Why Suburbia Sucks
likewise.am
Why Suburbia Sucks
1–10 of 298 posts
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#2I suspect many (perhaps most) of the people reading that article agree that suburbia sucks - the tricky part is fixing it.
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#3All (most of) those negatives you list I find to be positives.
I can't stand those "charming" dense, oppressive cities.
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#4I suspect many (perhaps most) of the people reading that article agree that suburbia sucks - the tricky part is fixing it.
Or maybe don't fix it because there is nothing wrong with it and people actually like it?
Have you (or the author) considered that not everyone is like you? People like different things.
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#5I suspect many (perhaps most) of the people reading that article agree that suburbia sucks - the tricky part is fixing it.
Making other choices available and not expensive would be a start.
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#6For just one small example of many: life in a subdivision cul-de-sac stops children exploring and becoming conversant with the wider world around them because it tethers their social lives and activities to their busy parents’ willingness to drive them somewhere. There’s literally nowhere for them to go.
What is this post talking about? I grew up on a cul-de-sac, and I was always outside playing with my friends. When I was a little older, my parents would let me roam the neighborhood with my friends. We played all sorts of games and got into mischief. There are many downsides to suburbs, but that isn't one of them.
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#7Suburbia, none of the benefits of the country with all the disadvantages of living in the city.
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#8Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#9For just one small example of many: life in a subdivision cul-de-sac stops children exploring and becoming conversant with the wider world around them because it tethers their social lives and activities to their busy parents’ willingness to drive them somewhere. There’s literally nowhere for them to go. What is this post talking about? I grew up on a cul-de-sac, and I was always outside playing with my friends. When…
And nowadays, even if you live in an apartment building in the city, there is no way your child is going to roam around and explore alone.
Re: Why Suburbia Sucks
#10I suspect many (perhaps most) of the people reading that article agree that suburbia sucks - the tricky part is fixing it.
The fix is hard, requiring decades to reach the necessary policy changes, and decades more for those to play out in built infrastructure.
Changes are needed to zoning, road design, price of parking, state and municipal tax allocations, etc.
The primary problem is that suburban sprawl is cheap for residents, because it is very heavily subsidized, defers many of its costs to the future, and completely ignores the costs of nasty externalities like pollution and environmental destruction.
Based on the required infrastructure per capita, if prices matched costs, living in the city should be dramatically cheaper than living in sprawl. In practice, because well designed cities are old, with limited capacity, and it is illegal to build new ones in many places, living in a nice city ends up being much more expensive than living in sprawl.