4 ms·

America's Surprise Revival: The Suburbs

15 points by ecliptik 3y ago

lockhouse 3y ago
Cities are great until you have kids and you care about their education, safety, and overall well being. That’s when suburbs start becoming really attractive.
- thr-nrg 3y ago
  Cities are getting worse year on year. I'd still be living downtown with kids if a homeless camp hadn't sprung up in a park near by. Suburbia by contrast is far enough from public transport that the homeless can't get there.
  - quags 3y ago
    As I read this I wondered based on Texas and Florida bussing immigrants out of state - will cities just start bussing their homeless out to the suburbs.
    - gkuan 3y ago
      Your comment reminds me of the Guardian’s piece on cities busing homeless from a while ago [1]. It was kind of like Defcon. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
    - i_am_jl 3y ago
      Unlikely. Those solutions are generally undertaken at the state level. There's no way to piss off voters quite like moving homeless people out of a city into their suburbs, and if those suburbs are in your state, those people can vote against you. Maybe this works somewhere like NY/NJ where NYC has interstate suburbs... But more practically, if you give a homeless guy in Manhattan $200 and a bus ticket to NJ, that dude is gonna come back. The distance is sort of necessary for the desired outcome.
    - culopatin 3y ago
      I think immigrants get more attention than the local homeless population. The new shiny thing vs the “we’ll get to it yeah, just one more day” problem
  - piloto_ciego 3y ago
    Maybe this is more of a you problem? Help to fix homelessness and you’ll be able to live wherever you want without being grossed out by the poor.
euroderf 3y ago
How can this article fail to mention "walkable" "15-minute" suburbs ?
- theandrewbailey 3y ago
  Because those mostly don't exist in America. Suburbs are dominated by cars, by design.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Well, an article like this is the place to point out that "suburbs" is not a unitary concept.
spicyusername 3y ago
When the choice is between adding 10-30 minutes to your commute or quadrupling your mortgage, it's a simple choice. Suburbs also nearly always have better schools.
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  It turns out our parents all had their reason, and it's still there. There's a whole host of problems in cities that naturally result from so many people living close together, and our governing structures seem to be bad at most of them.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  > it's a simple choice. That's funny: I would also say that it's a simple choice, but in the opposite direction.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Do you have kids? That's the difference. Sending them to a weaker school district does impact them negatively over their career. They aren't as likely to get the education+extracurriculars+references needed to get into target programs in target schools, which makes them less likely to start their careers at renowned companies (doesn't have to be FAANG, even unicorns, YC startups, and F1000s restrict new grad hiring to a handful of target programs), which makes them less likely to climb the ladder efficiently, which makes them less likely to be able to afford to buy a house or start a family. Plus they aren't as likely to have a strong alumni network that can help them open doors everywhere. If I stayed in SFUSD I wouldn't have been able to reach the position I am at today versus the HS I went being one with a strong alumni network and the children of high net worth families. My friends who stayed in SFUSD cannot afford to live in the Bay Area anymore and will probably never have a chance to ever afford living in California (they all ended up moving to Arizona and Texas) whereas by going to a target HS, I have a shot at those milestones in my 30s-40s. It sucks, but America is a harsh society now. Most careers outside of Tech/Finance/Accounting pay shit, and Tech+Finance+Accounting jobs severely restrict entry now c. 2023. This is why a lot of parents decide to take a 1-2 hour commute over a 20 minute one
0zemp2c 3y ago
Suburbs are where the common citizenry beat a strategic retreat - the war for the cores of our major cities was lost long ago to the allied forces of the ultra rich and homeless drug users. I don't even think the war analogy is sensational...we were literally pushed out of our own inner cities by an invading army. Short of nuclear war, I don't see the number of homeless drug users ever declining in major US cities, ever. There are more today than last month. There will be more next year than today. We lost, they won. But we have to live somewhere. Soon the best suburbs will be gated if not already....gated communities don't have homeless drug users. In the next ten years I predict there will be a membership-only suburb with a population over 100k.
loandbehold 3y ago
Dense urban environments are overrated. They became popular with industrial revolution, when large numbers of workers needed to work at factories every day. With rise of WFH and online shopping, dense urban environments no longer make sense.
- actionablefiber 3y ago
  I am sort of baffled at the idea of reducing the appeal of city living to commuting and shopping? I live in DC, can easily bike anywhere, and it is to me about visiting friends at their homes, parks, going to museums, relaxing on the waterfront, going to the bike trails, hobbyist meetups, catching a train to visit Philly or NY, all within easy reach. Really the issue, to me and most other people, is how hilariously unaffordable it is due to the incredibly high demand for housing in cities.
mathgladiator 3y ago
I moved from the Seattle area back to the Midwest, and the suburbs are great. There is something very relaxing about seeing kids walking home from school with a variety of crossing guards, no homeless camps, parks that fill on weekends with families, well maintained roads and google fiber. I'd advertise where... but nah
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  You could have just moved to Bellevue, Issaquah, Mercer Island, Mill Creek, or Bothell…it’s not like the Seattle area doesn’t have that.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    Probably at double the price. I had a friend who moved from Phoenix to Bellevue for work and paid twice as much for his apartment as he was for his house in Phoenix.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      That’s true. You are also likely to make a lot more money there (or if one can’t get those jobs, living in those places is not really an option). Having lived in a Midwest suburb as a kid (Sylvania near Toledo), they seem cheap because the jobs to support a booming real estate market just aren’t present.
  - mathgladiator 3y ago
    I lived I'm bellevue and kirkland, and it wasn't that great. The best place was Bainbridge Island, but even it had problems with needles in parks and beaches.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Wasn't great based on your criteria of no homeless camps, good schools, crossing guards, parks that fill on weekends, well maintained roads, and good internet (Century Link fiber is great when it works, and works often)? Are you sure you were living in the same Bellevue that I was living in? Bainbridge island is nice, but I wouldn't really call it a suburb of Seattle. Also, needles are what you get when you are living in a conifer heavy climate zone.

