7 ms·

Broken record time - Surely people see the straight line that is zoned car culture suburbia ---> American food culture. Drive in foodchains are a response to c

by screye 3y ago

Broken record time - Surely people see the straight line that is zoned car culture suburbia ---> American food culture. Drive in foodchains are a response to cars. Supermarkets & weekly out of town grocery runs are a result of cars. Americans have an oddly compartmentalized (because it somehow dissappears the second they step in Europe for vacation) dislike for density everywhere. You fishmonger can't be colocated with your favorite restaurant, because no one randomly picks up fish on their way back home. One one makes fresh baguettes, because no one stops by bakeries to pick up fresh bread on the daily. When everything is out of the way, an organic culture of any kind struggles to develop. There is a reason NY and SF have amazing food culture, and density has a lot to do with it. I'll go one step further. (Rest of) America doesn't just have bad food culture. It has bad community culture of all sorts. Suburbia is literally characterized by being boring. Americans are perpetually scared of strangers and neighboring kidnappers. The US had unfair stats. It has incredible nature and Americans are filthy rich. It's biggest cities have really interesting people and everything you can imagine, can be found in NYC. But, that isn't the America people have built. Most Americans aren't in NYC. The nature comes for free and the money only serves to further highlight how little there is to spend on if you aren't in a couple of select cities. Yes, it seems naive to point fingers at 1-repeat-offender for all of these problems. After, almost nothing is mono causal. But the 'almost' means that a select few things are indeed mono casual. I believe American 20th century urban planning decisions are 1 such offender.

