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> Suburban adults go home and tend to stay home. Is this genuinely how you imagine life in the suburbs? You don’t think anyone socialises here or takes part in

> Suburban adults go home and tend to stay home. Is this genuinely how you imagine life in the suburbs? You don’t think anyone socialises here or takes part in any culture?

marssaxman 4y ago
That's what life in the suburbs looked like when I was a child growing up there. I got out as fast as I could, and I will never, ever go back. Your experience is different, I take it?
- iso1631 4y ago
  The kids factor changes things far more than the location
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  We have coffee shops, bars, restaurants, museums, historical sites, theatres here in the suburbs as well. We even have a Michelin-starred restaurant in my suburb. Plenty of cities don’t have one of those. It’s obviously not as fast-paced or cutting-edge, but people don’t just sit at home in silence.
  - marssaxman 4y ago
    Where do you live that you can have such a mix of uses in a suburb - and what suburbs are old enough to contain historical sites? I can't imagine you are describing anywhere in the USA... from my California-raised perspective, suburbs are a largely post-WWII creation: sprawling miles of relatively recent construction, with residential, retail, and commercial purposes all so strictly separated that there is virtually no reason to leave one's house by foot. There were coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and the occasional movie theater among the suburbs I grew up in, sure, but they were all spread out and far away, tucked into little strip malls along the main roads - not really part of the neighborhoods people lived in.
    - pcl 4y ago
      There are many types of suburbs in the US (and worldwide, of course). I grew up partly in a suburb of New York. The towns around there date back 300 to 400 years, and feel like it. There are walkable town centers with coffee shops and train stations etc. I also spent a few years in a suburb of Dallas. It was considerably newer, and wedged between a couple of highways. Everything depended on cars. As I’ve moved around, I’ve seen lots of other points on the suburban spectrum. But for sure, the connotations of “suburb” are nearly uselessly vast.
      - marssaxman 4y ago
        I suppose that while geographers define "suburbs" in terms of their proximity to a larger metropolitan area, the "suburban" quality I actually care about is the urban form characterized by sprawling, auto-dependent, single-family development.
        pcl 4y ago
        Well, just be aware that others might conjure up an entirely different picture in their head when you use the term.
      - jjav 4y ago
        > But for sure, the connotations of “suburb” are nearly uselessly vast. Yes. From past HN threads, I've come to realize that "suburb" is so undefined that it can mean pretty much anything. We all agree Manhattan isn't a suburb and that remote agricultural land isn't a suburb either. But aside from those, everything else in between is someone's definition of suburb. So it's difficult to talk about it as it could mean any kind of place between those extremes.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - RhysU 4y ago
      My silly little town in NJ is 300 years old.
  - thrav 4y ago
    The suburbs around San Francisco don’t really count, in my opinion. I also live in one with a Michelin star restaurant and plenty going on, but I still struggle to participate in a lot of it with a toddler. It’s a far cry from the Texas suburbs I grew up in that more closely resemble the description above. From what I hear, time begins to return as they reach some amount of independence around 4-5. If you have more than 1, that’s a pretty big window. That said, my daughter is incredible, and the issue isn’t that I don’t have any time. It’s that I choose spend as much of it with her as I possibly can.
  - missingrib 4y ago
    I'm not sure you're accurately describing a suburb.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      There’s a lot of variety in how different sub-urban places are. Americans think there’s global metropolises and hell-scape sprawl and nothing in between, but there’s plenty.
  - doubled112 4y ago
    Meanwhile in my suburb, I have a 40 minute walk to the nearest thing. When I get there, I can see a Walmart, a BestBuy, six pizza places, two dentist offices, three chain sandwich shops and a couple of grocery stores. Everything I need. Nothing I’d ever be excited to go to. Plus I have to get back into the car. I’ll just stay home in silence. My neighbours do too.
- TimPC 4y ago
  My suburb experience is more social than my downtown one. My neighbours all talk to us for starters. That just about never happened in the condo buildings downtown. Kids play in the not busy streets. There is a lot of joy in even just watching a road hockey game for a few moments.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    > My neighbours all talk to us for starters. Having suburban neighbors constitute one’s close friend group is obviously possible, but it would be almost entirely a matter of luck. One has very little control over who their neighbors are, and limited ability to survey a neighborhood before deciding to move in.
    - TimPC 4y ago
      There is a degree of interaction that can be nice beyond having close friends. None of my neighbors are my close friends and we don't go into each others houses. But we say hi on the street, and sometimes talk for a few minutes about what's going on in our lives and how the kids are doing. It's friendly but not friends. There is a lot of value in having these sort of interactions especially if you're the type of person who prefers having a few close friends to many less close ones.
wink 4y ago
Small sample size of course, but I have friends who I have hardly met outside their house since they had a kid and it's not too uncommon. Of course there are others where you don't notice any difference, except that they're bringing the kids now. (Yes, I am simplifying, but moving to the suburbs + having a kid kinda goes hand in hand most of the time here).

