America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#261

Post by jonathankoren » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #116

jinushaun wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m raising a child in NYC right now. What is this dystopia you are describing? It’s the opposite of my personal experience. NYC is such a kid friendly place to raise kids: Museums, zoos, aquariums, free events for kids, concerts just for babies, parks, swimming pools, little league, soccer league, skate parks, etc… we have it all. I can’t fathom how people raise kids in the suburbs. They must be so bored… You have a…

> Museums, zoos, aquariums I don't know about you, but those are things I'd go to at most once a year so taking the train/driving downtown for those rare events wasn't a big deal for me growing up. > free events for kids, concerts just for babies, more details? > parks My friends and I used to play basketball, american football, and ultimate frisbee all the time growing up. Now I live downtown and the parks I walk pa…

> I don't know about you, but those are things I'd go to at most once a year so taking the train/driving downtown for those rare events wasn't a big deal for me growing up.

Do you have children? I ask, because the frequency of attending these and all the other public institutions skyrockets when you have kids.

Before I had kids, it had been literally decades since I stepped foot into a public library. After we had kids, we go all the time. Same with museums, parks, pools, everything.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#262

Post by simonebrunozzi » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #200

Such a bad take. The actual "elite" in urban centers are the ones walking around with strollers. Have a kid in the big city is the ultimate flex. No one else has kids because they can barely afford to live there themselves, let alone support a kid in it. Edit: Also, it's not as if the author failed to mention that it's expensive to raise families in the city. It's that he says "yes it's really expensive to raise kids…

Well, good point, but you should be more precise: strollers with HUMAN KIDS in them. I swear that at least one in two, perhaps even more, of these strollers today tend to have dogs in them. At least in San Francisco.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#263

Post by nostrademons » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:07 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #196

toasterlovin wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s perverse that in our (supposedly) liberated world the standard that women are held to is men.

Isn't that what equality was supposed to be? EDIT: Anecdotally, it seems that equality was strived for and it's not turning out as great as a lot of folks hoped for. Educated women don't date down like men did/do which makes finding a partner in itself much more difficult [1], women want the same career opportunities as men while also taking leave that puts them at a disadvantage, which is unavoidable; you will be at…

That's how everything turns out, though. Once you achieve all the things that you thought will make you happy, you'll find new things to be unhappy about, usually in the details of the stuff you just achieved. That's the nature of emotions - they couldn't actually cause motion if you just sat there content with your lot in life. Only thing that'll do that is drugs, and even then you tend to build up a tolerance to them.

The real test for whether something is good or bad isn't whether people are happy, it's whether they would choose to go back. And I think you'll find that most women are not all that eager to go back to the 1950s. If they are, there are subcultures within the U.S. that can provide that, but those subcultures aren't really flourishing in terms of growth rates.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#264

Post by tathougies » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:07 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #190

jacobolus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried being a kid or raising a kid in the city? This description does not match my experience or my general impressions of other people’s experiences at all. Indeed, car-intermediated everything and complete dependence on parents is a much better description of suburban life for children than city life. I grew up in one of the most pleasant and active suburbs in the US, in a little college town, and it was s…

> more small shops of all kinds, more coffeeshops, more live music, more social clubs, more classes, more playgrounds, more museums Suburban playgrounds are way better than urban ones and the rest of your examples require a lot of money. I'm biased because I grew up in the suburbs, but playing sports outside for free like I did as a kid sounds much better than having to get job because the only thing you can do in th…

Coffee houses are often free to sit in. Social clubs also often hold free events. Live music is often outside. Playgrounds and museums tend to be free or low cost

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#265

Post by nostrademons » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:12 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #218

elliekelly wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Person”...

I apologize. I don’t understand. My understanding was women were fighting to be equal, but men were the bar. What rights are being fought for by women that men don’t have (“people”)? What is the “baseline” for “people”?

I think that the point being made is that in a world with true equality, there is no bar, because each person's perspective is as valuable as any other's. The existence of a baseline necessarily requires choosing a perspective and enshrining that as an ideal to be aspired to, which is a power play on the part of the person setting the standard. There's nothing inherent about reality that requires that: the alternative is that you do your thing, I do mine, each of those things is as valuable as the other, and if our things conflict we work out our differences amongst ourselves (or if necessary, bring in a neutral third party to adjudicate that is mutually acceptable to both of us).

