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What if subdivisions had accurate names?
HOCKLEBOCK, MARYLAND - Developers in this bedroom community are fuming at Mayor Tom Oversawl's recent mandate that new subdivisions be named accurately.
"The developers go into a forest, tear down all the trees and then name the place Forestville. It's false advertising," said the mayor.
The mayor has his own suggestions for renaming many of the areas planned subdivisions.
"There's a 300 unit development going up off Cherokee Drive. They want to call it Hollywood Heights. Not only are we a few thousand miles from Hollywood, but considering the land's grim history, it should be named Indian Burial Ground Heights. At least homeowners would know what they're getting," he said.
Local developer Dave Dumminoe is not amused. "Most people are familiar with the film Poltergeist, a community built on Indian burial grounds. The mayor is off his rocker if he thinks we're going to highlight that fact."
Dumminoe said the mayor's suggestion for his other planned housing development amounts to ridicule. "He can't be serious that we'd consider a name like 'Endless Driveway Estates'?"
"He's making fun of the fact that there are no sidewalks planned. They're too expensive, and then there's the maintenance. If residents really feel the need to stroll out and see their neighbors, all homes will be equipped with extra large driveways leading to wide roadways where there will be plenty of room to walk."
Mayor Oversawl corrected Dumminoe that his suggestion was not "Endless Driveway Estates," but rather "Sport Utility Vehicle Parkway."
"I'd like to see truth-in-advertising," the mayor reiterated. "If you're going to call a community 'Vineyard Trail' then you should leave some of the vineyards in place. Instead they clear all the natural landscape and call it what it used to be," he said.
"Farmer's Square is another example, land purchased from farming families who were forced to foreclose, losing their land to developers. Why not be historically accurate and call it Farmer's Despair?"
The mayor hopes established housing developments in Hocklebock will also reconsider their names, saying many of them are an "insult to people's intelligence."
"Oak Park Terrace, which has no oak trees or parks, should be renamed Golf Course Valley. Then there's Oceanside Point, nowhere near the water, how about 'Landlocked Sprawling Estates'?"
The mayor, who lives in the Hocklebock's downtown historic district, said he'd really like to see is a return to a sense of community "like our ancestors had." Instead he believes the current trend of building oversized homes on distant sites is aiding to the decay of Hocklebock and many other communities.
"Why not put all the money into restoring the great architecture of our forefathers, who knew enough to put in sidewalks, who knew towering trees and ancient landscapes are priceless, who built homes to establish community and not avoid each other?
"Look what happened to Hocklebock's first suburb, Pleasant Run. It's now filled with dilapidated houses that were trendy in their time, surrounded by strip malls and bumper-to-bumper traffic. It's now anything but a Pleasant Run."
He concluded it's probably too late to rename Pleasant Run "Smoggy Strip Mall Run."
Standard What-If disclaimer: The preceding is pure fiction.
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