> Suburban adults go home and tend to stay home. Is this genuinely how you imagine life in the suburbs? You don’t think anyone socialises here or takes part in any culture?

marssaxman 4y ago

That's what life in the suburbs looked like when I was a child growing up there. I got out as fast as I could, and I will never, ever go back. Your experience is different, I take it?

iso1631 4y ago
The kids factor changes things far more than the location
chrisseaton 4y ago
We have coffee shops, bars, restaurants, museums, historical sites, theatres here in the suburbs as well. We even have a Michelin-starred restaurant in my suburb. Plenty of cities don’t have one of those. It’s obviously not as fast-paced or cutting-edge, but people don’t just sit at home in silence.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  Where do you live that you can have such a mix of uses in a suburb - and what suburbs are old enough to contain historical sites? I can't imagine you are describing anywhere in the USA... from my California-raised perspective, suburbs are a largely post-WWII creation: sprawling miles of relatively recent construction, with residential, retail, and commercial purposes all so strictly separated that there is virtually no reason to leave one's house by foot. There were coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and the occasional movie theater among the suburbs I grew up in, sure, but they were all spread out and far away, tucked into little strip malls along the main roads - not really part of the neighborhoods people lived in.
  - pcl 4y ago
    There are many types of suburbs in the US (and worldwide, of course). I grew up partly in a suburb of New York. The towns around there date back 300 to 400 years, and feel like it. There are walkable town centers with coffee shops and train stations etc. I also spent a few years in a suburb of Dallas. It was considerably newer, and wedged between a couple of highways. Everything depended on cars. As I’ve moved around, I’ve seen lots of other points on the suburban spectrum. But for sure, the connotations of “suburb” are nearly uselessly vast.
    - marssaxman 4y ago
      I suppose that while geographers define "suburbs" in terms of their proximity to a larger metropolitan area, the "suburban" quality I actually care about is the urban form characterized by sprawling, auto-dependent, single-family development.
      - pcl 4y ago
        Well, just be aware that others might conjure up an entirely different picture in their head when you use the term.
    - jjav 4y ago
      > But for sure, the connotations of “suburb” are nearly uselessly vast. Yes. From past HN threads, I've come to realize that "suburb" is so undefined that it can mean pretty much anything. We all agree Manhattan isn't a suburb and that remote agricultural land isn't a suburb either. But aside from those, everything else in between is someone's definition of suburb. So it's difficult to talk about it as it could mean any kind of place between those extremes.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - RhysU 4y ago
    My silly little town in NJ is 300 years old.
- thrav 4y ago
  The suburbs around San Francisco don’t really count, in my opinion. I also live in one with a Michelin star restaurant and plenty going on, but I still struggle to participate in a lot of it with a toddler. It’s a far cry from the Texas suburbs I grew up in that more closely resemble the description above. From what I hear, time begins to return as they reach some amount of independence around 4-5. If you have more than 1, that’s a pretty big window. That said, my daughter is incredible, and the issue isn’t that I don’t have any time. It’s that I choose spend as much of it with her as I possibly can.
- missingrib 4y ago
  I'm not sure you're accurately describing a suburb.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    There’s a lot of variety in how different sub-urban places are. Americans think there’s global metropolises and hell-scape sprawl and nothing in between, but there’s plenty.
- doubled112 4y ago
  Meanwhile in my suburb, I have a 40 minute walk to the nearest thing. When I get there, I can see a Walmart, a BestBuy, six pizza places, two dentist offices, three chain sandwich shops and a couple of grocery stores. Everything I need. Nothing I’d ever be excited to go to. Plus I have to get back into the car. I’ll just stay home in silence. My neighbours do too.
TimPC 4y ago
My suburb experience is more social than my downtown one. My neighbours all talk to us for starters. That just about never happened in the condo buildings downtown. Kids play in the not busy streets. There is a lot of joy in even just watching a road hockey game for a few moments.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  > My neighbours all talk to us for starters. Having suburban neighbors constitute one’s close friend group is obviously possible, but it would be almost entirely a matter of luck. One has very little control over who their neighbors are, and limited ability to survey a neighborhood before deciding to move in.
  - TimPC 4y ago
    There is a degree of interaction that can be nice beyond having close friends. None of my neighbors are my close friends and we don't go into each others houses. But we say hi on the street, and sometimes talk for a few minutes about what's going on in our lives and how the kids are doing. It's friendly but not friends. There is a lot of value in having these sort of interactions especially if you're the type of person who prefers having a few close friends to many less close ones.

wink 4y ago

Small sample size of course, but I have friends who I have hardly met outside their house since they had a kid and it's not too uncommon. Of course there are others where you don't notice any difference, except that they're bringing the kids now. (Yes, I am simplifying, but moving to the suburbs + having a kid kinda goes hand in hand most of the time here).