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Where do the critics live?

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Suburban house, Harrisonburg, Virginia

Intellectuals tend to disapprove of suburbs, although many live in them. I was on a panel recently with an articulate sociologist whose tolerance stopped at the door to suburbia, which he pictured as a dreadful lifeless place where dreadful lifeless people lived. It turned out he was one of them. When I asked why, he muttered "well, I met this woman. . . ." It was a love story. Why couldn't he acknowledge the fact that his neighbors too had their reasons to be in this place? Lippard 1997, 230-1