8 ms·

We just recently moved from a city to the burbs. Our choice was multi-factored. It was price of a bigger house, better schools, less congestion and crime. My

We just recently moved from a city to the burbs. Our choice was multi-factored. It was price of a bigger house, better schools, less congestion and crime. My old house was 900sf, perfect for 1 to 2 people, but it got cramped when my son was born. We looked into expanding but for the cost of adding a room with a bathroom ($100k) we decided that it wasn't worth it. With schools we got lucky, the elementary school was just recently built and looked great. But there was an issue, the schools that my son would be going after grade school were rated very poor. This was a concern. Traffic bad and seemingly only getting worse. Traffic projects have been in endless gridlock between car commuters and the bicycle community. Not sure about other large cities, but mine (Portland, OR) has a pretty big homeless and crime issues as of lately. Gone are the days of how clean our city is and now it's just littered with trash and tent communities. It's not uncommon to see a heroine needle if walking in a city park. In the last year, we had somebody try to break into my shed and my wife and 4 years old Son were confronted in our driveway by a homeless individual, who said that he was considering suicide. I still have a soft spot for PDX and I think it's a great place, but we decided get out. ha ha sounds like I'm repeating the same story of earlier genereations, ha ha nothing new. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/our-city-has-become-a-cesspool-police-union-president-blames-mayor-for-homeless-problems/283-574760140 https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/our-city-has...

kartan 7y ago
> My old house was 900sf, perfect for 1 to 2 people That is 80m2. I grew up in a 75m2 apartment (810sf) with my parents and two brothers. I guess that "cramped" is a matter of perspective. :) > Not sure about other large cities, but mine (Portland, OR) has a pretty big homeless and crime issues as of lately. It makes me sad to hear about that. We are in the XXI century and we have good ways of helping homeless people and reduce crime. I understand that you leave to a better place, but that does not solve the problem. > confronted in our driveway by a homeless individual, who said that he was considering suicide. I hope that you have find a good place for you and your family but do not forget the people that you left behind. Their lives are a tragedy that can be averted.
- adreamingsoul 7y ago
  I think this comparison is interesting. I recently relocated to Norway from Portland, OR and find the design and use of space in Oslo to be excellent. However the way space is utilized back in Portland isn’t that efficient and/or is poorly designed.
  - noobermin 7y ago
    The same force that enables suburbs is the same force that leads to wasted space in America: cars, cheap oil, and large swathes of land.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      Also extremely intrusive urban planning, which put into place minimum parking capacity, minimum house sizes, single-family dwelling zones in the middle of what should have been highly developed cities, residential neighbourhoods with no commercial space (and thus very few amenities), etc..
      - kartan 7y ago
        > Also extremely intrusive urban planning I agree partly. In most European cities there is a lot of planning and regulations to follow. Barcelona Example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample) is an example of 19th-century planning. In most Europe, you can't build a tall building in a rural town, a skyscraper without the proper open space around it or a factory in a residential neighbourhood. But, those rules have been more sensible to the city needs and have had less pressure from car makers. Old towns are usually compact and easy to walk because they predate cars. Cities have very good public transportation systems as cars were too expensive for most of the population. Living in the city centre has been seen as a luxury. At least for me, "suburvio" (a suburb in Spanish) has always had a negative connotation. Nobody wanted to live in the outskirts of a city. So, I agree that American cities are, in general, poorly designed. And public transportation is almost nonexistent. The problem is not urban planning but that the cities are designed for cars, not for humans. Carmakers had too much power for too long. Urban planning worked really well to achieve its goal: to sell more cars.
pmoriarty 7y ago
What I've often wondered is why there aren't more homeless people in the suburbs.
- dajohnson89 7y ago
  need a car to do anything in the suburbs, really. hot take: this isn't a coincidence
  - irrational 7y ago
    We had a homeless person living in a car on our street (in a Portland Oregon suburb). Some neighbor called the cops and they would come around and tell him to move on. He would be gone for a few days and then come back. Rinse and Repeat for about a year until we took him dinner on Thanksgiving day. The next day he was gone and never returned. It was the strangest thing.
    - harlanji 7y ago
      I unexpectedly became homeless a year ago in SF and I notice that I disappear from places as soon as I interact with someone beyond politeness, like tell them details of my situation. I avoid it but when they take interest my social programming kicks in and I feel kind of sick after. Grocery stores, cafes I go to for months never feel safe after a conversation. Sleeping without shelter is incredibly vulnurable.
      - danny_taco 7y ago
        This is fascinating. Can I ask your reasoning behind this behavior?
        dajohnson89 7y ago
        he/she is afraid of being judged, snitched on, stigmatized, kicked out, etc.
  - 7y ago
irrational 7y ago
We live in a suburb of Portland. To be honest, Portland itself has become so terrible that we have not set foot in the city in over 5 years. 10+ years ago the city was amazingly clean and beautiful. The last time I visited it was so filthy and overrun with needles and homeless camps that we haven't returned since.
- galago 7y ago
  Portland was never, ever "clean and beautiful" and its a weird lie to suggest that its gotten worse. Its actually better today than its ever been.
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    This is interesting, two truth-orthogonal comments. As someone who has never been to the city - not 20, 10, or 0 years ago - how should I go about verifying which one is "more true"?
    - ff10 7y ago
      Take a guess.
      - drdeadringer 7y ago
        For my own clarity: Do you intend more of a "flip a coin" meaning or more of a "we should inherently already know what the answer is" meaning? My density today is more than average.
    - jcims 7y ago
      My quick hack for plausibly quantifiable info is to do a google image search and scan through the charts to find a trend.
    - ikeyany 7y ago
      Both can be true. Portland has some nasty parts (inner downtown, anywhere near a trail or a body of water) that are riddled with needles or feces, but there are also some very nice parts like the suburbs or anywhere that can afford private security.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
I'm surprised about the education aspect. I thought education tends to be better in cities than outside.
- jcims 7y ago
  In the US anyway cities tend to have the best private education and the worst public education.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  You know how large organizations tend to be poorly run and non-responsive to their constituents? Well, large cities have large school districts, whereas suburbs have small school districts...
  - cafard 7y ago
    According to https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-school-districts/m/washington-dc-metro-area/ https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-school-districts/m/..., Fairfax County (Virginia) has 187 thousand students, Montgomery County has 159 thousand, and the District of Columbia has 48 thousand. My impression is that the size of suburban districts varies greatly by state. Of those I am acquainted with, in Colorado, Maryland, and Virginia every county or county-equivalent city has one school district. In Pennsylvania there can be several school districts in a county, some small enough to have one high school. I think that New Jersey is very fragmented also.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      On the west coast it seems like school districts often only cover a single city. Here are the lists for Washington, Oregon, and California. There are tons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Wa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Oregon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Or... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Ca...
lordgrenville 7y ago
The economist Edward Glaeser, despite being a big fan of cities (he wrote a book called Triumph of the City), ended up moving to a suburb. In addition to the reasons you mentioned, he cited America's ridiculous federal home mortgage interest deduction, which incentivises spending more on a bigger home, with obvious negative outcomes (environmental and otherwise).
- hackeraccount 7y ago
  The mortgage interest deduction doesn't incentivize getting a bigger home. Or even a more expensive home. It does incentivize getting a bigger mortgage. Frankly you can borrow a lot to buy a place in the city or in the suburbs.
  - lordgrenville 7y ago
    Sure, but the more expensive the home, the bigger a mortgage you can take.
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    > It does incentivize getting a bigger mortgage. Most people probably buy the maximum they can "afford" (are approved for).
- throw0101a 7y ago
  > ... he cited America's ridiculous federal home mortgage interest deduction, which incentivises spending more on a bigger home, with obvious negative outcomes (environmental and otherwise). Canada does not have such an interest deduction and has roughly the same home ownership rate as the US. (What Canada does have is no capital gains tax on one's primary residence, so any profits when selling are tax free.)
lonelappde 7y ago
How is the commute in the suburbs?
- scruple 7y ago
  I walk from my bedroom to my office. It's brutal.
fred_is_fred 7y ago
It's almost like every generation complained about the suburbs being boring and then had kids and figured out why suburbs exist. This comment could have been written any year since the early 1900s.

