The Suburbs Are Pulling Us Apart – By Guy Ciarrocchi (Real Clear Pennsylvania) / May 1, 2023
My wife and I moved from Philadelphia to the western suburbs of Chester County for many reasons. The move offered us the best of all worlds. We would be living close enough to Philadelphia, but in even less time, we could be in rural Chester County, with its mushroom farms, farmer’s markets, and homemade foods and products. We could go back to South Philly to eat dinner on Passyunk Avenue, or choose to eat at a quiet country inn on a back road with no traffic lights – or even streetlights.
Our neighbors were a mix: some had lived here for decades, some had moved here from more rural communities, and some had come here, like us, from Philadelphia. For us, the suburbs were a bridge to different parts of Pennsylvania and the nation. The suburbs were both the melting pot and the patchwork quilt that is America. Our neighbors had gun racks and Volvos. We all seemed to enjoy our community and appreciate that we were made up of differing backgrounds. In a sense, it was the suburbs that were connecting all of us – and holding America together.
But something changed. I didn’t notice it until it had already happened – because it happened slowly.
