Suburban Affiliations by Corcoran Mary P.;Gray Jane;Peillon Michel;

Author:Corcoran, Mary P.;Gray, Jane;Peillon, Michel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 2021-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

The kinds of concerns that adults expressed in the survey about the consequences of overdevelopment are mirrored in the children’s responses in the focus groups: “Mullingar is getting a lot bigger, busier; traffic is heavier all around the place; the roads are getting dug up, a lot of houses, more people” (focus group, St. Colman’s National School, Mullingar). One child in Mullingar explained how difficult it is to access her friends in the estate. The estate had expanded at such a rate that people began using the roads as rat runs to get quickly from one end of the town to the other, causing traffic jams. Despite ramps being put in place and signs that stated the road is closed except to residents, cars continue to drive through: “It’s really hard to get out in the morning because they use it as a shortcut; they go through even if it says ‘road closed.’ And all the houses that are built like an estate on the road, and then there’s houses down the field and everywhere, so it’s not safe” (focus group, St. Colman’s National School, Mullingar).

Children’s freedom to roam the neighborhood is much more curtailed today than it was in the past. As in the past, though, children derive considerable pleasure from making “public places” in the neighborhood their own. Green spaces that are appropriately configured within the design of new housing estates and that are managed well by local residents certainly play a significant part in generating an arena for sociability. However, lost through much of the development are the in-between or liminal “hanging-out” spaces where children can escape from parental control. This loss is regrettable from the children’s point of view, but inevitable in developer-driven suburbs. The rural dream that the suburbs hold out for many parents (Bonner 1997) becomes somewhat hazy when the problems associated with the city—traffic, noise levels, pollution, and crime—follow them to the new idylls on the city’s edge. A gap occurs between the “ideal” and the “real” suburb (Baldassare 1992, 479). Although the small, residential suburb with a country feel is preferred, most Irish suburbs (like their American counterparts) have been in transition to large, diverse places in sprawling and increasingly congested regions (Baldassare 1986). The children are having to face the reality that their suburbs are becoming urbanized, thus altering their lived experience of the localities and bringing the city closer to home.

ANTIURBAN IDEOLOGY

As we noted in chapter 1, a major motivation for people to move to the suburbs is the idea of escaping the city and its attendant problems. As John Palen points out, “the suburban myth of the good life is predicated on urban ambivalence about, if not antagonism towards, cities and city life” (1995, 93). What is remarkable is the extent to which this antiurban theme has been incorporated into the worldview of the children, though many were born in the city and maintain contacts there. They have developed a suburban sensibility that distances them from urban space. There

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