Original Video: Striving for ‘Stability and Integration’ in the American Suburbs
In April, I went shooting a lot of hand-held footage in the outer suburbs just west of Indianapolis, mostly in order to learn how to use my new HD video camera — a Canon XH-A1S, with a wide-angle converter lens screwed onto the front.
A lot of what you see here is from this particular area of the suburbs. These housing subdivisions are especially emblematic of the situation around many Indianapolis suburbs: existing on the frontier between the suburban sprawl of the city outskirts and the vast, lonesome cornfields of rural Indiana, many of the homes here were thrown up quickly and cheaply, then sold-off with adjustable-rate loans to first-time buyers.
A good number of those buyers ended up defaulting by the time I shot this footage, and abandoned homes were being ransacked for what could be recycled from inside. My sister and her long-term boyfriend have been looking seriously at a first home in the area now that prices have plummeted: much of the wiring and steel duct work, and even the cabinetry had been gutted while the house sat abandoned.
Keep in mind these houses were built just a few years ago. One of the major developers, C.P. Morgan, has gone out of business in the wake of the housing crisis — in no small part because of its sub-prime lending practices targeting first-time buyers with big incentives like 100% financing. Another big builder of cheap starter homes in the area, the Atlanta-based Beazer Homes, pushed similar loans — many of which, ultimately turned out to have been fraudulent. Just last week, the company reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to pay up to $50 million in restitution to defrauded mortgage holders in exchange for dropped charges.
Other bits of this footage were taken from a development in a wealthier suburb north of the city called Centennial. Billed as a sort-of “family values community,” Centennial’s first structure was a large, white clapboard monolithic church that now sits at the center of the neighborhood. The church was built by Amish carpenters trucked in from up north. The suburban homes and townhouses that sprouted up around it were built by Estridge Homes, who sell themselves in part as a Christian-values developer.
My filming partner, Dylan Griffith, and I interviewed Dr. David Bodenhamer, director of the Polis Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis — a research center that concentrates particularly on urban and community issues as they relate to Indianapolis and other mid-sized American cities. He had a lot to say about our compulsion toward suburban “enclaves” like these, and about our perceived need to escape the chaos of modern life, even at the expense of our financial well-being and our community relationships. A short audio excerpt from that interview provides the narration.
This little two-and-a-half minute video is a rough experiment in editing for me. My partner, Dylan, knows what he’s doing with this stuff a lot more than I do — which is why I’ve teamed up with him on our larger documentary project (look right, to my profile for cursory details). For me, it’s new territory. This is something I’ve put together in the last few days. Think of it as a sort of preview.
For this little experiment, I was mostly interested in a.) learning the editing tools, and b.) seeing what I could do to create a mood with the transitions, the music, the narration. As such, it’s not particularly content-heavy. I do hope it is at least aesthetically pleasing — although the camera is pretty shaky, from which I’ve learned that I want to shoot from a tripod as often as possible going forward. Dylan shot what few fixed tripod shots you see here. Unsurprisingly, they look a lot better. Live and learn.
The music is something I recorded late last year and ran through a digital reverb filter, after first running it through a delay petal and playing it backwards on my four track.
These are exactly the kinds of things I’ll be figuring out with you, as I shoot our feature doc, publish various material here, and try to repurpose myself as a 21st century journalist who can shoot and edit as well as write. I figure it’s what I need to do if I want to survive as a journalist at all. Meantime, I welcome the feedback. Enjoy.
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reverb and delay… two of my favorites… petals to pedals… but in all seriousness sprawl and the great escape plague indianapolis. i recognize many of the areas in this video. neighborhoods of cheap quality filled with white bread, miracle whip, light beer, suvs(minivans), and bradford pear trees in every front yard, promising community, quiet and comfort. around here it seems to be the yard stick for living beyond one’s means within a diluted american dream. companies take advantage of the eager, and people make bad choices… overall, i enjoyed the video even if it is a little shaky, particularly the narration and backing music.
Thanks, Brock,
Definitely want to err on the side of using a tripod as things progress. Thanks for the thoughtful comments. One tries not to disparage the suburbs too much. I certainly understand the pull and the instinct, particularly as I get older. But I did think this professor had some insightful stuff to say.
In response to another comment. See in context »The desire for an enclave is hardly unique to suburban living. In fact, the suburbs are populated by a lot of folks who had their own ethnic or racial enclave in the city, only to see that upset when a perceived other moved in. Most of the city of Chicago is still starkly divided by race and/or ethnicity. It just seems instinct for a lot of people to seek, in a place to live, someplace where they feel comfortable, where they feel like they know the mores and habits of their neighbors even if they don’t know them personally.
