A reader commenting under the pseudonym of “Smarter than Kevin” has decided to take issue with a few of my posts. In one comment on the post I wrote about “The Christmas Shoes”, this reader (whose anonymity I will preserve), mocks me for claiming to be a New Orleanian when I am, in fact, from Metairie. (He actually thought I was from Kenner, but I guess all these suburbs look alike to the hoity-toity residents of the city proper.) This comment is some great fodder for a post I had already been thinking about writing: a post on how much I hate suburb-bashing.
Now, the “suburb-bashing” I’m speaking of here is the cultural kind, and the kind which says “If you’re from the suburbs, you can’t claim to be from that city.” There are a host of architectural, urban-planning-related, environmental criticisms of American suburbia, and many of these points are valid. One could certainly debate the virtues of city life versus the suburbs, point out the problems caused by urban sprawl, lack of mass transit, an overreliance on cars, etc. That’s not my concern here. What I’m interested in is the cultural arrogance and the “us vs. them” mentality of those denizens of cities (or, in some cases, neighborhoods) over those who live elsewhere.
Perhaps the best known in example of this is in NYC, where trendy Manhattanites bash the “bridge and tunnel” crowd. Generally speaking, Manhattan is a more expensive place to live than the outer boroughs, so there was obvious snobbery, but judging by what urbandictionary says, it seems that in modern usage the term is more for cultural snobbery, rather than the financial kind.* There’s probably a certain amount of this in most cities, especially ones where formerly downtrodden inner-city areas have become gentrified.
In New Orleans some of the same principles are at work. At times I feel a certain inferiority complex living out here in the ‘burbs. Then I look out the window and don’t see any potholes, and it’s not so bad. While Jefferson Parish certainly has its share of corrupt and inept politicians, on the whole I think any impartial observer would agree that it’s better run than New Orleans. I went to a very good public school in Jefferson Parish from Pre-K through fifth grade, at a time when the New Orleans public schools (except for one really good magnet high school) were completely horrendous. (Fortunately things are dramatically improving for public schools in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina.) Property values are, as can be expected, much lower in the suburbs than in Orleans Parish. The downside is that it’s meant a longer commute—for more than eleven years, I’ve either gone to school or work in Orleans Parish.
I also find it interesting that the reader doing the criticizing is from Lakeview, which is basically a suburb that just happens to be within the New Orleans city limits. Both Lakeview and Metairie had some development in the early part of the 20th century, but neither place took off until after World War II (see the Lakeview Civic Improvement Association’s history of the area). Interestingly enough, in the novel The Moviegoer, Walker Percy calls Gentilly, the home of protagonist Binx Bolling, a “suburb” of New Orleans. Gentilly, like Lakeview and Metairie, was mostly built up in the post-war period. The contrast, presumably, is with the older parts of town that also feature in the story: the French Quarter, uptown along St. Charles Avenue and Prytania, etc. Perhaps the best phrase to use for those parts of town would be “the sliver by the river.” Historically and demographically speaking, Lakeview and Metairie have far more in common with each other than either one does with, say, the Marigny or Treme or the Irish Channel. So for someone from Lakeview to say that I don’t have the right to call myself a New Orleanian strikes me as even more presumptuous than it would from someone coming from one of the city’s old neighborhoods.
There is a certain peculiar obsession New Orleanians have with themselves, and a certain obsession with protecting it from the outside world. It’s understandable, given the constant bashing we take for being a murder capital, for being too poor, for having bad schools, for not being like Houston or Atlanta or Dallas, for not even wanting to be like Houston or Atlanta or Dallas. With this defense mechanism comes a distrust of the outside, one which often manifests itself as a distrust of outsiders as “carpetbaggers” and the idea that only natives are “true” New Orleanians,** and which in this case reveals itself as a mocking disdain for those born and raised in the suburbs. I find such arrogance revolting.
* NYC people feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here.
