The size of the backyard for the average McMansionFurther to my previous post, I wanted to share a rather sad little story of something Gam and I witnessed yesterday.
Background: recently, 4 McMansion-style houses have been undergoing development along the river near Guyatt Park, on our usual walking/cycling route to Toowong. The largest and most hideous of these has been completed and a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 pre-teen kids) have moved in.
This hideous house squats like a giant, bloated beige cowpat on its small-ish block of land, right out to the very boundary of the plot. To make its ugliness even more glaring, it sits next to a rather restrained and prim little old faux-scandinavian house on a small block that managed to retain a high proportion of green space. The only green space on the entire block is a little square enclosed by the front fence that would measure less than 2x2m. The concrete path from the front gate forms one of the borders for this tiny square.
Yesterday we saw the family's son- probably aged around 10 or 11-scooting his skateboard up and down the little entry path next to the green patch: two kick-push-and-turn-around; two kick-push-and-turn-around. Like the little exercise yards you see attached to a prison's solitary confinement cell. We saw a kid whose parents had built a giant monstrosity of a McMansion with a 3-car garage and all the trappings (two BMWs), but hadn't bothered to provide him with a yard to run around in. They'd also bought a puppy- a large puppy that looks like it's going to grow into a large dog. It was pacing up and down along the small green patch and in front of the gate- back and forth. They might live next to a park, but unless the parents are right there to supervise at all times, it's no substitute for a backyard. Not for the kid or the dog. Nearly all my happiest childhood memories took place in our lovely big backyard, whether it was raising chickens and rabbits or pulling up baby carrots from the vegie garden, rinsing them under the outside tap and eating them right there, climbing trees and staying there for hours, playing in the cubby-house my dad built to my childish specifications (he hunted down 'wriggly logs' at the local sawmill just to humour me)... A good backyard provides an endless world of imaginary, culinary and physical entertainment for kids... The kid and the dog looked so bored in the pathetic 'yard' of their tiny McMansion. I felt sorry for both of them.
2 comments:
You're rightly pointing a revolting blight afflicting our rapidly degreening city Where I live (East Bris), well-off 'working families' are buying up all the nice old Queenslanders, ripping them and any trace of foliage out, concreting the plots to the edge, and building ludicrous vanity-mansions on them. How they get planning permission .. well, we know how. Money talks, and BCC is all ears.
The thing is, most of these new houses are entirely unshaded (all trees gone) and sit there exposed to the sun, like fat sunburnt rednecks. So their occupants are forced to chill themselves 24x7 with air con. All that flora and fauna destroyed to create a fridge in which watch TV (these people rarely venture outside). I wish they'd all fuck off to the US where they truly belong.
that is such a succinct, accurate portrayal of my thoughts that i think you should be a guest blogger here...
"All that flora and fauna destroyed to create a fridge in which watch TV"
brilliant
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