After moving from rural Kiowa, Colorado to suburban Parker, Colorado this spring, one of the things I have noticed is I am using way less gasoline. My "commute" to work is now ten minutes, whereas before it was forty-five.
Almost all my neighbors drive clean, shiny, late-model SUVs. My previous neighbors mostly drove big pickup trucks, and they were usually not shiny clean, because the roads were dirt roads. About the only time I see my suburban neighbors in the neighborhood is when they are washing their cars. If the cars get dirty, they get washed. They are obviously proud of their vehicles, but so were the people in the rural areas.
Having a shiny new car is as important to my new neighbors as having a two story new house with a well-manicured lawn (or, at least, the front yard; the back yard is always hidden by a fence, so who knows whether it is as well-manicured as the front?
In my old rural neighborhood, there were always deer looking for something to eat. The only animals I see where I live now is an occasional dog being walked on a leash. In the rural area one saw lots of dogs, but not usually on leashes. Every house had their property fenced, and dogs ran back and forth on the properties, barking at cars that drove by. Of course, there were also horses and cows, as well as goats, alpacas and llamas. The birds were bigger in the rural area; hawks and jays. There are lots of birds here in the suburbs, but they are smaller; songbirds of various kinds.
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