It’s typical these days for the media, government planners, and some Christian leaders to bash the suburbs in favor of city life. Since I live and work in the first place many Hawaii residents think of when they hear the word “suburb,” I’ve been known to throw a few cheap shots at fat and happy creampuffs like myself who live in the comfortable convenience of a master-planned community. While there are clear dangers to suburban life (like the “pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease” that Ezekiel used to describe Sodom), you have to admit there are unique dangers in any setting. After living in L.A. for three years, I can tell you that the anonymity of the city can lead people to engage in things they’d never dream of in the suburbs.
Hoping to reverse a little of the suburb-stigma, Steve McCoy and Joe Thorn have started a blog called sub-text that’s devoted to bringing the gospel into a suburban context. One of their early posts lists some of the redeeming qualities of suburbia. Here’s one of the most obvious but often overlooked:
At creation man was commanded to “be fruitful and multiply.” Kids are the way dominion happens in the world. And it’s not only that we should have a kid, but the more the merrier. Children are a blessing from the Lord, and while the world’s values have created the strong desire to limit childbearing, God values multiplication. While the world’s values say that more children means more burden, God’s values say that more children means more blessing. I don’t see any biblical mandate on how many children to have, but I think there is a biblical mandate to see children as gifts and that we should desire those gifts from God.
Our cities make having multiple children nearly impossible. There is less living space intended for larger families, at least not larger families who aren’t very rich. Public schools in urban areas are rarely recognized for their academic quality and private schools are typically very expensive. Cities are not good on families, which is why when city-dwellers start having kids they start moving to the suburbs.
Suburbs are known for having good schools and safe neighborhoods. There’s more affordable housing with more space in the house for larger families as well as yards to play in. For what’s wrong in suburbia, it’s a place well-equipped for people who want to “be fruitful and multiply.”