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The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

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Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#361

Post by cakeface »

ghaff wrote: post #260
LordKano wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom isn't the word that I would associate with being bound by train schedules and routes. Old cities, like NYC or London were established before the existence of the automobile. It makes sense that they were designed to move large numbers of people without automobiles. I don't live near such a city. The geography of my area prevents the kind of mass transit system that exists in NYC.

And I can pretty much guarantee you that people in London and New York bitch about their public transportation systems all the time. Maybe people in Singapore don't but they're probably a pretty rare exception. And don't get even think about getting residents of Boston started on the performance of the MBTA and commuter rail last winter--and that's one of the better US public transit systems. I like cities with good…

People bitch about public transport all the time because, like the weather, it is an ubiquitous shared experience. It's something that we all experience more or less the same way. This makes it an easy topic to establish social contact on.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#362

Post by cakeface »

robotresearcher wrote: post #81
chucknelson wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that the "faceless office building" portion isn't really an issue. They're nice enough on the inside, and when you're deep in work you probably don't notice too often. The worst part is probably the typical lack of anything around those office parks except for...more office parks. At least if you're downtown or in some more commercial-heavy area, there are places to go and eat! :)

> there are places to go and eat! And visit the dentist, buy a shirt, get a gift for a kid's birthday party: all the things that are hard to do on a weekday if you are stranded out of town.

And go to the cobbler. I didn't even realize cobblers still existed until I worked in downtown Boston. Yes, you can still get your shoes fixed! And it's cheap and easy and you can do it on your lunch break.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#363

Post by analog31 »

smackfu wrote: post #356
analog31 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a Variance, and in my county(Marin county) they are never issued anymore. They used to be issued to "good ole boys", but those days are even over.(I'm glad that's the case. Why should just rich boys, or networked boys get what they want?) My dad was on his city's zoning board for a few years. What he learned was that a variance was only supposed to be used in cases where the intent of the zoning ordinance…

A current example is video game bars, like Barcade. There are often antiquated restrictions on video game arcades in zoning law that are aimed solely at kids, to prevent truancy. They make no sense in the modern world, in a place aimed at adults. Check out this list of variances this place needs: "Variances to allow 50 game machines were a maximum of three are permitted, 2 game machines per 100sf of area where a maxi…

That's certainly valid. I'd suggest it's a case where the remedy would be to update the zoning laws, so it's done in a somewhat more transparent fashion.

A developer just got my state to pass a law saying that a particular property in my neighborhood is exempt from our city zoning laws.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#364

Post by agrotera »

astrocyte wrote: post #323
agrotera wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of this works in cycles. There once was a time when people were flocking to the suburbs. Now, it is fashionable to live in the city. American suburbs are something of an anomaly. They've existed for a relatively brief period of time, and they seem to be waning now after a few generations. I think you may be conflating "small town" and "suburb" to some degree, when I wouldn't consider those things to be exactly…

> Suburbs are not an anomaly. They even exist in Europe in good numbers if you get outside city centers. The biggest reason why this is not so apparent to tourist is that they never go outside city centers. Many people commute and Europe has a good transportation network as the U.S will soon have to? Then what .... then city centers become less attractive as you can more easily get to where the action is without livi…

From what you've said, it sounds like SF and the Bay Area may be more of an exception than the rule for the US as a whole. My only experience with it is one trip to Santa Clara, so SF is not what I'm basing my opinion on. Most suburbs that are not immediately outside of a major city are probably what you'd consider pretty podunk.

I've lived in places that really ran the gamut from middle-of-nowhere bible belt where we shared a party line with the few other trailers, podunk suburbs, to a small city, to NYC.