** By no means are all New Orleans natives guilty of this. And surely, some cases call for criticism of those who came from the outside (*cough* Ed Blakely *cough*). But I have certainly seen a few examples here and there of completely unwarranted attacks on people who live here but aren’t from here. I plan on exploring this in another post sometime soon.
hmm… I’ve never really had a problem with people from the Metro Area saying they were from New Orleans, especially if they’re out of town and someone asked where they’re from!! I mean, we all eat Red Beans and Rice and would rather watch the Saints win a game than win $100!!
however, i DESPISE when people from let’s say LaPlace, or St. John Parish say they’re from New Orleans. False False False! Say you’re from “just outside New Orleans.” blah!
as for NYC: i don’t really judge ppl from the boroughs… only if they pay more for their apartments than i do, but all they do is say how incredible living outside of manhattan is, when in reality, it is NOT. higher cab fares, longer commutes, nopeee
another great post!
Don’t preserve something you don’t know to be true. You don’t know me, don’t “preserve” my anonymity (though, I’m sure you’re able to guess by now). Either way, don’t do me no favors. For the record—for all 12 readers of this blog (6 of whom I am sure read only to see what I drunkenly post next)—I am sorry for confusing Kevin’s true place of residence. I guess when I have to drive 30 minutes outside city limits, I assume it’s the bowels of Kenner. It’s not. I was wrong. But I, however, am a New Orleanian.
The whole second paragraph should be scrapped, Kevin. If you aren’t going to debate the virtues of city life, don’t mention it. Though, I guess since your defense of suburbs is based primarily, and almost solely, upon drawing out the negatives of city life, why would you talk about its virtues.
Your analogy to NYC is ludicrous. The reason Manhattan residents stick their noses up is because they live there—that’s certainly cultural. But the analogy doesn’t work. NYC compared to its suburbs is astronomically more expensive to live in. In New Orleans, though property tax and other factors make it slightly more expensive to live in the city, that is simply not the case. I would say that Manhattanites are snobby because they can AFFORD to live there. That is not the same in MY city.
You should feel an inferiority complex. Don’t take the liberty to point out the bad things about MY city when, in several posts, you do everything possible to paint yourself as a resident thereof. I’m glad you went to school in Jefferson parish. But where’d you go to high school? In Orleans, of course, because you wouldn’t want to go to Bonnabel. It seems that you are all too quick to receive the benefits and scorn the costs of living in a real city. So how about you pick one?
Lakeview and Metairie are not, at all, the same thing. Let’s assume I’m from Lakeview. Yes, my house may be closer to the city limit than someone from Uptown, but I am still in the city which has those terrible leaders and potholes. I can stomach the bad with the great. (PS: where is your closing parenthesis in 4th/5th line? Also, if you really knew who I was, you would know that I grew up in New Orleans East where the rest of my family lived until Hurricane Katrina (I moved in grammar school to go to a better school), and others of my family lived in the Irish Channel. Thanks, but me and mine are from the city. Plus, what of any of that matters? I LIVE IN THE CITY. Pick out all the tiny details you want—like my proximity to city lines or when which neighborhoods developed—but I have lived in NOLA proper my whole damn life. Grow a set and do the same before you either mock our faults or envy our perks. I am in the city. I live within pissing distance of canal street, city park, and some of the best restaurants and bars in the world. What is the shining monument of your neighborhood? A shitty park with swings and a slide? Great.
Also, I just LOVE your inherent contradiction in the last paragraph. In the first sentence you reference “themselves,” but in the second you switch to “we” to assimilate yourself to actual residents. Its either a symptom of your inferiority complex, or your just trying to trick your reader—which you can’t because, after all, I am Smarter than Kevin.
PS: sorry for the lack of wit or an overall less satisfying response, but I haven’t been drinking. I’m sure that when I’m home, drinking my Abita, I’ll reread and do better. Thanks, all
I guess you didn’t realize that my blog software logs the IP address of all comments. I’ll give you credit, you actually had me fooled when you were home for Thanksgiving. But once you went back to school, it was a cinch.
