Suburban living is a whole new experience to me. Having grown up mainly in rural and peri-urban areas across the country (with the notable exception of eMalahleni / Witbank), “big city” living (if one can call Tshwane that) was foreign to me.
At least I was eased into it by spending the first two years in student accommodation, but as I embark on my third year in suburbia I begin to understand why anti-establishment Afrikaner author and musician Koos Kombuis detests the entire concept.
Everything about the mass of urban sprawl stretching for kilometres in the northern corner of Gauteng is appallingly conformist and average — the concrete and electric fenced refuge of the average, workaday man (and woman), 2.2 children, a dog and cat, or two, and a post-agrarian, post-industrial, post-television (and internet) agoraphobia.
It is agoraphobic (not so much the strict DSM-IV definition though) because these victims of modernisation have become confined to their homes, experiencing difficulty travelling from this “safe place” unless necessity and shopping sprees require it.
This differs remarkably from my experiences beyond the concrete jungle, experiences in a world where neighbours know one another, exchange in actual conversation (in real life, I might add) and children engage in innocent mischief in the great outdoors. Neighbours who borrow cups of sugar from one another and wave as they overtake on the dirt road (even occasionally stopping for chit-chat).
Perhaps my venting and indictment against suburban neighbours is rooted in a nostalgic longing for days long lost. It might be true that I feel robbed of something, denied simple childhood experiences, but suburban neighbours don’t even make an effort. I don’t know the seven households that — in some way or the other — surround the property, and have, except for rare occasions (when necessity on their part), never exchanged words with these complete strangers. I don’t know what they do for a living, they don’t wave when we pass in the street, to be honest, I don’t even know their names.
Maybe that’s unfair, I mean, we did have that one eccentric household next door where the “neighbour lady” did manage to interact with us (or at least venture outdoors) with great comic effect. One couldn’t help but feel a sense of familiarity as one regularly observed her in the most peculiar outfits. She became famous for doing gardening in a cocktail dress (or digging up plants in our garden in similar fashion). There was also her unforgettable afternoon escapade down the street in an evening gown rattling a tin can, which was probably more endearing than her faux leopard fur overcoat finished off with a neck brace accessory. (The family has since, unfortunately, been replaced by a strikingly normal ex-expatriate).
Sure, suburban living makes for interesting observation — the stuff of Desperate Housewives do really play out off-screen. Like neighbours accusing the live-in help next door of running a brothel in the absence of her employer. Riveting stuff at 9 o’clock as ADT and numerous puzzled spectators gather in front of the house in question.
But I digress. I still don’t know these people and it has dawned on me that I might be just as complicit in perpetuating this mundanity. To some extent I understand the lack of social interaction between those souls who have unfortunately ended up living next to one another. There is that thing called a job, which keeps most people busy from nine to five. There is household duties and responsibilities, children, dogs and cats, Facebook and countless reruns on television. I understand.
Thus, to me, suburban South Africans make the worst neighbours. I’m not referring to the disruptive actions of certain noisy neighbours — Julius Malema rumoured to be a case in point. My lamentation, rather, is about their exhibition of anti-social behaviour unthinkable beyond the city. But, I have very limited experience with suburban living beyond our little haven here on the tip of the African continent, so I can’t authoritatively comment on its workings elsewhere. If it can be assumed that modernisation takes the same toll across the world, I’m sure the conclusions won’t be radically different.
Although I don’t think social niceties and pleasantries could be too much to ask, I admit, as newby in the tribe, I am too intimidated by their work-hardened faces to make the first move, again. Maybe I should obtain their names and look them up on Facebook for a chat. At least in this manner none of us have to leave the comfort of our personal refuge, nobody has to make tea, and nobody has to endure awkward moments of silence and attempt to decipher cryptic body language. Just insert the “lols” in the right places and pretend to be taking a call when the conversation gets too boring, works very well.
NOOOOO dude – come to the U.K and find out what tepid neighbours are really like. Most South Africans are open-minded and accepting (I assert) – their generally self deprecating and ‘sunny-disposition’ reflects the clement weather – home is a good place to be – cultivate equanimity and enjoy living amongst ‘real’ mense!