badpun 3y ago
Suburbs get such a bad rap in certain online circles, and yet so many people choose to live in them. I'm from Europe and live in a flat in a historical city centre, but I think I'd prefer suburbs, if such a thing existed around here. Sure, historical city centre definitely has its charms and conveniences, but the peace and quiet of suburbs sounds amazing compared to the soundscape (cars, dogs, neighbors) I have to endure every day. I've even set my sleeping schedule to the schedule of the yappy dog in apartment below me - there's no point in trying to sleep till 8 am when the thing starts barking at 6:30 am anyway.
- skywal_l 3y ago
  One word: earplugs. It changed my life. Yes it's weird at first but sleeping like a baby beats any minor and temporary weirdness.
  - badpun 3y ago
    Can't really use them because of my tinnitus...
- 4wsn 3y ago
  Yeah. These romanticized threads always give me a kick. Every large city here in Germany has a chronic smell of diesel and dog piss. There's a level of grime to everything that would really bother someone used to an American suburb. Not to mention the majority of apartments are in old buildings with no ventilation or cooling. Like you said, there's advantages but ignoring the downsides is amusing if you've ever actually lived in a large city.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    It's a bit different in Australia in Melbourne/Sydney. You have suburbs but they have all developed micro cities around the train station. So you have these spots that don't smell like piss and smog, have a supermarket, bars, restaurants, and brand new highrises with high quality apartments. Super easy to live car free since your day to day stuff can be accessed by foot, and the train to the CBD is super easy to access as well.
    - 4wsn 3y ago
      Never had the pleasure of visiting but if this is accurate it might sound like the best of both worlds.
- fzeroracer 3y ago
  The 'peace and quiet' of suburbs is only assuming that you get lucky. Much like any place, if you have a horrible neighbor they can and will make your life hell, but in the suburbs you're stuck. As someone that lived in the suburbs as a kid I hope to never go back. Being in the city proper and having easy access to everything and nature within a bus / bicycle ride away is far better than living in the burbs and everything is 5-10 miles away. It's even worse if you're a kid, because I frequently had to wake up at 6AM for school, take a bus at 6:45 and get to school by 8AM. That was partly why I did so horribly in highschool.
ekianjo 3y ago
Supermarkets are not a result of cars. They are the result of people not wanting to spend 3 hours in 10 different shops to get what they need. Your logic is all wrong.
- gnsdrths 3y ago
  First, I don't know why this is going grey at my time of writing because it's true and if that's unsexy I guess me and a lot of Americans are just not meant for a life in France because bouncing around small specialty stores sounds like hell. Second, I honestly don't get the hate for super markets. You might not find high-end wagyu beef at Wal-Mart but you'll find basically any spice you want, a few different varieties of fish, lamb, beef, basically the same staple meats as any other country, and lots of regional 'niche' things from around the world. If the variety was bad it'd defeat the whole point of going to a supermarket. Yeah I guess you might miss out on the "opportunity" to buy a twelve dollar loaf of bread but if you can't make at least ten different good meals out of what's available in a supermarket your issue is frankly skill and not ingredients.
  - IneffablePigeon 3y ago
    Except in France the bread is pretty cheap even from an independent bakery because there’s one every 50 metres so the competition keeps the prices down.
    - ekianjo 3y ago
      Bread has become way more expensive in France even in small bakeries. Easy to remember the price before the euro introduction and now and you will see the huge inflation in bread prices
      - nephanth 3y ago
        Inflation is huge. Doesn't change the fact that compared to anything similar you can get in the US, a €1 baguette is vastly cheaper
      - 3y ago
diob 3y ago
The weird thing is going to other cities around the world after visiting NY / SF and such, is that even NY / SF feel overpriced and subpar. It's odd just how much better food is in Tokyo / Melbourne / other great cities around the world. And cheaper!
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Currently living in Melbourne and it’s so hard to bother cooking at home because I can go on a 5 minute walk and find somewhere that will serve an absolutely delicious meal that looks like it could be put on display in an art gallery and it costs only a little more than cooking yourself.
  - arroz 3y ago
    You are bad at managing money if you think eating out is just a bit more expansive than cooking
    - diob 3y ago
      The weird thing is in Melbourne, you can get top quality food for less or around equal to buying groceries. It's an actual "economy of scale", same with Tokyo. It's hard to comprehend for folks in places like the USA, where it's definitely way more expensive to eat out (and typically worse for you).
      - arroz 3y ago
        I lived in Tokyo When I lived there you would be able to get a gyudon for roughly 300-400 yens It will get you full but it’s not very nutritive You can eat many eastern / western fast food dishes for around that price, but if you want to go to an actual sit down restaurant it’s much more expensive I didn’t cook in Tokyo because I was on a scholarship so I didn’t care, but friends told me it would be cheaper to cook too
    - Gigachad 3y ago
      I can go out and buy a Bahn Mi for $10AUD which includes fresh bread baked that morning, fresh vegetables and grilled chicken. It's basically impossible to match this without doing it all from scratch and baking your own bread/grilling your own chicken. At which point you have to produce like 20 in a single go to match the value of the one I can buy pre made.
