What is suburbicide?

This really should have been an introductory post written years ago when I started this blog but the truth is that I really didn't know what this blog would evolve into and, honestly, I still don't. Every now and then I'll get a little bit of inspiration and write a few posts and then forget about it for varying lengths of time...

The story begins simply. Anyone who's tried to come up with a .com domain name in the last 10+ years knows that it's a frustrating effort to come up with something that can be easily remembered but isn't already taken and being used or held for resale way more than it's worth.

One day while thinking up possible domain names the word "suburbicide" came to mind. It seemed simple enough. Somewhat easy to remember. Not (too) bad to spell and it was available! My thoughts on the "meaning" of the word suburbicide are already written on my about page so I won't rehash them again here.

These days, I'm finding myself more and more interested in the idea of trying to break down old ideas and find better, more responsible ways of doing things. I'm tired of hearing people blame problems on others while never taking responsibility as their role as a cog in the machine. I'm not excluding myself, I'm definitely guilty of this.

Waaaaaay, back in March 2009 I read a feature that I found interesting on TIME called "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now" and in particular a portion called "Recycling the Suburbs".

I had already owned this domain at the time and had been working on trying to tie ideas like this into my blog, so I filed this article away for a day that I felt like writing a post about "suburbicide" and why the idea stuck in my head.

I live in an area that is a perfect example of suburban sprawl. there are three "cities" within 30 minutes of each other and suburbs in between an all around. At the place that I work in one of the three cities, most have a commute from suburbs of one of the other cities.

What would bring people back to the cities? Is that what we want? If we did go back to cities what would happen to all of the unwanted things in the suburbs? Are we just going to continue to move and expand leaving a trail of unwanted buildings and decay in our wake?