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One of the most important reasons I choose to live in the suburbs is because it's scaled to the automobile. Owning and driving a fun sports car is one of the gr

One of the most important reasons I choose to live in the suburbs is because it's scaled to the automobile. Owning and driving a fun sports car is one of the great joys in life, and making it part of my daily routine is not something that can be replaced by biking or walking. I get to own my own property for a relatively low price, which in the long run has significantly lowered my cost of living. I'm close enough to drive into the city anytime I want, yet I don't have to deal with the overcrowding when I don't feel like it. With the internet, I get to work from home. And I'd much rather go jogging through a quiet neighborhood than a city greenway any day. My point isn't that cities or suburbs are better, just that there's a place for both. Having lived in both and now getting to enjoy the best of both has allowed me a life I couldn't possibly have if I was stuck in one or the other. Scaling for automobiles works out really well for people who enjoy automobiles and the communities they create, which are not only livable, but enjoyable, for the people who want that kind of life.

techdmn 15y ago
I enjoy automobiles. I love to drive, and work at it: toe heel, left foot brake, etc. I moved and started walking to work last year, and was worried I would miss driving every day. Not at all, not even a little. My commute was not quality driving time, even if I did find a few moments of excitement each day. It means a LOT more to me to have extra free time, not worry about traffic, and (surprisingly to me) feel in touch with nature. I've grown to feel that living inside your house, your car, your office, it's very isolating. Spending a few minutes outside, every day, definitely good for my mental health.
- jarrodtaylor 15y ago
  Absolutely agreed. Rush hour sucks. I work remotely, but I do end up working from coffee shops around town a lot. I enjoy getting out and being part of society. Best of both worlds. Edit: I know that won't work for everyone, but that's why we have choices.
dasil003 15y ago
Well I think the point of the article is that you're not paying the true cost of the lifestyle you enjoy. It claims only 10% of the actual cost is covered by taxes. I'm not saying that's true, but it's an interesting thought experiment, how would you feel about it if your property taxes went up 10x?
- jarrodtaylor 15y ago
  I'm only not paying the cost of living if you isolate the suburbs from the city. Example: In Atlanta (my home town) there are about half a million people living in the city. Though there are poor areas, the economy as a whole is much bigger than that, but the infrastructure isn't - even if you removed the cars. Here's where it gets tricky. Add in the population of the surrounding suburbs and the number jumps from half a million of over 6 million. If all of us lived in the city, not only would it be even more overcrowded, but it would collapse. If we somehow managed to make it work, it would cease to be small connected communities and become one giant urban sprawl. Look at NYC or LA for example. Riding a bike from one end to the other doesn't work so well. At the same time, if you removed the city from the suburbs they would go broke. Suburbs without cities are just small towns, which don't usually have bustling economies and are often poor (relative to a city). Suburbs are the natural growth/overflow of cities. When a city gets too big to sustain itself it either spreads the population out with suburbs or becomes an overpopulated, overcrowded urban area that's big enough to need to drive everywhere anyway (or take a cab). All those people have to go somewhere. If my cost of living went up 10x, I couldn't afford to live this way. If it happened to everyone in the suburbs here and we all had to live in the city, the city would fall apart. Instead of the historically traditional city with surrounding small towns, we connected the towns to each other and to the city with cars. It's one big culture, and one big economy. What I think will be the most interesting, long term, is what will happen when the need to commute starts to drop. Remote working already has a lot of growing traction in the tech industry, but I can see it spreading to lots of other industries as well. Most jobs that aren't transportation or retail can be done, at least most of the time, from a home office. A 20% increase in remote working would have a huge impact on how everything fits together.
  - 15y ago
natrius 15y ago
Suburbs are fine as long as we make people pay for the externalities that living there costs other people. Each extra car on the freeway is a cost to everyone else in congestion. If that car burns carbon, there's extra pollution in the air. Culs-de-sac cost neighborhoods travel time, congestion and pollution. Living anywhere leads to costs for other people, but it's significantly higher in the suburbs. It'd be nice if governments would make people pay each other for those costs. Instead, they usually subsidize suburban living via roads, universal service fees, expenditures to ensure cheap fuel, etc.
- jarrodtaylor 15y ago
  The cost isn't fair to the local suburb government, but that's because most of their economy runs through the city (hence the commute). Since the economy is shared, so should the cost.
- fleitz 15y ago
  Honestly, the externalities of suburban living pale in comparison to the externalities of centralized banking and the military-industrial complex. Lets start cutting gov't funding to multi-billion dollar companies before we start cutting funding to our fellow citizens. http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/farming_park_avenue_farm_subsidies_from_manhattan_to_montana/C8/L8/ http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/farming_park_a... Maybe we can start with this and move from there.
  - natrius 15y ago
    Those issues are unrelated to this discussion. There are plenty of things that the government should change. The order doesn't really matter.
  - thingie 15y ago
    Couldn't you, for example, cut some funding from the "military-industrial complex", if it wasn't needed to secure the resources (oil) to sustain the suburbs? Don't you need huge central banks to provide cheap loans to devastate large portions of countryside with yet another suburban sprawl? I'm not saying it's the case. But maybe, could it be the other way around? What if these were in fact just another externality of suburban life?
clobber 15y ago
Yikes.
thingie 15y ago
Now, perhaps, if there were cities that were not raped for the automobile. I don't know any. Looted by insatiable suburbian parking needs, there is two meter wide sidewalk in the street where I live, yet barely a single person can pass, the rest is for parking. I just can't get anywhere out of the town. Because there is no end to it. And if it was, it'd be beyond a freeway that I can't cross safely. (And I live in Europe. It's that bad here too. Really.)
- regularfry 15y ago
  Oxford is going the other way. The last few councils have taken it upon themselves to make the city centre more painful for cars, and generally better for bikes and pedestrians.

