{"id":21592,"date":"2013-08-05T20:03:28","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T02:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=21592"},"modified":"2016-05-09T10:13:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T16:13:15","slug":"21592","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=21592","title":{"rendered":"Living the Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lughnasa \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 New (State Fair) Moon<\/p>\n

Life seems to run from one irony to another, offering a wry twist often when you least expect it. \u00a0This irony is not one of those. \u00a0It’s been building for about 19 years, but it has begun to peak. \u00a0The irony is this. \u00a0The U.S. like the rest of the world, continues to urbanize with central cities beginning to outstrip ‘burbs. \u00a0“In 2011, for the first time in nearly a hundred years, the rate of urban population growth outpaced suburban growth, reversing a trend that held steady for every decade since the invention of the automobile.”*<\/p>\n

What’s the irony here? \u00a0Now I find myself willing to defend the suburban or, in my case, exurban experience. \u00a0Why is that ironic? \u00a0Because I spent 24 years living in Minneapolis and St. Paul deeply involved in all manner of urban politics, working as an urban minister and eventually in charge of urban ministry for the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area. \u00a0Though raised in a small town, I made the transition to solidly urban guy. \u00a0It was my profession, the city.<\/p>\n

Cities burst with energy, offer sophisticated amusements, diverse places to live, a variety of foods to eat and the sort of jostling with others that sparks creativity. \u00a0They also make obvious the divisions in our society that a drive from the Northside of Minneapolis to Kenwood, directly south of it, epitomizes. \u00a0Even that last creates a juicy political scene with lots of different actors. \u00a0Fun.<\/p>\n

And I love it. \u00a0Note the present tense. \u00a0I love it. \u00a0I enjoy being in the city and I love the kind of people who make cities their home.<\/p>\n

Even so. \u00a0I now live in an exurb of the Twin Cities. \u00a0Only a couple of miles north of our home there are cornfields. \u00a0Surrounding our development is a huge truck farm with tractors and warehouses and rows and rows of carefully planted vegetables. \u00a0This is where the metro proper ends. \u00a0The MUSA line, the Metropolitan Urban Services Area, runs less than a mile south of our home. (see map)<\/p>\n

Over the years Kate and I have made a life here that would not have been possible in the city. \u00a0We have a woods, several garden beds for flowers and vegetables, an orchard and a fire pit. \u00a0Our house has about 3800 square feet with the finished basement and we could never afford that much space in the city. \u00a0This combination of a large, relatively inexpensive home and land enough to create our own footprint has given us a rich and full life.<\/p>\n

We have the suburban dream, that is, country living close enough to the city to access \"\"<\/a>museums, orchestras, restaurants and political activity. \u00a0In my first days here I felt isolated and unhappy, far away from the things that had made me who I was. \u00a0As time passed though, I began to find a new person emerging based on what we had here.<\/p>\n

It is, in some important respects, a narrower life. \u00a0Kate and I spend most of our time either outside or inside our home, but on our property. \u00a0In this sense the community oriented life of the city does not have a domestic equivalent here, at least for us.<\/p>\n

Here there is silence. \u00a0Here we can focus on our creative activities: \u00a0horticulture, writing, sewing\/quilting. \u00a0Here our life concentrates at our home. \u00a0This is similar to the farm life of millions of Americans prior to WWII. \u00a0Yes, it has its privations, but it also has unique benefits.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen how third phase life can be lived here, especially the waning years of that time. \u00a0We may find the distances too great for us, the isolation dangerous. \u00a0I hope not because I have learned to love this exurban spot as much I love the city.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Time Magazine article, The End of the Suburbs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lughnasa \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 New (State Fair) Moon Life seems to run from one irony to another, offering a wry twist often when … Continue reading Living the Dream<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,87,13,100,3996],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-garden","category-our-land","category-politics","category-third-phase-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21592"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39006,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21592\/revisions\/39006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}