15 points by ecliptik 3y ago

Cities are great until you have kids and you care about their education, safety, and overall well being. That’s when suburbs start becoming really attractive.

thr-nrg 3y ago
Cities are getting worse year on year. I'd still be living downtown with kids if a homeless camp hadn't sprung up in a park near by. Suburbia by contrast is far enough from public transport that the homeless can't get there.
- quags 3y ago
  As I read this I wondered based on Texas and Florida bussing immigrants out of state - will cities just start bussing their homeless out to the suburbs.
  - gkuan 3y ago
    Your comment reminds me of the Guardian’s piece on cities busing homeless from a while ago [1]. It was kind of like Defcon. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
  - i_am_jl 3y ago
    Unlikely. Those solutions are generally undertaken at the state level. There's no way to piss off voters quite like moving homeless people out of a city into their suburbs, and if those suburbs are in your state, those people can vote against you. Maybe this works somewhere like NY/NJ where NYC has interstate suburbs... But more practically, if you give a homeless guy in Manhattan $200 and a bus ticket to NJ, that dude is gonna come back. The distance is sort of necessary for the desired outcome.
  - culopatin 3y ago
    I think immigrants get more attention than the local homeless population. The new shiny thing vs the “we’ll get to it yeah, just one more day” problem
- piloto_ciego 3y ago
  Maybe this is more of a you problem? Help to fix homelessness and you’ll be able to live wherever you want without being grossed out by the poor.

euroderf 3y ago

How can this article fail to mention "walkable" "15-minute" suburbs ?

theandrewbailey 3y ago
Because those mostly don't exist in America. Suburbs are dominated by cars, by design.
- euroderf 3y ago
  Well, an article like this is the place to point out that "suburbs" is not a unitary concept.

spicyusername 3y ago

When the choice is between adding 10-30 minutes to your commute or quadrupling your mortgage, it's a simple choice. Suburbs also nearly always have better schools.

