8 ms·

I don't have a problem with driving. I like driving, but I wouldn't enjoy having to do it for an hour every day. It's car dependence that sucks about suburbia.

I don't have a problem with driving. I like driving, but I wouldn't enjoy having to do it for an hour every day. It's car dependence that sucks about suburbia. When everyone drives because everyone has to do so, you get a mess: traffic, sprawl, loss of community, ugly places not worth caring about.

hugh3 17y ago
In which case the solution is just better suburb design. Make sure there's an area zoned commercial within twenty minutes' walk of nearly every house. Big enough to support at least a small supermarket plus a few cafes and restaurants, and ideally an elementary school as well. It's bad if you have to drive just to get milk and eggs or to take your kids to school. I grew up in suburban Sydney and was always confused by why Americans derided suburbs so much; but then I saw American suburbs. All they need is better planning. Throw in some more commercial districts, and prevent the building of zillions of identical houses by discouraging a single builder from building hundreds of houses; instead sell individual lots to individuals who can then contract with their own builders.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  The discussion of urbanism in this country has been falsely polarized. The anti-burbs imagine suburbs as necessarily this sprawling mess of wide boulevards and rows of gigantic, identical houses, while the anti-urban imagine city living as necessarily a soulless forest of skyscrapers. There is a happy middle here that isn't talked about very much, even though it is by far the most cost effective and pleasant solution. Slightly OT, but if anyone here ever wants to witness a textbook example of suburbia run amok, creating a wasteland of little value to humanity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga
  - anamax 17y ago
    > The anti-burbs imagine suburbs as necessarily this sprawling mess of wide boulevards and rows of gigantic, identical houses while the anti-urban imagine city living as necessarily a soulless forest of skyscrapers. You're forgetting that many of the suburbians see cities every day because that's where they work.... What fraction of the urban crowd have a comparable experience? ("I grew up in a suburb and hated it" doesn't count.)
    - enf 17y ago
      There are an awful lot of city people too who have to see the suburbs every day for work and are relieved when they get to go home to the city. I am thinking in particular of all the San Franciscans who work in the South Bay.
      - potatolicious 17y ago
        I know many a Microsoftie here in Seattle that suffer a pretty torturous commute to the burbs while living in urban areas.
      - anamax 17y ago
        You really think that driving down 101 (or riding a WiFi bus) and to Castro Street for lunch shows you what living in the South Bay is like? Wowsers. FWIW, almost all of suburban South Bay housing has a grocery store within 20 walking minutes. (There may be a spot in the middle of Atherton that doesn't. The rural areas of Woodside and Portola Valley don't.) I mention that because of the claim above about how to "fix" American suburbs.
        enf 17y ago
        I think that it gives as accurate an idea of what suburban life does as driving into the city to work gives of what city life is like, which is what I was responding to ("You're forgetting that many of the suburbians see cities every day because that's where they work.... What fraction of the urban crowd have a comparable experience?"). I don't think either group of commuters is getting the real experience of the place they are commuting to (the skyscraper forest is not the real city, and the office park is not the real suburb), but I think most members of both groups are legitimately glad when they go home and get away from a place that they don't like to be.
        anamax 17y ago
        > I think that it gives as accurate an idea of what suburban life does as driving into the city to work gives of what city life is like Driving into SF and taking Muni takes you through and over residential neighborhoods. Neither 101 nor 280 are elevated enough to see beyond the biz that line them.
- anamax 17y ago
  > In which case the solution is just better suburb design. Make sure there's an area zoned commercial within twenty minutes' walk of nearly every house. Big enough to support at least a small supermarket plus a few cafes and restaurants, and ideally an elementary school as well. It's bad if you have to drive just to get milk and eggs or to take your kids to school. I'm familiar with a fair number of US suburbs (mostly in California) and that's true of all of them. How about some actual examples of American suburbs for which this isn't true?
potatolicious 17y ago
You also get a gigantic financial burden, particularly on the segment of society that can least afford a gigantic steel-and-rubber money pit. Gentrification has turned affordable housing in dense city centres into a thing of the past - now "downtown living" is purely a luxury, wealthy thing in most cities. This has dealt a great blow to the poor of this country, as they are forced to relocate to suburbs inaccessible via reasonable public transit. To even get to work on time involves buying, insuring, and maintaining a car, which no matter which way you cut it is considerably more expensive than any bus/subway pass I've ever seen. It is often difficult for the middle and upper classes to see just how financially debilitating the car culture has been on the poor. A lot of this is the cultural ingrained notion that driving around is the "right" way to travel, and some bias against transit (smelly, unseemly people, personal safety concerns, etc) - I know some people who live in suburbia, who have come from transit-heavy countries/cities, who would jump at the chance to get rid of at least one car from the garage if they could.
- anamax 17y ago
  > and some bias against transit (smelly, unseemly people, personal safety concerns, etc) Are you arguing that their concerns are not based in fact or that they shouldn't care about such things?
anamax 17y ago
> I like driving, but I wouldn't enjoy having to do it for an hour every day. Good for you. My point is that other people are, wait for it, different. More to the point, they're getting something out of their drive that they value. It's okay that you don't agree with them, but it's not okay to insist that they're wrong or that they don't exist. > When everyone drives because everyone has to do so, you get a mess: traffic, sprawl, loss of community, ugly places not worth caring about. That's your opinion. Their opinion is different. Why doesn't their opinion deserve as much respect as yours?

