Here in Denver, it seems that if you mention Aurora, a suburban city of some 280,000 residents, you’ll get a reaction that includes some snickering, more so than other suburban communities. Aurora’s not necessarily poor – it does have a few neighborhoods that have seen better days, but it’s a predominantly middle class town. However, there is a perception that Aurora is located far from Denver, considering the “out by Kansas” comments. It also experienced a massive growth spurt in the 1970s and 1980s, and the vast majority of the city has the feel of the planned communities of the day – neat shopping centers, a confusing “loop and lollypop” street pattern, and an antiseptic feel that makes the place seem far more sterile than Denver’s other suburbs.
In Buffalo, Cheektowaga is the subject of most suburban mocking. It’s a blue-collar suburb of some 90,000 residents, a plurality of which … uhh, have origins from a certain Eastern European country whose citizens have traditionally provided fodder for ethnic jokes. It’s very blue collar, very old-school Catholic, and the town’s residents talk in an staccato accent that is far different than the “normal,” nasal Buffalo accent. Cheektowaga also has a very heavy concentration of lawn ornaments – for some reason, many homeowners have devoted a significant portion of their front yards to Virgin Mary shrines, pink flamingos, shiny orbs, yard butts, and similar objects that are rare in most other Buffalo suburbs.
So, what suburban community is the butt of jokes in your area, and why?
Here in the Cleveland area, I receive snickers when I tell folks I was born and raised in PARMA! I’ll usually add, “…but I’m getting over it.” Fans of “The Drew Carry Show” know that its original theme song was “Moon Over Parma,” which included the line “We wanna go bowln’, so don’t loose her in Solon.”
Parma recieved most of its mockery when a local TV personality known as “Ghoulardi” poked fun of it on his pre-Saturday Night Live era skit show. Typical targets were the pink flamingoes many kept in thier front yards, the white sweat socks many wore and the less-than-stellar intellect of the natives. We also seem to know little about what’s beyond our boarders, like other Clevleand suburbs, and rarely leave the area (that would be my mom).
The uglier side to Parma is the racism - to this day, I know black people who flat out refuse to drive through the city for fear of the crap they might get. How bad is it? Twice during my early 20s, Ku Klux Klansmen stood, in full drag, beside the entrance to Parmatown Mall and handed out leaflets and carried signs, something they know not to do in an area they wouldn’t be welcome (they’re not TOTALLY stupid).
P.S. The guy who played Ghoulardi was the father of the guy (sorry, can’t remember names right now) who gave us “Boogie nights” and “Magnolia.” In fact, one of the characters in the latter movie is named “Joe Parma.”
Mesquite - middle-class white trash
Balch Springs - somewhat poorer white trash
The Colony - somewhat affluent white trash
Plano - heroin-shooting nouveau riche
Kansas City is unique. I live North of the River (Missouri River) and there are little “rivalries” on the other sides of the river, in other words, Kansas City, Missouri vs. Kansas City, Kansas. We on the MO side sneer at the Johnson County/Overland Park people because of their snobbery. I like to think that many people there try to be glamourous Hollywood style, but c’mon. It’s Kansas for crying out loud.
Not all that much mocking going on, but Wheaton, in the heart of Republican-rich DuPage county west of Chicago, has a well-deserved rep of being pretty chock full of Christians. Not exactly what I consider the best recipe for openmindedness and tolerance. Home of Wheaton college, the Billy Graham Center, etc. They were dry til just a couple of years ago.
Down in Tampa, FL we have Suitcase City. It’s actuall name is some long American Indian name I can neither pronounce nor spell. It was basically the area to the west of USF (University of Southern Florida) that was built for cheap housing for college students. Unfortunately they demolished the projects surrounding Ybor City so Suitcase City was flooded not with clooege students, but with a lovely criminal element. (Before you flame me - not that everyone who lives in the projects is a criminal, but you just don’t drive through there at night.)
