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Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

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Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#481

Post by stouset »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #298
jacobolus wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easier to sit out in the suburbs, but the layout and infrastructure don’t generally encourage walking around, so there are a lot fewer neighbors walking past.

Generally, surburbs are better at encouraging walking/cycling around (since there's very little traffic), but worse at encouraging people to walk to commercial areas (since they're usually far away and the path there is unpleasant). In my experience, you're far more likely to see kids biking/wandering around neighborhoods in the suburbs than in the city. This is the reason why people want things like cul-de-sacs, bec…

> Generally, surburbs are better at encouraging walking/cycling around

Having lived in both, this is just categorically untrue.

Cities are filled with pedestrians and cyclists. Both recreationally and for practical purposes. In a given hour I might see over a hundred pedestrians outside my window and perhaps twenty cyclists. This would be an order of magnitude higher if I was on a commercial corridor or actually busy street.

In contrast you might see ten pedestrians a day in most parts of the suburbs. And maybe one or two cyclists, unless you leave your neighborhood.

Suburbs also have far worse traffic. City streets have small roads and slow-moving vehicles. Suburbs have giant thoroughfares and fast-moving vehicles. As a pedestrian and cyclists, I know which of the two I’d rather be in.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#482

Post by thePhytochemist »

bongodongobob wrote: post #452
dm03514 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experiences of living in suburbs for 30 years, I’ve seen the default is to ignore neighbors. I don’t really get this. Our communities have so much in common and so much overlap, we shop at the same stores, go to the same parks, get stuck in the same traffic, our kids are at the same schools,our neighbors care for us medically, teach our kids, maintain our dwellings, work on our cars, and contribute to our local…

My neighbors are fucking assholes. We don't shop at the same stores, or see each other at the park, we don't have kids, or work on cars. One neighbor doesn't like me because they don't like dogs and I have a dog. The other is just a mean, bitter, old lady. Not everyone is nice and friendly dude.

I suppose the trick is that these people won't come out and drink coffee with you! The people who do come out will be more fun and social, and these two you mention would just stay home like usual.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#483

Post by throwawayq3423 »

czhu12 wrote: post #94

Really heart warming story. My 2 cents: The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling. No new members will feel like they can actually send a message into a 100+ person group, while the old guard starts to use it as a notification board, rather than a real chat. Eventually, newer member…

> The group is at a critical point now, having ~100 Whatsapp members. From what I've seen this creates a chilling effect where you inevitably end up with cliques and social cooling.

I'd like to see an analysis of how and when group chats get so big they start to die.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#484

Post by tptacek »

lolinder wrote: post #455
dionidium wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that people in practice use the word "suburb" to talk about all these different things, but that just reinforces that the word isn't very useful. Oak Park and Naperville are both "suburbs," but this reveals nothing to us. In fact, it mostly obfuscates.

A suburb is outside of the city in low density housing, typically not within walking distance of anything. That reveals plenty for a lot of purposes, and if you want to critique something more specific than that you should use a word that people will recognize as being more specific than that. Clearly the author of TFA believed that this was the definition of suburb, because they were clearly thinking of a space wher…

There is nobody in Chicago who would describe Oak Park and Evanston as anything other than "suburbs". You'd get laughed at if you called them "the city".

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#485

Post by tptacek »

lolinder wrote: post #415
throwaway894345 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you’re making the same sort of NTS argument here, aren’t you? > Some suburbs are like what you describe, but most are exactly like what OP links to. Without defining what constitutes a suburb, how can you argue that most are good? Your argument hinges on your own definition of suburb IMHO. I’m not sure what the right answer is, but in my experience most people mean post-war development patterns when they talk…

No, I'm not, because I'm not saying that what you are identifying as a suburb isn't a suburb, I'm saying it's not representative of all suburbs. I provide a perfectly valid definition: > You're far enough the urban core that you probably have to drive to get to shops and jobs, but close enough to the urban core that you don't pass through farmland to get there. Since my definition is broader it's less susceptible to…

That is a definition you're making up to suit an argument you're making. It's not the actual definition of the term. Anybody can just look it up and see that! The Oxford Languages dataset that Google uses for the definition literally uses Chicago's suburbs as an example.

And, seriously, who cares? Why would you want your argument to die on this hill? What could it possibly matter?