hugh3 17y ago

In which case the solution is just better suburb design. Make sure there's an area zoned commercial within twenty minutes' walk of nearly every house. Big enough to support at least a small supermarket plus a few cafes and restaurants, and ideally an elementary school as well. It's bad if you have to drive just to get milk and eggs or to take your kids to school. I grew up in suburban Sydney and was always confused by why Americans derided suburbs so much; but then I saw American suburbs. All they need is better planning. Throw in some more commercial districts, and prevent the building of zillions of identical houses by discouraging a single builder from building hundreds of houses; instead sell individual lots to individuals who can then contract with their own builders.

potatolicious 17y ago
The discussion of urbanism in this country has been falsely polarized. The anti-burbs imagine suburbs as necessarily this sprawling mess of wide boulevards and rows of gigantic, identical houses, while the anti-urban imagine city living as necessarily a soulless forest of skyscrapers. There is a happy middle here that isn't talked about very much, even though it is by far the most cost effective and pleasant solution. Slightly OT, but if anyone here ever wants to witness a textbook example of suburbia run amok, creating a wasteland of little value to humanity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga
- anamax 17y ago
  > The anti-burbs imagine suburbs as necessarily this sprawling mess of wide boulevards and rows of gigantic, identical houses while the anti-urban imagine city living as necessarily a soulless forest of skyscrapers. You're forgetting that many of the suburbians see cities every day because that's where they work.... What fraction of the urban crowd have a comparable experience? ("I grew up in a suburb and hated it" doesn't count.)
  - enf 17y ago
    There are an awful lot of city people too who have to see the suburbs every day for work and are relieved when they get to go home to the city. I am thinking in particular of all the San Franciscans who work in the South Bay.
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      I know many a Microsoftie here in Seattle that suffer a pretty torturous commute to the burbs while living in urban areas.
    - anamax 17y ago
      You really think that driving down 101 (or riding a WiFi bus) and to Castro Street for lunch shows you what living in the South Bay is like? Wowsers. FWIW, almost all of suburban South Bay housing has a grocery store within 20 walking minutes. (There may be a spot in the middle of Atherton that doesn't. The rural areas of Woodside and Portola Valley don't.) I mention that because of the claim above about how to "fix" American suburbs.
      - enf 17y ago
        I think that it gives as accurate an idea of what suburban life does as driving into the city to work gives of what city life is like, which is what I was responding to ("You're forgetting that many of the suburbians see cities every day because that's where they work.... What fraction of the urban crowd have a comparable experience?"). I don't think either group of commuters is getting the real experience of the place they are commuting to (the skyscraper forest is not the real city, and the office park is not the real suburb), but I think most members of both groups are legitimately glad when they go home and get away from a place that they don't like to be.
        anamax 17y ago
        > I think that it gives as accurate an idea of what suburban life does as driving into the city to work gives of what city life is like Driving into SF and taking Muni takes you through and over residential neighborhoods. Neither 101 nor 280 are elevated enough to see beyond the biz that line them.
anamax 17y ago
> In which case the solution is just better suburb design. Make sure there's an area zoned commercial within twenty minutes' walk of nearly every house. Big enough to support at least a small supermarket plus a few cafes and restaurants, and ideally an elementary school as well. It's bad if you have to drive just to get milk and eggs or to take your kids to school. I'm familiar with a fair number of US suburbs (mostly in California) and that's true of all of them. How about some actual examples of American suburbs for which this isn't true?

potatolicious 17y ago

You also get a gigantic financial burden, particularly on the segment of society that can least afford a gigantic steel-and-rubber money pit. Gentrification has turned affordable housing in dense city centres into a thing of the past - now "downtown living" is purely a luxury, wealthy thing in most cities. This has dealt a great blow to the poor of this country, as they are forced to relocate to suburbs inaccessible via reasonable public transit. To even get to work on time involves buying, insuring, and maintaining a car, which no matter which way you cut it is considerably more expensive than any bus/subway pass I've ever seen. It is often difficult for the middle and upper classes to see just how financially debilitating the car culture has been on the poor. A lot of this is the cultural ingrained notion that driving around is the "right" way to travel, and some bias against transit (smelly, unseemly people, personal safety concerns, etc) - I know some people who live in suburbia, who have come from transit-heavy countries/cities, who would jump at the chance to get rid of at least one car from the garage if they could.

anamax 17y ago
> and some bias against transit (smelly, unseemly people, personal safety concerns, etc) Are you arguing that their concerns are not based in fact or that they shouldn't care about such things?

anamax 17y ago

> I like driving, but I wouldn't enjoy having to do it for an hour every day. Good for you. My point is that other people are, wait for it, different. More to the point, they're getting something out of their drive that they value. It's okay that you don't agree with them, but it's not okay to insist that they're wrong or that they don't exist. > When everyone drives because everyone has to do so, you get a mess: traffic, sprawl, loss of community, ugly places not worth caring about. That's your opinion. Their opinion is different. Why doesn't their opinion deserve as much respect as yours?