I don’t get out much so I don’t know what much of America is like, but much of Florida is paved over with sub-divisions. I suppose it’s pretty similar to a lot of other places, considering it was colonized right around the same time much of America was suffering the blight that came to be known as “the post-war baby boom.” Coincidentally, Florida was largely uninhabitable until around this time, when residential air-conditioning became affordable to the masses.

Where was I again?

Right, subdivisions. Big clusters of limited access housing. No thru-ways. One way in and one way out, a maze of residential streets, with residents trapped like mice inside. I wonder why this seemed like such a good idea? Was it because folks thought they’d be isolated from the busy streets outside, making it safer for their offspring to roam free inside.

Funny thing is, I think the opposite happened. We’re trapped inside such a big fraking mess it feels like charting a course to the new world before you even get to a point where you’re going in the right direction. Folks get impatient with all the winding roads and traffic calming stop signs… so they start ignoring them. I should know. My house sits in front of a stop sign. Sitting on my front porch, it’s not uncommon to see cars fly past at night with nary a brake-light in sight.

I wonder if all these walls we’ve built around ourselves are doing even more harm than we thought.