forrestthewoods 3y ago
To a hammer, everything is a nail. To some people, everything is the fault of cars. I find this broken record to be uncompelling and tiresome. > It has bad community culture of all sorts. On this I agree. The irony is that rural America, highly dependent on cars, has, imho and experience, radically stronger community than dense urban centers! When it comes to food I'm far more inclined to blame the economics. American restaurants try to get as many patrons in and out as possible. Clear that table and get the next guest in. This is just as true in SF and NYC as suburbia. TBH I genuinely do not understand how the economics of restaurants in Japan and Paris work. I've been to both and when I look at the prices, patrons, and staff I don't get it. If there is any root cause to the woes of America it's probably the cost of land/housing/real estate. The monthly lease for a half decent commercial space is so astronomical there's no option but to cycle as many patrons through as possible.
- fzeroracer 3y ago
  > On this I agree. The irony is that rural America, highly dependent on cars, has, imho and experience, radically stronger community than dense urban centers! This isn't particularly true. There's been many writings on the 'loneliness epidemic' that hits the hardest in the rural parts of America, where people die of drug abuse or alcohol or health issues alone and ignored. The community effort fully coalesces around the religious experience, but sharply ends after Sunday for most people. It's been noted multiple times over that Americans generally trust eachother lower than ever, the amount of close friends has gone down and more. This is before we get into the community dynamics of rural communities being very exclusive towards certain groups of people.
  - athrun 3y ago
    I think it's important to separate rural and suburbia. I agree that the sense of community can be high in rural areas. People who live there can be very strongly rooted in the place. Depopulation is taking its toll though. Suburbia on the other hand...
sologoub 3y ago
The poor quality of US food is not about cars, but about the ingredients. When you compare US food vs EU food, you immediately notice that US food has a lot more ingredients and those ingredients are often very questionable. Much of that comes from how profitable it is and how EU tends to restrict things until proven safe, whereas US tends to allow until proven unsafe. Take bread for example. Bread needs nothing more than flour, water, yeast and some salt. Here are the ingredients for Wonder Round Top White Sliced Bread: “Unbleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Sugar, Yeast, Contains 2% Or Less Of Each Of The Following: Calcium Carbonate, Wheat Gluten, Soybean Oil, Salt, Dough Conditioners (Contains One Or More Of The Following: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate, Monoglycerides, Mono- And Diglycerides, Distilled Monoglycerides, Calcium Peroxide, Calcium Iodate, Datem, Ethoxylated Mono- And Diglycerides, Enzymes, Ascorbic Acid), Vinegar, Monocalcium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3), Soy Lecithin, Calcium Propionate (To Retard Spoilage).” Source: https://www.target.com/p/wonder-round-top-white-sliced-bread-20oz/-/A-15077154 https://www.target.com/p/wonder-round-top-white-sliced-bread... That’s a lot of ingredients for the most basic of foods. I’d argue that’s not a good thing… While the large cities in US have an amazing diversity of food, the quality of this food is abysmal. US also restricts many normal European foods because of the requirement to pasteurize. While I’m sure the periodic table laden recipes are dangerous if not pasteurized, I personally have yet to have an issue eating EU food within EU norms (yes, things spoil rather quickly by US standards; that’s why fresh food is important).
- frutiger 3y ago
  Just wait until you find out what yeast is made of.
  - beAbU 3y ago
    Please enlighten us?
  - skywal_l 3y ago
    What's wrong with mushrooms?
jjav 3y ago
> (because it somehow dissappears the second they step in Europe for vacation) To be fair, that is because people on vacation are by definition living out of a suitcase. It is easy to live in a tiny hotel room in a very dense building among dense buildings when all you own (for a few days) is a suitcase. A lot of people in the US like to have space for hobbies and toys and cars and home offices and yards and so on. Which is difficult in a dense city, but irrelevant while on vacation.
jjav 3y ago
> Suburbia is literally characterized by being boring. Not by everyone. Suburbia is bad for bar crawls, but after my 20s that wasn't a priority. Suburbia is great for access to mountain biking, road biking, playgrounds for the kids, sports fields, walking to friends houses, having space for a yard and BBQs, having friends over (plenty of parking) and countless other activities. It's really pretty awesome.
- screye 3y ago
