Five myths and truths about life in the suburbs
Our family moved to Eagan from Minneapolis a little less than three months ago. As someone who has never lived in the suburbs, these are some things I've learned so far about perception and reality.
I was born in New York City, the most populous and frenetic place in the United States. I lived almost my entire childhood in Grand Forks, N.D., a place that vacillates between being a big town and small city. The next 30 years were in Minneapolis, a classic mid-sized American city that also can feel both big and small.
And now I’ve been in the Twin Cities suburb of Eagan for a little less than three months.
It is different from much of what I had previously experienced, and settling into daily life near a city but not inside its core has given me an emerging perspective on the new way we are living — and more importantly the perception vs. the reality of what it means to be in “the suburbs.”
Here are five things I thought I knew about suburban life — notions held by me and often supported by a general consensus — and how they have held up so far either as myths, truths or some combination thereof.
1) Everything is far away
Truth: When I’m driving on one of the surprisingly many hills in Eagan (at least less of a challenge than running on them, as I’ve found out), I often can see the skyline of Minneapolis really far off in the distance.
I have promised not to be one of those people who washes away that distance by telling people emphatically that we are “only 20 minutes from both downtowns.” That might be true, or at least close to true in perfect traffic, but it is also almost all freeway driving.
The distance matters. I feel how far away I am from the centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul, for better or worse, and it shapes my behavior. When I’m home for the day, I’m more apt to be in for the night.
This also applies to any sort of distance to a business. We used to walk to restaurants, a movie theater, a convenience store and a coffee shop within five minutes in our old neighborhood.
Specific to where we live now, but not atypical from what I have seen in other nearby neighborhoods, anything like that now is a 30-minute walk, a relatively quick bike ride or, more likely, a quick trip in the car.
Myth: The pleasant realization is that 90% of the places our family tends to go are all within a 10-minute drive, often closer.
Our kids like shopping at big retail stores, eating at chain restaurants, swimming in large pools and exploring nature. When I let myself, guess what? I do, too.
In many ways, at least in terms of how we live our daily lives, things are actually closer than further away.
2) There is a cookie-cutter “sameness” to it all
Myth: When we first moved into our house in Eagan, I was temporarily obsessed with our lawn.
We had a decent-sized yard in Minneapolis, but not a lot of green space. For a decade-plus, all I needed to take care of it was a manual push-reel mower.
Our yard in Eagan is considerably bigger and grassier. I knew we needed a mower with actual power, so I ordered one with a 48-volt rechargeable battery right before we moved with the idea that it would arrive at the new house soon thereafter.
But there was a shipping delay. We moved in about a week after the previous owners moved out, and after two weeks of living there we still didn’t have a mower.
That meant three weeks without mowing during an incredibly wet late spring/early summer, and it would potentially be another week because we were about to leave on a trip. Our grass was as thick and tall as British Open rough.
What will the neighbors think?
I finally wandered over to one of those new neighbors, who had said don’t hesitate if we needed anything, and told him actually we did need something: to borrow his mower. He cheerily fetched it from his garage, and about an hour later the lawn was mowed and I could relax.
I asked a different neighbor if he could watch out for the delivery of our new mower, which belatedly was set to arrive while we were on vacation, and confessed to him how panicked I had been about our yard.
He laughed and reassured me: This isn’t the kind of neighborhood where anyone is going to care or judge you on how perfect your yard looks.
That was a second relief, and a good lesson. My perception of the suburbs was of a place where that was precisely what people cared about and judged you on.
I was an actor in a movie about my own stereotype.
Now that I’ve been here a few months, I can see that our neighborhood has a variety of houses, yards and people.
Truth: I haven’t found that sort of sameness to be a hallmark of our immediate area. A great example is a particular running route on the freshest blacktop that goes to the southern edge of Eagan into a newer development.
Then there’s a dead end for cars, but the “no outlet” sign (they’re frequent here) couldn’t deter me. I kept running and found a little path that was more like a portal. Emerging on the other side, I was on a gravel road with a handful of long driveways that felt more rural than anything.
That sort of juxtaposition is frequent here, but I know it’s not everywhere.
We looked at a couple of houses during our hunt that had more of that cookie-cutter feel. We sometimes see the same thing not far from where we live.
Those houses are nice, just not for us.
It’s all a good reminder, though, that “the suburbs” defines a vast swath of areas with individual identities.
3) The suburbs lack diversity
Myth: I’ve found the opposite. There are the things we tend to think of (rightfully so) when talking about diversity, like race, sexual orientation and gender. I’ve found Eagan to be an inclusive and represented space in those realms.
What I’ve considered equally since we moved is the diversity of perspective and background that we potentially gained when moving here. It’s a sort of cultural diversity that often goes overlooked in the conversation.
