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You can have all this (and more!) in cities as well. Lived in Seattle for a bit and my apartment had several neighborhoods of single-family homes within a coupl

You can have all this (and more!) in cities as well. Lived in Seattle for a bit and my apartment had several neighborhoods of single-family homes within a couple blocks: each with mature trees, yards, and low traffic streets. Sure, the yard maybe isn't as massive as you can get in a suburb, but there's still plenty of space (and far more public parks). Because they were so close to dense housing, they also had the added benefits of public transit and being walking distance to several grocery stores. Much better than suburbia in my opinion.

hcurtiss 4y ago
But I do think that's a matter of opinion, and totally unrelated to prejudice.
jtbayly 4y ago
I mean, you’re basically saying that you can have suburbia in the city? If lots of people want it, the price will skyrocket, so then somebody will buy some land just outside the city and build suburbia there so more people can afford it. Rinse and repeat.
brundolf 4y ago
Having lived in Texas my whole life this idea was mostly foreign to me, but last year I visited Brooklyn and had my eyes opened
- steveklabnik 4y ago
  ... and I moved to Texas from Brooklyn, and I can assure you, longer term residents than me are still finding it foreign. That's slowly changing...
yamtaddle 4y ago
Old narrow-street, maybe an alley in the back, grid-layout suburbs with the odd block corner zoned commercial and all-neighborhood-streets routes to all kinds of businesses and parks and libraries and such are a whole different beast from the twisty-road car-dependent mazes of post-70s suburbia. And they're so much damn nicer. Too bad no-one builds them anymore.
- twiddling 4y ago
  problem isn't zoning but design regulations. A lot of street design is dictated by being able to fire engine equipment in and turned around. Hence no new alleys are being built.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I don't even mean that narrow. Just not, like, 4ish cars wide. More like 3 or 2.5 (if one-way).
  - ultrarunner 4y ago
    The "residential" road that I live on is (and most in the area are) 45 ft wide, with 2.5' sidewalks. The Hummer H1 is an incredible 7.2 feet wide, meaning you could fit six full-size hummers side-by-side down this road. Add in the mandatory front 30ft setback and you have a sight line that is around 110 feet wide. People are expected to go up to 30 mph here. They don't.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    We could build fire equipment to fit narrower streets.
    - zip1234 4y ago
      There already are fire trucks for that: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Meet-Kiri-the-tiny-Japanese-fire-truck-bringing-16137119.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Meet-Kiri-the-tiny...
      - alistairSH 4y ago
        Yeah, just not used in the US. All we have is giant custom things that cost a fortune.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  Most cities have zoning that doesn't allow that kind of thing.
zzzeek 4y ago
I dont like noise, light pollution, or crowds. I'd like nighttime to be silent and pitch dark, and the daytime to be mostly silent as well. I go on trips and need to be able to load lots of stuff in and out of "my" or "a" car without living in terror of all of my stuff getting stolen while I'm inside. Where should I live? Note: I lived in three different boroughs of NYC for 25 years
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  That's nice. Many of us don't want that, but have it forced upon us considering something like 90% of all residential zoning in the USA is R1 zoning. There will be demand for neighborhoods you want and they will exist but it won't necessarily be in the middle of major population centers like it is now.
  - zzzeek 4y ago
    > 90% of all residential zoning in the USA is R1 well if that's based on land area that's not a very informative number. you'd want to do it by population.
    - jholman 4y ago
      What? No, doing it by population is a bad approach. Land is the resource you're dividing up. The question is how much of the divided-up land is allocated to an (allegedly) niche usage. Doing it by population is like saying "almost no one is a billionaire, almost everyone is basically poor and equally-poor, so there can't possibly be a wealth inequality problem". (I'm not saying there is/isn't a wealth inequality problem, I'm only saying that's a dud argument.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jackson1442 4y ago
  Sounds like the country is the place for you, I experienced all of that in a suburb. The "living in terror" part sounds like you could use some work on mindfulness though.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> Much better than suburbia in my opinion. I think a lot of people just assume that the only kind of suburbia that exists is endless tract housing as far as the eye can see. I'm absolutely positive that does happen, but I've never lived in a suburban neighborhood that fit such a description. We have stores. We have business parks here and there. Heck, we even have public transit. This is probably why there is such a dichotomy between those who hate suburbia, and those who love it. Different experiences piggybacking on the same terminology.
- runarberg 4y ago
  I don’t think parent was denying that, or at least I don’t get a sense of this dichotomy in the text. As someone that lives on Vashon island (what some consider a suburb of Seattle; but I actually consider rural King County), I got the sense that suburbia here was specifically directed at the endless tract of housing one (so like East Bellevue, Kent, or large parts of Kirkland), but not actual small towns around the main city (like Bothel, Lynnwood, Kirkland proper, or—well—Vashon) or even other dense urban areas like Burien or Redmond.
- chrisfinazzo 4y ago
  If you find your way to my other comment ("suburban sprawl") this is largely what it looked like to me when I visited my brother. The developments aren't very large and there is roughly nothing around them. Contrast to NJ, where the NYC suburbs extend way outside Midtown and the city limits. As a result, it is very rare to feel like you are in the middle of nowhere.
jayd16 4y ago
Those single family homes are the exact plots that people look to as examples of NIMBY homeowners standing in the way of affordable housing.

