2004-06-03 - 12:48 p.m.
I’m continually annoyed at how the word urban is used to describe tony stores in gentrified, yuppie neighborhoods. Urban eatery. Urban furniture. Urban kitchen. There’s nothing particularly urban about these places. They are most often pristine, neo-suburban places for pseudo-urbanites—those annoying wankers tired of the hour-plus commute from their equally annoying suburban homes. I can hear these people on their way to a Dave Matthews concert talking to their new, urban friends, saying, “Yeah, we sold our town home in Crystal Lake and bought a condo in Wicker Park. It’s a pretty hip neighborhood….” These are the people for whom Chipotle is authentic Mexican food and who buy their ethnic products at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s instead of the corner grocery store. Oh, there isn’t a corner grocery store in their neighborhood—it’s now expensive condos for former suburbanites.
When I think of urban convenience stores, I seldom, if ever, think about the dust-free place where one can buy a nine-dollar sandwich. Quite the opposite—I think of places such as the gas station at 95th and State, a place where everything except the ice-cooler and the ATM is located behind bullet proof glass so thick, that one has to shout to be heard by the people behind it. Urban? Fuck yeah! (In such places, I often forget about convenience.) If the guys getting tanked on malt liquor in the parking lot and the bullet proof glass don’t give it away, perhaps the small cardboard sign (taped to the glass in front of the counter and written in marker) that reads “Maximum of ten pennies!” will let you know that THIS is urban.
