The Uncharted Territory of the Suburbs
What even is the suburban wilderness?
There’s a lot to hate about the suburbs. They can represent the worst of American culture. First of all, they’re an ecological nightmare - car-centric, biodiversity wastelands (thanks to our stupid lawns, gardens with exotic plants that serve no purpose in our local ecosystem, and the pesticides we use to maintain these landscaping abominations), and hubs of unparalleled excessive consumerism, much of it driven by the cheap, plastic crap we’re constantly plying our kids with.
The suburbs can be lonely. They serve to reinforce our hyper-individualistic culture and the primacy of the nuclear family. Each home, each family unit, an island unto itself. Single people don’t want to live here, for good reason. The elderly, if they’re here, are often unnoticed. The family unit is king here. Life can be painfully provincial and myopic, revolving around the kids and their activities. Kids are taught they’re the center of the universe, and parents’ ability to develop interests and activities beyond working and parenting all but disappears (maybe this is different for parents of older kids… I dunno). If we’re lucky, maybe we squeeze in some time at the gym or yoga studio.
Suburban culture can be mind-numbingly homogenous. There are certain sports that all the kids do; certain places that all the kids have birthday parties. Moms are into wine and Taylor Swift, daughters are all Swifties, too. The dads have one of the certified Dad(™) interests: football, golf, getting your kid into a sport and maybe coaching said sport, craft beer. There’s certain things you talk about at block parties and on the playground at school pickup, and certain things you don’t. Cultural and social expectations are almost always unsaid, but certainly felt.
It’s a weird time to be an angry, leftist suburban mom (I mean, it’s always a weird time to be that, I guess). I live in a pretty progressive, politically active, and unusually diverse suburb. But most folks have been silent on the genocide in Gaza and it feels taboo to talk about. I’m absolutely shit at small talk, so some of my favorite topics of conversation: politics, religion, social justice issues, capitalism, the climate crisis, are pretty much off the table. Nobody wants to talk about that at the block party. Fair enough. But there’s really only so much I have to say about my kids before I’m ready to move on.
That said, there are definitely a handful of parents I’ve been able to have real conversations with, and boy do I appreciate those folks. I once had a chat with a mom friend on the playground and in the span of about 10 minutes we covered abortion laws, nonbinary kids, family religious trauma, and her struggles as a small business owner with a heart and a conscience navigating a soulless capitalist system. It will forever set the bar for playground conversations.
So, while I find certain aspects of the suburbs kind of abhorrent, I also see them as places of so much potential to model how things could be if we had the guts to transform the way we live. The suburban wilderness can be a lonely, scary place, but an uncharted world exists right here under our feet if we choose to go exploring.
I live in a suburb that, fortunately, is starting to explore. We’re absolutely going about it imperfectly, and many folks aren’t bothering with it at all. Still, there are signs that folks are thinking beyond the banal, cookie-cutter dogma of suburban life.
For example, our landscapes are changing. More and more people are planting natives (if you don’t understand what this means, check out this resource) and converting their lifeless beds of exotic plants surrounded by a sea of mulch (“Americans love to display their mulch,” says Piet Oudolf, which is a sick gardening burn) to densely planted, vibrant, natural landscapes that provide much-needed food and habitat for birds and bugs. Folks are converting their lawns, a landscaping feature that destroys local ecosystems and should only be used sparingly, to gardens. The use of pesticides and herbicides is almost becoming taboo.
More and more people are growing food in their yards. And not only feeding themselves, but sharing with neighbors, with the local food bank, and community fridges (which sadly, have been removed from most of their locations in our town for reasons I don’t quite understand, but might have to do with people being jerks and complaining about cleanliness or safety, which is suburban code for “keep the poor/unhoused folks away from us”). The next step, which I’ve long hoped to see, is people planting front yards and parkways with native plants and food for anyone to take. If I had a lot more time and money (and were able to get husband on board), I’d completely transform our front yard into a native foodscape.
