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Why do you automatically assume that kids are miserable in the suburbs? My kids rather like running around in our backyard, use our pool everyday in the summer,

Why do you automatically assume that kids are miserable in the suburbs? My kids rather like running around in our backyard, use our pool everyday in the summer, and having tons of friends on the block. At the same time, I can't imagine that they would enjoy living in 2 bedroom apartment, having no yard to play in, etc. This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch. It's okay to think differently. I'm glad you enjoy living in the city! Luckily, this country is big and there's enough space for all of us!

arrosenberg 5y ago
It wildly varies by suburb. The one I grew up in had few-to-no kids on the block, and even if there had been, there were only a couple of small, underwhelming parks within walking/biking distance. Comparing notes with other people, this seems like the more common experience of the suburbs. The disdain (at least for me) comes when you do the math and realized how absurdly subsidized the suburban lifestyle is.
- criddell 5y ago
  Who is doing the subsidizing? You hear about cities annexing suburbs to access the tax base. If suburbs were a drain, wouldn't they be doing whatever the opposite of annexing is?
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    A few of the wealthiest suburbs in the country are enclaves of people who rely economically on the city but don’t want their property taxes to pay for poor people’s amenities and services, so carve out a separate municipality. Cities want to re-absorb these, because the current setup is grossly unfair. This is not representative of suburbs in general. Many suburbs, especially older ones whose infrastructure construction (but not maintenance) was heavily state-subsidized, are struggling and financially unsustainable, leaving their (less wealthy) residents in deep trouble in the long term.
    - criddell 5y ago
      After asking this question I started reading more about it. The biggest subsidization is about mortgage interest tax deductions. I never thought about that as a subsidy, but I suppose it is. They should end it.
      - arrosenberg 5y ago
        Yes, and in California Prop 13 is an even bigger distortion.
long_time_gone 5y ago
==This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch.== It's also out of touch to assume every family in "the city" lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with no yard. Lots of families in my city (Chicago) live in 3 story walk-ups, duplex-downs or even single family homes which all have yards. Perhaps we could all be a little more open-minded about how other people live.
- nopenopenopeno 5y ago
  A 3 story walk up is going to be a 2 br apartment in most cases, and may have a shared outdoor space but it’ll cost as much as a large house in the suburbs with a big garage and 2 big lawns.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    ==but it’ll cost as much as a large house in the suburbs with a big garage and 2 big lawns.== Based on what metric? Here [1] is a three-bedroom apartment in one of Chicago's nicest areas (Ravenswood/Lincoln Square), with heat/water included, right by the Brown Line for $2,100/month. Find me the large house in the suburbs that will run you $2,100/month. Don't forget to include the 20% down payment, on-going maintenance, utilities, and an additional car. [1] https://www.apartments.com/4742-n-oakley-ave-chicago-il/4d9993l/ https://www.apartments.com/4742-n-oakley-ave-chicago-il/4d99...
jacobolus 5y ago
> disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch Have you yourself been a child growing up in places of different density? I personally did (my time spent mostly in one of the nicest suburbs in southern California, but alternating for a couple months every year with a walkable small Mexican city), and then since then have been in cities (where my small kids are now growing up). Are you sure I am the “out of touch” one here? Have you ever tried living with kids in a 2-bedroom apartment? It’s really not a big deal (though note, there are also plenty of larger apartments/condos and single-family houses in cities, and plenty of cities around the world without outrageous housing prices). In the city you might not play in your yard, but you can play at the nearby playground or park with the many neighborhood kids.
- criddell 5y ago
  I think you underestimate to what degree people design their life to provide what they think is the best thing for their kids. A lot of people ended up in the suburbs because of their kids, not in spite of them. Proximity to other kids, organized sports, good schools, after-school activities, etc... It can be very car-centric as you pointed out, but when there are other families on your block going to the same things, you quickly figure out how to car pool to share the burden. There's more than one way to live a great life with kids.
obstacle1 5y ago
Kids like suburbs just fine before they understand there's a big world out there outside the family unit. Often things fall apart after that phase. > I can't imagine that they would enjoy living in 2 bedroom apartment OK but that's a problem with a limited imagination, not how your kids would actually feel. Do you know that 90% of families in the world live in close quarters, in places like 2 bedroom apartments (or -- gasp! -- smaller)? Do you think all these kids really hate their lives because of the size of their apartments? Do you think young kids even realize that they "should" prefer a 3000sqft house to an apartment? > this country is big and there's enough space for all of us! Sure there's space, but space isn't really the issue. The negative social and environmental impact of a suburban lifestyle is unsustainable. Future generations are going to look back on our settlement patterns and think we were truly insane, hundreds of millions of people each with multiple personal cars spread out from each other such that cars are necessary to do even the most minor tasks. It's taken some incredibly opaque collective blinders for us to have ended up thinking suburbs are a responsible way of living.
- eweise 5y ago
  "The negative social and environmental impact of a suburban lifestyle is unsustainable." That's a problem with a limited imagination. Cars are becoming electric. There are things called towns that exist in suburbia and can be reached easily by bike or walking.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    The environmental impact of suburban lifestyle is not limited to personal transportation carbon emissions. It also involves huge amounts of expensive (in land and resources) infrastructure, and individual suburbanites have a much larger resource footprint than other people.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > individual suburbanites have a much larger resource footprint. Suburbs have higher median personal income than urban cores; so that individual suburbanites consume more resources isn't surprising. These people would also consume more resources if they lived in urban cores.
alistairSH 5y ago
I grew up in the DC suburbs. The closest pool was a few miles away, so required a car. The schools were all miles away, so required car/bus. By the time I got to high school, most of my friends lived miles away, so for a few years, seeing them required transportation. Grocery store required a car. Heck, even the closest corner store required a car. Fortunately, my mom was able to stay home for many years, and when she did return to work, she went into teaching, so that transport was readily available. For kids with 2 working parents, getting around kinda sucked - it impacted their ability to get to/from school off-hours, get to sports, etc. I still live in the DC suburbs, but picked an area with a lot more walkability. Walkable grocery store (plus pharmacy, coffee, dining). Schools are walkable. Bike paths and walking trails everywhere. Golf course out my back door. Walk to work. Walk to Metro. But, the median home price is higher here than my parents' area, and that's in an area that's already expensive.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  When I was a kid in a suburban/rural area I used a bicycle to solve all those problems, besides groceries, which my parents took care of.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    When I was old enough, I did as well. Didn't help for some things... middle school was ~7 miles from home and across several major arterial roads - making that ride in winter wouldn't have been safe (would have been in the dark on way to school).
namlem 5y ago
Fwiw, I hated growing up in a suburb precisely due to the inability to get anywhere without being driven. I had to rely on my parents any time I wanted to see my friends. Having a back yard to play in wasn't much of a consolation.
damon_c 5y ago
I raised (or rather shared in raising) a kid in a 2BR apartment in Manhattan with no yard. We also happened to have a weekend/summer cottage in the suburbs. It was near the beach and had a yard and bikes and all those wonderful suburban pleasures. He absolutely begged us every weekend to let him stay in the city where he could see his friends by subway/walking, didn't need us to drive him anywhere, had freedom etc.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
oblio 5y ago
> having no yard to play in You don't need a yard as much when you have parks :-) Or neighborhood play areas, where they can play with class mates.

