Leigh Gallagher calls it with her book on the burbs

 Ed West


 The American dream is moving as Leigh writes in this readable book about the new American shift. We have stated this has one of our principles of the Left Shark and call for more people to move to cities and leave the unsustainable lifestyle and large lawns back to the farmland it once was. Not only is suburbia preventing more farmland and thus ...food but it is also costing governments billions of unnecessary building and projects just to keep a few elderly people and their environment going that they were so fond of in the fifties.

  Leigh talks about how without the carbon producing and polluting automobile the suburbs would never have existed to begin with. Kids can't go anywhere on their own due to the concourse of their streets and sprawl town. More kids than ever are joining sports because that is only place to have social connections in the suburbs with their peers. The large McMansion homes are losing value to the millenniums and village managers cannot find enough professional immigrants from around the world that will fill these millions of large square footage palaces. Leigh talks about political leaders unwillingness to come to terms with the landscape and how it will pose problems in society when gas really goes up I price. The lack of public transportation and infrastructure will really come to doom the suburbs. Leigh could of went into more of the racial aspect and history of the growth of the suburbs but she didn't seem to cover that as much. You could have several chapters talking about the growth of this ugly landscape in America and without a doubt racial animosities and fear is what caused the popularity to begin with of the burbs. The end of the nuclear family and just a change in preference of younger people who want to live among other younger people instead of the geriatric suburbs has already occurred in this country. While some car obsessed pundits think these young professionals are not going to be moving to car dependent sprawl unless they really really like golf. Leigh could of also done a chapter of just how fucking boring suburbs are and that all you see are teenagers, Mexicans, and gray heads. In fact, Leigh talks about how these cul-de-sacs are becoming retirement places and just one drive through some of these towns and the image of these elderly fucks struggle to mow the grass is pretty pathetic and stubborn. Leigh ends the book with hope for the future as more demands for urban and walkable living arrangements and showing where future development is already headed. The money is definitely headed towards the cities and I wonder how many future suburbs will have to declare bankruptcy as they become more blighted and filled with the economic losers in society.