Dear Omnipotent Being (if such a Being exists):

Please do not let me end up in the suburbs.

Please do not let me drive a minivan plastered with bumper stickers declaring the honors status of my precious children. Or let me pick up my dog’s poop in a plastic bag while taking a power walk around the neighborhood, waiting for the kids to get out of soccer.

Now, Omnipotent Being, don’t get me wrong. I grew up in the suburbs. I understand that the suburbs can be quite agreeable, and can offer many tempting attractions. I fully comprehend that they can involve manicured lawns, white picket fences, automatic sprinkler systems, garage-door openers, convenient access to shopping malls, and carpooling opportunities. But please, Omnipotent Being, do not sentence me there.

According to New York Times columnist Thomas Freidman in his book The World is Flat, globalization is creating a level playing field. That means people in developing countries can compete with people in first world countries through the Internet and a growing global market.  In some ways, this can be seen as a good thing. It gives jobs to a whole new venue of people. Opportunities like never before are available to people across the world.

But we need to step back and see what is being lost here.

What is valuable in other cultures, such as unique language or a slower-paced lifestyle, is being completely forgotten in an effort to connect the world more quickly and cheaply. Access to Western culture, our ways of thinking, advertising, living, buying, dressing, relating to other people, are becoming the world-wide norm. Instead of millions of different cultures existing in this one, small world, there is a homogenization of human life.

Perhaps one can argue that this free flow of information is not causing homogenization, but is, in fact, causing more cultural awareness. Look at the cities! They are booming with different cultures!

But take a look at the suburbs.

It may be natural to want to surround oneself with people who are similar due to cultural ties. But to construct a mostly white, middle-class Pleasantville that looks identical to every other Pleasantville across the country is just absurd. The country is convinced that rows of quaint little homes with driveways and shrubbery, mailboxes lining the street like sentinels guarding the treasures within, is the only way to be happy, to live the American Dream.

Is it so strange that I would rather live in a scummy apartment in the hub of New York City, or a dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of Nowhere, Kentucky than a freshly manufactured neighborhood of doll houses? Because, according to Desperate Housewives, the only excitement one can look forward to in the ‘burbs is having a racy affair. And, O Omnipotent Being, I’m certain you wouldn’t approve of that.