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Americans are rethinking where they want to live

economist.com

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Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#611

Post by kelnos »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #529
dragonwriter wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tear down a house in the suburbs and put in a little market/grocery store and you don't need to drive anywhere you just walk over. Except everyone with a reliable car still drives to the large grocery store and with a wide selection which has lower prices and better selection on basics but makes it up with lower volume, high margin luxuries that the small market c doesn't have floor space for, and the small market,…

Ironically, my two best counter-examples of your claims above are both within 1 mile of each other. Wiley St. Co-op and Jenifer St. Market are both relatively small grocery stores in the Marquette neighborhood of Madison, WI. The co-op is a bit larger, but less densely stocked and has no alcohol. Jenifer St. is packed to the gills, and sells alcohol. Both are surrounded by primarily single-family homes, with a few ap…

I think those are the exceptions that prove that it can be done, and can be viable. Totally agree that it's generally not a thing, but places like that show that all the other, similar neighborhoods are just missing out.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#612

Post by FalconSensei »

Symbiote wrote: post #569
zerocount wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most models outside the US would not work for the entire US, perhaps a few cities. Also, it doesn't seem possible to have more than 10 supermarkets within 10 minutes of your walking distance. They would have to be next door to each other. Of course, I'm thinking about this in the context of where I've lived in the US. It would take me 3 minutes just to walk out of my apartment complex, and another 5 to get to the sup…

Taking a friend's address in inner Copenhagen (a cheap place as she's a student), she has 4 supermarkets within 5 minutes walk (400m). Taking a different friend's address in the suburbs, he has 3 supermarkets within a 10 minute walk (800m). In the city centre, there are 10 supermarkets within a 5 minute walk. The supermarkets in the city centre are smaller, and have a relatively limited range, although in practise I…

I totally agree with all comments in favor of the European way. I just have to add something:

> The supermarkets in the city centre are smaller

Then maybe they are not actually supermarkets, instead small markets or grocery stores?

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#613

Post by Sebguer »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #594
Sebguer wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What parts of Florida have you lived in?

South Florida, Central Florida, East & West Coast. For about 15 years

This wasn't intended as a gotcha, or anything, I was just honestly curious what informed your experience. I lived in Tampa for ~10 years, and found it to be a pretty decent city in general, though with the usual southern caveats of public transit being non-existent and the sprawl being excessive.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#614

Post by yeetawayhn »

jmeister wrote: post #562
brewdad wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are hiring from a pool of candidates who, by nature of their skills and relative wealth, lie at the 90th percentile or higher in their communities, does it really make that much of a difference? Yes SV is a bubble, but hiring people living in a similar bubble in Omaha isn't going to move the needle that much IMO.

NYT exec editor Dean Bacquet famously said(ruefully) “we don’t understand the role of religion in people’s lives”, after the ‘16 election. There is not a single soul in Omaha who would make that statement.

The people in Omaha would probably be more likely to understand the role of religion in people's lives than the NYT exec editor, after all.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#615

Post by dragonwriter »

yeetawayhn wrote: post #614
jmeister wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT exec editor Dean Bacquet famously said(ruefully) “we don’t understand the role of religion in people’s lives”, after the ‘16 election. There is not a single soul in Omaha who would make that statement.

The people in Omaha would probably be more likely to understand the role of religion in people's lives than the NYT exec editor, after all.

> The people in Omaha would probably be more likely to understand the role of religion in people's lives

If by “people’s lives” you mean specifics “the lives of people in Omaha”, plausibly.

Otherwise, no, not really.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#616

Post by jjav »

brewdad wrote: post #473
dionidium wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I currently live in Providence, RI (by way of NYC). We highly value walkability, but feel like we've aged out of tolerating some other big-city "annoyances." When Americans think of "suburbs" they think of culs-de-sac and arterials, but it doesn't have to be that way. New England is dotted with "small towns" that are basically just suburbs of Providence and/or Boston that are laid out on a grid -- with a…

I'm willing to bet most, if not all, of those wonderful suburbs were built before WW2 and really before the car itself. Aside from a literal handful of experiments, we haven't built places like that in a long time here in the US.

My current neighborhood (in greater silicon valley area) was built in 1997-98 and I can walk to pretty much anything I need.