I don't do night-life, and I know a number of other people that don't really do the club/nightlife thing either. So maybe the whole find the beat of your drum/chaos/excitement thing is more referring to that. I have a pretty quiet, boring life in the big city and I love it. I'm a short walk away from a great greenmarket, tons of parks, a great bookstore, tons of good food, coffee, beer, etc., etc. And I never have to drive or sit in traffic.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#365

Post by jkestner »

smackfu wrote: post #356
analog31 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a Variance, and in my county(Marin county) they are never issued anymore. They used to be issued to "good ole boys", but those days are even over.(I'm glad that's the case. Why should just rich boys, or networked boys get what they want?) My dad was on his city's zoning board for a few years. What he learned was that a variance was only supposed to be used in cases where the intent of the zoning ordinance…

A current example is video game bars, like Barcade. There are often antiquated restrictions on video game arcades in zoning law that are aimed solely at kids, to prevent truancy. They make no sense in the modern world, in a place aimed at adults. Check out this list of variances this place needs: "Variances to allow 50 game machines were a maximum of three are permitted, 2 game machines per 100sf of area where a maxi…

An argument for that idea of making laws expire by default unless renewed.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#366

Post by jkestner »

Bostonian wrote: post #179

I see lots of suburb-bashing on this thread. Lots of people like having their own yards, where they can garden, have a barbecue, put a swimming pool, or simply have some space of their own. When you have little kids it's a relief to have your own home and not have complaints from your neighbor downstairs that your kids are making too much noise.

Speaking as a former Bostonian, it's also nice to have a fenced yard to let your dog out in the winter instead of bundling up to walk him around icy sidewalks.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#367

Post by arcosdev »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #63

I'm curious amongst urbanite hackers here: How many would turn down a job at Facebook, Google, Apple or any other company primarily due to their suburban office park nature? Could you see yourself choosing a poorer quality job from an urban company over a better suburban company? Right now I'm a 15 minute bike ride away from my downtown employer. It'd be pretty hard to convince me to give that up. I've done a 30 minu…

It is my number one concern. If I have to drive a car, or commute for more than 45min, the answer is no. I wish recruiters could get this through their thick skulls.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#368

Post by [deleted] »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #63

I'm curious amongst urbanite hackers here: How many would turn down a job at Facebook, Google, Apple or any other company primarily due to their suburban office park nature? Could you see yourself choosing a poorer quality job from an urban company over a better suburban company? Right now I'm a 15 minute bike ride away from my downtown employer. It'd be pretty hard to convince me to give that up. I've done a 30 minu…

[deleted]

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#369

Post by pjlegato »

dredmorbius wrote: post #315
turar wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much stop and go traffic was there in the 50s?

That's about when it started getting bad. The term "Sig Alert", for an unplanned lane closure, originated in LA in 1955. It takes its name from Loyd C. "Sig" Sigmon, who created a radio-based notification system for the California Highway Patrol: Sigmon developed a specialized radio receiver and reel-to-reel tape recorder. When the receiver picked up a particular tone, it would record the subsequent bulletin. The dev…

Bad traffic was mostly limited to a few large cities such as LA then. In most of the US, it was not nearly as bad.

It was also believed that traffic was a fairly minor infrastructure problem that could easily be resolved by widening the highways, adding a few more lanes here and there. (Turns out that when you add lanes, it just causes that many more people to drive on that road, but this was not yet widely apparent at the time.)

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#370

Post by LordKano »

s73v3r wrote: post #358
LordKano wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city in no way subsidizes us. Unless, of course, you mean that because we have the option of not living in the city then they don't get our property tax dollars because we chose to live somewhere else. I pay taxes to my county and my suburban municipality. The city-proper does virtually nothing for me. The city is not entitled to any of my money.

There's also the roads which allow you to get from point A to point B which are subsidizing you, and there's the federal gas subsidy which is also subsidizing your lifestyle. And if the city proper really did nothing for you, then why would you be working there?

There's also the roads which allow you to get from point A to point B which are subsidizing you

Most of which are maintained by the county, to which I pay taxes.

and there's the federal gas subsidy which is also subsidizing your lifestyle.

From the FEDERAL government, to which I also pay taxes.

Much of the road maintenance is also done by the state government, to which I pay taxes as well.

And if the city proper really did nothing for you, then why would you be working there?

Because decades ago, my employer put offices in the city and it's more expensive to move them than it is to stay put.

Not all of us are working for start-ups. Some of us have employers that predate the interstate highway system.

As telecommuting becomes more of a factor, I will spend less and less time in the city. Hopefully, it'll get to the point where I spend one day here every five years.

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