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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

#71

Post by modoc »

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…

FWIW my suburban town has almost no chain anythings. I can walk to local coffee shops (have to drive to a Starbucks). We have an amazing collection of local restaurants covering almost every possible cuisine. We have a great library, rail trails, public forrest and green spaces, a local CSA my wife bikes to once a week to pick up our veggies, and much more.

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

#72

Post by recalibrator »

The only ones who truly profit from urban sprawl are land developers. They wipe out forests and wildlife to make a quick buck on cheap low-density housing.

The taxpayer foots the bill to have the grid and city services extended for these suburbs.

So the taxpayer loses, nature loses, and the losers who bought these ugly disposable houses are losers. Only the land developers profit.

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

#73

Post by bubbleRefuge »

From the perspective of someone who was pushed to the burbs due to better schools and facilities for kids, one thing I notice is that urban apartment complexes here in the states don't have the playground facilities that you find in big cities in developing countries. For example, when I visited the city of Sao Paolo Brazil, I stayed in an upper middle class apartment complex which had land at the base of the building walled off into a private park which had a hybrid soccer/basketball court, playground facilities, pool, and plenty of space for kids to run wild. Don't see that here in the states ( except pool ).

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

#74

Post by personZ »

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…

As madoc mentioned, sure the strawman you've constructed is a terrible thing.

But most suburbs are entirely unlike that.

Most aren't gated. Only in very wealthy areas are lawns "huge", and most are minutes with an electric mower. There are sidewalks, and indeed most modern suburbs intermix commercial space such that, at my old suburban house, a giant grocery store was a five minute walk.

And where does this "discouraged from knowing about your neighbours" argument keep coming from? In the suburb I knew everyone within several hundred feet of my house. We had street parties, many friendly conversations, and so on. Downtown, in contrast, I knew a couple of people from nodding at them in the lobby.

It's interesting to read that many suburbs may also be logistically unsustainable.

With working at home patterns, suburbs may just be the most sustainable. Heck, I actually live in a rural location now given that I work in my home office 90%+ of the time. The most Earth-friendly commute you can make is no commute at all.

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

#75

Post by pnathan »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #64
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…

I'm a child of the suburbs and have since moved to the city so take this with a grain of salt. I enjoy the malls, the big box stores, and the clones. Why? I know that pretty much anywhere I go I can get a consistent experience. I can go the local mall and almost anything I can want or imagine is available, which at some level is fascinating. What's more, as cliche as all these places ares, there is a bit of a shared…

> I enjoy the malls, the big box stores, and the clones. Why? I know that pretty much anywhere I go I can get a consistent experience. I can go the local mall and almost anything I can want or imagine is available, which is some level is fascinating. What's more, as cliche as all these places ares, there is a bit of a shared experience for almost everyone.

I don't understand this. That is not because you're not lucidly explaining it. It simply does not fit into my head how this is desirable. :) But that's ok. I think Different places should look and feel and act different. I think that making a consistent experience absolutely destroys the unique culture and history of places, replaced by "the style from headquarters", and "the history of Walgreenmartsafewayco". It really repels me.

For really getting away from people/cars, I believe that the forests are appropriate. Ideally, no paths, no trails, just.... away.

Anyway. My anti-suburb rant over for the day. :)

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

#76

Post by cpwright »

I question the logistical challenges here. If it is truly not that dense, why bother with sewers at all. My little slice of suburbia has no sewers, instead all of it is septic (and where I grew up cesspools). It's 100% on the owner to maintain.

Also, why bother spending money to widen streets. Let the streets stay as they were when they were first built. If you're going to go off trying to bring everything up to code as of now, instead of code when it was built, there will be never ending expenses.

I wonder if really the property taxes are just too low in this particular town. I pay 2-2.5% of my homes value in taxes each year, and my town/school district have to budget prudently, but are able to pay their bills and not rack up unsustainable debt.

The only two departments I really care about are sanitation, and highway. Even sanitation can be eliminated with private garbage as many other towns have. I do however expect the town to pave and plow my street. Beyond that, everything could be accomplished with user fees.

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

#77

Post by Crito »

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…

> "a neighborhood where everyone seems actively discouraged from knowing anything about their neighbors."

I like the city for exactly the opposite reason. In my experience, it is difficult to both ignore others and be ignored in the suburbs. On the other hand, finding privacy in a city is easy. There are too many people in cities to do the small-town/suburbs "everyone knows everyone, and everyone sticks their noses in everyone's business" thing.

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

#78

Post by pnathan »

akgerber wrote: post #35
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.

There are a lot of different types of suburbs out there. I grew up in an old streetcar suburb in the Midwest where almost all of the kids walked to school (though most people still drove to work, since many jobs had sprawled out to office parks). I could walk to my job at a grocery store and there was a nice bike trail, and once I realized that biking was a practical form of transportation, in addition to recreation,…

As a remark: Seattle has adopted a "mini-downtown" approach with desirable neighborhoods (that I hope gets copied elsewhere). Each neighborhood that starts seeing some density growth/interest has? will get pushed toward? having sort of a mini-city-center so that the neighborhood can kind of operate semi-independently within the city-umbrella. Kind of a federal/province approach within a city. I really appreciate it. I think that if a suburban town took this approach and drove towards growth in this fashion, it would be very pleasant to live.

Also - most post 1990s suburb growth doesn't use grids, so it becomes grievously difficult to easily walk/bike between areas, since it's never a straight line to achieve your goal.

/long live the grid design

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

#79

Post by mtinkerhess »

Apofis wrote: post #61
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…

I live in NYC, and recently I spent two weeks in Simi Valley, a city north of Los Angeles, and was shocked that it's basically impossible to get around without a car. Even in LA, it seems as if the public transport system is nearly non-existent.

NYC is one of the only places in the country where it's feasible to live without a car (without major hassle).

Edit: I guess my point was that from my experience visiting New York that's a city where public transit is so good that a car really seems unnecessary. Someone from NYC might be surprised to learn (or be reminded) that it's the exception, and that in most other places in the country it's a hassle not to own a car -- that's not a problem just in LA.

I'm in Seattle myself (Capitol Hill) and while I could get by day-to-day without a car, it would make my commute to the east side almost twice as long depending on traffic and bus timing, which isn't worth it for me. And while Uber / Lyft are a good alternative, a car is still the most convenient way to visit other parts of the city.

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

#80

Post by protonfish »

modoc wrote: post #71
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…

FWIW my suburban town has almost no chain anythings. I can walk to local coffee shops (have to drive to a Starbucks). We have an amazing collection of local restaurants covering almost every possible cuisine. We have a great library, rail trails, public forrest and green spaces, a local CSA my wife bikes to once a week to pick up our veggies, and much more.

I am not sure that the suburbs you are talking about are the same suburbs everyone else is talking about.
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