"Three years ago I moved to the suburbs. I was pretty excited about it. There was lots of shopping, lots of parking, and plenty of room for new houses. But after several weeks, I hadn't met a single person. One day, I saw the neighbor across the street mowing his lawn. A perfect time to go and introduce myself. I started toward him with a big grin on my face. But then a funny thing happened. As he turned his lawn mower and took sight of me coming toward him, he spun on his heel and mowed his way behind his house.
"I realized I was living in a subdivision, and not a neighborhood. I wondered: is THIS the new American Dream?"
So begins "SUBDIVIDED: Isolation and Community in America," a film by Dean Terry (see a page full of video clips here). The documentary hews very, very close to the subject matter I explore here in the SPRAWLED OUT blog, exploring issues of public space, thoughtless development and developers, loss of community, etc., all against a backdrop of strikingly evocative footage and music (also by Terry). If you're the least bit interested in the sorts of topics I explore here, you'll enjoy this DVD very, very much.
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