In this very brief jaunt about the American literary landscape, I have barely probed the limits of the town in the arts. I have only touched upon two major functions of the town and how those functions reflect larger social realities, yet the town has been used in too many ways for me to be concise in the short amount of time I have had to examine it. So, while I believe I have gleaned some important insights, there is still more to investigate.
Have the towns, the suburbanities, the residential sanctuaries of the US become irrelevent?
In popular discussion, in political rehetoric, in almost any other extra-artistic arena, yes, they have. Leigh Gallagher of Time outlines the end of the suburb, citing that "for the first time in nearly a hundred years, the rate of urban population growth outpaced suburban growth, reversing a trend that held steady for every decade since the invention of the automobile." Moreover, she goes on to write that "[t]he differences between cities and suburbs are diminishing", and she "not[es] that cities and suburbs are also becoming more alike racially, ethically, and socio-economically." (Some contest this idea, like Columbia University planning professor David Kang in a recent article with Eric Jaffe. He emphasizes that the overall change pales in comparison to the established absolute numbers of people living in urban, suburban, and rural areas (Jaffe "Why You Should Be Skeptical").) In many ways, today, it is ignorant to harp on the town. To do so is to be blind to the rampant poverty, racism, sexism, the myriad social problems, which so often plague the city.
In the arts, the town's future is a bit more mixed. If one were avoid the pitfalls of "whitening" the minority experience, then the town is useful in ways. Hopefully more contemporary authors will continue to lift the veil, the illusion of the town in order to more pointedly attack cultural values which might be obsolute or need revisiting. The town offers that as much, for it harbors all the United States and to critique the US indirectly is to tackle the town directly, frankly, and severely.
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And finally I would like to thank you for reading and joining me in my at times uneven romp about the US in search of the town at its core.
Works Cited
Gallagher, Leigh. "The End of the Suburbs." Time. Time, 31 July 2013. Web. 2 May 2014. <http://ideas.time.com/2013/07/31/the-end-of-the-suburbs/>.
Jaffe, Eric. "Why You Should Be Skeptical of Statistics on City vs. Suburban Population Growth." The Atlantic Cities. The Atlantic, 31 July 2012. Web. 2 May 2014. <http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/07/why-you-should-be-skeptical-latest-statistics-city-vs-suburban-population-growth/2571/>.
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