If you want to live the American dream, go create a start up in Europe...
Why? So the European governments can spy on you?
The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
21–30 of 195 posts
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#22Unfortunately if you don't want to live in an environment like the one this person helped build, it seems necessary to be either extremely rich or comfortable with high crime rates, or willing to leave the country entirely.
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Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#23My skepticism of suburbs has mostly been about how the long distance and personal car dependence they create tends to isolate people and households. Build a suburban "gated community" for safety, give everyone a huge lawn that they're obligated to constantly maintain, don't allow any commercial buildings in because they're considered ugly, and you get an environment where it's pretty tough to get anywhere without a c…
Your vision of a suburb has very little to do with the reality of my suburban existence. It's like someone from the country talking about the horribly dangerous ugly city with its filthy air, roving gangs shooting strangers, and huge rats running in the streets. I'm not saying suburbs are perfect, but you've basically thrown up a stack of strawmen here.
I generally agree, except that the not being able to get around without a car bit is really True in my experience.
edit: It's easy to know your neighbors in suburbia if you're outgoing, and things vary from street to street. But there generally is way less interaction than if you were to have a neighborhood pub at the end of your street, or side-to-side porches everyone lounges on during summer nights.
It tends to be that you know the neighbors you get along with and ignore everyone else. In city environments, it's more like you interact with everyone because, well, no choice.
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#24I don't like suburbs.
Why?
- I don't like the constant driving to get anywhere.
- I don't like the malls, the big box stores, the "clone" button that seems applied across the landscape.
- I don't like the giant roads carving their way around, splitting communities.
- I don't like the squandering of resources on lawns! individual houses! low-density housing!
I can say, with confidence, I'd like to live in a place where I own my house, where I have some property to do with as I please, where children can play nearby on grass, and where I don't sweat getting rent raised. On the other hand, I can easily see own a very small piece of land and having access to some neighborhood commons as part of a community.
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#25Unfortunately if you don't want to live in an environment like the one this person helped build, it seems necessary to be either extremely rich or comfortable with high crime rates, or willing to leave the country entirely.
That's not really accurate. Suburbs have a lower overall amount of crime, but you need to think about relative rates of crime based on the number of people living in an area. Here's a simple study that discusses a lot of that: http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc00/professi... Personally, I found it pretty easy to live in two different college towns (less than 100k pop), not own a car, and enjoy relative…
While I'm on board with the suburb criticism, I'm not sure that "per capita" is the relevant metric here. I'm concerned with the number of crime incidents per unit area, over the areas where I will most be. Is there a reason I should prefer one metric over another?
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quit subsidizing sprawl?
Right, I got that part.. but then what? Small towns die out, and everyone moves to the big city?
Small towns and suburbs are not one in the same.
Traditional neighborhoods are great. It's the isolated, curvy, car-centric suburbs made by developers that are the problem.
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#27My skepticism of suburbs has mostly been about how the long distance and personal car dependence they create tends to isolate people and households. Build a suburban "gated community" for safety, give everyone a huge lawn that they're obligated to constantly maintain, don't allow any commercial buildings in because they're considered ugly, and you get an environment where it's pretty tough to get anywhere without a c…
Your vision of a suburb has very little to do with the reality of my suburban existence. It's like someone from the country talking about the horribly dangerous ugly city with its filthy air, roving gangs shooting strangers, and huge rats running in the streets. I'm not saying suburbs are perfect, but you've basically thrown up a stack of strawmen here.
Couldn't agree more, modoc.
Also, while prediction is a dangerous game, I foresee the combination of increased investment in public transit, and the advent of affordable driverless cars, adding up to helping suburbs remain a terrific place to grow up. As my hometown (Arlington, MA) was in the 70's and 80's, and as my new adopted town (Duxbury MA) is today.
Related tangent: IMHO quality of life is less about urban/suburban(/rural), than it is about neighborhoods. I posted about this topic earlier this year: http://www.chrisweekly.org/2014/01/22/neighborhoods-matter-h...
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#28My skepticism of suburbs has mostly been about how the long distance and personal car dependence they create tends to isolate people and households. Build a suburban "gated community" for safety, give everyone a huge lawn that they're obligated to constantly maintain, don't allow any commercial buildings in because they're considered ugly, and you get an environment where it's pretty tough to get anywhere without a c…
Your vision of a suburb has very little to do with the reality of my suburban existence. It's like someone from the country talking about the horribly dangerous ugly city with its filthy air, roving gangs shooting strangers, and huge rats running in the streets. I'm not saying suburbs are perfect, but you've basically thrown up a stack of strawmen here.
I don't like to usually "me too", but the grand parent comment very accurately described my experience of suburbs as well.
We jokingly referred to it as "the suburban cultural wasteland", because you had to walk 2-3 miles to find anything that wasn't more houses, a grocery store with corporate specialty stores attached (Starbucks coffee, various automotive places, etc), or a school.
Most of what you could find in that radius was a mall, which was just a bigger version of the grocery store thing or various pieces of civil infrastructure (parks, community center, etc).
You had to go 4-5 miles to find anything that was even slightly not cookie-cutter, which put it at a fairly impossible distance to walk routinely.
I'm contrasting this with the city I now live in that the suburbs were around, and I'm pretty sure I could hit an oddball business with a baseball from my window.
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#29I read the entire article, and I guess I missed it - what's the proposed solution?
The article mentions that property taxes only cover between 4 and 65% of the costs of the suburban infrastructure. Raising property taxes 50% to 2000%(!) would simultaneously cover that revenue shortfall, discourage suburban sprawl and encourage infill.
Obviously such a large tax increase could not happen overnight, but it does seem the obvious solution, or at least part of it.
Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your vision of a suburb has very little to do with the reality of my suburban existence. It's like someone from the country talking about the horribly dangerous ugly city with its filthy air, roving gangs shooting strangers, and huge rats running in the streets. I'm not saying suburbs are perfect, but you've basically thrown up a stack of strawmen here.
I generally agree, except that the not being able to get around without a car bit is really True in my experience. edit: It's easy to know your neighbors in suburbia if you're outgoing, and things vary from street to street. But there generally is way less interaction than if you were to have a neighborhood pub at the end of your street, or side-to-side porches everyone lounges on during summer nights. It tends to be…
So what's the attraction towards interacting with everyone? That I might find out one of my neighbours is a kidnapper?
I don't like to talk to everyone I meet or even be in a city for too long as it overstimulates my senses. It is the same reason why I don't like large crowds and prefer living in the suburbs.