Question Comforts of Your Youth

Q: What do you think it is about the suburbs...that people find comfortable?

A: I think they don’t actually find it comfortable — but everyone is nostalgic for the shitholes of their youth. When we’re young and isolated we don’t know if a place is lousy or not- it’s ours and we are of it, and so we feel a weird closeness. But just as some kids who are abused and beaten think that’s just what growing up is, we ex-suburbanites naturally assume that everyone shared our experience. Many did, but not all.

- David Byrne on bicycles, Atlanta’s sprawl and burying highways

A: ...The thing about many cities — and getting out of the tin bubble — is that they facilitate random encounters, inspirations and connections. That’s how people, being the social animals we are, flourish.