arrosenberg 5y ago

It wildly varies by suburb. The one I grew up in had few-to-no kids on the block, and even if there had been, there were only a couple of small, underwhelming parks within walking/biking distance. Comparing notes with other people, this seems like the more common experience of the suburbs. The disdain (at least for me) comes when you do the math and realized how absurdly subsidized the suburban lifestyle is.

criddell 5y ago
Who is doing the subsidizing? You hear about cities annexing suburbs to access the tax base. If suburbs were a drain, wouldn't they be doing whatever the opposite of annexing is?
- jacobolus 5y ago
  A few of the wealthiest suburbs in the country are enclaves of people who rely economically on the city but don’t want their property taxes to pay for poor people’s amenities and services, so carve out a separate municipality. Cities want to re-absorb these, because the current setup is grossly unfair. This is not representative of suburbs in general. Many suburbs, especially older ones whose infrastructure construction (but not maintenance) was heavily state-subsidized, are struggling and financially unsustainable, leaving their (less wealthy) residents in deep trouble in the long term.
  - criddell 5y ago
    After asking this question I started reading more about it. The biggest subsidization is about mortgage interest tax deductions. I never thought about that as a subsidy, but I suppose it is. They should end it.
    - arrosenberg 5y ago
      Yes, and in California Prop 13 is an even bigger distortion.

long_time_gone 5y ago

==This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch.== It's also out of touch to assume every family in "the city" lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with no yard. Lots of families in my city (Chicago) live in 3 story walk-ups, duplex-downs or even single family homes which all have yards. Perhaps we could all be a little more open-minded about how other people live.

nopenopenopeno 5y ago
A 3 story walk up is going to be a 2 br apartment in most cases, and may have a shared outdoor space but it’ll cost as much as a large house in the suburbs with a big garage and 2 big lawns.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  ==but it’ll cost as much as a large house in the suburbs with a big garage and 2 big lawns.== Based on what metric? Here [1] is a three-bedroom apartment in one of Chicago's nicest areas (Ravenswood/Lincoln Square), with heat/water included, right by the Brown Line for $2,100/month. Find me the large house in the suburbs that will run you $2,100/month. Don't forget to include the 20% down payment, on-going maintenance, utilities, and an additional car. [1] https://www.apartments.com/4742-n-oakley-ave-chicago-il/4d9993l/ https://www.apartments.com/4742-n-oakley-ave-chicago-il/4d99...