My apologies for misstating where you grew up—by the time we met, you were living in Lakeview. My apologies also for the missing parenthesis, which I will remedy.
“It seems that you are all too quick to receive the benefits and scorn the costs of living in a real city.”
Getting benefits without costs? Sounds like a good plan to me.
Sounds like this commenter has an inferiority complex himself, or he wouldn’t be so desperate to prove that he’s smarter than Kevin…
By the way, it isn’t “astronomically” more expensive to live in NYC than it is to live in Brooklyn or Queens. I live in Manhattan and pay much less than some of my friends who live in the outer boroughs (and most of my friends in New Orleans), so do a little fact-checking there, SmarterThanKevin. Manhattan is not a city for rich people, it’s a city for people who work their asses off, so I imagine that’s where their snobbery comes from– the fact that they have not just survived, but succeeded, in the most competitive city in the country.
gez… what’s the big deal? i grew up in Lakeview .. and when anyone in the area asks me where i’m from, I say Lakeview.
If i’m out of town, I say New Orleans. (they sure as hell don’t know what or where Lakeview is)
and come to think of it, it’s really odd because if i calculated my years here, i’ve lived uptown for most of it.
@Smarter than Kevin, how old are you? 14? *sigh*
lol, do you just write whatever the hell you want and think it sound? Since when have I wanted to “prove” myself smarter than Kevin? I used this pseudonym A) for funsies and B) becuase I goddamn felt like it. If you’re going to mock my handle, I would like to know your name–for, surely, it’s not lol. I used this name as a joke. Having known Kevin for many years, I know he’s very smart. However, that doesn’t mean I think he’s wrong on many occasions and lets his logical reasoning slip on others. Thus, I chose to help him out in my own sort of way. As for my “fact checking”:
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/New_York-New_York/
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Brooklyn-New_York/
I guess you’re right. Avg listing price of NY, NY is 1.8 M, whereas in Brooklyn it’s 600K. You are so damn smart. You can use the isolated incidence of you and your friends and pretend like that’s how it is for the whole. For your information, that’s what is known as logically fallacious. Thus, the analogy doesn’t work. It isn’t thrice as expensive to live in NOLA as in Metairie:
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/New_Orleans-Louisiana/ (337K)
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Metairie-Louisiana/ (272K)
“Do a little fact-checking” (said in the most annoying voice possible) (and, also, it’s not a hyphnated-term, dbag).
Termite, I am not 14 years old. However, I can always ascertain the intelligence level of someone talking to me. For it is only the truly moronic who result to degrading people on account of their age. You may be older than I, but I would bet not only my left testicle, but also the life of my first born that I am lightyears smarter than you. Don’t mock my age. PLEASE, refute one of my actual arguments.
Kevin, I’m glad you knwo who I am. Otherwise, I would have felt uber awkward next time I saw you. I really do think you’re very smart, but I just take this time to point out things which I disagree with.
PS: At Kroger–$12.99 for a 30 case of “Genny Light.” Christmas cometh early. ANd unfortuantely the night before my MarcroEcon final. PEACE
You hate suburb bashing but you indirectly bash another suburb. You seemed to be a bit annoyed when the drunken poster blasted you for living in Kenner. Perhaps you were not able to let his double accusation slide because the thought of living in Kenner offends you. Seems a bit arrogant.
Oh, I don’t have a problem with bashing Kenner. Hell, if people want to bash Metairie, go right ahead. But if someone from Kenner (or Metairie) says they’re from New Orleans, it’s not gonna bother me, nor should it bother anyone else.
My point was not that Manhattan is cheaper overall than the outer boroughs, because everyone knows it isn’t. My point is that it doesn’t HAVE to be a more expensive place to live the way you made it out to be.
Way to try to cover your ass now that you know Kevin knows who you are– it’s just “a joke” and “I really do think you’re very smart.” Exactly. All I can do is laugh.
