Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 136 posts

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#41

Post by jimktrains2 »

jedberg wrote: post #9
nextstep wrote: post #5

I'm a millennial. I don't want any kind of suburb. I refuse to live anywhere that isn't well-connected/dense enough to provide a good lifestyle completely car-free (i.e. all travel is quick, ubiquitous and convenient on foot/bike/public transportation). I do not ever wish to drive and this is not possible in any suburban development.

Out of curiosity, do you have kids? It's mighty convenient to have a car with all the stuff in it and plenty of space to park that car nearby, and also lots of space for the kids to play outside.

My wife and I bought a house in pre-car suburb that was exactly what we wanted: dense, public transit, lots of places to go on foot (doctor, library, municipal building, 3 separate shopping districts, hardware/general store, dozen parks and playgrounds, &c). We wanted a good school, but weren't willing to sacrifice our way of life, and we found, I think, the perfect spot. (We love our neighbors too, but didn't know that until after we moved in).

When we looked at places I gave an immediate veto if there wasn't a sidewalk or if there wasn't a trolley stop a within 10min - 15 min walk, or a bus within 5min. Our elementary school is an 8min walk, the middle and high schools are about 20min. We only drive when public transit would more than double the amount of time it would take or if we need to go where there isn't transit. My wife will also drive for the large grocery runs each month, but the week-to-week is put in the stroller and carried home.

We enjoy this. Cars drive us nuts, not to mention the hassle of parking.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#42

Post by jimktrains2 »

fenwick67 wrote: post #2

"Millennials want a different kind of suburban development that is smart, efficient and sustainable" Suburban or Sustainable, pick one.

Suburbs don't have to be substantially less dense. Heck, I think there are neighborhoods in my nearest city (Pittsburgh) that are less dense than my town just outside of it. Mine was built before cars were a given and when the trolley was a given.

There are "exurbs" which are just abominations of low density and bad design. There are some lower density suburbs, and yeah, neither of those are sustainable.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#43

Post by alkonaut »

nextstep wrote: post #5

I'm a millennial. I don't want any kind of suburb. I refuse to live anywhere that isn't well-connected/dense enough to provide a good lifestyle completely car-free (i.e. all travel is quick, ubiquitous and convenient on foot/bike/public transportation). I do not ever wish to drive and this is not possible in any suburban development.

I said that too. And I'm not a millenial but a 70's kid. And then I had kids of my own and now I can't imagine not having a car to stuff the kids into, or a big backyard so I don't have to walk to the park with them to play. It's not like I wan't to drive everywhere, it's just the tradeoff I'm happy to accept in order to have a house with a big backyard for the kids to play in.

So this is nothing new. People have always preferred one thing, and changed their minds when having kids.

I imagine I'll be going back to my previous lifestyle (Urban instead of suburban) when the kids can take care of themselves.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#44

Post by CalRobert »

amyjess wrote: post #27
rayiner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburbs aren’t necessarily low density, though they usually are. In places like New York, many “suburbs” are just small satellite cities well connected to the downtown core with rail.

I don't know if NY suburbs are a great example, though. Things are much more spread out and loosey-goosey there than in younger cities. Here's Plano, TX, which was mostly developed in the '90s and the 21st century: https://i.imgur.com/TmIlgBh.jpg Here's Westchester County, NY, developed much earlier than that and not nearly as dense: https://i.imgur.com/pSIettu.jpg (I used Google Maps zoom level 14 for both screensho…

Is Plano much denser? Or just more paved?

Plano is a city of 71 sq miles and ~3800 people per square mile. Westchester is a _county_ of 500 square miles and 2300 people per square mile. In many regards, Westchester may be denser. It also looks like they haven't chopped down every last tree and laid waste to the land with asphalt.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#45

Post by CalRobert »

wildmusings wrote: post #8

> Yet millennial suburbanites want a new kind of landscape. They want breathing room but disdain the energy wastefulness, visual monotony and social conformity of postwar manufactured neighborhoods. That's a hell of a claim, and no evidence whatsoever is provided for it. Could it be that the New York Times writers are projecting their slavish political devotion onto the rest of us? Once we're all married with school-…

"Once we're all married with school-age kids, we will choose to move out to the plain, boring suburbs just like the generations before us."

