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Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

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Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#321

Post by weitendorf »

afavour wrote: post #2

> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco. This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what…

Not all suburbs are built the same. My dad grew up in suburban Cleveland in the 50s, which has a bunch of some of the very earliest style of suburbs. When I have been there, and from what I remember my dad telling me, there was actually a pretty decent community there despite it being a suburb.

Personally having been there, and also many suburbs in the rest of the US, I think it's more complex than just "typical suburban problems are inherent to the suburban environment". That is to say, very early-style suburbs like Eastern Cleveland, suburbs of major cities like NYC, suburbs of smaller cities like Cincinnati, cities that are almost entirely suburban like LA or San Jose, and very old/organic suburbs like the gold coast of Connecticut are all completely different from each other.

Even within places like Cleveland or New York, the time period in which the suburb formed (50s-60s suburbs are completely different from 2000-2010's suburbs) and the circumstances of how it formed (it could be completely organic and decentralized, totally centralized in a big development project, organized as a purely residential community with hoa fees and gates and community pools/golf clubs, or organized as a natural extension to the city and include spaces for business and schools) make it so that two places can both be suburban but have very different problems.

And then of course you have demographics as a major confounding variable. In suburban Cleveland in the 50s and 60s almost every house was occupied by a nuclear family with school-aged kids, most men were actively employed (mostly unionized blue collar workers in eg steel). But the rust belt happened, people started living longer and stopped having so many kids, upper middle class people started preferring bigger houses, etc. so now that community is significantly more elderly, fragmented, and not really upper-middle-class any more despite the suburb itself not changing much. Similarly, Palo Alto is not really built that differently from many nice parts of Florida, but the culture is completely different from the physically-similar communities in Florida, because one place has lots of upwardly mobile people in tech/finance/affiliated with Stanford, and the other is a retirement destination.

I guess my point is that "suburban problems" are oftentimes just "problems in suburbs" or "a problem in that suburb" or "a problem with that kind of suburb", not "problems with suburbs in general". Suburbs can have a sense of community but their residents need to want that and make it happen.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#322

Post by badc0ffee »

jimbokun wrote: post #73
happytoexplain wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. This is a bitter stereotype that is leveled against both city-dwellers and suburb-dwellers, and, like many stereotypes, has some truth to it in both cases, but amounts to uncalled-for negativity. Some people don't want to interact with their neighbors, regardless of whether they live in a city or a suburb. Others are sociable with thei…

Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen. And even if you are sitting in front of your house, neighbors are more likely to be driving by instead of walking so not very likely to stop…

In my city, the only places I see neighbours gathering on their front porches is in prewar neighbourhoods with single family style homes (many actually split into apartments).

These houses have narrow lots, a porch right up to the sidewalk, and are on narrow streets. Newer neighbourhoods don't have that magic combination - even when the lots are narrow and there is no garage in the front, there is always a setback, a useless front yard, and more often than not no porch (or a "vestigial" porch that's too shallow to use comfortably).

Editing to add: The old neighborhoods are nearly always on a grid of streets, where every street has passers by. Newer neighbourhoods will have hierarchical streets that include crescents and cul de sacs, which connect to nothing and have nobody just passing through (although that does seem to be changing in the newest neighbourhoods).

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#323

Post by lolinder »

weitendorf wrote: post #321
afavour wrote: post #2

> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco. This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what…

Not all suburbs are built the same. My dad grew up in suburban Cleveland in the 50s, which has a bunch of some of the very earliest style of suburbs. When I have been there, and from what I remember my dad telling me, there was actually a pretty decent community there despite it being a suburb. Personally having been there, and also many suburbs in the rest of the US, I think it's more complex than just "typical subu…

And just as true: being a city does not by itself make for good communities. Residents need to want to make that happen—as in this story in TFA. If they don't want it, most cities are just as poorly designed for more-than-cursory spontaneous interaction as most suburbs.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#324

Post by danielhep »

melenaboija wrote: post #230
jvidalv wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also from a small town in Spain, ~600 people. And while it’s not as popular as before it’s still going strong in summer. I’m Catalan so we call it “la fresca”, translates to “to the fresh air”. In my street, ~5-10 people, my mother and some neighbours still do it. The way towns are build in spain facilitate that, single houses but no garden. We live door by door. So if you want to be outside you are by definition…

My town is also in Catalunya, 60 miles north of yours :)

This is random, but I’m wondering why if you’re both Spanish why use miles and not km?

