town over—and all without the glorious urine stench you get in Manhattan.”
Late night martini bars, an indie movie house, no urine stench? Now, THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about!
