Yesterday’s trip to the White Mountains took us out of the City and into the Sprawl. And then into the woods.
I’ve lived without a car for so long that the mere activity of driving in Sprawl is novel. As we drove on I-93 approaching Concord NH, we were hungry for dinner and decided to find a restaurant. In Cambridge, such an inclination would unleash a flurry of planning and haggling: What kind of food, how close is the restaurant, do we have to take the T or walk, etc. But when you’re mired in Sprawl, you just pull off the highway and there is every chain restaurant ever conceived. And if you pull up to one and see a long line or have a last minute change of heart, you just get back into the car. Decisions are easy when your choices are right there, not a 30 minute walk or subway ride away.
Need gas? In Cambridge, gas stations are few and far between. Gas stations are the lifeblood of Sprawl; they flank every intersection so you don’t even have to make a U-turn. All have more islands than the Bahamas and a brightly-lit convenience store with hundreds of promising goodies.
Sprawl just makes you want to buy things. It makes you want to consume, because it’s easy and there’s really not that much else to do. Need wood for your campfire? Drive across the street to the Shaw’s supermarket. Want to update your camping outfit? There’s an LL Bean Factory store and an EMS. Anything, everything you could possibly need is never more than a five-minute drive in the car.
As an outsider to Sprawl, I must say that it’s gotten exponentially worse in the last four years. There are too many stores. There are too many restaurants. And of course there are too many cars. And the result is that Sprawl is making suburbanites sick.
Though Sprawl is connected to many health ailments, interestingly “The study found no link between suburban sprawl and a greater incidence of mental health problems.” Because if I lived in a place where every other person you see is either driving or shopping, I’d go effing crazy.
