Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for March 23, 2011

subdivisions: where they cut down the trees, and then name the streets after them.

Try and mapquest that.

They should name them for what they really are…

Snooty Upscaled Drive Keeping Up with The Jones’ Avenue

and…

Underachieving College Graduate Still Living With Their Parents Boulevard

You left out the neighborhood named “Mortgage Manor.”

And don’t forget McMansion Blvd.

In Chesterton’s “Club of bleeep Trades”, one of the tradesmen built fully functional adult size tree houses for eccentric Englishmen. I would love to live in one of those. I also remember in the “Taken” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster, one of the alien races prefers to live in high tech (biotech/nanotech) treehouses. The trees grow in a controlled manner to suit the inhabitants.

Club of “bleep” trades? What did the nannybot censor this time?

There’s a subdivision across the road from us with a name something like “River View Estates.” Naturally, it’s at the top of the bluff, half a mile from the river, and there is no place in the entire development (except maybe precariously balancing on the ridge of the roof) from which one can actually see the river.

yyyguy said, about 10 hours ago

subdivisions: where they cut down the trees, and then name the streets after them

Sadly, we’ve done the same with American Indian tribes too: wipe them out, steal their land, and name some counties after them posthumously.

In SC, we have rivers named after extinct Native tribes. We also, bulldoze pecan trees, erect boxy structures & plant some non-native foreign bushes. This is progress!!!

Consider all the tracts called “Water this or that” or “Hunters Ridge”. The first are under water now and the second is a memorial to the coveys that used to live there.