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The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

nytimes.com

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Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#101

Post by alkonaut »

chrismealy wrote: post #66
alkonaut wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said that too. And I'm not a millenial but a 70's kid. And then I had kids of my own and now I can't imagine not having a car to stuff the kids into, or a big backyard so I don't have to walk to the park with them to play. It's not like I wan't to drive everywhere, it's just the tradeoff I'm happy to accept in order to have a house with a big backyard for the kids to play in. So this is nothing new. People have alw…

You have to drive everywhere because everything is so far apart to make room for all the roads and parking and setbacks to avoid the problems created by all the cars.

Partly true, although I'm not even in a sprawled suburb, it's rather compact and well connected with public transport - but still once I have the house I almost can't go without a car because of all the stuff you need when you have (and maintain) a house.

Also some things are far apart by definition. Going fishing, to the forest, or just the Sunday morning hockey practice etc is part of "the package" of stuff you can do with a house and car. I Wouldn't trade those for a situation where my house was much closer to work and the area more dense, but I'd have no car.

The one thing that could revolutionize this is rental car pools with self driving cars. In the urban areas where parking is a hassle and the shared cars are always parked nearby, shared cars is becoming more common. That doesn't work in the suburb though. If I could summon a shared car when I need it, I wouldn't need a car of my own. That would mean the suburbs could be denser and have less cars.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#102

Post by tonyedgecombe »

paulddraper wrote: post #62
alkonaut wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said that too. And I'm not a millenial but a 70's kid. And then I had kids of my own and now I can't imagine not having a car to stuff the kids into, or a big backyard so I don't have to walk to the park with them to play. It's not like I wan't to drive everywhere, it's just the tradeoff I'm happy to accept in order to have a house with a big backyard for the kids to play in. So this is nothing new. People have alw…

And a car is darn convenient for a family-sized weekly grocery trip.

I'm surprised you don't have better delivery options in the US, in the UK the main supermarkets all offer good internet ordering.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#103

Post by amigoingtodie »

eastWestMath wrote: post #92
burntsushi wrote: post #79

I'm a millennial, and it made me sick to read this. It made me glad that I live where I live. I don't live in the suburbs in spite of having my own discrete unit; I live in the suburbs precisely because I have my own discrete unit. I want my own backyard so that I can go and enjoy sitting by a fire with music I like without ever needing to worry that I might have to compete with others on a cool Friday night in Autum…

So basically you like to live in the suburbs for antisocial reasons, and you your argument against the research showing suburbs are an ecological disaster boils down to "nuh-uh".

Not that I agree completely with the original comment, but I, too, feel like when visiting a 'city', I am competing for resources.

I do not enjoy this adversarial feeling.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#104

Post by perpetualcrayon »

Community planners should really think about how to "modularize" / "componentize" neighborhoods. What's valuable to the next generation may end up being despised by future generations. Also human civilization is only at the infancy of what technology will be capable of.

Unfortunately capitalism as a concept causes buyers and sellers to only concern themselves with the immediate future. "Can I sell this to someone tomorrow?"

A lot of industries can afford this short-sightedness, but there is only so much physical space (and orders of magnitude less that is livable) on the planet.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#105

Post by tosser350 »

burntsushi wrote: post #79

I'm a millennial, and it made me sick to read this. It made me glad that I live where I live. I don't live in the suburbs in spite of having my own discrete unit; I live in the suburbs precisely because I have my own discrete unit. I want my own backyard so that I can go and enjoy sitting by a fire with music I like without ever needing to worry that I might have to compete with others on a cool Friday night in Autum…

Millennials are being prepped to be the new serfs. They'll live on the land of their lords, riding in cars they don't own, using subscription services and software they don't own, working "gigs" with no rights, all of which can be revoked the minute they step out of line or run out of money.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#106

Post by pavel_lishin »

amyjess wrote: post #27
rayiner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburbs aren’t necessarily low density, though they usually are. In places like New York, many “suburbs” are just small satellite cities well connected to the downtown core with rail.

I don't know if NY suburbs are a great example, though. Things are much more spread out and loosey-goosey there than in younger cities. Here's Plano, TX, which was mostly developed in the '90s and the 21st century: https://i.imgur.com/TmIlgBh.jpg Here's Westchester County, NY, developed much earlier than that and not nearly as dense: https://i.imgur.com/pSIettu.jpg (I used Google Maps zoom level 14 for both screensho…

Never been to Westchester, except on a train passing through, but I am intimately familiar with Plano. It's dense, but most of it is a poster child for shitty suburbs: if you don't have a car, you're fucked. (Take a bus, you say? What bus? When I was living around there, most of Plano wasn't served by buses.)

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#108

Post by ido »

afpx wrote: post #70
paulddraper wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salt Lake. Free bus + train in city center; yearly ticket outside of that. Every big city has mass transit to at some degree. IDK what your specific requirements are though.

Interesting. I've never been to Salt Lake City. Where are some good places to live? I did a look in Zillow, and there are a few houses within 30 minute commute for under 300k. Most seem above 350k and further than 30 min, though. Which still isn't bad. But, assuming around $2,000 / month for mortgage and taxes, I'd have to make $120k+, gross, to have it be 20% of my income. Are there a lot of jobs there that pay that…

The rule of thumb is for housing to be up to 1/3 of your net pay, not 20%.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#109

Post by muninn_ »

irrational wrote: post #94
edwhitesell wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dallas This is entirely true of the area. Affordability of nice housing is easily in-budget, even on a single income. If you don't mind a commute, multiple acres of land is also an option. I just recevied an ad in the mail today for 5+ acre lots on a lake, 30 minutes from Dallas starting at $189k. We moved from Dallas to Seattle 4 years ago for family. We moved back to Dallas after 18 months due to housing costs. O…

But, then you have to live in Dallas! I'm only half kidding. I live in Portland and I love the rain, the trees, the mountains, the wildfire smoke (kidding), etc. of the PNW.

You're right, to an extent. I've said this before and I'll say it again: living in areas like NYC or SF is a luxury. It's a luxury just like a Porsche SUV. For whatever reason people still think that they should pay Dallas prices for Manhattan homes. It's insanity.

For me it's not so bad (I don't live in Dallas but live elsewhere that would be considered "you have to live there?" But if you make enough money you can afford to travel to all the cool places just long enough that the novelty of walking by homeless people on the street or driving out to Yosemite or something hasn't worn off.

Re: The Suburb of the Future, Almost Here

#110

Post by jtraffic »

Times nods to the fact that millennials are not as homogeneous as society thinks:

> millennials, who, as it turns out, are not a monolithic generation

Then, I feel they go right back to the attitude in a new context:

> Yet millennial suburbanites want a new kind of landscape.

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