kartan 7y ago

> My old house was 900sf, perfect for 1 to 2 people That is 80m2. I grew up in a 75m2 apartment (810sf) with my parents and two brothers. I guess that "cramped" is a matter of perspective. :) > Not sure about other large cities, but mine (Portland, OR) has a pretty big homeless and crime issues as of lately. It makes me sad to hear about that. We are in the XXI century and we have good ways of helping homeless people and reduce crime. I understand that you leave to a better place, but that does not solve the problem. > confronted in our driveway by a homeless individual, who said that he was considering suicide. I hope that you have find a good place for you and your family but do not forget the people that you left behind. Their lives are a tragedy that can be averted.

adreamingsoul 7y ago
I think this comparison is interesting. I recently relocated to Norway from Portland, OR and find the design and use of space in Oslo to be excellent. However the way space is utilized back in Portland isn’t that efficient and/or is poorly designed.
- noobermin 7y ago
  The same force that enables suburbs is the same force that leads to wasted space in America: cars, cheap oil, and large swathes of land.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    Also extremely intrusive urban planning, which put into place minimum parking capacity, minimum house sizes, single-family dwelling zones in the middle of what should have been highly developed cities, residential neighbourhoods with no commercial space (and thus very few amenities), etc..
    - kartan 7y ago
      > Also extremely intrusive urban planning I agree partly. In most European cities there is a lot of planning and regulations to follow. Barcelona Example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample) is an example of 19th-century planning. In most Europe, you can't build a tall building in a rural town, a skyscraper without the proper open space around it or a factory in a residential neighbourhood. But, those rules have been more sensible to the city needs and have had less pressure from car makers. Old towns are usually compact and easy to walk because they predate cars. Cities have very good public transportation systems as cars were too expensive for most of the population. Living in the city centre has been seen as a luxury. At least for me, "suburvio" (a suburb in Spanish) has always had a negative connotation. Nobody wanted to live in the outskirts of a city. So, I agree that American cities are, in general, poorly designed. And public transportation is almost nonexistent. The problem is not urban planning but that the cities are designed for cars, not for humans. Carmakers had too much power for too long. Urban planning worked really well to achieve its goal: to sell more cars.

