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I grew up in a suburb and was bored shitless. I had one friend that lived within walking distance, and everyone else was too far away to get to without a car, w

I grew up in a suburb and was bored shitless. I had one friend that lived within walking distance, and everyone else was too far away to get to without a car, which meant that I didn't get to see my friends unless it was convenient for one of my two parents (who both held full-time jobs). Cycling anywhere outside of the local neighborhood was out of the question, since the roads connecting neighborhoods were full of fast-moving traffic and no bicycle lanes or pedestrian walkways. There were "woods" between the endless maze of houses, but all of them were just parts of other people's property. And who was I going to play with in them, except for my one nearby friend? I ended up just playing a lot of video games. For all that urban centers are supposedly "hostile places" (according to the GP), I look at the adults and children I know in cities and I see mostly fit, healthy, active people with multiple hobbies and interests. I look at the adults and children I know in suburbs and I see overweight, sedentary people who spend so much of their life commuting between work, school, and home, that they barely have time for more than one day of a week of something fun like an organized sport. The rest is just spent at home watching TV or playing video games. If I do decide have children, I definitely know what kind of place I want to do it in.

eitally 7y ago
There is an alternative. Don't live in a big city! There are plenty of 2nd & 3rd tier cities where you can get both a house and land for a reasonable price and still have good schools and a vibrant cultural environment. Of course you won't have some things (international airport, professional sports teams, top rate museums), but you'll make up for it in "free" QoL for your family. I grew up in a city of 75,000, in a house currently worth about $150k (purchased new in 1976 by my parents for $38k and sold in 1993 for $120k), on 2.5 acres. It was about 30% lawn, gardens & sports area and 70% wooded (with a creek, even!). I only had 1-2 good neighborhood friends but I did have a younger brother & sister and we were constantly outside doing something. I think you need to think about how you define "city" and "suburb" a little more.
- Karrot_Kream 7y ago
  For a lot of people, the city is automatically Manhattan or downtown Chicago. They can't fathom anything but that or a suburb, and to be fair America is very bad at making anything else.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    This is such a west coast bubble mindset. Basically everywhere west of the Missouri river is littered with 2nd and 3rd tier cities. Many of them are even within a reasonable commuting distance of the nearest major economic hub (though the southeast definitely has a lot of sprawl going on).
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      A Midwestern 3rd tier city is the same as a coastal megalopolis suburb.
    - Karrot_Kream 7y ago
      Not just West Coast, but Western US. West of the Midwest, and everything becomes vastly more rural.
- souprock 7y ago
  Eh, I kind of have all that, depending on where you draw the line for distance and seriousness. I'm in Brevard County, FL. So not counting Orlando? OK... There is an international airport. It has seasonal flights to Ottawa, Toronto–Billy Bishop, and Windsor. Those are in Canada. There is a professional sports team, the USSSA Pride women′s professional fast-pitch softball team. Another is the Brevard County Cocoa Expos, a member of the Women's Premier Soccer League. There are top-rate museums. One has a Saturn V, a Space Shuttle, a Saturn 1B, the Apollo 14 Command Module, space suits, moon rocks, and related stuff. Another has the Gemini 2 spacecraft and a bunch of missiles. Another has spacesuits and Sigma 7, the fifth manned Mercury spacecraft.
burfog 7y ago
I lived in that kind of place. I also had my one nearby friend. We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes each side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often got to a decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of the older bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went anyway. We had similar woods. We went out there and built a fort. We camped. We misbehaved. We went to the railroad tracks and put coins on the rails. We hiked a mile to a lake, carrying an inflated raft and fishing or camping gear. Don't blame the suburb if you chose to play video games. I hear that cities also have video games.
- stouset 7y ago
  Nowadays I am a cyclist and I feel comfortable riding alongside traffic for any distance. Even if it had occurred to me that riding five miles to a friend was possible (cycling is currently enjoying a surge of popularity, but at the time it was somewhat unfathomable even to adults that you might ride a bike for such distances), I'm not sure that would have been a practical or reasonable thing for an eight year old to do. By the time I was fourteen or fifteen I felt comfortable riding my bike farther distances, but at that point I was nearly able to drive a car alone anyway. The "woods" I mentioned were small enough that there was no point away from easy eyesight from some neighbor's living room windows. Sure, we played in them. But there was no actual sense of isolation. There were no train tracks anywhere nearby. There were some tiny lakes, but they were clearly on other people's property. It's great that you seemed to live in somewhere more rural than me and that was an area you were able to thrive in. Still, if you look at populations of people as a whole I suspect you'll find orders of magnitude more bored and unhealthy kids (who start getting into real trouble) in suburbs than you find in cities where there are actually plenty of opportunities and things to do.
- lultimouomo 7y ago
  > We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes each side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often got to a decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of the older bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went anyway. And I bet it was uphill! Both ways!
awinder 7y ago
Woosh. So to the parents point, let me just explain that if you have kids and bring them up in the city, there’s a good chance they’re back on 2050s version of hackernews posting the suburban-centric viewpoint of how bleak city life is. I get that everyone is living the best existence out there, but c’mon people, isn’t it clear that there is no objectively better place, only places with trade offs that appeal to different folks?
nickserv 7y ago
My early teenage years were in the city, my later teens in the suburbs. I hated that move to the burbs... Nothing to do except getting kicked out of the local mall or Borders. No libraries, no parks, no pools nearby... And no public transport. When before in the city I could just take public transport and go downtown, meet my friends, go to the library, etc.. Now that I have kids, I live in a city. But it's a quiet neighborhood, and we have a yard -- that I did appreciate from the suburbs ;-)
- lonelappde 7y ago
  You have a yard with public transit? That's clearly not scalable; it must be very expensive property.
  - nickserv 7y ago
    It's a mixed area, there are single family homes, small apartment buildings and a few medium sized buildings (4-5 stories). We don't have any metro lines but have bus and train. Prices are reasonable because we are on the north face of a large hill and get little sun in the winter, and are not close to the downtown area.

