In the 1950's, a town in New York named Levittown popped up and came to represent, for good or for ill, the onslaught of suburbia. Cultural critics thought it was hideous. Families who were now able to afford a home thought it was wonderful. The culture war over suburbia has been nonstop ever since. Movies such as American Beauty and SubUrbia demonstrate how oppressive these little burgs are, stiffling authenticity of every turn. Yet people keep moving to them. Cities expand, woods are cut down, and neighborhood continue to pop up.

For my part, I was raised in a little town called Taylor Lake Village. TLV shares its post office with nearby Seabrook, its fire department with Pasadena, it's phone service with Kemah, and it's police department with El Lago. In all, my parents figured out that they pay taxes to six municipalities and two counties. While the towns are all a bit different (Seabrook is more blue collar, Clear Lake is wealthy, Bay Oaks is wealthier, etc), there are counterparts on all sides of Houston (Clear Lake equals Kingwood and Cinco Ranch north and west of town respectively, Pasadena equals Humble and old Katy north and west and so on) and they exist on the outskirts of all kinds of cities. Geographically, they're all cipher's for the cities that they live in. The comfort of a small town and the utility of being near something big. They lack firm identity, style, authenticity, blah, blah, blah.

Except I don't feel that way at all. I don't know if I'll settle down in the city, suburbs, or the country. The city is appealing because since I was eighteen, I've been a city boy and have growned accustomed to being near lots of things and big places where big things happen. On the other hand, when I'm driving to San Marcos or Waco, it is amazing to drive through these little towns with so much history and so much, well, authenticity. The suburbs offer a near combination of both. There are also good suburbs and bad ones. There are suburbs that people will grow up and look at as simply "the place I grew up" but there will also be those that people will look back at as "my home town."

So while there are suburbs I'd really enjoy living in, there are others that would drive me insane and that represent the harshest words of the critics' derisions. Taylor Lake Village falls somewhere in between, but closer to the ideal. Nearby, though, is Clear Lake and the loathsome Master Planned Communities. Where I come from (and I don't know how universal this is), they are the most soulless, lifeless, and plastic entities I have ever seen. They are wealthy, immaculate, posh, and I would sooner live in a trailer park than in any one of them.

My first criticism, similar to that of those critics of Levittown, is that all the houses are built exactly the same. One after another with the same layout, same brick pattern, and same color scheme. Sometimes one person on the street will start feeling really adventurous and will put up a basketball hoop. They are utterly uniquitous and bland and I can just imagine former residents who grew up there going into the wrong house because they 1991 Oak Bend Forest Park Court Drive as 1661 and couldn't tell which house was theirs. The house they grew up in is the same as all the houses next to them and around them and in neighborhoods built by the same Master Plan Community builder fifteen hundred miles away.

Levittown was, for most of its residents, the first chance they had at a home. They were moving out of apartments and slums and so the utilitarian nature in which Levittown was built was a godsend to them because it allowed them a chance to afford a house they would not otherwise have. For residents of mass production model homes in Houston suburbia, that is not so much the case. They could just as easily have a relatively nice house in Taylor Lake Village or Seabrook, but the houses in Bay Oaks are just so much bigger and nicer and state-of-the-art(less). Numerous people that I know actually moved out of the regular joe burns into the mass production variety as they moved up the corporate ladder.

This alone wouldn't bother me (to each their own, after all) were it not for the inevitable, irresistable temptations of these commuties to conform and that conformance to be enforce vigorously by Home Owner's Associations. Now, HOA's are not unique to Master Planned Communities. My subdivision in TLV has a somewhat active HOA that keeps fences from getting too high, pressures certain residents to mow their lawns, and keeps cars from being parked on the lawns. They want to keep things from going the way of less-maintained Seabrook and I understand that. What they generally don't do (to my knowledge) is tell people what hue of brown or off-white their houses must be painted, how often the lawns must be mowed (within reason), what kind of regulation sprinklers are allowable, and so on.

They don't do these things for a very good reason: There's no point. Does it really matter if our pillars are painted a lighter shade of brown than our neighbors when they have a red brick driveway with a big stucco wall and we have a standard concrete driveway and wooden fence? But when you have houses that were all designed and built by the same people at the exact same time, two different shades of brown can clash, y'know. A green sprinkler with a yellow one next door? That just stands out. Home Owners Associations are generally run by the busibodies that give a crap, so they notice these things and as such apply onerous regulations so that nothing stands out and there's nothing to offend anyone.

A couple years back, I was at a political gathering where the topic of HOAs came up. I voiced my opinion, figuring a liberal fellow like the man I was talking to would agree, but he just shook his head and said, "You don't understand. Irregularities depreciate property values. A stronger Home Owner's Association is good for your investment. You'll see when it's your turn to buy a house."

Hopefully he's wrong and I won't. I don't want to live in an investment or a property value. I want to live in a house. A home.

Which all brings me to the impetus for this post. Kevin linked to an article in the Houston Chronicle about the Sugar Land City Inspector's office.

Sugar Land residents like the laws that give the city its golf course-like appearance. But the sign restrictions can sometimes rub people the wrong way when they are looking for the family's lost cocker spaniel or launching a new sandwich shop.

"The philosophy we have had in place for years is that people move here because of the appearance and the orderliness of the community," said City Manager Allen Bogard.

One way the orderliness is maintained is by removing illegal signs, such as those for garage sales. The signs are fair game for inspectors.

"I used to pick them up and take them back to the owner and explain they were illegal. After I got chewed out and was called names several times, I just threw them in the back of the truck and kept going," [City Inspector] May said.

May, a code enforcement inspector for almost two years, covers the area south of U.S. 59. It includes almost all of the city's new neighborhoods, many of which are part of the First Colony master-planned community.

First Colony subdivision designs include extensive landscaping. Homeowner associations are very active in those neighborhoods, and that makes May's job a little easier.

I'm certain that they do. Given my experiences in the Clear Lake area, it's not remarkably surprising that these codes are supported. Property values, you know. Investments!

I can understand the desire to have a town be attractive. I'll get off my high horse for a moment and say that Seabrook's tendency to have cars in their front lawns on cinder blocks is enough to keep even me from moving in there. But a garage sale sign? How is someone supposed to have a garage sale if they can't advertise it? Is it really such a crime to have an 8.5x11 sign posted on a power line for a garage sale? Little posted signs for web training or whatnot I can understand, but c'mon, a garage sale.

Something tells me that First Colony residents are probably not all that hip on the concept of a garage sale. After all, they're all well paid people. Who needs a quarter for an old book that they could throw away? Besides, those garage sales attract all those cars. Those cars obstruct the green of the regulation-mowed lawns and paint-by-number houses. Oh, and I'm sorry if you lost your dog and would give anything to get it back, but your sign detracts from the beauty that is out neighborhood (yes, the article says that lost dog posters are also banned).

In TLV, there were always some curmudgeons that would get mad at us if we walked across their lawns. There were also biddies who'd get their panties in an uproar when so-and-so put up a basketball hoop or whatnot. But kids want to play basketball. Some people like having their old stuff go to good use by selling it to a neighbor for a quarter. People actually care about their runaway dogs!

I would like more than to just live in a home instead of a property value or investment. I'd like to live in a neighborhood where people don't just admire their surroundings, but, you know, actually live in them.