techdmn 15y ago

I enjoy automobiles. I love to drive, and work at it: toe heel, left foot brake, etc. I moved and started walking to work last year, and was worried I would miss driving every day. Not at all, not even a little. My commute was not quality driving time, even if I did find a few moments of excitement each day. It means a LOT more to me to have extra free time, not worry about traffic, and (surprisingly to me) feel in touch with nature. I've grown to feel that living inside your house, your car, your office, it's very isolating. Spending a few minutes outside, every day, definitely good for my mental health.

jarrodtaylor 15y ago
Absolutely agreed. Rush hour sucks. I work remotely, but I do end up working from coffee shops around town a lot. I enjoy getting out and being part of society. Best of both worlds. Edit: I know that won't work for everyone, but that's why we have choices.

dasil003 15y ago

Well I think the point of the article is that you're not paying the true cost of the lifestyle you enjoy. It claims only 10% of the actual cost is covered by taxes. I'm not saying that's true, but it's an interesting thought experiment, how would you feel about it if your property taxes went up 10x?

jarrodtaylor 15y ago
I'm only not paying the cost of living if you isolate the suburbs from the city. Example: In Atlanta (my home town) there are about half a million people living in the city. Though there are poor areas, the economy as a whole is much bigger than that, but the infrastructure isn't - even if you removed the cars. Here's where it gets tricky. Add in the population of the surrounding suburbs and the number jumps from half a million of over 6 million. If all of us lived in the city, not only would it be even more overcrowded, but it would collapse. If we somehow managed to make it work, it would cease to be small connected communities and become one giant urban sprawl. Look at NYC or LA for example. Riding a bike from one end to the other doesn't work so well. At the same time, if you removed the city from the suburbs they would go broke. Suburbs without cities are just small towns, which don't usually have bustling economies and are often poor (relative to a city). Suburbs are the natural growth/overflow of cities. When a city gets too big to sustain itself it either spreads the population out with suburbs or becomes an overpopulated, overcrowded urban area that's big enough to need to drive everywhere anyway (or take a cab). All those people have to go somewhere. If my cost of living went up 10x, I couldn't afford to live this way. If it happened to everyone in the suburbs here and we all had to live in the city, the city would fall apart. Instead of the historically traditional city with surrounding small towns, we connected the towns to each other and to the city with cars. It's one big culture, and one big economy. What I think will be the most interesting, long term, is what will happen when the need to commute starts to drop. Remote working already has a lot of growing traction in the tech industry, but I can see it spreading to lots of other industries as well. Most jobs that aren't transportation or retail can be done, at least most of the time, from a home office. A 20% increase in remote working would have a huge impact on how everything fits together.
- 15y ago

natrius 15y ago

Suburbs are fine as long as we make people pay for the externalities that living there costs other people. Each extra car on the freeway is a cost to everyone else in congestion. If that car burns carbon, there's extra pollution in the air. Culs-de-sac cost neighborhoods travel time, congestion and pollution. Living anywhere leads to costs for other people, but it's significantly higher in the suburbs. It'd be nice if governments would make people pay each other for those costs. Instead, they usually subsidize suburban living via roads, universal service fees, expenditures to ensure cheap fuel, etc.

jarrodtaylor 15y ago
The cost isn't fair to the local suburb government, but that's because most of their economy runs through the city (hence the commute). Since the economy is shared, so should the cost.
fleitz 15y ago
Honestly, the externalities of suburban living pale in comparison to the externalities of centralized banking and the military-industrial complex. Lets start cutting gov't funding to multi-billion dollar companies before we start cutting funding to our fellow citizens. http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/farming_park_avenue_farm_subsidies_from_manhattan_to_montana/C8/L8/ http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/farming_park_a... Maybe we can start with this and move from there.
- natrius 15y ago
  Those issues are unrelated to this discussion. There are plenty of things that the government should change. The order doesn't really matter.
- thingie 15y ago
  Couldn't you, for example, cut some funding from the "military-industrial complex", if it wasn't needed to secure the resources (oil) to sustain the suburbs? Don't you need huge central banks to provide cheap loans to devastate large portions of countryside with yet another suburban sprawl? I'm not saying it's the case. But maybe, could it be the other way around? What if these were in fact just another externality of suburban life?

clobber 15y ago

Yikes.

thingie 15y ago

Now, perhaps, if there were cities that were not raped for the automobile. I don't know any. Looted by insatiable suburbian parking needs, there is two meter wide sidewalk in the street where I live, yet barely a single person can pass, the rest is for parking. I just can't get anywhere out of the town. Because there is no end to it. And if it was, it'd be beyond a freeway that I can't cross safely. (And I live in Europe. It's that bad here too. Really.)

regularfry 15y ago
Oxford is going the other way. The last few councils have taken it upon themselves to make the city centre more painful for cars, and generally better for bikes and pedestrians.