pmoriarty 7y ago

What I've often wondered is why there aren't more homeless people in the suburbs.

dajohnson89 7y ago
need a car to do anything in the suburbs, really. hot take: this isn't a coincidence
- irrational 7y ago
  We had a homeless person living in a car on our street (in a Portland Oregon suburb). Some neighbor called the cops and they would come around and tell him to move on. He would be gone for a few days and then come back. Rinse and Repeat for about a year until we took him dinner on Thanksgiving day. The next day he was gone and never returned. It was the strangest thing.
  - harlanji 7y ago
    I unexpectedly became homeless a year ago in SF and I notice that I disappear from places as soon as I interact with someone beyond politeness, like tell them details of my situation. I avoid it but when they take interest my social programming kicks in and I feel kind of sick after. Grocery stores, cafes I go to for months never feel safe after a conversation. Sleeping without shelter is incredibly vulnurable.
    - danny_taco 7y ago
      This is fascinating. Can I ask your reasoning behind this behavior?
      - dajohnson89 7y ago
        he/she is afraid of being judged, snitched on, stigmatized, kicked out, etc.
- 7y ago

irrational 7y ago

We live in a suburb of Portland. To be honest, Portland itself has become so terrible that we have not set foot in the city in over 5 years. 10+ years ago the city was amazingly clean and beautiful. The last time I visited it was so filthy and overrun with needles and homeless camps that we haven't returned since.

galago 7y ago
Portland was never, ever "clean and beautiful" and its a weird lie to suggest that its gotten worse. Its actually better today than its ever been.
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  This is interesting, two truth-orthogonal comments. As someone who has never been to the city - not 20, 10, or 0 years ago - how should I go about verifying which one is "more true"?
  - ff10 7y ago
    Take a guess.
    - drdeadringer 7y ago
      For my own clarity: Do you intend more of a "flip a coin" meaning or more of a "we should inherently already know what the answer is" meaning? My density today is more than average.
  - jcims 7y ago
    My quick hack for plausibly quantifiable info is to do a google image search and scan through the charts to find a trend.
  - ikeyany 7y ago
    Both can be true. Portland has some nasty parts (inner downtown, anywhere near a trail or a body of water) that are riddled with needles or feces, but there are also some very nice parts like the suburbs or anywhere that can afford private security.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

I'm surprised about the education aspect. I thought education tends to be better in cities than outside.

jcims 7y ago
In the US anyway cities tend to have the best private education and the worst public education.
toasterlovin 7y ago
You know how large organizations tend to be poorly run and non-responsive to their constituents? Well, large cities have large school districts, whereas suburbs have small school districts...
- cafard 7y ago
  According to https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-school-districts/m/washington-dc-metro-area/ https://www.niche.com/k12/search/largest-school-districts/m/..., Fairfax County (Virginia) has 187 thousand students, Montgomery County has 159 thousand, and the District of Columbia has 48 thousand. My impression is that the size of suburban districts varies greatly by state. Of those I am acquainted with, in Colorado, Maryland, and Virginia every county or county-equivalent city has one school district. In Pennsylvania there can be several school districts in a county, some small enough to have one high school. I think that New Jersey is very fragmented also.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    On the west coast it seems like school districts often only cover a single city. Here are the lists for Washington, Oregon, and California. There are tons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Wa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Oregon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Or... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Ca...

lordgrenville 7y ago

The economist Edward Glaeser, despite being a big fan of cities (he wrote a book called Triumph of the City), ended up moving to a suburb. In addition to the reasons you mentioned, he cited America's ridiculous federal home mortgage interest deduction, which incentivises spending more on a bigger home, with obvious negative outcomes (environmental and otherwise).

hackeraccount 7y ago
The mortgage interest deduction doesn't incentivize getting a bigger home. Or even a more expensive home. It does incentivize getting a bigger mortgage. Frankly you can borrow a lot to buy a place in the city or in the suburbs.
- lordgrenville 7y ago
  Sure, but the more expensive the home, the bigger a mortgage you can take.
- throw0101a 7y ago
  > It does incentivize getting a bigger mortgage. Most people probably buy the maximum they can "afford" (are approved for).
throw0101a 7y ago
> ... he cited America's ridiculous federal home mortgage interest deduction, which incentivises spending more on a bigger home, with obvious negative outcomes (environmental and otherwise). Canada does not have such an interest deduction and has roughly the same home ownership rate as the US. (What Canada does have is no capital gains tax on one's primary residence, so any profits when selling are tax free.)

lonelappde 7y ago

How is the commute in the suburbs?

scruple 7y ago
I walk from my bedroom to my office. It's brutal.

fred_is_fred 7y ago

It's almost like every generation complained about the suburbs being boring and then had kids and figured out why suburbs exist. This comment could have been written any year since the early 1900s.