Croton-on-Hudson, NY

A small, tightly-knit community in Northwest Westchester County, NY, population 7,606 (2000). The village was formerly an idealistic communist stronghold, but has since devolved into a hamlet of bourgeois consumers, driven by false needs. The families are quite diverse with about 10% being gainfully employed intellectuals, artists, architects, and musicians, 10% bankers and attorneys, 25% NYC cops, firefighters, and MTA workers, 35% unemployed, middle-aged writers, software geeks, and rich lesbians who lie to themselves about "working at home" or being "self-employed." About 20% are retired, just plain lazy, or various Latino minority working in the landscaping business. The architecture is somewhere between late 19th-century Northeast farmhouse and 1950s Trailerpark, with the occasional horrible attempt at uniformity (e.g., the working-class dwellings on Beekman and the pretentious McMansions on Ackerman). The hodgepodge of styles is a visual abomination and only the much-expected catastrophe at the nearby Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant will unify the eclectic assortment. The village's main industry is parking, given the 2200-space lot at the MTA train station. The second largest industry is aluminum siding. The children of the village are all taught to love one another and sign meaningless pieces of paper pledging to "be nice" or to "not do drugs." However, they begin to smoke marijuana and drink Bud Light in the 8th grade. They love to hang out at Power Lines and generally waste their precious time. Sports are big in the area, with all manner of athletic diversion taking the place of academic achievement. Many youth pretend to be thugs, though they have no real knowledge of African-American culture other than what they glean from MTV Cribs and Chapelle's Show. No one in the village really gives much of a fuck about anything, which, according to most analysts, make it a dope place to live.