When I lived within the District of Columbia in my late twenties, lots of my fellow city dwellers were very dismissive about the idea of living in the suburbs. The general attitude was, why would anyone pass up the excitement and stimulation of living in the heart of the city in order to go out to a territory of manicured sameness and homogeneity? And for a few years I bought into this idea too. I treasured my easy access to ethnic restaurants and quirky shops. I was enormously pleased to hear the mishmash of foreign languages on the streets around me. I congratulated myself for living in such a culturally advanced setting.
But it’s a good rule to never say never. Just a few years later I found myself in love with a man who had just bought a nice house in northern Virginia. We quickly decided we couldn’t do without each other and I moved my household lock stock and barrel into his place eight miles outside of DC.
I expected that this would mean a sharp reduction in my exposure to other cultures. But I’d been reckoning without the turn-of-the-century model of a suburb. I quickly found that my neighbors were now a far more diverse lot than before. Whereas my neighborhood in Washington had been almost exclusively comprised of white professionals, now I live in a neighborhood where immigrant families outnumber the American-born. My immediate next-door neighbors are from the Philippines, from Jordan, from Guatemala and from the Caribbean. I’ve had lots of occasions to use my rusty Spanish when communicating with the folks with whom I now share a property line.
I haven’t suffered any decline in nearby ethnic restaurants and shops, either. Within walking distance from my house are four Asian grocery stores, two Latin American groceries, and one Indian grocery. There is a Bolivian bakery, a German gourmet food shop, a Vietnamese place specializing in pho (beef broth and noodle soup) and a Korean restaurant. The local pizza and sub shop is run by an Iranian family and the Italian restaurant has a staff of Eastern Europeans. If I get into my car, I am within five minutes of the Eden Center, a huge shopping plaza catering to the local Vietnamese population with restaurants, jewelry stores and video shops, travel agencies and more.
The Bolivian bakery at the end of my street is a great example of the stew of influences I’m surround by on a daily basis. The shop makes terrific croissants and doughnuts, but also sells Bolivian favorites I’d never encountered before. Pastel con api is a popular combination—a light flaky pastry filled with cheese and a thick warming drink made from blue corn and sweet spices. There is also a sit-down Bolivian restaurant nearby and I’m trying to learn my way through a menu that is filled with dishes I’ve never tasted before, like sopa de trigo, a hearty soup thickened with whole grains of wheat.
Don’t think I’m living is some unusual enclave either. In this area, my neighborhood is typical, nothing special. So just a suggestion to my city-dwelling friends still harboring anti-suburban mindsets: Why don’t you come out and visit a little more? You might find that the whole idea of city versus suburbs is more than a bit passé.
