Good Essay About Building An Inclusive Community Rather Than Uniform Tracts Of Houses

Most of the parents’ objectives in moving in to a community are for the benefit of their children. Proximity and accessibility to workplace is usually a secondary objective. For the working parents however, they usually end up moving in to suburbs due to financial reasons. There is already a long-running debate regarding raising children in a village where all you can see are uniform buildings without any open space. Sociologists have already raised their concern that suburbs producing young people without personality who are as monotonous as their environment. There is a need to design suburbs as an inclusive community where residents of all ages can call it home. Teen-agers need a community where they can explore and thrive with their peers. They need a village where they will be able build good memories. They need a village where they can draw their own territories. Most of all, they need a community not a housing.
Hamilton (1999) in his article entitled “How Suburban Design is Failing Teenagers” asserts that the sprawl of suburbs has created an environmental illness among the youth. He continued that suburbs which are designed to be disconnected from the hustle and bustle of the city are breeding intolerance and lack of diversity among the teens. Moreover, this kind of environment he added leads to young people detached to civic ideals shared by most. A village which is as monotonous as suburbs breeds disassociation among teenagers as their environment hinders them to do what most teenagers do in the cities or in the rural areas. Hamilton pointed out that the essence of youthfulness is liberty to explore without the supervision of their parents or the confines of the house.
Hamilton continued to explain that suburban designers are starting to realize that teenagers are missing in the process of the planning and designing. He also cited some interviews where teenagers expressed their boredom with the very limited activities that they can do inside the suburbs. Also, it was indicated in the article that teenagers need access to the realms of society to be able to attach their selves with a diverse society. For a youthful spirit, being curtailed to explore is equivalent to disability.
Travlou (2003) in a Literature Review “Teenagers and Public Space” cited a study which has a core findings that stated: “what the children wanted most was a sense of security, acceptance and positive identity, in places where they could socialise, play with friends, find interesting activities to join or observe” (Travlou, 6).
The aforementioned findings clearly demonstrate a healthy environment to raise children especially the teenagers. Like most teenagers, I experienced the feeling of being caged during my time. I like to explore many things like playing guitar, dancing, and hanging out with peers to do our various activities that are usually prohibited by our parents. With the many things I wanted to do, my parents were strict that they compel me to do a boring routine of school-home, school-home. I and my siblings were always scolded whenever we hang-out with our peers after class. That kind of environment felt like a cage for me that I wanted to escape. It was suffocating. We were raised in the rural and I would always dream of living in the city. I imagined the city to be freer and happier. I only find happiness whenever we were allowed to go out with our friends and play in the vast grassland that served as our playground. That was the only time that we freely do our own business. I still feel that I did not maximize my teenage life in the rural. There are many activities that I missed like swimming in the river, fishing, and gathering herbs and other edible plants outside the village. My peers could have taught me to play guitar and dance like Michael Jackson. That experience taught me not to cage my future children in the confines of the house and the backyard.
I definitely agree with Hamilton’s assertion that diversity is lost when children are raised in the suburbs. Children need so much to socialize, get updated with trends, issues that their peers are interested with, and most of all, to find belongingness. Belongingness is a basic need of young people that cannot be found in a monotonous environment of a suburb. In order to find that belongingness, teenagers need space. They need not only parks but spaces where they can call their own. In order to achieve this, designers of suburbs need to painstakingly consult teenagers of what they want for a community. They should be included in every process because children are the main reason why communities are built.
Communities should not be defined according to race and class as this creates monotony and intolerance. A healthy village should be a combination of the young and the old; the rich and the poor; and a combination of white and the colored races. In this manner, diverse children play together, form peers together, and grow together with tolerance and acceptance. Creating more spaces for exploration, recreational activities, or just for hang out help the youth to define who they are as a person. With that said, now is the time to re-define our idea of a suburb. It is high time to stop building uniform houses and start building a community.

Works Cited

Hamilton, William L. “How Suburban Design is failing Teenagers.” The New York Times, 6 May 1996. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.
Travlou, Penny. “Teenagers and Public Space.” Open Space: The Research Centre for Inclusive Access to Outdoor Environments, Jul. 2003. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.