QuarterReptile 3y ago
It turns out our parents all had their reason, and it's still there. There's a whole host of problems in cities that naturally result from so many people living close together, and our governing structures seem to be bad at most of them.
marssaxman 3y ago
> it's a simple choice. That's funny: I would also say that it's a simple choice, but in the opposite direction.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Do you have kids? That's the difference. Sending them to a weaker school district does impact them negatively over their career. They aren't as likely to get the education+extracurriculars+references needed to get into target programs in target schools, which makes them less likely to start their careers at renowned companies (doesn't have to be FAANG, even unicorns, YC startups, and F1000s restrict new grad hiring to a handful of target programs), which makes them less likely to climb the ladder efficiently, which makes them less likely to be able to afford to buy a house or start a family. Plus they aren't as likely to have a strong alumni network that can help them open doors everywhere. If I stayed in SFUSD I wouldn't have been able to reach the position I am at today versus the HS I went being one with a strong alumni network and the children of high net worth families. My friends who stayed in SFUSD cannot afford to live in the Bay Area anymore and will probably never have a chance to ever afford living in California (they all ended up moving to Arizona and Texas) whereas by going to a target HS, I have a shot at those milestones in my 30s-40s. It sucks, but America is a harsh society now. Most careers outside of Tech/Finance/Accounting pay shit, and Tech+Finance+Accounting jobs severely restrict entry now c. 2023. This is why a lot of parents decide to take a 1-2 hour commute over a 20 minute one

0zemp2c 3y ago

Suburbs are where the common citizenry beat a strategic retreat - the war for the cores of our major cities was lost long ago to the allied forces of the ultra rich and homeless drug users. I don't even think the war analogy is sensational...we were literally pushed out of our own inner cities by an invading army. Short of nuclear war, I don't see the number of homeless drug users ever declining in major US cities, ever. There are more today than last month. There will be more next year than today. We lost, they won. But we have to live somewhere. Soon the best suburbs will be gated if not already....gated communities don't have homeless drug users. In the next ten years I predict there will be a membership-only suburb with a population over 100k.

loandbehold 3y ago

Dense urban environments are overrated. They became popular with industrial revolution, when large numbers of workers needed to work at factories every day. With rise of WFH and online shopping, dense urban environments no longer make sense.

actionablefiber 3y ago
I am sort of baffled at the idea of reducing the appeal of city living to commuting and shopping? I live in DC, can easily bike anywhere, and it is to me about visiting friends at their homes, parks, going to museums, relaxing on the waterfront, going to the bike trails, hobbyist meetups, catching a train to visit Philly or NY, all within easy reach. Really the issue, to me and most other people, is how hilariously unaffordable it is due to the incredibly high demand for housing in cities.

mathgladiator 3y ago

I moved from the Seattle area back to the Midwest, and the suburbs are great. There is something very relaxing about seeing kids walking home from school with a variety of crossing guards, no homeless camps, parks that fill on weekends with families, well maintained roads and google fiber. I'd advertise where... but nah

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
You could have just moved to Bellevue, Issaquah, Mercer Island, Mill Creek, or Bothell…it’s not like the Seattle area doesn’t have that.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Probably at double the price. I had a friend who moved from Phoenix to Bellevue for work and paid twice as much for his apartment as he was for his house in Phoenix.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    That’s true. You are also likely to make a lot more money there (or if one can’t get those jobs, living in those places is not really an option). Having lived in a Midwest suburb as a kid (Sylvania near Toledo), they seem cheap because the jobs to support a booming real estate market just aren’t present.
- mathgladiator 3y ago
  I lived I'm bellevue and kirkland, and it wasn't that great. The best place was Bainbridge Island, but even it had problems with needles in parks and beaches.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Wasn't great based on your criteria of no homeless camps, good schools, crossing guards, parks that fill on weekends, well maintained roads, and good internet (Century Link fiber is great when it works, and works often)? Are you sure you were living in the same Bellevue that I was living in? Bainbridge island is nice, but I wouldn't really call it a suburb of Seattle. Also, needles are what you get when you are living in a conifer heavy climate zone.