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#325

Post by NautilusWave »

afavour wrote: post #2

> my husband Tyler and I wanted that sense of community that feels like it’s only possible in the suburbs, but we believed we could achieve this while living in San Francisco. This genuinely threw me because in my experience the suburbs are the antithesis of this, just lots of people occupying neighboring space and rarely talking to each other. Still, a heartwarming story all the same. And yes, this is _exactly_ what…

Hard agree. Especially in widely spaced suburban/exurban neighborhoods that mysteriously lack sidewalks and have suspiciously wide roads.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#326

Post by AdieuToLogic »

czhu12 wrote: post #94

Really heart warming story. My 2 cents: The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling. No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat. Eventually, newer member…

> The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.

The way to minimize this fear is by encouraging members to send welcoming messages to those new to the community. Celebrate the growth instead of fearing the unknown.

> No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat.

If new members are made aware that sending a message to the group is perfectly acceptable, then there will be trepidation.

Much like what I am doing here to what I assume is a group exceeding 100+ members.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#327

Post by whiddershins »

Great idea, but (as indicated in the article) there are no stoops pictured. A stoop is a series of steps that go to a second level, which makes for way better hang dynamics. Living on a block with stoops is superior to one without because people are far more likely to hang around outside when they can get some height and survey the whole block.

https://www.brownstoner.com/brooklyn-life/brooklyn-stoop-sit...

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#328

Post by gonzobonzo »

jacobolus wrote: post #309
gonzobonzo wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, surburbs are better at encouraging walking/cycling around (since there's very little traffic), but worse at encouraging people to walk to commercial areas (since they're usually far away and the path there is unpleasant). In my experience, you're far more likely to see kids biking/wandering around neighborhoods in the suburbs than in the city. This is the reason why people want things like cul-de-sacs, bec…

> better at encouraging walking/cycling around This doesn't match my personal experience, at all. Even the cutest and most pedestrian friendly suburbs have far less walking than typical cities, with faster more dangerous traffic, and less infrastructure for alternative modes of travel. > far more likely to see kids biking/wandering around neighborhoods in the suburbs than in the city This also doesn't come close to m…

> (though it does match many people's inaccurate stereotypes, which I have heard repeatedly in conversations with people who don't live in cities)

I run into the opposite problem - people who grew up in the suburbs, move into gentrifying city neighborhoods as adults, and who carry idealized view of the city they moved to, will often accuse others - even people who have lived in the city there entire life - of being an outsider if they don't hold the same idealized view.

Judging by how shocked this type of person often gets when I tell them I was born and raised here ("You from here? 'Here' here? Wow, that's pretty rare!"), I get the impression that many of these people live in a bit of a gentrification bubble. Which is fine, but it would be nice if they were aware that there was much more to the city than the gentrification bubble (including people who have lived here far longer than them, sometimes for generations).

Anyway, you'll notice I never claimed there weren't "tons of kids and families around in cities," but rather that seeing kids roaming around neighborhoods on their own was more common in the suburbs than the city (at least based on my personal experience).

> Cul-de-sacs cut places off from easy pedestrian access and make it usually significantly more difficult and dangerous to get anywhere by walking, because to get to destinations requires crossing massive (sometimes 6–10 lane) quasi-highways with high-speed traffic.

This is a non-sequitur. I already mentioned in my post that in the suburbs it's more difficult to get to commercial destinations. That doesn't change the fact that a cul-de-sac is an area with little traffic, that most suburban developments/neighborhoods have pretty light traffic, and that you're typically going to encounter very little traffic inside these developments/neighborhoods.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#329

Post by lolinder »

lolinder wrote: post #182
jimbokun wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen. And even if you are sitting in front of your house, neighbors are more likely to be driving by instead of walking so not very likely to stop…

> Suburbs often have physical constraints with the way houses are laid out making this "stoop coffee" approach more difficult, if anything. Houses laid out in a way that you're more likely to drink your coffee on your back patio surrounded by a fence or hedges to avoid being seen. This has not been my experience in the surburbs. A typical suburban home has both spaces: a front yard/patio and a back yard/patio. If any…

Apparently there's some idea that suburbs by definition don't have sidewalks and have half acre lots with oversized McMansions. If that's your definition of suburb, I take it back: I've never lived in a suburb. But I also strongly question the utility that definition for discourse like this.

If some people here think that a suburb has to be the absolute worst stereotype of NIMBY living to count as a suburb and others are talking about anything with detached single family homes and yards, we're having very very different conversations. It seems more useful to work with the definition of suburb that simply means "outside the urban core".

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