On an optimistic note

It is hard to find a decent uplifting story or op-ed these days, but for some reason this David Brooks piece cheered me up. I want to live in a big city in the next few years of my life, no question about that. Yet, there is something post-suburban about these "frontier" places that is reminiscent of the Tocquevillian small town, which is very enchanting. These places are probably a figment of Brooks' imagination. Yet I'd like to think they exist for when I am done with the cultural hodgepodge of the big city:

If you jumble together the five most popular American metro areas — Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Orlando and Tampa — you get an image of the American Dream circa 2009. These are places where you can imagine yourself with a stuffed garage — filled with skis, kayaks, soccer equipment, hiking boots and boating equipment. These are places you can imagine yourself leading an active outdoor lifestyle.

These are places (except for Orlando) where spectacular natural scenery is visible from medium-density residential neighborhoods, where the boundary between suburb and city is hard to detect. These are places with loose social structures and relative social equality, without the Ivy League status system of the Northeast or the star structure of L.A. These places are car-dependent and spread out, but they also have strong cultural identities and pedestrian meeting places. They offer at least the promise of friendlier neighborhoods, slower lifestyles and service-sector employment. They are neither traditional urban centers nor atomized suburban sprawl. They are not, except for Seattle, especially ideological, blue or red.

They offer the dream, so characteristic on this continent, of having it all: the machine and the garden. The wide-open space and the casual wardrobes.