@smarter than kevin my goodness! so sensitive! and to think you were going to bet your left nut..how grown up of you!
i suppose my pitiful Masters in Physics and years later, Art History (just for fun) can in no way match your intelligence. i digress..
Drink you juice Shelby…
@kevin your readers are mo fun than mine. i think i’m jealous.
I just love all the bluster that surrounds personal blog sites.
So invigorating…
While I understand the general reasons for saying one is from New Orleans to the people you meet in other states, when Metairie is really home, it doesn’t cut it here.
I’ve been living in the Marigny for 16 years, and never, ever claim to be from New Orleans. The Termite, who grew up here, is from New Orleans. I’m a transplant and say so.
If one is entering a conversation that requires them to give personal information, and yet doesn’t have time to explain it, then they’re probably talking to the authorities or a catalog salesperson, and it really doesn’t matter.
I recall, right after The Flood, going to Gretna to find groceries.
I rolled down the window at a stop light and asked the Barbi Mom & her Barbi Daughter in the next car where a grocery store was.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“New Orleans”, I replied.
“You’re IN New Orleans”, she shot back.
“No”, I said. “The real one, across the river.”
Dear Kevin: You live in Metairie. In a different parish. You don’t call United to get home from the bar, because you’re too drunk to ride your bicycle home. You don’t have wait (daily, at least) for horse drawn carriages to pass. You don’t have tourists walk in front of your car to take pictures of wrought iron. I could go on forever, but I won’t.
You don’t live in New Orleans.
Adding the words ‘Metropolitan Area’ won’t kill you, either.
And the word ‘near’ just rolls off the tongue.
Let’s try it together, shall we?
“I’m Kevin. I live near New Orleans. In the Metropolitan Area, actually.”
See how intriguing that is?
It’s mysterious and spy-like.
And it’s true.
So stop being a liar and either move down to the Big Dirty with the rest of us, or start calling it AS IT IS.
“I’m Kevin. I live in Metairie, but tell people I’m from New Orleans because I eat red beans and watch the Saints.”
So does my sister in Poughkeepsie, dude.
But she doesn’t lie about it.
If asked by someone from the area would I say I’m from Metairie? Yes, absolutely. But in the vast majority of instances when I’m “talking to the authorities or a catalog salesperson,” or even something slightly more in depth than that, I’m saying I’m from New Orleans to save the confusion.
The point I’m making is that there is a difference between New Orleans as a political entity (one with sharply defined boundaries) and New Orleans as a cultural entity (one where the lines are blurry and it’s more a continuum than anything else). When I drive to the West Bank the only difference crossing from Algiers into Gretna is the street signs. Same thing taking Metairie Road over the 17th street canal. Is your Marigny existence “more” New Orleanian than mine? I suppose, insofar as people tie those characteristics you mention to New Orleans. But is someone’s life in Algiers or New Orleans East or Lake Vista any more New Orleanian than mine? Geographically speaking, perhaps; but realistically, no. They don’t have the tourists or the wrought iron or horse-drawn carriages. Their day-to-day existence is roughly the same as mine, their houses look similar, their vocabulary is the same, and so on. Is there a geographic difference? Yes. A cultural one? No. And I see no reason why “New Orleans” as a geographic term should be more important than “New Orleans” as a cultural term.
Dear Kevin;
If you actually believe that living in Metairie is culturally identical to living 7 blocks from the French Quarter, then your Metairie is definitely showing. Like a neon hat.
Is a hamburger from Port of Call culturally the same as one from McDonald’s? Tell yourself whatever you have to sleep at night.
You live in the distant suburb of Metairie in Jefferson Parish.
That is not, nor will it ever be, New Orleans, any more than Rockville, Maryland is Washington, DC, or San Bernadino is Los Angeles or Yonkers is Manhattan.
Too bad you’re so ashamed of your own neighborhood’s culture.
Unless there just isn’t any.