I’m not sure if this is still true, since I don’t live there anymore, but when I was growing up in Newburgh, New York, the town of Walden was synonymous with refrigerators in the yard and packs of dogs sleeping under the rickety porch. The reputation was undeserved-- Walden’s a nice little place, from what I’ve seen of it-- but I had friends who moved out there and wouldn’t admit to people where they actually lived.
Then there’s Balmville, which had a wealthy image and tended to be the target of mostly jealous sniping.
Ghoulardi was played by Ernie Anderson, on Cleveland’s Channel 8 (CBS) between 1963 and 1966. Don’t forget to mention that he was the late-night Friday horror-movie host…he mocked the crappy sci-fi and monster flicks he screened, but is best-remembered for the Parma-mocking skits at commercial breaks.
Hey, and better come clean…Parma isn’t laughed at for its less-than-stellar intellect…it’s mocked because of its stereotype as a town of blue-collar POLISH PEOPLE. Ghoulardi wasn’t waving all those kielbasas and kishkas around for nothin’.
(I grew up in Cleveland, too! The natives eat kielbasa like Sheboyganites eat bratwurst…a lot…and EVERYONE made Polack jokes back in the 1960s and '70s.)
Okay, now I live in New York, which is a very large city, so we need an entire STATE to mock.
To quote Donald E. Westlake’s 1970 novel THE HOT ROCK: “They followed the Hudson River north, Manhattan on their right like stalagmites with cavities, New Jersey on their left like uncollected garbage.”
East of Orlando on Rte. 50 is a small community called Bithlo, mostly trailers on large lots, and unfortunately, most fit the run-down, broken toys in the yard, cars on blocks and snotty-nosed kids ‘trailer-trash’ stereotypes.
[Stay with me on this: A few miles east is the small town of Christmas, FL, known for Ft. Christmas and the post office (people send their cards and packages there to get the “Christmas” postmark this time of year.]
Hey! Who you calling white trash? I grew up in Mesquite and I, sir/madam, am no white trash!
By the way, I never understood why Mesquite is looked down upon in Dallas. Conservative, yes. Unpretentious, yes. A little more rural/small town mentality than the other suburbs, maybe. But I don’t think it’s anymore white trash than Garland, Irving, Grand Prairie, Farmers Branch or Richardson.
::sigh:: I guess everyone must have someone to look down upon. Take Balch Springs, for example. That’s who we looked down upon in Mesquite.
I now live in Fort Worth and I have learned to mock Watauga. It is said that it gets its name from an old Comanche word meaning “dwelling place of the white trash”.
Uke and Marvel have covered Parma pretty well, but as another longtime Clevelander, I can add a little bit to Marvel’s comments on racism: Parma has been under a Federal consent decree for the last two decades to actively attempt to get more blacks living there. Unfortunately, it hasn’t had a very positive effect. Within the past two years, at least one black family has had a cross burned on their lawn in Parma.
And the “Phil Parma” character in Magnolia isn’t the only Ghoulardi connection between P.T. Anderson and his dad. His production company is called Ghoulardi Films; the movie is, in large part, about the relationship between children and their TV-industry fathers (two of whom are dying of cancer like Ernie did); and an exchange between Quiz Kid Donnie Smith and Thurston Howell in the bar (“I’m sick.” “Good–stay that way.”) echoes Ghoulardi’s constant exhortations to “Stay sick!”
if you need used car parts, or want to go racin’ - that’s the place! Over to the east a few miles, on the coast, we have a gated island community called Tortoise Island, or as us regular po’ folk refer to it “Torture Island”. Way too many snobby millionaire wanna-bee’s.
Suburb of Syracuse (Greek word meaning “Shopping Mall”), NY:
Solvay - blue-collar upper-lower/lower-middle class community comprised of several ethnic groups (primarily Italians {the majority of the town}, Tyrolians and Polish, with some Hispanic), most of whom were employed at Allied Chemical (Arm & Hammer Baking Soda plant) [before it closed down], Halcomb/Crucible Steel, and the local tool & die company (can’t remember the name, but now closed).
Jokes about Solvay:
Don’t ever call a Tyrolian an Italian (seriously - you’d get the snot beat out of you faster than it would take to say it).
