Big boxes

For a year, I've rented a room in a comfortable but semi-dilapidated shared house, in a neighborhood that's too quiet for my tastes. I dream of moving someplace louder and more alive.

Meanwhile, someplace quieter and deader has been coming in. There's construction across the corner, and all along a sloping hillside, where hundreds of new houses have been hammered together and painted on ten blocks that had previously been who knows what — woods or wetlands, I'm guessing.

Now, it's a great many brand new houses, in six designs. Along the development's weirdly winding streets, they've made sure that identical designs are never next door to each other, and all the houses are painted in muted but slightly different shades of bland. 

There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same
                        —"Little Boxes,"
                            by Malvina Reynolds

Recently, sawdust has been scattered around the tiny, transplanted trees in front of some of the finished houses. Wooden fences have been added, separating this one from that one, and people have started moving in.

At the corner behind my bus stop, about half a house worth of real estate was given over for a very tiny park. It's only a patch of grass surrounded by concrete, and in the center are some painted plastickish bars for children to climb on. When they reach the top, there's a slide for coming down.

The mini-park intrigues me. It's not a public park, it's private, part of the development, and it's so small. There's no fence around it, though, no gate to prevent kids from down the old streets from playing there, even though some of those kids are black.

I predict drama in and around that tiny parklet, but so far there's been none. Some kids I recognize as long-timers were climbing the bars and sliding the slide yesterday. It's nice.

Behind the parklet, Bekins and U-Haul trucks have infiltrated the streets over the past week, and now families are living in a dozen of the houses. SUVs are parked in front of driveways, and only SUVs — none of the new occupants drives a sedan, a motorcycle, or a bike, apparently. I doubt that any of them will be riding the bus.

I strolled the new streets yesterday, streets that weren't there a year ago. There are no oil stains on the asphalt yet, no gum blotches on the sidewalks. All the streetlights are of a quaint, matching design, and oddly on even during the day.

It's a neighborhood, if only because there's no other word for it, but it looks more like a sprawling movie set. (Where are the cameras?)

I waved at a 30-something couple carrying boxes from a truck to their porch. They waved back. Hello, neighbors, I didn't say.

Malvina Reynolds wrote "Little Boxes" sixty years ago, and the only thing that mismatches her song is that these all these new boxes are not little. They're not full-fledged McMansions, but the smallest of the six designs is bigger than any house in the real neighborhoods surrounding this new and oddly artificial one.

Beyond the cluster of occupied houses, construction continues. Nearest the newcomers, concrete porches and steps are still being poured. Further away, the houses are still exposed boards, the lawns remain dirt.

It's a shiny new neighborhood fresh from the factory. Looming over it, a billboard still brags about hundreds of new houses, in six different designs, with all the conveniences and luxuries. Call this number, to arrange a tour...

5/22/2023   

 itsdougholland.com
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