451–454 of 454 posts
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s/sticks/Styx Fwiw, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx
“'In the sticks' is just a reference to an area where there are lots of twigs, that is, the countryside.” https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/in-the-sticks.html
It doesn't make sense as a description of where people live, but [English] language rarely makes sense.
Thanks for your reply.
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I live in one of these small European towns. It is honestly mind boggling how far some people drive to go to work here. I'm in The Netherlands around Eindhoven. We have colleagues in Den Bosch, Utrecht and Maastricht driving to work every week. Eindhoven is full of commuters. Some people take the train, but that isn't always convenient, especially with strikes! Your boss doesn't care that you were 3 hours late due to…
> Back in America, most people I knew lived and worked in the same general region/city. Perhaps this is a uniquely Dutch problem This isn't a uniquely Dutch problem. The longest commute you mentioned: Utrecht -> Eindhoven: 1 hr 4 min (92.2 km) isn't unheard of in the US. These are the commutes for a cousin, and a friend's uncle: Colorado Springs, CO -> Denver, CO: 1 hr 19 min (113.5 km) New Britain, CT -> New York, N…
The Northeast US is also an outlier because they have commuter rail that can reliably connect places like DC to Baltimore or NYC to Philly.
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Older inner denser suburbs, especially those served by mass transit, aren't the issue. It's exurban sprawl.
Those older suburbs are not much denser and they often often don't have transit. People who lived in streetcar suburbs generally expected go get a significant amount of food from their garden which meant lots had to be fairly big, and if you look you discover they were larger lots than current suburbs (or at least that is the case near me). The newer suburbs tend to have dense apartments someplace as well bringing th…
It's the opposite in my 1920s streetcar neighborhood (alas without streetcars today). The average lot size is 1/10 acre. That's enough for some small scale gardening (tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli), but nothing that is going to produce a significant amount of food. Walking distance grocery stores (and even street produce vendors) were a big thing in those days. Cars were shoehorned in during the 1950s.
Our lots are tiny compared to the typical suburban California lot, which is more like 1/4 acre, and dwarfed by typical American suburban lot sizes.
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The issue with the megalawn is that it wastes water, a shared resource, create weed killer runoff issues and generally bad for the local flora/fauna, which again, are shared in ways which aren't obvious, and costs more carbon to sustain. It's an embarrassment of riches. To dispair and disagree is human, if you think you can't change people's minds then that's a self fulfilling prophecy. In the case of your family mem…
In large parts of the US you do not need to water you lawn as rain will provide all the water you need. You never need to put weed killer on a lawn, just a regular mowing (ideally with a reel push mower) will be enough. Most of what people call weeds are harmless biodiversity. In some parts of the US lawns are native grass, though that isn't common. Understand that most people over manage their lawns. You can get you…