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

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

#51

Post by buerkle »

chrisweekly wrote: post #27
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.

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/sub…

Driverless cars and public transit will not fix the problem of having to spend an enormous amount of money on infrastructure caused by a lack of density.

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

#52

Post by CodeCube »

watwut wrote: post #44
ObviousScience wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not with kids involved

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

#53

Post by ObviousScience »

watwut wrote: post #44
ObviousScience wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, my point was mostly that it's much sparser than a city proper in terms of things that have what I'd call culture to them, and that you're required to have some kind of vehicle to navigate it.

Of course, I wouldn't have felt comfortable riding a bike on the road there, so it somewhat mitigates how useful a bike actually is.

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

#54

Post by saosebastiao »

ctdonath wrote: post #43
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…

Its perfectly fine to like that, just as it is perfectly fine to like private jets and caviar. The discussion, at least in this article, is how sustainable it is from a cost perspective.

You are talking about liking something that has tax revenues that cover mere fractions of the costs incurred. How much would you like it if your property taxes were 50% higher? 2000% higher?

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

#55

Post by binarymax »

pnathan wrote: post #24

I 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 wher…

The way I differentiate in my brain, because I'm an 80's kid:

I do like "Ferris Beuler's Day Off" style suburbs.

I do not like "Edward Scissorhands" style suburbs.

I grew up in the former, and given the opportunity, I'd like my future kids to do the same.

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

#56

Post by superuser2 »

watwut wrote: post #44
ObviousScience wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not outside of California. Cycling is a seasonal luxury in the northern states, and car-centric culture makes things extremely dangerous on roads where cyclists are neither expected nor welcome. The number of times I've been shouted at to "get on the sidewalk!" is astounding (riding on the sidewalk is actually illegal in most cities).

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

#57

Post by Zigurd »

Recently a researcher at Toyota predicted that self-driving cars would perpetuate suburbia and enable more driving. A door-to-door ride in my own car would be far faster than riding the Boston area commuter rail, which has an inconveniently sparse schedule, and then the Red Line into Cambridge. The only reason to take the commuter rail is to avoid the chore of driving. The diesel locomotives are not cleaner or more efficient.

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

#58

Post by bane »

I will absolutely trade my ridiculously sized house in the burbs (within walking distance of a bank, grocery, bike store, gym, Tae Kwon Do school, movie theater, two salons, 3 doctors and 3 dentists and a psychiatrist, a mix of about a dozen local and chain eating options, an optometrist, high-end toy store, dry cleaners, wine store, 2 ice cream parlors, and a 5 minute drive to more local ethnic food than you can shake a stick at soon to get a local library, and dozens of miles of bike and hiking trails and three large swimming pools) for an equivalent sized domicile of my choice in my choice of neighborhoods in Manhattan tomorrow if he wants to make that trade.

After which, I'll probably sell that place in Manhattan for the $30-40 million I can get, buy another house back in my old suburb and a vacation house in Southern Spain and retire/angel fund my choice of startups till I die.

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

#59

Post by watwut »

ch4s3 wrote: post #19
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…

@enjo Especially since the best marker for performance in school is parent involvement, if you're a really involved parent the school your child is in ends up having a lot less effect than people think.

Yep I read stats that my kids results depends more on parents then on school choice. But you know what? If I have kid in shitty school, I will have to spend a lot of time and effort by supplementing that school and occasionally fighting that school. I will have to pay for tutors. I will have to look up math plans and exercises on the internet. The preparation for SAT or CAT or whatever will take more months then it would if the kid would be in a good school.

If I have a kid in good school, I can spend all that time and effort by something else. As a consequence, good school makes my kid to gain that something else and both of us to have less stressful life. I'm going to be involved too, but we will be both doing something we enjoy or something that adds bonuses on top on what school should be teaching.

That parental involvement can be both difficult and uncomfortable or pleasurable and easy. Which one it is going to be depends a lot on school choice.

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