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#486

Post by mcculley »

bluGill wrote: post #281
mcculley wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with suburbs is different from yours. I have lived in places where walking is downright dangerous because the architecture is oriented around cars and the drivers are not accustomed to yielding to pedestrians. Many homes are designed such that the inhabitants rarely use the front door, using only the garage.

That doesn't sound like suburbs I know. The streets are so empty you can safely walk down the middle of them most of the time. People don't, but you could. (kids used to play baseball/basketball in the streets, stopping play when cars come). Of course to get anywhere you need to leave and so it is never far for a major road that is dangerous to be near.

I am sure that you have seen some pedestrian friendly suburbs. So have I. I never said that they are all hostile to pedestrians. Some are designed for people instead of cars. It is rare.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#487

Post by dionidium »

lolinder wrote: post #456
dionidium wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some US cities incorporated their lower-density "streetcar suburbs" over the years and other US cities didn't. This is why "Kansas City" proper has literal farmland [0] within its city limits, while "St. Louis" proper [1] on the other side of the state doesn't even include most of the skyscraper development that's occurred there within the last 40 years. This is entirely arbitrary and knowing whether a particular pla…

They're pretty clearly not using "the city" to refer to city but instead to a certain density threshold, so pointing out that city limits are arbitrary doesn't really help anything.

What you're describing is called "agreement." I'm very plainly arguing that if the distinction between "city" and "suburb" is to mean anything at all, then it can't just be about what's within municipal boundaries and what isn't.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#488

Post by lolinder »

dionidium wrote: post #487
lolinder wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're pretty clearly not using "the city" to refer to city but instead to a certain density threshold, so pointing out that city limits are arbitrary doesn't really help anything.

What you're describing is called "agreement." I'm very plainly arguing that if the distinction between "city" and "suburb" is to mean anything at all, then it can't just be about what's within municipal boundaries and what isn't.

So you were agreeing with OP's comment, not disagreeing?

> Nobody I know would call that street the city. In my mind, "the city" is, minimally, houses that are a few feet apart, small yard in back/front, pretty much nothing on the side. Frequently, it's 2-3 story buildings, with whole floors rented out as an apartment. That's my "least dense" vision of a city. Anything less than that (ie, full yards) falls into my vision of suburb.

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#489

Post by lolinder »

tptacek wrote: post #484
lolinder wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A suburb is outside of the city in low density housing, typically not within walking distance of anything. That reveals plenty for a lot of purposes, and if you want to critique something more specific than that you should use a word that people will recognize as being more specific than that. Clearly the author of TFA believed that this was the definition of suburb, because they were clearly thinking of a space wher…

There is nobody in Chicago who would describe Oak Park and Evanston as anything other than "suburbs". You'd get laughed at if you called them "the city".

Right. I'm not at all sure why some people on here think "suburb" is only meant to refer to a very specific type of housing development, rather than a description of a location's spatial and cultural relationship to "the city".

Re: Stoop Coffee: A simple idea transformed my neighborhood

#490

Post by lolinder »

stouset wrote: post #480
lolinder wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there's some idea that suburbs by definition don't have sidewalks and have half acre lots with oversized McMansions. If that's your definition of suburb, I take it back: I've never lived in a suburb. But I also strongly question the utility that definition for discourse like this. If some people here think that a suburb has to be the absolute worst stereotype of NIMBY living to count as a suburb and others…

Suburbs have sidewalks but nowhere to walk to . Yes, counterexamples exist. But the vast majority of American suburbia is quite like what you describe: isolated homes with very low density where the only way to get to anything you’d want to do is drive, even within the neighborhood! I don’t have a front yard in my home in the city. But I do have a million things outside my front door. So I walk to them, and I see and…

But you know what suburbs typically do have? Pleasant areas to walk in.

I walk my dog and meet neighbors who are sitting outside their houses. I also sit outside my house and meet neighbors who are out walking their dogs or just out for a stroll.

When I've spent time in big cities I simply don't see this, because there aren't good places to walk dogs and it's generally unpleasant to just be out in the street for the sake of it.

The idea that all suburbs are isolated nightmarish hellscapes of pavement and car accidents is some combination of a myth spread by city dwellers and a minority experience in a few types of McMansion housing developments.

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