Cricket and Class War in Loudoun County

I had no idea but cricket has become a huge thing in my county. There are dozens of teams and too few fields (“pitches” for the cognoscenti). One of our wealthier communities — Middleburg — in what is the wealthiest county in the U.S. is in an uproar over plans to put more pitches in a public park. I recently wrote a review of Rick Kahlenberg’s new book about zoning, hopefully to be published soon, and note the buried bigotry underlying debates about local development.

In a report in the Loudoun Times-Mirror on a tumultuous public hearing, the upscale suburban id was revealed. Most speakers opposed the pitches, complaining that “night would turn into day” or that the games would disturb their horses. Only a few spoke in support of the plans, and they were interrupted with boos by the audience. One memorable jibe uttered was “Keep Eastern Loudoun out of Middleburg!” Another was “Go back to Falls Church, go back to Vienna or wherever you are from!”

Note that all of these places are still pretty white. (Check out the photograph in the linked article.) At the same time, Loudoun is a very fast-growing county, and the growth in large part is due to Latins and Asians. The latter tend to be more well-to-do and employed in our burgeoning tech industry. I’m guessing that Indian families tend to be congenial to cricket. They are in an interesting position, as upper caste Hindus to some degree attracted to the neo-fascist Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, but also facing bias from locals.

Western Loudoun tends to be rural and agricultural. I don’t know how many real farmers there are, as opposed to wealthy people with large plots of land. We do have wineries. The east is under pressure to grow more housing developments and host more data centers.

Development is a touchy thing for Democrats to deal with here, while housing affordability and access are huge concerns for the working class. I hope to have more to say about this in due course. Suburbs tend to liberal views on such matters as reproductive rights or race, but start putting up new housing nearby, and the sky turns from blue to gray. Democrats are susceptible to appeals couched in environmental terms. In certain contexts, such appeals can be the fruit of Racism and Reaction.

When I hear slogans to “preserve our rural way of life,” I reach for my revolver.

If I had a revolver.