In the suburbs we’re blessed with this relative abundance of land, at least compared to urbanites. But we also have an abundance of stuff. A truly grotesque abundance of stuff. But every now and then, this excess comes in handy.
The main reason I wanted to write this essay now is because I’ve been blown away by how my community has stepped up to support the migrants who have come to the U.S. seeking asylum and a better life, and have landed in our community in the past few months. In fact, they’re here not by accident, but because an incredible group of people stepped up and insisted that they not be left to sleep in tents outside a police station just a mile from us, in the community of Austin in Chicago. On Halloween night last year, when the first snow and really cold weather of the season came, community advocates pushed our Village leaders to open our police station and coordinate with local faith communities to take in nearly 200 migrants and give them a warm place to sleep.
An extensive volunteer effort quickly sprung up to ensure these folks, many of them children, were cared for. We provided meals and warm clothing. All those old winter coats and kids boots that don’t fit anymore finally had a truly good place to go. I had been hanging on to an entire case of diapers and wipes that we didn’t end up using because, (miracle of miracle) potty training suddenly took. I knew if I waited long enough the right opportunity would arise to give them away, and there it was.
Community members sorted through hundreds of donations of clothing, provided rides to doctor’s appointments, helped coordinate legal aid and translation assistance, helped get kids enrolled in our public schools. They’ve created a “job board” to allow folks to hire migrants for simple jobs around the house like cleaning and minor repairs, so they have a way to start supporting themselves. And most incredible of all, folks even opened up their homes to house these new neighbors. People have literally given spare rooms in their own homes to people in need!!
I’m not sure I’ve personally seen a more robust example of mutual aid in action than what the community in and around Oak Park has done to support the individuals and families that have arrived here.
I want to take this time to plug the next step in this mutual aid effort. Village officials struck a deal with a local hotel and the YMCA to help house many of these folks and provide them dinner every night, and unfortunately, it appears that support will end at the end of February. So a resettlement task force (again, a fully volunteer mutual aid effort) has taken it upon themselves to raise enough money to cover one year of rent for every one of these folks, so they have the stability to continue their journey.
So, if you’re reading this and you feel moved, you can get more information and find out how to donate to this effort here.
Also, you all know that I am not a god-fearing, church-going kind of lady. But, remember when I wrote just last week about how, for some people, their religion helps them be more compassionate and open-hearted and do good in the world? Well let me also take this moment to shout out the churches, synagogues, and other faith groups in our community. Because they have been integral to this effort from day one. The Community of Congregations is handling all the donations for the resettlement fund and has been closely involved in the logistics of housing, feeding, and clothing the asylum-seekers in our community.
This, folks, is the best of what communities can be. Has this organizing all been smooth sailing with no internal politics and head-butting? Of course not. We’re human and this is what it is to be in community with people - navigating difference of opinion and conflict.
But I think the suburbs are in a unique position to step up and provide a model for community care and mutual aid that might not be as easy in cities or rural areas. We have the resources, networks, and privileges to provide safety nets to vulnerable folks in a truly extraordinary way… if we’re willing to rise to the occasion.
And there’s the rub. What’s needed is the political consciousness and will to do it. We need leaders with the courage to buck the suburban norms of insularity and conformity, and we need the many to come together and walk the path those leaders have laid out.
I can’t help but think our community’s effort will be a blueprint. There will only be more crises like this to come. There will be more refugees fleeing countries on the brink of ecological and social collapse as the climate crisis tightens its grip. There will be more and more vulnerable folks in our own community as food and energy prices continue to rise. And let me be clear, our country is teetering at the edge of a horrifying transformation, as fascism and civil war become increasingly plausible threats (if you don’t understand how dire things are, I seriously urge you to listen to this and this interview on Democracy Now about Trump and the Republicans’ plan for 2025). The time may be coming sooner than we think when we will have to come together to take care of each other.
So let’s let these creative and sustainable uses of land guide us and these incredible acts of collective compassion and generosity inspire us. And let’s make sure we’re taking notes and charting this uncharted territory of the suburban wilderness. Because we’re going to need that map.