Deallefication

or, Twentieth-Century Feudalism

Ironbound Road runs through the west side of greater Williamsburg, Virginia. It winds through the woods and mercantile centers of the west end of the historical triangle bounded by Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. As we discovered yesterday trying to find a Target on the way back to our timeshare unit, Ironbound Road also has a break in the middle of it.

Route 199, a largely limited-access highway that loops around the region of Colonial Williamsburg, broke through Ironbound Road a few hundred meters north of our timeshare complex. The experience of misleading maps and strange traffic patterns intrigued me enough that I decided to go out for a bike ride this morning in search of the real Ironbound Road.

As I explored the territory of old Ironbound Road, I discovered the impact of progress on our nieghborhood in Williamsburg. The installation of Route 199 occurred simultaneously with the widening and repaving of major roads which crossed under or over Route 199. I rode the circuit of these major roads around our timeshare, and discovered a host of residential developments packed within the matrix of their courses.

I rode past housing developments with names like "Graylin Manor," "Settlers' Green," and "Brooklawn Estates." I cruised into a few, hoping to discover the back roads by which I could return to our hotel, only to find that none of the developments communicate with each other. Each has one entrance, also its exit, with an ornate sign announcing which territory one enters. The street signs sport unique styles which inform the rider not only of the name of the lane but also of the ethos of the development.

Upon entering a development not one's own, one knows that one is in foreign territory. This is twentieth-century feudalism: the visitor is in a strange land, with no business in the realm unless invited and in the good graces of the lord. One has no excuse to be "passing through." The lord of the realm is the triumvirate of Covenant, Condition, and Restriction, to whom all residents ultimately render service and owe their proper fealty.

I spent several years of my adolescence living on Fourth Street in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Next to the house was an alley, called Raspberry Street, which the city kept in barely navigable condition and which ran for only one block, between Fourth and Fifth streets. I learned to ride a bicycle on that tiny road. I also remember, on at least one occasion, someone stopping on Raspberry Street next to our back yard to ask for directions. It was a public way, off the beaten path, where the public could see over the honeysuckle into the privacy of our yard.

The rise of the "gated community" and the non-gated "Sherwood Manors" such as I have seen here in Virginia limit access to private neighborhoods for the sake of privacy and safety. This phenomenon tries to restrict outsiders to the paved thoroughfares, fencing them out in the land of retail stores while fencing in the manicured lawn and domestic quiet. Short-cuts from one side of town to the other have been eliminated, replaced by "No Outlet" signs. It is the removal of the alley from the community: the deallefication of society.

Deallefication, the removal of strangers and uncertainty from our communities, is in a sense natural. Humanity has a deep impulse to make itself safe, or at least to make itself feel safe, in any way it can. The impulses for safety, quiet, and comfort have given rise to deallefication and CC&Rs. They turn our cities and counties into fractals: tight expensive ghettos pocketed along the edges of fast-moving roads.

I recognize the ambiguity of the alley: it is the place we conjure when we want to scare women into buying mace for their purses. It is a place of danger, where we might meet anyone, even the most unsavory characters. Deallefication allows us to cast off a shadow of threat, and convince ourselves that everyone on our street belongs on our street (because no one would be just passing through). We can feel more safe if we deallefy our communities.

And yet, I am not sure I want to remove myself from all contact with strangers. I am not sure it is healthy for me to pinch off community interaction with the outside world. Perhaps I need those unknown to come by my backyard, just to pass by, so that I may be reminded that the world is more than that which I or my homeowners' association has constructed for me. As I recently found in a book about public life, maybe strangers regularly appearing in my life is good for my spiritual health.

Maybe I need alleys in my neighborhood, where people from other neighborhoods intrude and peek into my back yard, then ask for directions. Perhaps cultivating the alley will give me the chance to offer hospitality to a passer-by, and make one more tie between me and the rest of the world. Too much control and privacy might actually be stifling to the community's growth, and to my growth as a member.

An alley short-cut would also make for more pleasant bicycling to the other end of Ironbound Road.

~emrys