That seems mostly the norm in my experience. These HN threads always talk about suburbs where you need to drive 10 minutes on a highway to get to the nearest store but to be honest I don't know where those are, I don't think I've seen areas like that.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#617

Post by kelnos »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #571
larrymyers wrote: post #10

My family and I decided to stay on the north side of Chicago, a very high cost of living location, despite no longer needing to head downtown every day for work. Why not move outside of Chicago where our cost living would be substantially lower? * We wanted to keep our kids in the same school, which is walking distance. * We like being walking distance to the grocery store, doctor's offices, etc. * Our kids can walk…

I enjoy watching a couple of shows about home renovations that take place in the US (some twin brothers and love or list it, or something like that). Two things always strike me as odd as an European: * People on that show always needs a shit load of space. Especially in the kitchens, for some reason. Sometimes they are a couple without kids or maybe have one kid but they want 2 ovens? And a huge island is a must. Mo…

Do Europeans not cook all that much? I imagine most suburban US families cook most of their meals, both for cost reasons and because taking children to a restaurant is viewed as a chore here.

Even without kids, my partner and I try to cook often. We have a decent-sized kitchen by urban US standards (it would probably be considered on the small side if we lived in the suburbs), but could still stand to have more counter space for food prep (and cabinet space for storage). Agree that 2 ovens is a bit much, but a huge island can be incredibly useful.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#618

Post by kelnos »

sershe wrote: post #293
larrymyers wrote: post #10

My family and I decided to stay on the north side of Chicago, a very high cost of living location, despite no longer needing to head downtown every day for work. Why not move outside of Chicago where our cost living would be substantially lower? * We wanted to keep our kids in the same school, which is walking distance. * We like being walking distance to the grocery store, doctor's offices, etc. * Our kids can walk…

For me, the COVID has really opened my eyes to how little I need walkability. My preferences completely flipped from "I want walkscore 75+ and ideally 90+" to "I want walkscore to be I used to be very pro-transit and walking (didn't even learn to drive till 30), and even as I was not walking as much just before COVID, I reflexively remained so. When most things closed nearby (so we went out less and finally discovere…

I certainly drove more during the pandemic (though this may have been because I stopped using Lyft due to safety concerns), but I never stopped appreciating living in a walkable neighborhood. Certainly openings were a bit spotty here and there, but having a small grocery nearby, as well as a few restaurants with outdoor seating, was a boon to our mental health while otherwise stuck at home most of the time. We got food delivered more than usual, to be sure, but that still felt like a supplement, not the main mode of eating.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#619

Post by kelnos »

dionidium wrote: post #287
sanderjd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason (besides inertia) that we can't have both. This is how thriving smaller downtowns are, single family homes within walking distance to amenities. It's just that all those areas get really expensive because there are so few of them. But there don't have to be so few places like that.

My wife and I currently live in Providence, RI (by way of NYC). We highly value walkability, but feel like we've aged out of tolerating some other big-city "annoyances." When Americans think of "suburbs" they think of culs-de-sac and arterials, but it doesn't have to be that way. New England is dotted with "small towns" that are basically just suburbs of Providence and/or Boston that are laid out on a grid -- with a…

I'm not sure how universal this is, though. A friend of mine lives in Holliston, MA (a small town that's about a 45 minute drive from Boston), but still drives most places locally, even just to go to downtown, park, and walk from there. The problem isn't the distance, it's that the roads were not designed with pedestrians in mind. The route from their house to downtown has mostly no sidewalks, and roads with enough traffic on them that walking along the shoulder doesn't feel safe. In the winter it's impossible to walk, with plowed snow piled up along the only places you could potentially walk.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#620

Post by jjav »

jacobolus wrote: post #67
criddell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Different people value different things. You prioritize your kids school and proximity to important destinations and so that neighborhood makes a lot of sense. When your kids move away after college, does that change the calculation much for you? Both of my kids are away at college and so I'm looking at where I live and what kind of life I want and am leaning more and more to…

Suburbs are very unfriendly for the elderly compared to cities. The ideal suburbanite is an upper-middle-class person in their 30s–50s in good health who really likes driving their large car and has hobbies they can do individually from inside their own home (e.g. woodworking, gardening), and doesn’t mind that life is miserable* there for their kids. Everyone else is more or less a second-class citizen. * Edit: subur…

> Edit: suburbs are unpleasant for kids because anyone who can’t drive is completely dependent on someone else

You're operating on some limited/different definition of suburb.

We stay in the suburb precisely because my kid has multiple friends within walking distance.

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