591–600 of 645 posts
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Surely, you could provide some photographic evidence (own or other sources) that prove your comparisons then?
This is trolling. You don't compare pictures (pixel level?) to describe similarities between places.
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As usual, it depends. As more people buy upscale gear (Miele or Oreck come to mind), they last much longer and are designed with servicing in mind. And the local vacuum shop services almost every vacuum around. Most vacuums are easy to fix assuming the motor isn't shot. It's replacing a frayed power cord, or a belt/beater. It's kind of similar to how good shoes can be resoled.
I had an Oreck years ago, I thought it was a good brand, it looked solid, ads made a big deal of it being lightweight and used by hotels...but it didn't suck. And I thought that's just the way things are. But I got a Hoover upright, which was much cheaper, looks cheaper, like a toy, mostly garish purple plastic, and is also much heavier. But it sucks up an order of magnitude more dirt. It's bagless, which some people…
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A friend of my brother is South Asian and grew up in Mobile, AL in the 1990's. Said he had zero issues with race and more racial diversity in his neighborhood than where he lives now in Silicon Valley.
I know two South Asian women from Mobile and one of them had pretty big racial issues in HS.
I mean my brother in laws mixed-Asian kids get bullied on the bus in SF, but hey, we’re in a Blue State (tm) do no problem there.
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Florida is pretty terrible. Even if you are totally cool with never doing anything outside, never engaging in culture, and never talking to other people, there is literally no positive side to living in Florida other than the combined lack of winter and access to a beach. Sure, people are more right-wing, but I'd much rather live in Texas than Florida. Even a desert is more interesting than endless strip-malls, and b…
What parts of Florida have you lived in?
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==This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch.== It's also out of touch to assume every family in "the city" lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with no yard. Lots of families in my city (Chicago) live in 3 story walk-ups, duplex-downs or even single family homes which all have yards. Perhaps we could all be a little more open-minded about how other people live.
A 3 story walk up is going to be a 2 br apartment in most cases, and may have a shared outdoor space but it’ll cost as much as a large house in the suburbs with a big garage and 2 big lawns.
Based on what metric?
Here [1] is a three-bedroom apartment in one of Chicago's nicest areas (Ravenswood/Lincoln Square), with heat/water included, right by the Brown Line for $2,100/month.
Find me the large house in the suburbs that will run you $2,100/month. Don't forget to include the 20% down payment, on-going maintenance, utilities, and an additional car.
[1] https://www.apartments.com/4742-n-oakley-ave-chicago-il/4d99...
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The people I know who have pulled their kids from public schools are either homeschooling or enrolling in online charter schools. This allows for a great degree of autonomy, and basically lets kids learn via whatever platform works for them. I've heard about people using informal platforms like Outschool and more formalized courses from Beast Academy or Potter.
Online school can be a boon for the right type of student, especially if they have strong parental support. It can also be the end of the line for students who don't have that. My district has historically used the "online academy" as the dumping ground for kids they need to keep on the enrollment roster but that they don't want on campus or know won't bother showing. I don't know how things have changed since they q…
For example, a family may well be able to live off of one salary in their new location, freeing up the second parent to spend more time with/educating kids.
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There's no reason (besides inertia) that we can't have both. This is how thriving smaller downtowns are, single family homes within walking distance to amenities. It's just that all those areas get really expensive because there are so few of them. But there don't have to be so few places like that.
Afaict, the primary driver of non-walkable suburbs is neighborhood layout, which is driven by maximizing house:land ratio. I live in a suburban master planned development now that oriented itself around the residential-commercial interface. Having previously lived in an urban core, it's not too much of a downgrade. Sure, you inevitably trade local for chain (boo!), because that's who the anchor tenants originally wer…
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I'm paying over $1000/month through my employer for a high deductible health plan. So I'm contributing to an HSA on top of that.
That does not sound like a good price at all. Can I ask if you have shopped around? I think that you can decline all coverage from your employer and buy directly.
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> Because cafes and bread from bakeries are (relative) luxuries. Even if it's just $1 more a coffee/loaf that adds up to significant money over a year. That's the thing that I think people miss. Scale makes things cheaper and to have scale at retail you need to pull customers from a large area. I wonder if all those loaves of bread and coffees cost more than tires, having 2 or 3 cars, obesity, and lost productivity f…
Small towns in the US already work similarly to European towns, though a bit more straightforward (pun intended). The town itself is pretty self-sufficient, usually has a co-op, general store, single main road going through downtown, sidewalks, etc. Larger cities do have suburbs like you're describing, but generally they do have their own amenities like fast food courts / grocery stores / school systems near the entr…
There's at least one, but not more than a few, exceptions in each state (Asheville, NC for example) where people move in with their money to larp "small town living" but it depends on outside capital to work and the original residents end up getting priced out.
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Roads alone cost $2-3M/mile and last 30 years. Amortized, that's on the order of $100k/yr/mile. In a city, that would be $100k / 10 city blocks, probably 100 parcels with 100-1000 low-to-mid rise housing units. In a rural area it might be just 10 housing units, at the cost of $10k/yr/parcel. And productivity in rural areas is 2-3x lower, so it's even higher as a percentage of per-capita GDP. Add on top of that electr…
And urban Americans only survive due to crops produced in rural areas.
Rural areas also consume goods and services from urban areas, but nonetheless they supported the SALT rollback for "fairness."