I wish you, dear readers, could live in the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan TV viewing area. This is because we have a pretty amazing commercial airing right now for the Westin Raleigh Soleil Center. Some woman begins speaking, in pretty much the most ridiculous voice you have ever heard, dripping with some sort of faux-rich upper-class accent that literally sounds like some bad caricature on Saturday Night Live. I don't know what the exact script of the commercial is, but Rich Lady is selling condos at the new high rise tower to be built next to a mall in Raleigh. The word "luxury" is emphasized, and maybe a few amenities are mentioned, and then "luxury" is sprinkled in again four or five more times, in case you haven't yet figured out that this place is the most diamond-encrusted, prestige-bestowing address east of the Mississippi river.
First of all, let me point out that this new high rise is advertised as being located in "Midtown Raleigh." Midtown Raleigh? Raleigh has a newly growing downtown, with an increasing handful of decent places to go out. But let's be honest here. Just the term "midtown" implies a downtown so burgeoning that it has actually spilled out of its boundaries and necessitates a new neighborhood to accommodate all the amazing places to see and things to do. This is certainly not the case in Raleigh. And furthermore, the Westin's own map of attractions close to the new Soleil Center lists only two, one of which is a Cheesecake Factory. The other one is a mall. In which, I should add, is the Cheesecake Factory. So, it's not particularly fair to list them as two separate attractions.
So the question is, why the desire to paint this new residence as the pinnacle of prestigious living? Raleigh is a nice town. It's not a luxurious town. Raleigh is a mid-sized city. It is neither an urban megastar like New York, Tokyo, or London, nor a high-priced resort-y place like Miami Beach or Bali. It is middle America. When did we get this idea that we need a life of luxury across the street from the Cheesecake Factory?
No one is content with Levittown anymore. What was once the American dream is now considered shabby, embarrassing even -- have you seen how small those places are? The spirit of Levittown has won out. Cheap, mass-produced housing built on unused farmland dominates our housing stock. But in comparison to what people contented themselves with in the 1950s, a new emphasis has been placed on luxury for every homeowner. Whether it's a new home in a newly-plowed cornfield outside a growing exurb, or a condo by the Cheesecake Factory in "midtown Raleigh", everyone has to have something one step above what they had before. Whirlpool tub? Standard. Media room? Of course. Increased use of fossil fuels? Part of the package.
The Soleil Center is making a nod to curbing its own excess by including a green roof and apparently some trees in the parking lot. But as a born-and-raised papist, I can say that our attitude about luxury and environmental excess is eminently Catholic. You can indulge in whatever you'd like as long as you go to confession at the end of the week. John Mayer is going light green. Paris Hilton has installed energy-saving light bulbs. You can own what you'd like as long as you make some feeble attempt at "conservation": go ahead and drive that SUV around all week, but make sure you throw the old newspapers and empty water bottles in the recycling bin on Wednesday.
Paris Hilton and her legions of perfume-selling, department-store-fashion-line-promulgating celebutante types can go "light green" all they want, but it doesn't discount the major role that they (and the retailers and condo developers and auto-industry tycoons) have had in selling the idea of Cheap Luxury. Luxury for Everyone. You can be middle class and luxurious. You can be energy-gobbling and earth-saving. Because all of us deserve to have it all.