assignment 8: emily

I came across the subdivision below while driving around Newton Co, sort of southeast of Atlanta, i was well into the countryside, a few small homes along the side of hwy 81 in groups of 2 or 3 with at least 1/2 mile between each, when all of sudden, above the still-brown hills loomed a single monstrosity that, viewed from the road reminded me of a modern Christina's World, not that Andrew Wyeth would have painted such a home to begin with. This house, however, was not alone but was part of a new subdivision recently planned, begun, and then abandoned by the developers most likely due to economic factors. The residential streets out here in the middle of Newton County, conform to typical subdivision plans which have been in place since the Levittowns of the 1940s. The few streets curve along the terrain as if their direction had some purpose, but with nothing in the landscape to contain or define them, the roads and plots feel random, adrift, unanchored both in the landscape and reality. (google map showing the layout and sparsity of the unfinished subdivision.)

The subdivision and the homes themselves aspire to much more than this insubstantiality. Street names like Barcelona and Greenwich Dr. indicate the planner's desire to appeal to an upscale clientele, folks who were or at least wished to appear worldly. The homes themselves support this theory. They are large homes with 3-car minimum garages, neoclassical details on the oversized exteriors, chandeliers hung where they are perfectly visible through the large multi-paned windows. These are people who wish to assert their affluence and High Culture.

But as is true with most developments like this, the houses have an insubstantial feel. It is pretty certain that the brick is not structural (brick facade on a standard wood frame construction), the windows are not really multi-paned at all (vinyl dividers laid over a single pane of glass), and the neoclassical flares could be bought by the dozen and adhered to any building with minimal skill. The subdivision reeks of greed and speed over quality—a slap-up job both of planning (clearcutting the forested areas was a very poor decision on the developers part) and home construction, sacrifices to speed and cheapness that are not lost on everyone.

Because the tastes displayed feel so insubstantial I would suspect that new money is most likely involved, a culture which so often includes the desire to assimilate into a higher culture these people have never been a part of. It is a tale told by developments all across America and those who got starry-eyed with possibility and bought into this development early are now stuck with homes in the middle of nowhere, as drifting and listless as the homes they inhabit.

Ganz would probably warn against the stereotypical, high-minded critiques of the inhabitants and their sense of culture, reminding us that no "taste culture" is better than another, but it is this same stereotyping of tastes that has created the new money society and supported such developments.