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Does
Your Environment
Surprise You?
by Betsy Hedberg |
I’m looking for a new hometown. I don’t yet know
exactly what I want – I’ve discovered that no town
has it all, so I’d better just figure out what’s
essential to me and go from there. One thing I’ve
deemed essential in a place is the opportunity for
surprise encounters. I recently moved back (perhaps
temporarily, perhaps not) to my childhood hometown of
Chicago and, hungry on the way to a concert, discovered
a tiny African restaurant. Great food, wonderful
Senegalese staff…a real "find." That sounds
like a normal city experience, but having spent the past
four years in a master-planned suburb, it was
particularly sublime.
When was the last time you went
for a walk in your city or town and discovered something
– anything – new and interesting? It could be a new
restaurant, an old bookstore, a new doggie in the window
of that house on the corner, a new tree in your favorite
park. Surprises can be found in the built or the natural
environment – in a city neighborhood or along a local
hiking trail.
And yes, I did use the word
"walk" in the previous paragraph. Driving
certainly has its conveniences except in the most
congested cities, but it drastically reduces the chances
for being surprised. In the Los Angeles area, where I
lived for nine years, people plan where they’ll go and
then make a beeline in their cars for that place. In
Chicago, New York, and other "walkable"
cities, people plan to walk to a particular place but
sometimes change their plans along the way if they come
across a surprise new destination. (My intention here is
not to put down LA; it certainly has better weather for
walking than the other cities on my list, and I met many
people there who were determined to discover as many new
things about the city as they could).
What has happened to the
element of surprise in our communities? I pondered this
question a lot when I lived in an upscale development of
single-family homes in Southern California called
"Three Springs." Within a five minute drive
were all the modern conveniences that we’re supposed
to be in love with: two Starbucks, three supermarkets, a
Blockbuster Video, and several excellent restaurants.
But it lacked a sense of spontaneity and a feeling that
you might just be surprised by something in your
environment. The shops didn’t surprise. The
architecture didn’t surprise. I was surprised
to find a wonderful little bar that served $6 pitchers
and had ancient pinball machines, darts, a pool table,
and a bartender who had been there for a couple decades.
The place closed down the week after I
"discovered" it.
What impact does our culture of
convenience have on our neighborhoods and communities?
Many urban planners, sociologists, and geographers have
lamented the banality of suburban life, the loss of a
real sense of community, the detachment that comes with
modern life and all its accompanying technology, etc.
Environmentalists decry the sprawl that’s expanding
this suburban experience over the landscape, taking away
the potential for surprise in the natural environment.
Small business associations fight the megastores. While
I don’t think life in modern suburbs is necessarily as
bleak as some people believe, I do feel that the lack of
potential for surprise experiences is a key element
missing from many of our communities and lifestyles
today. Things are planned for our convenience. We want
to know exactly where to shop and what we’ll find at
the stores. We want to go places, get what we need from
them, and leave. We have easy access to predictable
purchasing experiences, but in many towns we’re left
with no back alleys or courtyards to explore, no used
bookstores with that tattered old copy of Curious
George, no narrow little street with diverse or
eclectic-looking homes. Everything is nice and neat, all
set up for our convenience.
Even many city neighborhoods
have been "cleaned up" to accommodate our
supposed need for convenience and predictability. The
Chicago neighborhood where I lived ten years ago had
three nice little independent coffee houses that offered
a variety of music, poetry, books, and beverages. Now it
has three Starbucks and no independents. Is that really
what people in the community wanted? I doubt it, but it’s
all in the name of "progress" to know exactly
what your morning coffee is going to taste like and cost
and to know exactly what type of muffin they’ll be
serving.
Is it human nature to want this
level of convenience? Or does human nature want to be
challenged and surprised and given choices? Some people
don’t like surprises. But others thrive on being
surprised. Perhaps people who need surprises must seek
out environments that will allow them those surprises.
Or perhaps we can create our own opportunities for
surprise no matter where we are. Maybe if I had spent
more time getting to know the people behind the
supermarket counter, at the gas station, etc. in my
suburb, I’d have found surprises in the human
aspect of the environment.
Think about what you want and
need in your home environment. Are these things already
there, or do you have to try to make them happen? How
does the layout of the town, the architecture, and the
types of businesses affect your mood? Do you use the
town and its businesses in a mainly utilitarian manner,
or do you take pleasure from its streets and scenery? Do
you have enough surprises in your day-to-day or
month-to-month life? And to what extent is that level of
surprise controlled by your environment as opposed to by
your own motivation? What can you do to find or create
surprising experiences in the place where you live?
Perhaps pondering the answers to these questions can
help us all lead more fulfilling lives no matter where
we are.
Betsy Hedberg, geographer, freelance writer and founder of
www.studentactivities.com. She develops teaching materials for the K-12 classroom, particularly for geography, and devotes much of
her time to pondering our relationship to the cities, suburbs, and master-planned communities in which we live.
She recently relocated to Chicago after nine years in Southern
California.
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