alisha polemowski 🕯️

NICK (V.O.) 52% of all Americans live in neighborhoods they would describe as suburban. That’s 180 million people living in intentionally developed communities across the United States. But what is suburbia? Is it white picket fences in neat little rows, or long rolling acres for the kids and a dog? Colonials or McMansions? Does a suburb need to have cul-de-sacs, or a neighborhood watch? When you think of suburbia, what do you picture? Because I can almost guarantee, it’s not exactly what I picture.  The truth is, suburbia is defined not by any one aspect of its design, but by distance; by absence. Suburbia isn’t rural, but it isn’t urban either. It doesn’t have manufacturing or an abundance of restaurants and stores. It isn’t agricultural and lord knows there isn’t a whole lot to do. What suburbia  is, is a borderland. It can only ever exist on the outskirts—the outskirts of cities, mostly, but also the outskirts of farming communities, manufacturing hubs, or tourism hotspots.   This podcast is about one particular suburb. A suburb not on the border of any one city, job site, or transit hub, but rather one on the border of material reality itself. This is a story of disappearances, and homecomings. Loss and grief, family and belonging.