If you've ever spoken to me for more than ten minutes, you'll know that I generally hate suburbs. This is partly for all the reasons that it's currently en vogue to be anti-suburb — their spatial inefficiency, their whiteness, their terrible houses — and partly because I'm such a bad driver that my body basically shuts down if I spend too much time away from public transit.
Today, though, I am not here to complain about suburbs. Nay; for once in my life, I'm here to praise.
Because sometimes, friends, you need a suburb. Sometimes, you just have to turn off your pandemic-atrophied walking legs and have someone shuttle you around to malls, Top Golfs, and chain restaurants.
I was reminded of this recently on one of the semi-annual jaunts that my boyfriend and I take to the suburbs, living as we do near the northern edge of the city. On this particular journey, we got exotic by suburban standards and had K-BBQ for dinner — not exactly the Red Lobster and Cheesecake Factory fare we usually go for, but still satisfyingly suburban given that this meal cost $29 per person for a literal all-you-can-eat meat feast. The city limits of Chicago contain many wonderful things, but bottomless bulgogi for under $30 is typically not among them.
You know what else the city of Chicago barely has? Bath and Body Works. Freakin' Old Navy. Listen, I lurrrve my little walkable neighborhoods packed with small businesses, but sometimes you need a bottle of Peach Bellini hand soap and a pair of shorts that cost $15. Did I, just yesterday, take a 30-minute round-trip walk because I wanted to buy the new hot romance book from my local bookseller instead of the chain store I had literally seen it in hours before? Yes, I did. But that does not make me immune to the charms of rolling up to a shopping mall and knowing that, within 200 feet, you can find novels, nail polish, sporting goods, parkas, and pet supplies from a series of chain stores whose inventory you've had memorized since the Bush administration.
Another perk of the suburbs are the kinds of giant, flourescent-lit businesses you can only fit into a town with irresponsibly low population density. Do you think they could fit a Medieval Times into midtown Manhattan? Could downtown LA support 300,000 square feet of IKEA? The answer (until urban planners in this country get far more creative) is no — and that's a key consideration one must make before declaring that suburbs should be yeeted off the planet.
The reason that Patrick and I found ourselves in the 'burbs last week was just such a weird, giant business. The suburbs of Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis have one chain that is frankly unlike anything else I've ever encountered. It's called Sybaris, and — avert your eyes now, relatives and colleagues who know the place by its seedy reputation — we are obsessed with it.
Sybaris Pool Suites is, to put it euphemestically, a couples' hotel. It's there for sex. But that is not why we've gone there three times in the last four years. We go for the pools. This place is a hotel where every room has a private pool in it.* Some of them have waterslides. Do you know how bananas that is as a concept? Do you know how much space that requires? A hotel like that could only exist in the suburbs, and because of that, Patrick and I will always have at least one reason to schlep ourselves to Northbrook.
[*Note: Technically, some rooms only have hot tubs, but if you're booking those, you're a deviant. Truly why are you choosing this place if not for the pools?!]
If you need more convincing on the merits of Sybaris, then hey, twist my arm, I'll give it to you. The rooms also have massage chairs. The decor is three parts wood paneling and one part screenprinted palm-tree mural. There are no windows. The place gives 1970s basement in every way, yet it is also consistently the best-cleaned hotel I've ever stayed in.
I should really be on Sybaris' payroll at this point for the number of friends I've recommended the place to (now including you, I guess, dear reader who did not ask for this). But Sybaris should be on the payroll of these suburbs, for reminding us all that you don't need culture to have a good time; you just need a big, dumb swimming pool in a town a few miles up the highway.
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