"As our cities have developed, they've built sometimes small villages or communities that were in place. And we've taken for granted all of that child care, the neighbourliness, the help that you get from people nearby"
About this Quote
Progress, in Susan Oliver's telling, has a quiet body count: the everyday networks that used to make life workable. She isn't romanticizing some sepia-toned past so much as naming what urban development loves to erase because it doesn't show up on blueprints. "Sometimes small villages or communities" is a pointed understatement; it suggests not just buildings cleared, but social architecture dismantled. The line lands because it reframes "development" as a trade, not an upgrade.
Her real target is the phrase "we've taken for granted". Oliver is indicting a particular kind of modern entitlement: assuming care will simply appear, as if child care, meals, check-ins, and borrowed rides are natural resources instead of human labor. That "neighbourliness" isn't a vibe; it's an infrastructure built from time, trust, and proximity. When those are disrupted, the cost doesn't distribute evenly. Working parents, single mothers, older residents, and newcomers feel the loss first. The city may get shinier, but households get more precarious.
As an actress, Oliver's instinct is to focus on what happens offstage: the uncredited ensemble that props up the lead. Her cadence is conversational, almost anecdotal, which makes the critique harder to dismiss as ideology. She's describing a cultural shift from reciprocal dependence to privatized survival, where support becomes a service you purchase or a problem you manage alone. The subtext is blunt: we didn't just build over places; we built over each other.
Her real target is the phrase "we've taken for granted". Oliver is indicting a particular kind of modern entitlement: assuming care will simply appear, as if child care, meals, check-ins, and borrowed rides are natural resources instead of human labor. That "neighbourliness" isn't a vibe; it's an infrastructure built from time, trust, and proximity. When those are disrupted, the cost doesn't distribute evenly. Working parents, single mothers, older residents, and newcomers feel the loss first. The city may get shinier, but households get more precarious.
As an actress, Oliver's instinct is to focus on what happens offstage: the uncredited ensemble that props up the lead. Her cadence is conversational, almost anecdotal, which makes the critique harder to dismiss as ideology. She's describing a cultural shift from reciprocal dependence to privatized survival, where support becomes a service you purchase or a problem you manage alone. The subtext is blunt: we didn't just build over places; we built over each other.
Quote Details
| Topic | Parenting |
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