soupy says

"We had conflict," said Jamie Lechner, referring to her old Germantown neighborhood. "And we wanted to move away from that. . . . That's why we're here -- to be sheltered."
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"Yeah, but there aren't really troubles in the schools," said Craft, pointing out that they are too new. "Traffic and golf scores, those are the two big topics."

"There was the timing of the gate," Perilla said, "community issues like that. But if it doesn't affect you personally, you don't have to think about it, unfortunately."

"You don't have to leave here," said her neighbor, laughing. "That's the key. You don't have to leave -- it's almost scary."
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"It sounds awful," Perilla said, "but it was turning into a more working-class neighborhood. More pickups -- not that there's anything wrong with that. . . . There were problems we didn't want to deal with -- at least on a personal level."
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"At a certain point, you want your kids to grow up in Mayberry," Jamie Lechner said. "And this is as close to Mayberry as we can get."
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In his book, "Democracy in Suburbia," University of Chicago political science professor Eric Oliver asserts that, in general, the absence of conflict in suburban areas tends to go hand in hand with diminished participation -- not necessarily in elections, but in other parts of civic life, such as volunteering. "It turns citizens into consumers, basically," he said in an interview. ". . . They disconnect and disassociate themselves from the greater community in which they reside."
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"As exurbs become more powerful, more populated, more legislatively represented, there is the danger that the hidden concerns of the central cities and older suburbs will be ignored," he said. "We do tend to leave our problems behind, always searching for that new frontier that doesn't have any. Of course, there is no such thing."

# posted by stacey : 1:04 PM