By John Cole

5 - Suburbia

Less complicated, but full of self-deception. These areas of neat housing often lack natural geographical boundaries. As a result the most significant boundary in people’s lives tends to be the privet hedge at the bottom of the garden.

Yet despite this huge investment in privacy and escape from real community involvement, a great deal of energy often goes into societies and organisations, even so-called ‘Community Associations’, whose main role is to provide meeting places for the like-minded.

In recent years churches and chapels of all sorts have thrived in this environment, providing consumer choice and often very lively social fellowship. But there are straws in the wind suggesting that the future is less certain. In practice most residents of suburbia would be hard put to direct you to their ‘local church’ (of any denomination) and would probably be more aware of churches in the town or city centre some miles away.