Let me give you a little tip Marius. When I was your age and using the odd recreational substance I also had you attitude. But when you get to 57, have paid off your suburban embarrassment, employ staff to make everything look spick and span and have a few big ones in the bank for the odd overseas treat it all begins to make sense. Particularly when you are in the last 15% of your allotted span. And I’ve always got Pink Floyd to listen to if I get too optimistic. X
I grew up in Holland where the houses are so small that one cannot avoid the neighbours, the walls are so thin that one can hear the neighbours cat scratching its litter box. Neighbours do know each other if not for the loud music, then trough their children.
When I prepared for my departure to SA, one of friends -who had worked in SA for 12 months- told me that South Africans are such lonely people. He had indeed spent most of his time in a suburban area.
The current prison camps build around Pretoria East (6 foot wall, electric fencing, guards, and houses jam packed within these walls) do hardly allow for social contact. Kids do not play or fight with each other on the streets, computer games and TV do the rest for an asocial make up in the name of security.
All hope is not lost. I have a little old housie in the North Cape and made more neighbouring acquaintances in the one month I have been there than in the 20 years I have lived in Pretoria (suburban).
But then, I was robbed walking in Commissioner street Jo’burg while in the North Cape I leave my doors open, four foot fencing (to keep the sheep in)and no lock on my gate.
South Africa -like many other countries- has many faces.
Move to Alberton – I know all my neighbours and they know me well enough to recognise me and give me a lift home / to the store on the rare day that I feel like walking to the shops to get the paper or something and on the way start questionning my wisdom / mid afternoon showers!
Tell us your address so we can all come and “kuier”! Robert Frost also “digressed” about neighbours and walls in the “good old days”.
funny one the things i enjoy about going home in the township is the fact that i sometime mistake my neighbours for extended family. i guess you are right there is something sad and lonely about surburban living. but then again not all surburban neighbours are cold and aloof. i’ve had the experience of making friends with 1 or 2 of my neighbours in the ‘burbs’.
Marius, that was not very clever; not impressive. You seem to be tagging on to a noxious trend that has become entrenched among young ‘academics’ – a desperate necessity to distance themselves from their own backgrounds, and to scoff at something they vaguely call ‘the suburbs’. (I shall never forget one of the most fat-headed, loud-mouthed and ambitious young academic dolts I know referring to my home area as ‘the suburbs’, while he – in Observatory, CT – dwelt in the city’s oldest suburb.)
Neither they nor you seem to realise that this is a parrotting of the snobbery expressed by the old ‘landed gentry’ or the ‘county set’ in England when they felt offended by social reform and the formation of dormitory suburbs on the outskirts of London, for instance.
I will not tolerate this sort of vile snobbery trying to pass for ‘progressive’ social commentary in a republican society such as ours. I edit academic books & journals, and I do not tolerate the same dunce-headed catechism in them. Journalists are of a slightly lower order, but the same standards of thought and analysis should apply to them.
A survey by insurer SGIC found that nearly eight in 10 South Australians don’t know their neighbours’ names and about half rarely have a proper conversation with those living next door. The survey was released in December 2009 and according to The Advertiser,four in 10 of the 500 South Australians surveyed would rather socialise online than chat over the fence to their neighbours.
Sadly, Marius, it seems to be a universal trend!
That’s funny. I live in a security estate and I know my neighbours. Well, I know some of my neighbours. And even when I’ve stayed in impersonal, big flats, I’ve always managed to make friends with someone there.
Perhaps you need to reach out and touch somebody’s hand to make this world a better place
if you can.
“Marius, that was not very clever; not impressive. You seem to be tagging on to a noxious trend that has become entrenched among young ‘academics’ – a desperate necessity to distance themselves from their own backgrounds, and to scoff at something they vaguely call ‘the suburbs’.”
Anyone who takes this as more than a tongue-in-cheek commentary fails to see the point of it all.
Distance myself from my own background? That rural, working class background I so nostalgically long for?
The only snobbery here is your own claim of superiority and intellectual discernment capacity.
“I will not tolerate this sort of vile snobbery trying to pass for ‘progressive’ social commentary in a republican society such as ours.”
