Agony and ecstasy of suburbia

I AM a lover of suburbia and I refuse to be ashamed of how I feel. I have thought long and hard about this for quite some time.

Illustration: Tom Jellett

I AM a lover of suburbia and I refuse to be ashamed of how I feel. I have thought long and hard about this for quite some time.

Should I disclose my feelings about the suburbs or should I continue to cover up?

But how can I go on pretending that I don't have these thoughts, these feelings, these unbridled (yes, unbridled) passions?

I am sure there are others out there who think the same way but are too afraid to speak out. And I can understand their reticence for ours is a forbidden -- some say unnatural -- love, a love that can never be expressed let alone consummated in a politically correct world.

Why, even admitting to quite liking the suburbs will undoubtedly draw the ire, the fire, and the castigation of Those Who Email. After all it is only deviants, heretics and other assorted ne'er-do-wells who are predisposed to lip curl and sneer the 'burbs.

You do realise that outer suburbia is solely responsible for all global warming (as well as world poverty) and is full of isolated and lonely people who sit about all day just longing to live in an inner-city terrace house. That's right.

But these poor outer-suburbanists (auslanders, really) are forced -- forced I tell you -- to live deprived lives far from the civilising influences of the cafes, bars and restaurants frequented by --ssshh, here they come --The People Who Wear Black.

You see it is the Black Clad Elite who understand how things really really work. Or should work.

The reason why people move to the outer suburbs is not because anyone wants to live there. Goodness me, no.

The reason why people move to the suburbs is because they are forced to live there by big oil, by big banks, by big developers, by big polluters and by big tobacco. Yes, big tobacco, and don't ask why. They are all in cahoots.

Oh, and one other thing about the Black Clad Elite. They are very sensitive to parody. Not parody of the suburbs; they love Kath & Kim. No, parody of the Black Clad Elite.

Are you beginning to understand why my love of suburbia is so fraught and forbidden?

But this danger simply incites and frankly excites. I can think of nothing more fulfilling or frankly more thrilling than a Sunday drive through the suburbs.

My car willingly embraces -- no, hugs -- the curves of winding residential streets replete with traffic pacifiers (what else could they be called but humps?) stopping here and dawdling there so I may gaze upon the Rubensesque splendour of a cul-de-sac's perfectly formed turning circle. To the suburbanist's mind there is nothing so pleasing as a Ramsay Street vista.

The rollover kerbing is gently breached by a series of radiating driveways that all knowingly find their way to an amply proportioned double garage with workshop and storage area.

Inside these dwellings I imagine a complete or blended family where people are employed and the kids are doing well at school and everyone is happy and life is comfy. Yes, comfy. It's suburban for comfortable.

I know this vision is confronting to The People Who Wear Black but I feel I owe it to my fellow suburbanists to explain exactly how we feel. Oh, all-knowing Black Clad Elite, can you not find room in your heart to permit the suburbanists to live out their lives free of lip-curl and sneer? No? They must be exterminated? Really?

Run, suburbanists. Run for your lives. The Black Clad Elite are on to our wicked, wicked suburban ways.

Bernard Salt is a KPMG Partner

Facebook.com/BernardSaltDemographer
twitter.com/bernardsalt
[e-mail]