Mooi! The weird beauty of Midwest suburbia

Article by Jens den Boer

Mooi! is the permanent rubric that is published once for every theme. Each time, a different member from the editorial team writes about a landscape architecture or planning project that fascinates them. For this edition, Jens writes about the weird beauty of Midwest suburbia.

Sometimes, when I’m bored and really have nothing to do, I like to kill some time on Google Maps. Pretty fitting for a student in spatial planning. I just start exploring the world, checking out what cities I can find, how they’re positioned on the map, and how beautifully they fit into the surrounding landscape.

I often end up in the United States, fascinated by the big cities in the Midwest. They’re often these sprawling cities, just sitting in the middle of The Great Plains. Lincoln, Topeka, Omaha, Kansas City, or Oklahoma City.

When you zoom in on a city like Omaha, which, like many other American cities, follows a grid pattern, you start to see that the layout looks a bit like an unfinished puzzle. But instead of being pieced together from the edges inward, it seems to be built from the center out. Just look at the edges of the city and you’ll see what I mean. Out there, you find all these separate boxes: the grids. Many of these grids are filled with intricate patterns of streets and houses. Sometimes, one grid has a completely different layout than the one right next to it, as if the puzzle pieces don’t quite fit together. And sometimes, one grid is nicely colored in with streets and houses, while the one next to it is still completely blank. That’s where another puzzle piece still has to be placed. Omaha is basically one giant puzzle waiting to be finished.

Figure 1: Suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska. (Source: Google Maps, 2025)

Besides being fascinated by these places from above, I also like dragging that little yellow guy around and dropping him onto one of these grids. And sometimes you end up with pictures like these, especially in the midwest:

Figure 2: Street in Omaha, Nebraska. (Source: Google Maps, 2025)

Figure 3: Street in Omaha, Nebraska. (Source: Google Maps, 2025)

Figure 4: Street in Papillion, Nebraska. (Source: Google Maps, 2025)

Looking at these photos always gives me a strange feeling. When I ask my parents what they think of them, I usually get comments like: rich, grand, expensive neighborhood, and empty. And in a way, they’re right. Huge houses in a place where everything seems just perfect. The lawns are neatly mowed, the streets and sidewalks look flawless, and the houses radiate a kind of new, wealthy vibe. But then I also hear them say empty. And I agree. What these places have in common is that something seems to be missing. There’s little detail, like an old video game on your PlayStation that still feels unfinished, where the details, like trees, people, or clouds in the sky, still need to be added.

A fitting word for this is the American term Kenopsia. Coined by the American author John Koenig, Kenopsia describes the eerie feeling you get when you see places that are completely empty, even though they’re normally bustling with people. Think of an empty arcade or airport, classic examples of Liminal Spaces. 

Figure 5: Street in Fairfax, Iowa. (Source: Google Maps, 2025)

And I feel like these photos, these suburbs, and those city edges, fit into the same category. These are supposed to be places where you expect to see people, especially since this is literally where people live. So why don’t we see them? Maybe it’s because the people who live here often have little reason to go outside. That’s often the pitfall of suburbs: there’s so little to do nearby that people simply stay indoors. Playgrounds, restaurants, and shops aren’t within walking distance. So when people do go outside, it’s usually by car. That could explain the barren feeling you get from these images.

So what’s actually beautiful about such boring and standard places that I’m showing here? Because, in a sense, that’s what they are. What you often see in suburbs, and what’s also clear in these pictures, is that they lack character. Almost every neighborhood in Omaha looks the same. That makes it hard for people to feel attached to them or to orient themselves within them. Yet somehow, that strange, empty, unfinished feeling still draws me in a little. It’s like I’m in an old Sims game. I wouldn’t want to live there myself, but I would like to experience it at least once, just to know what it feels like to stand in a liminal space in real life.