As for mbrocklehurst’s comment, the stereotype of suburb as whitebread is falling by the wayside. Not that suburbs aren’t still overwhelmingly white, but in coming back to my home suburb (Carmel, Ind.), the addition of a sizable Chinese community since I left is noticeable, and I know that large black churches that were confined to the inner-city have expanded to the ‘burbs (such as Eastern Star, Tony Dungy’s church, which opened in Fishers.) In Greenwood, to the south, there is a large neighborhood of Sikhs, mostly truck drivers who moved from California.
Point being, everybody is looking for an enclave, a way to escape the chaos of modern life.
As for the video, I’m no critic. But what I found interesting is how the scenes with the fields remind me of the opening credits scenes of “Hoosiers.” In that movie, never did farm fields spent for the season look so grand and beautiful.
I always had a soft spot for “Hoosiers,” so I’ll take that as a compliment. Thanks, Bob.
As for your comments, I couldn’t agree more. The suburbs where I grew up (outer edge of Pike Township) are markedly different than they were when I was a kid. Particularly striking is the large Latino population living in those old 80s-era subdivisions. When I was growing up (and I’m only 30) I think I knew one Mexican kid. Seriously. But as you’ve pointed out, the instinct is the same, no matter who we’re talking about: it’s just different people seeking out the same enclaves — repurposing them, if you will, away from pure white-breadedness toward a future that, if more diverse, is still quite insular, and often just as segregated in a more 21st Century way.
I think Dr. Bodenhamer (the man who did the voice-over) would agree. Without wanting to speak for him, I think what interests him — and, certainly, what interests me — is the instinct, and what it says about our ambivalence toward modern life. For some, suburbia is a resolution of those fears. For others, it’s the embodiment. Either way, we all want sanctuary. Contemporary life is confusing for everyone.
So glad to have a fellow Hoosier on board to swap Indiana impressions with. Thanks again!
In response to another comment. See in context »as far as white bread goes… well, i was making a rather broad statement on the boring, common, dull, and every–man type things that pop up in these neighborhoods, and seem to be viewed as some suburban gold standard. there was no intent on proving a particular ethnicity lives in one place or another. i am actually not trying to disparage the suburbs, really, as i feel everyone has the right to live where they choose and can afford. but more often than not keeping up with suburban trends seemingly leads to a more vanilla existence (think flavor and uninformed). these types of neighborhoods can lack a genuine community feel. they can also look like they were rolled off the back of a huge truck and placed neatly on quarter acre lots with matching landscaping and child transporting vehicles. i would also agree that neighborhoods like these are becoming more and more diverse. that is a good thing, so it’s just not one ethnic group that is seeking out the same thing. true, people are looking for escapes from day to day existence. but when living beyond your means leaves you chasing your enclave and neighbors’ status quo, then this can leave a person financially strapped and on the edge of economic collapse. then there are empty homes, foreclosures, derelict properties, and empty wallets.
as far as the video… i like the idea and shot selection. i would like to see more video of this kind. everyone starts somewhere, and motivation is a powerful tool. there is no substitution for a good eye and meaningful subject. and i think this is a good start.
In response to another comment. See in context »Really thoughtful, Mark, thanks. By the way I’m ready to learn how to improve my left hook (hell, my left jab, too, while we’re at it) whenever you’re available…
In response to another comment. See in context »Nice piece, Austin. Looking forward to more video work. Very impressed with the music – sets an appropriately ambivalent mood.
Not even the suburbs are safe anymore (of course we’ve all known that for a while, I guess) as we see foreclosure rates climb ever higher. The types of manufactured neighborhoods you look at here are difficult for me to come to terms with, for a number of reasons. My wife and I chose an established neighborhood and home well within our price range, and thanks to lecherous building and lending practices (not just here in Indy, but in communities like those you featured all over the country) we’re worried we won’t be able to capture our home’s (modest) full value when it comes time to sell in another year or so. Understanding how we all wound up here will be key to making sure it doesn’t happen again – keep fighting the good fight.
I think your personal story here is really compelling — exactly the sort of thing I’ve been trying to take a look at more closely: namely the reasons why people of our generation (X, Y, whatever) buy the homes they buy, what sorts of financial and emotional gains they hope to derive from it, and where they received their ideas about home ownership.
In truth, I’m trying to put together some on-camera interviews about this very subject, if you think you might be interested…
Meanwhile, it’s great to have you in the discussion, thanks for looking into the site. And thanks for the feedback — it is much appreciated.
In response to another comment. See in context »