jacobolus 5y ago

> disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch Have you yourself been a child growing up in places of different density? I personally did (my time spent mostly in one of the nicest suburbs in southern California, but alternating for a couple months every year with a walkable small Mexican city), and then since then have been in cities (where my small kids are now growing up). Are you sure I am the “out of touch” one here? Have you ever tried living with kids in a 2-bedroom apartment? It’s really not a big deal (though note, there are also plenty of larger apartments/condos and single-family houses in cities, and plenty of cities around the world without outrageous housing prices). In the city you might not play in your yard, but you can play at the nearby playground or park with the many neighborhood kids.

criddell 5y ago
I think you underestimate to what degree people design their life to provide what they think is the best thing for their kids. A lot of people ended up in the suburbs because of their kids, not in spite of them. Proximity to other kids, organized sports, good schools, after-school activities, etc... It can be very car-centric as you pointed out, but when there are other families on your block going to the same things, you quickly figure out how to car pool to share the burden. There's more than one way to live a great life with kids.

obstacle1 5y ago

Kids like suburbs just fine before they understand there's a big world out there outside the family unit. Often things fall apart after that phase. > I can't imagine that they would enjoy living in 2 bedroom apartment OK but that's a problem with a limited imagination, not how your kids would actually feel. Do you know that 90% of families in the world live in close quarters, in places like 2 bedroom apartments (or -- gasp! -- smaller)? Do you think all these kids really hate their lives because of the size of their apartments? Do you think young kids even realize that they "should" prefer a 3000sqft house to an apartment? > this country is big and there's enough space for all of us! Sure there's space, but space isn't really the issue. The negative social and environmental impact of a suburban lifestyle is unsustainable. Future generations are going to look back on our settlement patterns and think we were truly insane, hundreds of millions of people each with multiple personal cars spread out from each other such that cars are necessary to do even the most minor tasks. It's taken some incredibly opaque collective blinders for us to have ended up thinking suburbs are a responsible way of living.

eweise 5y ago
"The negative social and environmental impact of a suburban lifestyle is unsustainable." That's a problem with a limited imagination. Cars are becoming electric. There are things called towns that exist in suburbia and can be reached easily by bike or walking.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  The environmental impact of suburban lifestyle is not limited to personal transportation carbon emissions. It also involves huge amounts of expensive (in land and resources) infrastructure, and individual suburbanites have a much larger resource footprint than other people.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > individual suburbanites have a much larger resource footprint. Suburbs have higher median personal income than urban cores; so that individual suburbanites consume more resources isn't surprising. These people would also consume more resources if they lived in urban cores.

alistairSH 5y ago

I grew up in the DC suburbs. The closest pool was a few miles away, so required a car. The schools were all miles away, so required car/bus. By the time I got to high school, most of my friends lived miles away, so for a few years, seeing them required transportation. Grocery store required a car. Heck, even the closest corner store required a car. Fortunately, my mom was able to stay home for many years, and when she did return to work, she went into teaching, so that transport was readily available. For kids with 2 working parents, getting around kinda sucked - it impacted their ability to get to/from school off-hours, get to sports, etc. I still live in the DC suburbs, but picked an area with a lot more walkability. Walkable grocery store (plus pharmacy, coffee, dining). Schools are walkable. Bike paths and walking trails everywhere. Golf course out my back door. Walk to work. Walk to Metro. But, the median home price is higher here than my parents' area, and that's in an area that's already expensive.

ryandrake 5y ago
When I was a kid in a suburban/rural area I used a bicycle to solve all those problems, besides groceries, which my parents took care of.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  When I was old enough, I did as well. Didn't help for some things... middle school was ~7 miles from home and across several major arterial roads - making that ride in winter wouldn't have been safe (would have been in the dark on way to school).

namlem 5y ago

Fwiw, I hated growing up in a suburb precisely due to the inability to get anywhere without being driven. I had to rely on my parents any time I wanted to see my friends. Having a back yard to play in wasn't much of a consolation.

damon_c 5y ago

I raised (or rather shared in raising) a kid in a 2BR apartment in Manhattan with no yard. We also happened to have a weekend/summer cottage in the suburbs. It was near the beach and had a yard and bikes and all those wonderful suburban pleasures. He absolutely begged us every weekend to let him stay in the city where he could see his friends by subway/walking, didn't need us to drive him anywhere, had freedom etc.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

oblio 5y ago

> having no yard to play in You don't need a yard as much when you have parks :-) Or neighborhood play areas, where they can play with class mates.