The gray in the suburbs

My neighbor across the street, Kurt, put his house up for sale this week. His kids and our kids were the same age. His kids have grown up, the couple divorced a couple of years ago and now he’s heading to China. It’s that way up and down the street; the kids have grown up and if the parents stuck around, they’re getting older and grayer. Walking the dog this morning, I realized I don’t know anyone in the neighborhood anymore. It was the kids of the neighborhood who made it a neighborhood.

It wasn’t always this way, of course, it was a neighborhood of screams and giggles — at least after school got out. And in the late afternoon/early evening, the cheering from the park made the neighborhood feel like a neighborhood.

The city has a big multi-field athletic complex now, so nobody plays in the parks anymore.

This apparently is not something that’s only happening in Woodbury, it’s happening in suburbs all over America. They’ve grown up, and gotten gray.

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(h/t: Bob Moffit)