Wow! Harsh!

AMONG THE ATTITUDES that seem required of American intellectuals, loathing of the suburbs ranks high on the list. Since they can be despised for so many (if often incongruent) reasons, suburbs offer a target for writers with quite disparate agendas: The suburbs are racist and exclusionary; their fleshpots blunt the activist impulses of minorities who move to them; they destroy families; they distract from communal concerns by making family the focus of life; their oppressive conformity stunts individualism; they isolate the individual from the community; and on and on. That many Americans of all races continue to move to them in droves-- dynamically transforming suburban life in the process--is a reminder of the irrelevancy of much of this chatter to the way people decide to shape their lives.

-Is American literature too soft on the suburbs?