THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Ever since I was young I have had a weird obsession with surburbia and the plastic repetition of seeing identical house after house after house, laid out just like a movie set. It was something that, growing up in a factory town in England, I was never aware of until I holidayed to florida with my family. Matching swimming pools in each backyard, nuclear families, 'mcmansions', station wagons, and no history anywhere. It shook me up and kind of freaked me out as well as enthralling me.

I think that most of my infatuation comes from the idea of expectation and what goes on behind closed doors - I have a hard time believing that anyone could be unhappy living in those homes, but many fucked up things have happened in suburbia. A lot of my favourite books and films document what really lies behind the idyllic mask of suburban living and the importance of keeping up appearances, which gives me plenty of material to indulge my obsession with. the contrast between external perfection and inner turmoil will always be attractive to me, as well as anyone else who is perpetually a teenager. So this is my ode to suburbia, one of the most important aspects of the broken American dream.

(pix taken from google maps & google images)
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/03/0302_affordable_suburbs/6.htm