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Fear of Suburbia

 


“Everybody doesn’t like something…” goes the old Sara Lee advertising jingle. I can’t argue with that.

People in suburban Columbia don’t want more density because they fear becoming “urban.” People in urban areas may harbor concerns about gentrification. Some young folks in Columbia long for the city life.

But today I came across one I had not seen before.

Neighbors resist western Howard County development, citing well water concerns, Jess Nocera, Baltimore  Banner

People in western Howard County fear…suburbia?

Becky Merrill and her late husband moved to Lakeway Drive from Columbia in 2005, looking for more space to raise a family but wanting to remain in Howard County.

“We didn’t want to feel like we were living in suburbia,” said Merrill, who is among the neighbors appealing the conditional use decision.

If the Elm Street project moves ahead with so many homes, it’s “bringing suburbia to this very rural area,” Merrill said.

The article mentions Lakeway Drive. Here’s a view from Google Maps.



Isn’t this suburbia, too? It’s definitely not rural. 

The houses on Lakeview are not all that terribly old. (Late 70’s, early 80’s?) It’s possible that when they were built the current residents of that area lamented their encroachment into land that was far more rural than it is today. 



It’s quite likely that people who moved to Lakeview to get away from suburbia actually brought suburbia to Lakeview.

PLEASE NOTE: This piece is not about the issue of well water, septic, and whether new homes would overtax the current infrastructure. 

It’s about a word: suburbia. Or maybe it’s a concept. Some folks see it as a promised land they long to get to. Others live there and fight any change that might threaten their suburban way of life. Some deliberately leave because they want to live in an urban setting that offers them things that suburbia could not. 

Some run away from suburbia to a different suburbia and pretend it’s not suburbia. I don’t get it. There’s a sense that their use of the word is coded, somehow. At the very least it feels as though they are referring to something “icky.”

I don’t know what to call that part of Howard County. As long as water and sewer issues limit development, then any houses out there will be very expensive. This means that people who can afford to buy there can also choose their neighbors to the extent that the cost automatically screens out the less affluent.

Sometimes that means they’d like to choose their children’s classmates at school, too. But that’s another story altogether.

Suburbia is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. I remain confused about this particular zip code which seems to be Schrodinger’s suburbia.



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  1. Julia A. McCreadySeptember 24, 2026 at 4:41 AM

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