Typical Polish jokes.
Hi Opal!
The whole community was know as “cat-eaters” (the ones that meow-meow). Or at least, the Italians and the Tyrolians would accuse each other of eating cat. Since most of the families emigrated from Europe, the joke was you could not find a live cat (or pigeon) in the town, and was that really chicken you were having for dinner? Rumor had it that there were cat skeletons in the garbage at the Tyrol Club.
With the two major industries closed and the steel mill on lay-off, you can now buy a house in the town without having to read the obituaries for people with no children(seriously, houses and jobs were passed down from generation to generation).
Of course, everyone was just jealous, since Solvay had its own eletric company and the residents enjoyed lower rates (with three major industries, they needed it) and didn’t have to use Niagara-Mohawk Electric. (Heck, I’d go with $.02/kilowatt versus NiMo sky-high plan.) Not to mention that the high school had an auditorium that sat 1100, but the school typically had an enrollment of about 500 (Allied Chemical funded the auditiorium so it could have a place for their annual stockholder meetings). Now the school district imports high school students from a smaller K-8 district near North Syracuse (across Onondaga Lake).
Sorry Kepi, but I’ve gotta agree with Badtz Maru. I’ve only lived in Dallas since Aug., but I’ve seen Mesquite made fun of many times. You may not be white trash, but it would seem that the rest of Dallas thinks of the denizens of Mesquite as such.
I used to live in Birmingham, AL. The area that I heard derided the most was Sylacauga. It wasn’t really a suburb (about 1 hour south), but it was close to Auburn. With as many Auburn grads as there were in B’ham, I heard plenty about the evils of Sylacauga.
I grew up in Knoxville, TN and heard no place talked bad of as often as Vonore.
Oh, I agree, Tommy. Most in Dallas do look down on Mesquite. I’m just wondering why.
But I already know the answer, really. Since you’ve only been here a few months, you may not have realized it yet, but Dallas is all about flash, not substance. You know - big hair, luxury cars, trendy designer lables, tract mansions out in Plano, up to your ass in debt. Dallas is about being seen and noted, and is as deep as a puddle of water after a spring shower.
Mesquite, on the other hand, doesn’t give a rat’s ass about all that. We are what we are, nothing more and nothing less. We don’t have to buy the latest hot SUVs and park them in our driveways to impress the neighbors. The neighbors really don’t care. We don’t feel compelled to throw wads of cash at our kids, which they use to feed their heroin addictions, because we can’t be bothered to develop real relationships with them. It matters not to us that our houses are only 2500 square feet instead of 9000. Who wants to clean all that space anyway?
Mesquite is the antithesis to all that Dallas represents. I’ve often said that Mesquite is a suburb of the wrong city here. It would fit in much more nicely with Fort Worth than Dallas. Because, like Mesquite, Fort Worth isn’t all about show. It’s more laid back, comfortable, and down to earth than Dallas could ever be, even if Dallas wanted to be.
Sorry to turn this into a rant. We now return to your regularly scheduled thread.
Whenever I hear Solvay, I always hear “Cisero” in my head right along with it. Damn commercials. (I have NO idea if that is spelled correctly or not…sorry if it’s not…I’ve only heard the city name on the commercials…I think some furniture place)
Living in Ithaca, NY, I have to say: Suburbs? What suburbs? There’s no stinking suburbs around here!
I’m originally from halfway between Akron and Canton, OH, so I was basically in one giant suburb…no notable funny things. Maybe Tuslaw. Not really a suburb, but we always made fun of Tuslaw.
Growing up in a town outside Ithaca NY, we made fun of quite a few towns. For us, Lodi, Interlaken and Ovid all seemed to spell T-R-A-I-L-E-R T-R-A-S-H. Don’t even get the locals started on Richford or Whitney Point! Looking back now, I can see it was all just the pot calling the kettle black…
Here in Boston, I’ve heard lots of people make fun of Saugus, Lynn, Revere, Medford and Billerica, though I am not sure what it all means. I haven’t gotten the local stereotypes straight yet.
