I've been thinking a lot about moving house lately. We've lived in urban slum communities here in Cambodia for years (up until recently).

And the place we've made home for the past 18 months has a mixture of poor and middle class Cambodians (as well as one silly big mansion, right smack in the middle of us all).

But, as we sense a nudge from God to shift into another community about a mile away, I've been thinking again about this terrible phrase we hear - "moving to a better suburb".

You might be thinking, why wouldn’t a God-fearing family want to move to a “better” suburb?

After all, upward-mobility is the norm - an unquestioned pathway in life for almost everyone. But should it be the no-brainer we make it out to be?

What if the assumptions that underpin this drive up and out are not altogether healthy or Christ-like? In fact, what exactly do we even mean when we pronounce someplace a “better suburb”?

Allow me to pose a few questions that might help us deconstruct the meaning behind this phrase…

Is a better suburb one with less poor people? Does anyone ever use the phrase moving to a “better” suburb to refer to an economically more impoverished neighborhood? What happens when we become more disconnected from the struggles of the poor?



Is a better suburb one with “better” schools? What happens to a struggling school when everyone with resources chooses to flee as soon as they can? Will our children truly be better off immersed only among other wealthy or middle class families?



Is a better suburb one with less brown people? Or more people who look like and act like us? Does anyone ever use the phrase moving to a “better” suburb to refer to a more racially diverse neighborhood with immigrants and refugees? What happens when our communities become more and more homogeneous?



Is a better suburb one with less crime or violence? Perhaps, perhaps not. Did Jesus call all of us to a life of safety? (Certainly “fear of people who don’t look like me” and racial stereotypes can translate into a perception that crime rates must be higher in a certain place.)

Yes, there are some places that are simply too toxic, too dangerous, just too damn risky to live in – especially with children. But does that account for the massive drive towards “better” suburbs that we Christians have embraced?

My observation is that moving out of dangerously violent neighborhoods accounts for just a tiny percentage of the overall upward-mobility movement. If we're brutally honest, it’s not the main reason why this phrase is so ubiquitous.

Instead, we are crazy-busy working our butts off so that we can trade this house for a bigger one, with a bigger mortgage.