Suburban Supernova

“It’s as if Zeus came down and started plopping vast towns in the middle of the farmland and the desert overnight. Boom! A master planned community! Boom! A big-box mall! Boom! A rec center, pool, and four thousand soccer fields! The food courts come first, and the people follow. How many times in human history have two-hundred-thousand- or five-hundred-thousand-person communities materialized out of practically nothing in the space of a few years? What sorts of institutions get born there, and what sorts of people emerge? This suburban supernova subtly affects every place in America.” [David Brooks, On Paradise Drive (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 3]