eitally 7y ago

There is an alternative. Don't live in a big city! There are plenty of 2nd & 3rd tier cities where you can get both a house and land for a reasonable price and still have good schools and a vibrant cultural environment. Of course you won't have some things (international airport, professional sports teams, top rate museums), but you'll make up for it in "free" QoL for your family. I grew up in a city of 75,000, in a house currently worth about $150k (purchased new in 1976 by my parents for $38k and sold in 1993 for $120k), on 2.5 acres. It was about 30% lawn, gardens & sports area and 70% wooded (with a creek, even!). I only had 1-2 good neighborhood friends but I did have a younger brother & sister and we were constantly outside doing something. I think you need to think about how you define "city" and "suburb" a little more.

Karrot_Kream 7y ago
For a lot of people, the city is automatically Manhattan or downtown Chicago. They can't fathom anything but that or a suburb, and to be fair America is very bad at making anything else.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  This is such a west coast bubble mindset. Basically everywhere west of the Missouri river is littered with 2nd and 3rd tier cities. Many of them are even within a reasonable commuting distance of the nearest major economic hub (though the southeast definitely has a lot of sprawl going on).
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    A Midwestern 3rd tier city is the same as a coastal megalopolis suburb.
  - Karrot_Kream 7y ago
    Not just West Coast, but Western US. West of the Midwest, and everything becomes vastly more rural.
souprock 7y ago
Eh, I kind of have all that, depending on where you draw the line for distance and seriousness. I'm in Brevard County, FL. So not counting Orlando? OK... There is an international airport. It has seasonal flights to Ottawa, Toronto–Billy Bishop, and Windsor. Those are in Canada. There is a professional sports team, the USSSA Pride women′s professional fast-pitch softball team. Another is the Brevard County Cocoa Expos, a member of the Women's Premier Soccer League. There are top-rate museums. One has a Saturn V, a Space Shuttle, a Saturn 1B, the Apollo 14 Command Module, space suits, moon rocks, and related stuff. Another has the Gemini 2 spacecraft and a bunch of missiles. Another has spacesuits and Sigma 7, the fifth manned Mercury spacecraft.

burfog 7y ago

I lived in that kind of place. I also had my one nearby friend. We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes each side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often got to a decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of the older bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went anyway. We had similar woods. We went out there and built a fort. We camped. We misbehaved. We went to the railroad tracks and put coins on the rails. We hiked a mile to a lake, carrying an inflated raft and fishing or camping gear. Don't blame the suburb if you chose to play video games. I hear that cities also have video games.

stouset 7y ago
Nowadays I am a cyclist and I feel comfortable riding alongside traffic for any distance. Even if it had occurred to me that riding five miles to a friend was possible (cycling is currently enjoying a surge of popularity, but at the time it was somewhat unfathomable even to adults that you might ride a bike for such distances), I'm not sure that would have been a practical or reasonable thing for an eight year old to do. By the time I was fourteen or fifteen I felt comfortable riding my bike farther distances, but at that point I was nearly able to drive a car alone anyway. The "woods" I mentioned were small enough that there was no point away from easy eyesight from some neighbor's living room windows. Sure, we played in them. But there was no actual sense of isolation. There were no train tracks anywhere nearby. There were some tiny lakes, but they were clearly on other people's property. It's great that you seemed to live in somewhere more rural than me and that was an area you were able to thrive in. Still, if you look at populations of people as a whole I suspect you'll find orders of magnitude more bored and unhealthy kids (who start getting into real trouble) in suburbs than you find in cities where there are actually plenty of opportunities and things to do.
lultimouomo 7y ago
> We would ride our bicycles more than 5 miles along US-44. It has 2 lanes each side for a total of 4 lanes, 2-foot shoulders, and traffic that often got to a decent highway speed. There could be snow on the shoulder. One of the older bridges was narrow, with only about a half-foot shoulder. We went anyway. And I bet it was uphill! Both ways!

awinder 7y ago

Woosh. So to the parents point, let me just explain that if you have kids and bring them up in the city, there’s a good chance they’re back on 2050s version of hackernews posting the suburban-centric viewpoint of how bleak city life is. I get that everyone is living the best existence out there, but c’mon people, isn’t it clear that there is no objectively better place, only places with trade offs that appeal to different folks?

nickserv 7y ago

My early teenage years were in the city, my later teens in the suburbs. I hated that move to the burbs... Nothing to do except getting kicked out of the local mall or Borders. No libraries, no parks, no pools nearby... And no public transport. When before in the city I could just take public transport and go downtown, meet my friends, go to the library, etc.. Now that I have kids, I live in a city. But it's a quiet neighborhood, and we have a yard -- that I did appreciate from the suburbs ;-)

lonelappde 7y ago
You have a yard with public transit? That's clearly not scalable; it must be very expensive property.
- nickserv 7y ago
  It's a mixed area, there are single family homes, small apartment buildings and a few medium sized buildings (4-5 stories). We don't have any metro lines but have bus and train. Prices are reasonable because we are on the north face of a large hill and get little sun in the winter, and are not close to the downtown area.