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American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists

strongtowns.org

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Re: American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists

#2

Post by db48x »

Millions of people all across the country built homes in suburbs because they wanted peace. They’re not horrifying. Even if you personally find them dull, they are a nice way to live for many others. Even if yours is badly built, many are not. Parking garages are not creepy, they’re just utilitarian. They overstate their case by pointing to one place that they don’t like and generalizing that to all suburbs.

Re: American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists

#5

Post by 10-1-100 »

mannyv wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Did you know that in most of the US it's illegal to build anything other than car-dependent single family suburbs? For many top US cities over 70% of the land is zoned _exclusively for car-dependent detached single family homes_.

Many urbanists simply want walkable neighborhoods to be _literally legal to build_ so that they can live and raise families without as much risk from cars, which are in a race to the bottom with guns as the number one killer of kids in the US. The bar almost could not be lower.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities...

Edit:

You may also not be aware that your detached single family neighborhood is, on average, financially insolvent and can only survive with subsidies from continued sprawl or from denser inner cities.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt...

You imply that people have the freedom to not move to the suburbs if they don't like them because "this is America", but don't seem to be aware that there is decades of policy at every level restricting people from doing exactly that.

Re: American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists

#7

Post by sien »

budrickfox wrote: post #6
mannyv wrote: post #3

[flagged]

At the same time, is it too much to ask for a sidewalk? That’s the thing that bothers me the most. Many suburbs seem built to be actively hostile to walkers, rather than just inconveniently sprawling.

Yeah.

Suburbs can be built with sidewalks and bike paths.

I'm in a suburb in Australia where I can walk across one road to get to a small local shops or about 15 minutes safe walk from a reasonable sized supermarket.

I can ride on bike paths for 15 km to my job as well.

There are some places in the US like this. I used to ride on bike paths to work near Washington DC.

Re: American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists

#8

Post by sbrother »

sien wrote: post #7
budrickfox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, is it too much to ask for a sidewalk? That’s the thing that bothers me the most. Many suburbs seem built to be actively hostile to walkers, rather than just inconveniently sprawling.

Yeah. Suburbs can be built with sidewalks and bike paths. I'm in a suburb in Australia where I can walk across one road to get to a small local shops or about 15 minutes safe walk from a reasonable sized supermarket. I can ride on bike paths for 15 km to my job as well. There are some places in the US like this. I used to ride on bike paths to work near Washington DC.

I'm in a wealthy suburb of Salt Lake City where I can walk to the nearest grocery store, or take my kids to school in a cargo bike on miles of protected bike paths. It's wonderful, but it's also much more expensive to live here than in suburbs without those sorts of amenities. I'm a bit of a sucker for online urbanism (I've spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and it's hard not to want that sort of infrastructure here in the US) but I always feel a bit icky about how "strong towns" basically mean rich towns in the US.

Re: American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists

#9

Post by rabbits77 »

There's a bit of contradiction in the article. The main objection is the author's feeling of uneasiness in open spaces. "liminal spaces" created by, for example, large parking lots. The author then complains that these wide open spaces are not "walkable". What? They are certainly walkable by their very design! What they are not, it seems is the real objection, are cozy spaces lined with tacqueiras and coffee shops.

Re: American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists

#10

Post by atlgator »

budrickfox wrote: post #6
mannyv wrote: post #3

[flagged]

At the same time, is it too much to ask for a sidewalk? That’s the thing that bothers me the most. Many suburbs seem built to be actively hostile to walkers, rather than just inconveniently sprawling.

There's a difference between random, unincorporated urban sprawl and a planned suburban town. You are describing the former. The latter has infrastructure, sidewalks, town square or city center, and government services.
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