Bakersfield isn't so much a city as it is a crazy patchwork quilt of subdivisions and "master planned" communities. Starting in the 60's they started leapfrogging west and north, spreading like fungus. Designed as self contained little instant villages with absolutely no relationship to the neighboring tracts. Each one is surrounded by a high block wall with only a handful of access points, like a medieval fortress. Adding to the feudal feeling is the fact that quite a few back up onto irrigation ditches, so they even come eqipped with their own moats. The only thing missing are some turrets and a line of archers ready to do battle with the neighboring fiefdom. Maybe a few catapults hidden back among the trampolines and pool slides, weighted down with old cement yard decorations, ready to lob at the slightest provocation.
The walls also have the unfortunate side effect of turning almost every major street into a canyon-like no man's land. High walls on the left, high walls on the right, it's like driving through the DMZ.
What the fuck is up with the walls? Do these people not like each other? Are they afraid of each other?
You can see the progression of time in the architecture of the various subdivisions. The 60's and 70's yielded some fairly cool modernist ranch style homes. We live in one, and I love it. I'd actually consider buying it. If it wasn't in Bakersfield. My only complaint is that, like the street layout of our neighborhood, the house zigs and zags. So while we have a fair number of windows, they all look out onto... the house. I can look from one bedroom into the other. The net effect is we get almost no sunlight and the house is dark and Dick Cheney bunkerish.
Sometime in the 80's the tide turned against the modernist look and took a turn towards the architectural dark side - the dreaded "Cali-terranean" look. Part hacienda, part Tuscan villa, it's essentially a stucco box with corbels and columns and crown moldings tacked on. It proved to be an enormous hit, not just here, but seemingly everywhere, and the style is unfortunately here to stay.
And then there are the names. Oy vay, the names. Each subdivision has been christened with a name to evoke the lifestyle you'll live behind its block walls. The early ones are innocuous, pleasant sounding words mixed and matched like Garanimals - "Sagepointe". "Laurelglen. "Stonepine". No harm, no foul.
But as the architecture got grand, so did the names. Everything became an "estate". "Brimhall Estates". "Redwood Estates". "Shiloh Estates". Or vaguely Italian - "Belle Terra"/"Terra Bella".
Sometime in the 90's "at" was introduced. Maybe it was just the influence of the internet, or more likely elitist one-upmanship, but you now had "Seven Oaks at Grand Island" and "The Estates at Windemere". Right before the housing bubble burst the trend seemed to be headed towards the metaphysical with "The Springs" and "Artisan".
But that's all gone now. When it burst, it burst bad. Subdivisions sit abandoned or half finished, eroding away in the dust storms on the edge of town. Instant ghost towns.
Such a sad estate of affairs.