If, as an editor, you attempt to limit free speech and tongue-in-cheek commentary and express that on an opinion piece (not academic reflection), then I cannot help but lament and weep for the poor sods that have to pass through your obviously superior razor.
don’t give up, persistence (if used objectively and positively) can gain you more than you aimed for. write a note and place in all their front doors (ohh sorry the electric gates would bar you)or post boxes and invite them for a braai. organize something small for a short while, so that no one gets to be uncomfortable for long, and introduce your family and allow every one else to introduce the family. make is a bit fun, if there are family memebrs who cannot attend, allow the present to bring recent photo. get a few beers and a bottle of whiskey and let the party start. if they still don’t respond to your humanity, at least you tried.
i like your spirit though:-)
Additionally, Editor Mntu, your post is riddled with completely misinformed and misguided assumptions.
To compare my upbringing to that of the landed gentry is not only false, but the furthest thing from the truth.
I don’t have to elaborate extensively on my socio-economic background, I don’t feel at liberty to discuss that here (although I certainly wouldn’t mind, there is nothing to be ashamed of it, indeed, it has instilled more life lessons than anything suburban living could ever have done and would do.)
Your response, however, speaks of one of the greatest flaws of our Republic and is an indictment against the mindset of her people: we see and, instead of probing, we jump to conclusions. White = middle and upper class upbringing on extensive small holdings with investments, parents with extensive post-secondary education and rewarding employment.
But, who am I to challenge the assumptions of a far superior and far more wise editor.
I live in the vast suburban sprawl that is known as Gauteng. I do not know my neighbours. I would nod at them if I ever see them. I do not wish to speak to them as I am utterly disinterested. I only have the capacity for so much – maybe nonchalance is attributable to living here for a decade. I don’t do small-talk in a queue and am used to have standoffs for parking spots at malls over weekends. I would not exchange this for the rural areas.
I originate from the Platteland. I chose to never live there again. Amenities are too far away. The mercury mostly rises to around 40 degrees C in summer – not my idea of fun.
I visit the Platteland often, due to close familial ties but get a sense of an inexplicable and inextricable omnipresent void. An abundance of nothingness fills the air and inundates itself all over.
It is like travelling back in time to an era where conservative “family” values reigned supreme and the church spire was the tallest structure in the town (proclaiming theocratic rule quite subtly).
But by Postmodern standards this comment is nothing new and just a regurgitation of subjective experiences and the conveyancing of acquired philosophy to recycle for more than it is worth.
Aaahhh tongue in cheek???…..that fact that you had to tell us the piece is such suggests your tongue may have been placed in the wrong cheeks.
“Suburban South Africans make the worst neighbours” – Marius, you need to get up to date with your soapies and sitcoms – Brit, US or Oz – neighbours make a continual source of humour, drama and angst. It is a global phenomenon. Wasn’t it Clint Eastwood who threatened his neighbours to get off his lawn? Bake a cake or pistols at dawn – your choice…
Mea culpa.
To all those who get on their high horse about complaints re ‘the suburbs’, I would suggest you read a bit more about their history. They are a result of the automobile, a fairly recent concept, and they are not to be encouraged, here or in other parts such as the USA. With a massive carbon footprint, suburban sprawl is not just ugly and alienating, it is environmentally unfriendly and encourages us to isolate from each other.
BTW, Obs is NOT the same as, say Northriding. It’s a very old and tightly packed suburb, close to the city centre and on a train line. I remember the good days of train commuting – you got to know people, read, knitted, did the crossword, chatted… Not the same as the one-person-one-car commuting done by suburban sprawlers.
I live in an old west rand suburb on a train line, where we know our neighbours and children play in the street. I would kill for an expanded rail network, or rail-and-bus, just to avoid those hideous, lonely rush-hour trips I have occasionally to make into northern JHB (I’ve organised my life to work mostly from home). I can quite understand why you come home after a commute like that and just want to shut yourself away in your little boxes and ignore life outside.
Thanks for the “food for thought” deWorde, and here’s another something for the Editor to chew on.
http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/the-war-against-suburbia
There is some truth in the statement ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’ – for any suburban street is a collection of castles that have nothing to do with their neighbours – unless they have to – I had to come to Africa to learn what “Community” is all about
You picked your house because you liked the look of the buildings, not the neighbours (unless you’re a creepy stalker…)
Neighbours could be nice, but they might just as easily be nasty nuisances you’d wished you never met.
That’s newbie, not newby. Newbie.