Living in Minneapolis was, at times, like living on social media in the sense that the vast majority of people swarmed around a consensus. There isn’t a lot of incentive to consider other viewpoints and perspectives when everyone around you agrees on things.
That can be comforting, but comfort isn’t always healthy and doesn’t tend to help us grow.
In Eagan, I’m meeting more people who are decidedly different from me. There are people who have lived in our neighborhood for nearly 40 years and have done so working blue collar jobs.
There are soccer coaches who take practice far more seriously than our kids (or I) might be used to, but not in a bad way.
There are carpet installers who are trying to build a business and want to stain our deck, too. I took a picture of their business card, and I just might take them up on it.
There are a good number of yards signs supporting U.S. Representative Angie Craig, but there are some other ones, too.
I didn’t necessarily come to Eagan looking for ways to change my mind, but I am coming to appreciate having my thoughts and perceptions) challenged and clarified by different perspectives.
4) Suburban life is boring
Myth and truth: I put the two together here because it’s ultimately in the eye of the beholder.
There’s a scene from the 1998 film “Celebrity” that plays in my head from time to time. The character of Robin Simon (played by Judy Davis) finds herself with sudden fame, and it’s of the type that might seem shallow and fleeting to some.
“I've become the kind of woman I've always hated, but I'm happier,” she says.
Minus the “hate,” which is far too strong, this is the lens through which I am watching myself now.
For a long time, I thought I would always live in the core of a city. For 30 years living in Minneapolis, that was a fundamental part of my identity. I even had a standard joke for my friends across the river: I don’t think I could ever live in the suburbs, but if I had to pick one it would probably be St. Paul.
The impetus for moving, which I wrote about extensively a couple of months ago, was a response to what our family needed more than what I specifically needed.
Now that we are here, I have found a slower and calmer pace. To some, that might be synonymous with boring. I was worried that I would think that way. But that’s largely not how it has felt.
We walk around a nearby lake during the day and search for frogs at night. I write and read more. We hang out at the house, getting into impromptu games and conversations with neighbors.
I’m letting myself become someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to be, and I’m happy.
5) It’s a lot different from living in the city
Truth: My wife and I were in our minivan (which we’ve had for several years) driving two different kids to two different practices that started at the same time Monday: Gymnastics for our oldest, and the first night of soccer for our youngest.
As we rode along Monday, I half-jokingly said to my wife, “I know we’ve been living here for almost three months, but tonight is our first true night in the suburbs.”
Tuesday and Wednesday were the first nights of soccer for the other two kids, while Saturdays this fall are full of soccer tripleheaders from 9 a.m. to a little past noon.
(Small world: During the third of three soccer practices this weekend, the dad of one of the girls on my 7-year-old’s team recognized me and said he had read that piece I linked above about moving to the suburbs, identifying with a lot of the themes).
There is an organization of life around the activities of kids that is universal and increases as they get older, but it does feel more acute in Eagan than it did in Minneapolis.
For a minute, I was a little worried that we were signing up our kids for new activities because that’s what we’re supposed to do in the suburbs. But I quickly course-corrected to this: We are signing them up for things because they like it and we like it.
I think we were ready for that stage of life and parenting.
Maybe it’s a function of getting older, but I’ve developed a lust for logistics. Eagan’s city planning is impeccable. We’ve been told their schools are great, and we are about to see for ourselves. Their youth soccer teams are organized.
Myth: That said, it’s still you no matter where you live. And the reality is that many of the things that are great about living in a city like Minneapolis just weren’t part of our daily lived experience like they were when my wife and I were younger, before we had kids, before the city itself started to subtly change.
We didn’t have to reinvent ourselves when we moved. We just had to let ourselves continue to evolve.
I didn’t fully understand that when we moved a few months ago. Assumptions aren’t always dangerous, but they are seldom useful and never a proxy for lived experience.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to mow the lawn again.
Myths and truths--everyone encounters them, so the subject of the suburbs in relation to that dichotomy is definitely interesting. Indeed, having one's myths set straight with reality is educational and promotes wisdom. And, of course, those myths and truths change with time, as society evolves (or devolves in certain cases). For example, with our world being smaller due to the news that's available on-line, the stereotype (myth) of people living "in the country" not having the possibility of being informed seems less possible now. That doen't mean that those people won't ignore the truth of facts and will cling to their old beliefs; such myth-clinging also occurs with people in big cities. Unfortunately, then, examples of the stereotype of a group exist, and we wind up with myths becoming reality to a degree. But myths can surely keep us from exploring truths, which keeps us from exercising our critical thinking skills--a dangerous situation in an election year.