The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream • Hacker News Board

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#41

Post by ape4 » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

altcognito wrote: post #20

ufmace wrote: post #9

My 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…

> and you get a neighborhood where everyone seems actively discouraged from knowing anything about their neighbors This is completely unfair. I can tell you that from living in my suburban home over the past 10 years that over time I have come to know every single person who lives on my street. You have children that play together, that goto school together (and you may serve on the PTO together with those same neigh…

But goto is considered harmful!

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#42

Post by avn2109 » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

zavulon wrote: post #7

I read the entire article, and I guess I missed it - what's the proposed solution?

Time magazine doesn't mention much of a solution, but [0] was on HN a few days ago and might fit the bill.

FWIW I was a bit of a skeptic before reading this, but now I'm pretty convinced that we've been Doing It Wrong for many years now.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8090190

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#43

Post by ctdonath » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #9

My 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…

You can badmouth any living conditions.

I like my suburban "not-gated but has just one entrance" for safety, a good-sized easy-maintained lawn for the kids to play in, no ugly/noisy commercial buildings, and a quick EV drive to a vast array of options that I don't want to actually live right next to. Pedestrian infrastructure is pointless as it's faster to drive to what you actually want to go to than to walk to what you don't, kids ARE monitored despite survivor bias, and anyone can get to know neighbors to whatever degree they like. Seems to me this is a whole lot better than living stacked on other people, walking being near-compulsory because simple parking is hideously expensive, and traffic is prolific and unavoidable - an unsafe environment I'd rather get away from.

I'd rather be in the country (grew up there), and will likely return.

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#44

Post by watwut » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

ObviousScience wrote: post #28

modoc wrote: post #14

Earlier 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 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 tha…

Out of curiosity: would a bicycle solve that routine 2-3 and 4-5 miles walking problem?

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#45

Post by akgerber » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:48 PM UTC

zavulon wrote: post #7

I read the entire article, and I guess I missed it - what's the proposed solution?

Traditional, walkable development on a grid with narrower streets, smaller lots, and less emphasis in the zoning code on unlimited free parking and huge setbacks on the lots.

This: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brainerd,+MN/@46.3536312,-... instead of this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brainerd,+MN/@46.3543623,-...

And, in the former, redevelopment of huge block-sized parking lots with a business behind them into multiple small storefronts.

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#46

Post by avn2109 » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

enjo wrote: post #17

cwal37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Crime rates and school rankings are the two places where the general populations inability to understand statistics really come home to roost.

Intuitively this seems right, but I wouldn't mind hearing more about what exactly the general populace is misunderstanding there.

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#47

Post by lliwta » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

altcognito wrote: post #20

ufmace wrote: post #9

My 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…

> and you get a neighborhood where everyone seems actively discouraged from knowing anything about their neighbors This is completely unfair. I can tell you that from living in my suburban home over the past 10 years that over time I have come to know every single person who lives on my street. You have children that play together, that goto school together (and you may serve on the PTO together with those same neigh…

For me, this is the biggest difference. When I live in a city, I know my neighbors just because. Running into each other on the bus turns into a beer and a long chat.

In Suburbia, you know a lot of your neighbors, but there's almost always some sort of reason or structure. The social network is the same size, but lots of those relationships are somehow not intrinsic (which isn't to devalue them, even comparatively, but imho there is a qualitative difference).

The latter works great for family life because there are so many more structural incentives to interact; the former is probably preferable for younger or non-child-raising people.

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#48

Post by akgerber » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:52 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #4

Unfortunately 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 maybe true in California, but not in the Midwest, or even in a lot of the older railroad suburbs on the East Coast.

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#49

Post by pmorici » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:53 PM UTC

When I think of the suburbs I think of each house having it's own well and septic system. Gas, electric, and phone are the only provided utilities and they come from private companies not a local government. This article seems to be talking about something different more like a low density city with city provided sewer and water.

Re: The Suburbs Will Die: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream

#50

Post by rayiner » Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 5:54 PM UTC

zavulon wrote: post #7

I read the entire article, and I guess I missed it - what's the proposed solution?

One of the things that isn't talked about, my guess is because urbanists also tend to be liberals, is reforming welfare policy. States have largely succeeded in, and the federal government has condoned, treating cities as the primary welfare distribution organ. Public housing is mostly built in the cities, most federal school aid goes into the cities, etc. This concentrates the social problems which welfare attempts to remedy in the cities, and has the impact of driving families out of the city when they have kids.

For example, until very recently, San Francisco had a policy of randomized school assignments. The idea was to limit the economic segregation of schools. Such policies are ultimately counter productive, because all they do is drive wealthier families, and their tax dollars, out into the suburbs. Peoples' egalitarian ideas tend to come crashing down when their kids are involved.