3 ms·

But that is crazy. If you look deeper, why would you want to work separately from where you live? Like, "wanting what's best for [your] families" /could/ be tha

by spraak 10y ago

But that is crazy. If you look deeper, why would you want to work separately from where you live? Like, "wanting what's best for [your] families" /could/ be that you don't need a long commute, AND where you live is nice :) It's shallow thinking that the only way to have a safe living environment is to separate it from where you work.

closeparen 10y ago
>why would you want to work separately from where you live? Because separately, $300,000 is a beautiful 3bd/2ba house with a finished basement and a backyard in a safe, pleasant neighborhood with excellent services and infrastructure. Together, it is maybe a "junior 1-bedroom" condo in a former industrial area just starting its gentrification curve where you really shouldn't let the 12-year-old walk the dog alone at night. >It's shallow thinking It's economics. High density apartments offer less space at higher cost.
- tbihl 10y ago
  The problem with this conversation (European 'let's walk everywhere' vs. American 'don't tell me how to live') is that it tends to rely on wrong assumptions from both sides, though obviously I can't read the minds of parent and GP. In the US we aggressively subsidize low-density living through school busing, infrastructure, the secondary market for federally insured single family home mortgages, and many other programs. So Europeans have a hard time recognizing that telling us to live in walkable places is like telling us to spit into the wind in so many parts of the country (after all, if a commute is bad for family, how about moving hundreds of miles from relatives?) Meanwhile, we Americans have a hard time recognizing that we're making choices on a severely biased playing field that discourages the living patterns that humans have used since the dawn of civilization. We'll get back to the old way eventually, but it's going to hurt bad for a lot of people.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    "The old way" is subsistence agriculture. If we're really going back there, we'll be too busy wrestling with questions like "will the harvest be enough to feed me this year?" and "will my child die of this treatable infection?" and "what are cars?" to worry about parking :). >it's going to hurt bad for a lot of people. Well yes, anything that ends the economic conditions which make current residential arrangements appropriate will have significant consequences.
  - mzw_mzw 10y ago
    It's so generous of you to acknowledge how both sides are wrong: Americans are wrong to want to live the way they do, while Europeans are wrong to not realize how severely deluded, wasteful, and out of touch with humanity Americans are.
    - tbihl 10y ago
      Sure, you could express it that way, but mine includes some empathy, whereas yours is so carefully protected against the possibility of anyone benefitting from it: not Americans, because you're pushing us away by calling us stupid; and not Europeans, because you don't attempt to help anyone understand why others are so determined to be wrong.
- spraak 10y ago
  You're still stuck in the broken mindset. The whole idea of suburbs was an invention. And what I'm saying is, invent something new! I don't discount that you need to start with where you're at, the day to day practicality of what isn't yet available, but to always dream of what only already exists is boring and deadening
  - closeparen 10y ago
    The only place I'm stuck is between untenably high rents and miserable overcrowded public transit routes.

by spraak 10y ago

closeparen 10y ago

>why would you want to work separately from where you live? Because separately, $300,000 is a beautiful 3bd/2ba house with a finished basement and a backyard in a safe, pleasant neighborhood with excellent services and infrastructure. Together, it is maybe a "junior 1-bedroom" condo in a former industrial area just starting its gentrification curve where you really shouldn't let the 12-year-old walk the dog alone at night. >It's shallow thinking It's economics. High density apartments offer less space at higher cost.

tbihl 10y ago
The problem with this conversation (European 'let's walk everywhere' vs. American 'don't tell me how to live') is that it tends to rely on wrong assumptions from both sides, though obviously I can't read the minds of parent and GP. In the US we aggressively subsidize low-density living through school busing, infrastructure, the secondary market for federally insured single family home mortgages, and many other programs. So Europeans have a hard time recognizing that telling us to live in walkable places is like telling us to spit into the wind in so many parts of the country (after all, if a commute is bad for family, how about moving hundreds of miles from relatives?) Meanwhile, we Americans have a hard time recognizing that we're making choices on a severely biased playing field that discourages the living patterns that humans have used since the dawn of civilization. We'll get back to the old way eventually, but it's going to hurt bad for a lot of people.
- closeparen 10y ago
  "The old way" is subsistence agriculture. If we're really going back there, we'll be too busy wrestling with questions like "will the harvest be enough to feed me this year?" and "will my child die of this treatable infection?" and "what are cars?" to worry about parking :). >it's going to hurt bad for a lot of people. Well yes, anything that ends the economic conditions which make current residential arrangements appropriate will have significant consequences.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  It's so generous of you to acknowledge how both sides are wrong: Americans are wrong to want to live the way they do, while Europeans are wrong to not realize how severely deluded, wasteful, and out of touch with humanity Americans are.
  - tbihl 10y ago
    Sure, you could express it that way, but mine includes some empathy, whereas yours is so carefully protected against the possibility of anyone benefitting from it: not Americans, because you're pushing us away by calling us stupid; and not Europeans, because you don't attempt to help anyone understand why others are so determined to be wrong.
spraak 10y ago
You're still stuck in the broken mindset. The whole idea of suburbs was an invention. And what I'm saying is, invent something new! I don't discount that you need to start with where you're at, the day to day practicality of what isn't yet available, but to always dream of what only already exists is boring and deadening
- closeparen 10y ago
  The only place I'm stuck is between untenably high rents and miserable overcrowded public transit routes.