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Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

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Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#331

Post by lolinder »

everly wrote: post #179
donw wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fits with my experience living in SF: people might look different, but if you were to be blindfolded and talk to a group of them, you would struggle mightily to pick out any substantial differences between individuals.

Sounds like you're thinking inside of a fairly small bubble. If you picked 10 people, at random, from the 800k residents, I assure you that there would be substantial differences. Off the top of my head, you might get SF State students, tech bros, Chinatown senior citizens who have never left an 8-block radius and don't speak english, Marina moms, Mission District multi-gen families. I mean, come on. Maybe if you wer…

The point is that no one in practice selects a random sample of the people living near them. Everyone they meet is from some self-selected sub-group—the people who live close to X park, the people who work at Y place, the people who shop at Z store. And the larger the city, the more people there are nearby you who are like you, so your total variety experienced will be smaller unless you're actively going out of your way to go places that you don't normally enjoy.

So while OP may be wrong about a random sample of people in SF, they're probably correct about the people that they know in SF.

In a small town everyone shops at the same store, visits the same parks, works out at the same gym. There's only one library and a few restaurants, so there are fewer opportunities to self-select into smaller groups.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#333

Post by lazide »

goodpoint wrote: post #302
lazide wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The socio-economic landscape in the US means where it is cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely correlated with economic opportunity. And in the US, people can move easily. So kids usually have a a choice - either stay where they grew up, and live with reduced economic opportunities (actually very common, but those folks aren’t usually posting all over the Internet about it). Or move to where the ec…

> cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely correlated with economic opportunity That's the problem. Due to car culture and zoning policies etc.

It’s likely always been that way. Cities are crowded and more expensive, but have more jobs and opportunities. Rural areas are boring, but cheaper.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#334

Post by rors »

aylmao wrote: post #143
wenc wrote: post #6

I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I moved back. I’m the type who needs to always be learning. So I would always need to be in a big city. Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, “the big contribution of cities is randomness.” And he continues: “You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisel…

> Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, “the big contribution of cities is randomness.” And he continues: “You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisely because you meet people who are different from you, who have different ideas. Sometime even it could be obnoxious people. I think obnoxious people — I mean, what I consider obnoxious — are necessary in order to stimulate.”…

I wonder if the homogeneity has come from gentrification and high property prices. NYC might have been a crime-ridden dump in the 60s, but it was cheap enough that Andy Warhol could afford to rent a massive studio. And a modern day Leonard Cohen wouldn't be welcome in the Chelsea Hotel.

Now you have to be a lawyer or work in finance to hope to even get a modest sized apartment in NYC.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#335

Post by dukeyukey »

bluGill wrote: post #309
dukeyukey wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ironic thing is that Latin Americans are largely descended from people who left one continent and set up a new life literally a continent away. Like, your ancestors were the kind of people to sail thousands of miles to create a new life.

Right, and then we put down roots. People move. some of the people who stetted their have moved on again, but a core remains with roots. Maybe those people will all move away, but I doubt it - humans still live in Africa.

More that they described it as "very foreign" when it literally is not. The people who didn't live in Spain and Portugal!

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#336

Post by vel0city »

CalRobert wrote: post #183
vel0city wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a suburban house with a backyard that opened to many acres of swamplands and nature preserves. It was also a bicycle ride away to go to a few different parks, the movie and video game rental store in the same strip as a corner store with all kinds of snacks and ice cream, go visit Space Center Houston, go fishing on the lake, and even take a canoe all the way to the bay. I had friends in my neighborhood,…

I'm curious what suburb you're in, that sounds nice. Grade separated bike trails and train service is something most suburbs in the US lack (though they might have recreational bike trails that don't go to the centre of town). Visiting Houten in the Netherlands is a reminder that you can have a boring suburb that still gives kids freedom.

My childhood was in Clear Lake (just outside of Houston, Southeast side, near the bay), I live in Richardson today.

And yes I do agree many suburbs aren't like this. They should be IMO, if we're going to keep building suburbs.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#337

Post by d0liver »

wbl wrote: post #326
motorest wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a common trope on here to lament on how the Anglo cultures don't value family ties strongly enough. I'd argue not overly valuing family ties has been a big competitive advantage of the Anglo cultures for centuries, eg. moving for opportunity (improved social mobility), ability to connect with outsiders, couple pairing across cultural/geographical boundaries, prerequisite to a high trust society, etc. That line…

Someone else? My brother the US median income is miles ahead of everywhere else.

Income alone is not a good measure.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#338

Post by lazide »

the_af wrote: post #320
lazide wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More $$$ is a strong motivator. Latin American tends to be unsafe (physically), but the money probably plays a bigger motivating factor. Remittances and ‘doing it for the family back home’ are common themes.

> Latin American tends to be unsafe (physically) Depending on which country and which city, Latin American cities are not more dangerous than risky US cities. Many of our cities are reasonably safe. There are burglaries, muggings and robbery like in most big cities all over the world -- no more, and no less. There are some "trouble" hot spots that are particularly dangerous, of course. The same can be said of the US.

Risky US cities are pretty risky though. Which is why I said that.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#339

Post by vel0city »

mlinhares wrote: post #282
vel0city wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reminder that there was no cultural preference, this was done (like in other places) to keep the industrial engine running, mainly carmakers. Sounds like you've barely talked to people living in suburbs. A ton of the people I talk to are very pro-SFH, big easements, lot restrictions, etc. Go to a city council meeting talking about rezoning for higher density. Tell me how all those people are on the car manufacturer…

They didn't want this, they've been made to want this because that's what society expects out of them, due to how public transportation in this country sucks everywhere and the infrastructure in big cities is a joke. Worse, having kids in such places is terrible as childcare is expensive, there are few parks or things to do with kids that don't require you to pay for it, and the city itself isn't made for kids on str…

These people can vote against this kind of zoning and can vote for transit and densification. But instead they show up in droves to city council meetings to fight against it as much as they can. They keep choosing to move further outwards once public transit expands and "the wrong people" start moving in. They complain about the neighborhood "losing its character".

You've got your head in the sand if you think these people don't exist in large numbers in suburban USA.

A few of the member cities of DART have talked about reducing funding to public transit. For a lot of the people I know, they say "great!". You act like these people don't exist.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#340

Post by marsovo »

User23 wrote: post #155
vel0city wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are kind of missing the point. You can live in a small town that might be 1-2 hours separated by the next town and still not be "rural". You're still living an urban life, not a rural life. It's not like you need your town to be >1M people for it to be "urban". There's small town urban, there's a big city urban, and there's rural. Do you actually live in a place statistically considered urban or rural? If you hav…

> If you have multiple chain restaurants in your town, you're almost assuredly not "rural". By this standard, there are no rural communities east of the Mississippi. Is that congruent with what you intend to say?

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