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One of the great things about Korea is the suburban infrastructure: it's entirely different from the copy-and-paste picket fence hell back home. While Western suburbia conjures up images of endless cul-de-sacs lined with family sedans, hideous industrial strips and hugging proximity to highway veins, it seems like Korea has ringed their cities right.

U.S. and Canadian suburban models are heavily reliant on the car as a means of primary transportation to and from work and the mall. While most major cities have a subway or train or streetcars or whatever, these infrastructures rarely range beyond the confines of the city itself. In fact, most Western public transport has been absolutely gutted in favour of more car parks. Yay faltering auto economy!

Seoul, on the other hand, has a subway and bus system which reaches way out into the suburbs, effectively joining them to the nebula of the city. Besides lightening the load on the artery roads into the core, the far-reaching subway fosters a sense of access, of conjoinment, of togetherness. In a Korean suburb, you don't feel like you're in a shitty, isolated lint-worn pocket in the cargo shorts of the city. You feel like you're part of the real deal, connected to the heart.

The worst part of Western suburbia is the overwhelming sensation of restless boredom. There's something great going on in the Big City, just over that hill... and that one... and that one... and if only we had a car, or the traffic weren't so bad, we could be there! You're in a shamefully bare satellite, orbiting resentfully around an epicentre of inaccessible excitement. I remember Cambridge: we lived in a tiny bubble where we drank and fucked and talked about bigger things, maybe one day. I recall feeling like I lived in a hollow place, where people grew up and got old but never went anywhere. It was not altogether pleasant and after I escaped, somewhat condescendingly, I could never understand why anyone could bear to stay.

I still can't, if you couldn't tell.

The sameness of Western suburbia is also a problem: the cookie-cutter houses laid out symmetrically like building blocks, the same mall with the same franchises. It's comfortable - it's planned that way - and it's efficient, but in its predictability its citizens lose all sensation of inhabiting a unique and special place. Big cities always celebrate their cultural merits and recognizable spaces: New York has Broadway and the Village, Chicago has the Piers, Toronto has Maple Leaf Gardens (well, maybe not). All suburbs have is a geographical diaspora, a copycat apocalypse of concrete vomit and fictional Main Streets. In a desperate grasp at individuality, we get fucking huge nickels and deathbed downtown revivals (CAMBRIDGE!).

While Korea has the advantage of being peppered with historical sites and temples, providing strong bases for municipal identity, I still think the suburbia-scapes here are far more appealing. One might say that if you've seen one neon causeway, you've seen them all. And yes, neon can be hideous. But behind the signs in every city core lie a host of unique bars, eateries and shops, most owned by local families. Businesses are dying and being born every second here: the local economy is alive, symbiotic.

Western suburbia falls down in this regard: big box franchises have efficiently run small business out of town in most areas, with the exception of niche markets. Commerce is a static entity: the only variation is in what template configuration the fast food joints happen to be arranged. Now Seoul is overloaded with corporations and dirty thieving ones too, but somehow they exist alongside local business. And it's a good thing, a grand thing. All these local places are what add needed colour to Seoul suburbs. In Sanbon you find yourself living in a suburb worth exploring, finding new options within walking distance all the time (and losing old favourites too... goodbye Alien Singing Room, we loved ye)

Now I know that people can find beauty in their surroundings, wherever they happen to live. Tudor, in particular, seems to embody this ideal admirably. But Tudor is an exceptional fellow, always whipping out his cock and such. For everyone else, it shouldn't be this hard to find a fulfilling environment. Western suburbia shouldn't be a trial to endure, an American Nightmare to curse later in life and then return to, half unwillingly, family in tow. I'm a bit angry because the whole lifestyle just seems so unnecessarily silly. Our suburbs are a rash of artificial, culturally sterile communities spread across a continent, linked tenuously by a petrol lifeblood in decline. It feels wrong. And I find it hard to believe that others don't agree.

Now things can always be arranged in a different way, to catch light or cast shadow. The suburban life could be transformed. Tether the satellites to the host with strong public transport ties, let them share and contribute to the strong identity of the big city. Then perhaps true individuality will sprout on local levels, commerce and culture based on the diverse needs of an entire population rather than a semi-retarded microcosm. Will this honestly work? I don't know. But something needs to change. As long as the suburbs crowd along the freeway in pathetic pockets of isolation, enviously eying the city off in the distance, they'll be worse than nothing. They'll be the twenty-first century's cruel joke. We need to start crafting something more tolerable, and using Seoul as an example wouldn't be a bad place to begin.

[Suburbia] [Seoul suburbs] [Western suburbs] [Criticism]

Posted by Chris at 01:38 PM >> Commentations (6)