As you can probably suspect from my title, I'm not a huge fan of suburbia! It's all the conformity, lack of imagination, and status posturing that irks me! I live in an area that is actively converting from rural pastures to indistinguishable subdivisions and endless retail. If I often feel despair, like there is no possible way to counter this tsunami of development, yet I still feel compelled to offer my critique. Even if there is no possibility for change and we are on a sinking ship, it is still important for us to expose the deficiencies and worries we see within our communities. We need to speak up!
So that brings me to the subject of housing in Coweta County. I must preface this as someone who has only ever rented and never owned a house. Yet someday I would like to have a place, somewhere I can establish a garden. We all have our own reasons for buying a house, but for me, the house is secondary. I'm happy as long as I have a kitchen, a shower, a toilet, and a bed. All other things arent required for my happiness. I want enough space to grow my favorite blubs and perennials, ideally around 0.5 of an acre. Yet I'm aware having a lot as relatively small as this would still be a luxury.
I get it that my desires are the exception. I actually take pride in calling myself a nonconformist and a minimalist. We all approach life in a different way, with different perspectives, and I'm not suggesting that we all should live the way I think is best. My point in all of this isn't to lay blame on anyone in particular but is meant more as a general rebuke of the societal trends and policies that pressure us to live in excess.
I also strongly suspect that most of us have too much lawn and way too much house! Think about all the unnecessary materialistic parts of our lives, all the cleaning, mowing, painting, upkeep, all of it that could be better spent on some other activity.
Of course, excess and having too much is as old as humanity. What's different today though is that so many of us live this way, not just the privileged few. It really wasn't that long ago that most of our ancestors, who had much larger families, lived in two-room simple cabins. Moreover, most of Earth's current population lives in highly dense housing, with almost no privacy. Here in the US, a huge chunk of us live like aristocracy with way more than we need.
And we all are guilty of having more than we need. I know I am... I get a high from shopping on Amazon or Plant Delights. Let me be clear, I'm not immune to the spell of materialism and luxury. But that doesn't stop me from worrying about and being deeply troubled by what seems an unavoidable addiction we all feel towards excess.
I simply want us all to think deeply about what we need to feel contentment and to begin the process of letting go of society's expectations for us. But social pressure is a hard thing to resist, I get that!
And even if we wanted to live more simply and address these issues, our local governments are making it difficult and often illegal for us to do so...
I was flabbergasted to learn that county governments enact ordinances that specify minimum lot sizes and square footage. For instance, In Coweta County, prospective house builders must build homes larger than 1,725 sqft., and housing lots in a typical county are legally required to be 2 acres or more.
According to reality.com, the average new house in Coweta County is 2,300 sqft. and costs $499,000. This puts home ownership out of reach for most people, including me- not that I'd ever want to own one of those gaudy McMansions. But even small older homes are out-of-reach for people making as much as I do.
Now we could argue about the intent of such laws... perhaps to exclude certain groups or classes? I suspect that this is at least partially motivated by a fear of overdevelopment (traffic) and crime, but there is surely a financial, or greedy component as well. Regardless of the underlying agendas, our obsession with status, conformity, and excess is irrefutably harming our communities.
The foundation of every community lies in its inhabitants. If all or most of the housing is out of reach to all but a certain class, where will the starving artists live? Where is the bedrock of society, the blue-collar working class? Where are all the eccentric non-conformists? They will probably have to either commute long distances or find other ways of living in other places. This is already happening in so many of the suburbs surrounding Atlanta. A place without diversity may sound like a utopia to some but not to me, not given my history, education, and direct experience.
It is hard to break the status quo, and it's easy to accept things the way they are and not go against society. Very few of us have the courage to reject "established" ways of living, but ask yourself, will buying a big house make your life any happier? Does joy and contentment ever come from excess and indulgence? The more we have, the more we have to lose, and we will all lose in the end.
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