Speak for yourself. I could also say the only reason people in the US don't choose to live in the city is because they're not really allowed to, what with it being basically illegal to build nice cities any more (parking minimums, zoning, etc.)

Also, if nobody wants to live in the city it's hard to explain why they're so expensive. Somebody's paying those prices, after all.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#46

Post by danans »

rayiner wrote: post #12
AstralStorm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low density is more expensive in all ways. This affects sustainability.

Suburbs aren’t necessarily low density, though they usually are. In places like New York, many “suburbs” are just small satellite cities well connected to the downtown core with rail.

Those are not the example of suburb that people are referring to when they discuss the sustainability issues.

Usually they are referring to the much sparser developments of often large houses, built between the 1960s up to the early naughts.

What you are describing are more like towns, which usually have more sustainable features (smaller houses and lots, ergo less pipes in the ground, a rail corridor connecting them to a major city) because they were built before the car era.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#47

Post by jellicle »

gozur88 wrote: post #30
ch4s3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to put it would be that roads, sewers, and mortgages aren't heavily subsidized in other places.

Roads, sewers, and mortgages aren't subsidized in my suburb. We pay for all of it.

I expect you'll find that your city core pays for it. Every calculation I've ever seen about the expenses of suburbs ends up with downtown paying for suburban development. It's cheaper to service a downtown property, more expensive to service a suburban one; and the suburban properties are typically paying lower property taxes, not higher. Heavily subsidized suburban residents then go to their city council meetings and complain about property taxes going to mass transit and similar uses. shrug

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#48

Post by pstuart »

RickS wrote: post #36

> They want breathing room but disdain the energy wastefulness, visual monotony and social conformity of postwar manufactured neighborhoods. then a few sentences later > Existing suburbs were developed to maximize house and lot sizes, There is an important piece of info they brushed right past: Existing suburbs were developed to maximize house and lot sizes within a single development, but optimize for that developme…

> and their shitty, shitty music blaring out

FTFY

edit: downvoted and flagged? My response was somewhat tongue in cheek but germane to the conversation: amplified music wasn't an issue when these suburbs initially came to be, but it is definitely a public space issue today.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#49

Post by dsr_ »

santaclaus wrote: post #25
jedberg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, do you have kids? It's mighty convenient to have a car with all the stuff in it and plenty of space to park that car nearby, and also lots of space for the kids to play outside.

> kids? I have lots of carless friends with kids in NYC, and they seem to get by no problem.

Give NYC-level public transit to any city and that can happen.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#50

Post by derekp7 »

majormajor wrote: post #33
pascalxus wrote: post #28

Its fun to dream about the future. But, a dream is all it'll ever be. how does anyone expect to build this stuff, when we can't even build regular housing, anywhere near the amount that is required to match demand. The only way, I can see this being built, is if new cities are created. These cities need to be populated by employers first: once that's there, most people that works there will find housing there too. I…

> how does anyone expect to build this stuff, when we can't even build regular housing, anywhere near the amount that is required to match demand. You can't in SF, NY, LA... other areas don't have this problem. If your biggest desire is to have your housing not cost more than 60% of your paycheck, move to the suburbs of somewhere like Dallas. You'll be shocked at how many millennials can afford to have nice apartment…

Chicago area is similar -- you can easily get a tech job (lots of trading houses here) making 6 figures (or close to it), and get a house in the suburbs (about 50 minute train ride away) for less than 200K, or often times around 100k if you get one that is less than pristine (and these are good investments too, if you can do handyman work yourself).
Post reply on HN