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#266

Post by lultimouomo » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:16 AM UTC

burfog wrote: post #229

stouset wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a suburb and was bored shitless. I had one friend that lived within walking distance, and everyone else was too far away to get to without a car, which meant that I didn't get to see my friends unless it was convenient for one of my two parents (who both held full-time jobs). Cycling anywhere outside of the local neighborhood was out of the question, since the roads connecting neighborhoods were full of…

I lived in that kind of place. I also had my one nearby friend. We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes each side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often got to a decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of the older bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went anyway. We had similar woods. We went out there and built…

> We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes each side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often got to a decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of the older bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went anyway.

And I bet it was uphill! Both ways!

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#267

Post by nostrademons » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:17 AM UTC

whyenot wrote: post #245

When I lived in San Francisco, during the aftermath of the first dot-com boom, it was not uncommon to find used syringes at the playgrounds in GG Park. I was living in an apartment in the Inner Sunset, and every could of days the building manager had to hose down the steps to our building because someone was using them as a public toilet. By all I have heard, the situation in SF has only gotten worse. I don't know, i…

I think it's moved. GG Park, when I've visited recently, has been delightful - I let my 18mo play freely in many of the open areas. The Mission, Tenderloin, Civic Center, and much of Market Street looks like a warzone. Or an outhouse. Or an outhouse that got bombed in a warzone.

SF is weird in that you can have very nice areas that are literally just a couple blocks away from hellholes.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#268

Post by flexie » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:21 AM UTC

jpindar wrote: post #193

mrep wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Museums, zoos, aquariums I don't know about you, but those are things I'd go to at most once a year so taking the train/driving downtown for those rare events wasn't a big deal for me growing up. > free events for kids, concerts just for babies, more details? > parks My friends and I used to play basketball, american football, and ultimate frisbee all the time growing up. Now I live downtown and the parks I walk pa…

Just for the heck of it, and because I have a thing for Google Earth, I counted the number of baseball diamonds (easy to spot from the air) within the city of Boston but gave up once I got over one hundred. Not counting Fenway Park :)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/189841/number-of-ball-di...

I’d bet that most towns and suburbs with 10,000 inhabitants have 2-4 of those, or more :-)

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#269

Post by flexie » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:23 AM UTC

jinushaun wrote: post #67

madhadron wrote: post #14

I look at it a little differently. The urban cores in the USA are actively hostile places for anyone to be. You step outside your door...into an empty hallway of doors. You take an elevator or stairs down to a place with a few mailboxes, then step outside. Outside, you have a narrow strip of concrete, possibly with a few trees, that you are allowed to inhabit. Beyond it is as asphalt with two ton steel contraptions w…

I’m raising a child in NYC right now. What is this dystopia you are describing? It’s the opposite of my personal experience. NYC is such a kid friendly place to raise kids: Museums, zoos, aquariums, free events for kids, concerts just for babies, parks, swimming pools, little league, soccer league, skate parks, etc… we have it all. I can’t fathom how people raise kids in the suburbs. They must be so bored… You have a…

Museums, zoos and events are for once a month or once a week at the most. A garden or a suburban park is for once every few hours.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#270

Post by Fomite » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 6:28 AM UTC

madhadron wrote: post #14

I look at it a little differently. The urban cores in the USA are actively hostile places for anyone to be. You step outside your door...into an empty hallway of doors. You take an elevator or stairs down to a place with a few mailboxes, then step outside. Outside, you have a narrow strip of concrete, possibly with a few trees, that you are allowed to inhabit. Beyond it is as asphalt with two ton steel contraptions w…

When I lived in an urban core...

I stepped out of my door into a hallway of doors, greeted by the scent of several different ethnic foods being cooked, and usually the sound of one or more families.

I take an elevator down the stairs to the lobby, nod at the guy manning the desk who was interested in what I ordered yesterday (it was heavy - he thought car parts, was a rack-mount UPS).

I step out into a U shaped walkway, lined with bushes, with a cherry tree in the middle before merging onto the sidewalk.

Fifteen minutes away in one direction is a zoo that was free. Full of kids learning new things about amazing wildlife. Five minutes in the other direction is a hiking trail, onto another hiking trail.