Who Do I Think I Am??

This one's about a character.

THE PROMPT: "Character rents a room. Provide geographic setting, please."

The inner-ring suburbs aren't what they used to be, that's for sure. They once were the American dream to hundreds of thousands of families hoping to escape the fear and omniscence of the urban decay they had the presence of mind to forsee. These were the new lands of white picket fences and two-car garages. The backyards yawned with the freedom of your children playing joyously with other neighbor's kids. But not for Chet Smythe. To him, it was a mirror of his childhood. A man born a decade too late and already seemingly in debt because of his name, he was hoping this new life in the inner-ring was his first step out.

Once he checked in to that cheap motel, he realized he wasn't only mistaken, but somehow let down again by his decision-making.

Determined to build a life on his own, and not at the feet of anyone else, Chet thought it might be time to finally leave the city that raised him. Everything was brighter, cleaner, smaller, in East Walden. His sales job had taken him many places, yet he was always ending up back in Walden, the shell of a beautiful, vibrant city gone to dust as the steel mills closed and drove the population down to less-desirable crowd. You know, the ones who could only afford to live there and nowhere else.

As he was making his way to his room at The Pink Flamingo, Chet saw everything he thought he was leaving behind...the prostitutes, the addicts between the rows of rooms, the spray-painted vignettes and odes to "The E-Wal", the cops slowly driving by. It wasn't quite the "brighter, cleaner" image he was used to. It also wasn't the fifties and sixties anymore, either. "Meet your new life..." Chet thought to himself, "...same as the old life."