Which would explain why you lie about where you live.
And that’s in Metairie, in Jefferson Parish.
Not New Orleans.
Good luck with that.
PS; You claim to be ‘vehemently pedantic’.
As in: Pedantic – Adj. – marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects. Attention to detail.
Perhaps a small detail like what city and parish you live in might apply.
My neighborhood’s culture? Okay, I’ll bite. The Mardi Gras ball (which was the only one of its kind held by any school in the metro area) and neighborhood parade my elementary school had. Or the Cub Scout parade that passed by the end of the block where I grew up. Great Italian food at Impastato’s. Roast beef po-boys from Shortstop. Fried shrimp from Hobnobber’s. The headquarters of our beloved Saints (whoops, guess y’all shouldn’t root for them since they’re not really from New Orleans.) Does its culture live up to the city of New Orleans proper? No, but why would it? Orleans Parish is the heart of the metro area; obviously, it should be the cultural center. But clearly, the same factors that shape the culture of the City of New Orleans shape the surrounding areas, so culturally speaking, I find it appropriate to consider them one entity. There are differences between different places, to be sure, but they are similar.
And I also find the overemphasis on place of residence silly. I may sleep in Metairie, but I’ve spent countless hours inside New Orleans, whether at school or at work or at play.
But if it’ll make y’all feel better, since I’m from Greater New Orleans, I can call myself a Greater New Orleanian.
Now, there ya go, Kevin.
Atta boy!
Take some pride in your own neighborhood.
I’m sure they’ll take you back, even after you’ve claimed affiliation elsewhere….
My point is this: Each neighborhood in the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area has it’s own scenes, favorite haunts, acclaimed eateries, clubs, etc.
I have some musical friends who are famous world wide, and also claim Metairie as home, and Fat City as their initial launching pad. It is the nature of humans to remember their ancestral home, wherever it may be.
My critique here was not about “overemphasis on place of residence”. It was more about accuracy of connection.
I’ve met people here (in the downtown area) who chose not to check out their first New Years Eve in the French Quarter, because they’ve “done the bar thing on New Years.”
Yeah.
In Newark.
Not really the same thing…
Living in a neighborhood that houses about half of the service industry people who work in the French Quarter has a completely different culture than say, a neighborhood adjacent to Fat City.
Or a neighborhood in Algiers point. The list goes on.
I never said one was better than another.
Just different.
And if all of us Greater New Orleanians have one thing in common, it’s an understanding of how important accepting differences can be, neighborhood & otherwise..
Take pride in yours, Kevin.
Sounds like you have plenty to be proud of.
First if all, I’m not going to hide my identity like some of you tools. Kevin is the only one who hasn’t hidden behind some dumb ass pseudonym. For that, I give him credit. Yea, maybe he’s arrogant, but I FEEL LIKE Kev is super smart and has managed to not spend a dime of his fortune- a fact which is evident in his wardrobe- and for that the little guy can be as arrogant as he wants. I mean, Kevin worked really hard, like studying or whatever. What did ya’ll (I’m sorry, maybe because I grew up in Kenner, I should say you all- I wouldn’t want to confuse anyone) do to warrant these attitudes ya’ll possess? Ya’ll happened to be born in or in Dre…I mean Smarter Than Kevin’s case, raised, within the New Orleans city limits. Big f-ing deal. I guess being able to vote in Orleans Parish or drive through potholes make ya’ll a lot more authentic, since ya’ll could drive in 1996 and all. So I may not be as smart, or smarter than Kevin. And I may not have grown up in New Orleans. But am I a hell of a lot less arrogant than you bitches- F yea. This time, I’m for Kevin. Thanks Kenner.
Yeah termite, I think I’m jealous too!
Having gone to college out of state, I always said I was from New Orleans although I grew up in Metairie (I live Uptown now… more confusion ensues!) The only time I would call someone out was when my friend Maggs from Hammomd would also say he was from New Orleans. That’s not close enough for me.