hcurtiss 4y ago

But I do think that's a matter of opinion, and totally unrelated to prejudice.

jtbayly 4y ago

I mean, you’re basically saying that you can have suburbia in the city? If lots of people want it, the price will skyrocket, so then somebody will buy some land just outside the city and build suburbia there so more people can afford it. Rinse and repeat.

brundolf 4y ago

Having lived in Texas my whole life this idea was mostly foreign to me, but last year I visited Brooklyn and had my eyes opened

steveklabnik 4y ago
... and I moved to Texas from Brooklyn, and I can assure you, longer term residents than me are still finding it foreign. That's slowly changing...

yamtaddle 4y ago

Old narrow-street, maybe an alley in the back, grid-layout suburbs with the odd block corner zoned commercial and all-neighborhood-streets routes to all kinds of businesses and parks and libraries and such are a whole different beast from the twisty-road car-dependent mazes of post-70s suburbia. And they're so much damn nicer. Too bad no-one builds them anymore.

twiddling 4y ago
problem isn't zoning but design regulations. A lot of street design is dictated by being able to fire engine equipment in and turned around. Hence no new alleys are being built.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I don't even mean that narrow. Just not, like, 4ish cars wide. More like 3 or 2.5 (if one-way).
- ultrarunner 4y ago
  The "residential" road that I live on is (and most in the area are) 45 ft wide, with 2.5' sidewalks. The Hummer H1 is an incredible 7.2 feet wide, meaning you could fit six full-size hummers side-by-side down this road. Add in the mandatory front 30ft setback and you have a sight line that is around 110 feet wide. People are expected to go up to 30 mph here. They don't.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  We could build fire equipment to fit narrower streets.
  - zip1234 4y ago
    There already are fire trucks for that: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Meet-Kiri-the-tiny-Japanese-fire-truck-bringing-16137119.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Meet-Kiri-the-tiny...
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      Yeah, just not used in the US. All we have is giant custom things that cost a fortune.
crooked-v 4y ago
Most cities have zoning that doesn't allow that kind of thing.

zzzeek 4y ago

I dont like noise, light pollution, or crowds. I'd like nighttime to be silent and pitch dark, and the daytime to be mostly silent as well. I go on trips and need to be able to load lots of stuff in and out of "my" or "a" car without living in terror of all of my stuff getting stolen while I'm inside. Where should I live? Note: I lived in three different boroughs of NYC for 25 years

bcrosby95 4y ago
That's nice. Many of us don't want that, but have it forced upon us considering something like 90% of all residential zoning in the USA is R1 zoning. There will be demand for neighborhoods you want and they will exist but it won't necessarily be in the middle of major population centers like it is now.
- zzzeek 4y ago
  > 90% of all residential zoning in the USA is R1 well if that's based on land area that's not a very informative number. you'd want to do it by population.
  - jholman 4y ago
    What? No, doing it by population is a bad approach. Land is the resource you're dividing up. The question is how much of the divided-up land is allocated to an (allegedly) niche usage. Doing it by population is like saying "almost no one is a billionaire, almost everyone is basically poor and equally-poor, so there can't possibly be a wealth inequality problem". (I'm not saying there is/isn't a wealth inequality problem, I'm only saying that's a dud argument.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jackson1442 4y ago
Sounds like the country is the place for you, I experienced all of that in a suburb. The "living in terror" part sounds like you could use some work on mindfulness though.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> Much better than suburbia in my opinion. I think a lot of people just assume that the only kind of suburbia that exists is endless tract housing as far as the eye can see. I'm absolutely positive that does happen, but I've never lived in a suburban neighborhood that fit such a description. We have stores. We have business parks here and there. Heck, we even have public transit. This is probably why there is such a dichotomy between those who hate suburbia, and those who love it. Different experiences piggybacking on the same terminology.

runarberg 4y ago
I don’t think parent was denying that, or at least I don’t get a sense of this dichotomy in the text. As someone that lives on Vashon island (what some consider a suburb of Seattle; but I actually consider rural King County), I got the sense that suburbia here was specifically directed at the endless tract of housing one (so like East Bellevue, Kent, or large parts of Kirkland), but not actual small towns around the main city (like Bothel, Lynnwood, Kirkland proper, or—well—Vashon) or even other dense urban areas like Burien or Redmond.
chrisfinazzo 4y ago
If you find your way to my other comment ("suburban sprawl") this is largely what it looked like to me when I visited my brother. The developments aren't very large and there is roughly nothing around them. Contrast to NJ, where the NYC suburbs extend way outside Midtown and the city limits. As a result, it is very rare to feel like you are in the middle of nowhere.

jayd16 4y ago

Those single family homes are the exact plots that people look to as examples of NIMBY homeowners standing in the way of affordable housing.