Deciding Between the City and Suburbs
July 14, 2010, By Ron Mattocks 2 comments
Not to offend the residents of suburbia, but I was never meant to live among the manicured lawns that lay along feel-good streets of “Sunny Meadow Drive” and “Dew Drop Lane.” The idea of being confined to wheeling a garbage can to the curb only on Mondays (or the following Tuesday if Monday is a holiday) I find loathsome, and the necessity behind homeowner’s maintenance hangs around my neck like a wall of bricks (that needs to be rebuilt because of the large crack in the mortar). These are all fine and good for block-party organizers and do-it-yourself enthusiasts, but not for me.
No, I was intended to ride an elevator from a parking garage to a converted loft with oversized windows or to pick up my mail at the entry of a Brownstone on a narrow avenue with the city skyline towering behind it. These places are full of character and charm while maximizing their limited space with the same cleverness as IKEA furniture. And because I prefer renting (yes, I know, lousy investment strategy), should the pipes spring a leak or the air conditioning go out - a maintenance request trumps homeowner maintenance any day of the week.
I once was spoiled enough to live in both. Prior to divorcing, my ex-wife and I owned a newly built one-story house in well-known master-planned community outside Houston. After our split, though, I moved to a trendy loft and later to a first-floor flat in Chicago. Each of these fit my lifestyle perfectly to include weekend visits by my three boys. Given a choice between the ‘burbs and the city, there’s no doubt which I preferred.
Of course the irony in this is that during this same period I also worked for a major home building company where I held a variety of management positions dealing with every major aspect of residential real estate from developing the land to funding the mortgages. So, despite my distaste for the cookie-cutter nature of twenty five-hundred square foot, three bedroom, two and a half bath houses that stood shoulder to shoulder like a row of newly constructed robots, I was at the same time “all up in that business,” armed with a detailed knowledge of the entire process start to finish and everything in between.
Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed my job. It’s just that a smug sort of glee would come over me during my evening commutes to downtown as I whizzed past the frazzled drivers in the opposite lane slogging through gridlocked traffic en route to the so-called suburban bliss companies like mine touted on large billboards with claims of being only 20 minutes from the city (an entirely true assertion if you drove a Maserarati to work at 2 a.m.).
However, it’s easy to be smug about a lot of things when you have a job. After the housing bubble burst I lost mine, a circumstance that coincided with my getting remarried and gaining two stepdaughters. The subsequent need for affordable accommodations coupled with a good school district dictated that we move into a modest apartment away from the city. I wasn’t thrilled about the change, but at least I didn’t have to worry about mowing the lawn and run-ins with the homeowners association.
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