  I don't see how that is true. > mountain biking The mountains are where the mountains are. Being the suburbs or cities changes nothing. > road biking I would never dare road bike on American roads. If anything, cities have more protected bike lanes. > playgrounds for the kids, sports fields Playgrounds are about having 22 people to play a game of football. Cities have both sufficient fields and sufficient people. Suburbs struggle with the latter. > walking to friends houses ?? More like, being forced to be friends with the 5 families on the block, because no where else is walkable. > having friends over (plenty of parking) Hah, solving a problem of your own creation ? Cities don't need parking. You can have plenty of friends over using transit, who can safely have a couple of beers, because they don't need to drive back. ___________ When people explain suburbs like this, I have to wonder what shaped their opinions of cities. Surely you must have a specific perspective on cities, which would lead you to believe that cities struggle to accommodate these exact things. To a degree, We are in agreement. No one wants to live in cities in the way the US has built them. IMO, Chicago, SF, NY, Boston, DC & Philly are the proper cities (as a non-American would recognize) in the country. Of those, SF & Philly refuse to deal with their public safety issues. Chicago has peculiar weather. Boston and DC are great, but are confusingly limited to oddly shaped and tiny city boundaries. This leaves NYC as the only city that is allowed to leverage its full city-ness. The issue with NYC is that most people do the FiDi -> Times Square pilgrimage and come out disappointed, having experienced the touristiest and therefore the worst that NYC has to offer.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > I have to wonder what shaped their opinions of cities By far most of my city-time has been in the #1 densest city in the US, NYC (specifically in Manhattan). I'm on the record (in HN comment history) on how much I loved time in Manhattan when I lived in the east coast in my 20s. In middle age now my hobbies and lifestyle and family commitments are quite different and I'd hate living in Manhattan now. The second city I've spent most time in is the #2 densest in the US, San Francisco. > lead you to believe that cities struggle to accommodate these exact things Cities do struggle to accommodate these things. Cities do come with pros & cons, it's good to be open about that. Pretending there are no compromises at all to make with living in a city is not a good way to promote city life. Some people love it some don't, all depends on the priorities. Sometimes the same person (like me) will love it at one stage of life and then want nothing to do with it in a different stage, because life priorities change. > The mountains are where the mountains are. Being the suburbs or cities changes nothing. Despite the name, mountain biking does not require mountains. It is off-road biking in forests, open fields and sometimes actual mountains. Clearly being in the suburbs vs cities changes everything. It is difficult in a city to ride out your front door into a forest or the mountains in reasonable time (Central Park doesn't count, as much as I've enjoyed tons of time cycling there, it's not mountain biking). In many suburbs this is easy. In the suburbs I'm less than a mile away from forest land where I can ride for hours (or even all day). Such places rarely exist within a city. > I would never dare road bike on American roads. If anything, cities have more protected bike lanes. Yeah, no. I did spend a lot of time road biking in Manhattan but I was much younger and foolish. As a road cyclist (more than a mountain biker) I don't really want to risk my life road biking in any city. Out here in the suburbs, I can ride out my door into rarely-used mountain and rural roads where I'll see a car maybe once or twice an hour. It is prime territory for road cycling. If I was living in a city I'd have to put the bike in the car (but what if I don't have a car?) and drive out to the suburbs to look for safe cycling roads. > Playgrounds are about having 22 people to play a game of football. Playgrounds means for the kids. These exist in cities but out in the suburbs they are larger and easier to access, cleaner and safer. > Cities have both sufficient fields and sufficient people. Suburbs struggle with the latter. Suburbs don't struggle with this. Surely the term soccer-mom is familiar as an archetype of suburban life? Because it is so common. I have several soccer fields just across the street and the kids take full advantage. I don't have time to research how many people in Manhattan live within a block of a soccer field but it's a tiny percentage. > More like, being forced to be friends with the 5 families on the block, because no where else is walkable. There are more than 5 families in a suburb. In particular, all the kids from all the nearby suburbs go to the same few schools, so they can all walk to each others houses which is very awesome at that age. > Cities don't need parking. You can have plenty of friends over using transit Yes you can, as long as everyone lives in the same transit. If you live in Manhattan and everyone you know does as well, it's perfect. There's even Seinfeld episodes about how people move out to Queens never to be seen again due to this dynamic. It's a tradeoff. Dense cities can be really awesome, particularly in young adulthood. But it's not honest to pretend that there are no drawbacks. City living comes with a stiff set of tradeoffs, you gain many conveniences but you lose access to many activities as well. Whether it's paradise or hell really depends on what each person enjoys the most.
Gigachad 3y ago
I think you're on the money with this. I live in Australia in a pretty walkable inner city area and there are countless amazing food options all around and there is also a KFC which serves absolutely appalling food for higher prices than the much better stuff around. Yet there is always a queue of cars in it since it borders a main road. I can only assume people tolerate paying more to eat gristle if it means not having to park and get out of their cars. Meanwhile people on foot have access to everything.

by screye 3y ago

badpun 3y ago

Suburbs get such a bad rap in certain online circles, and yet so many people choose to live in them. I'm from Europe and live in a flat in a historical city centre, but I think I'd prefer suburbs, if such a thing existed around here. Sure, historical city centre definitely has its charms and conveniences, but the peace and quiet of suburbs sounds amazing compared to the soundscape (cars, dogs, neighbors) I have to endure every day. I've even set my sleeping schedule to the schedule of the yappy dog in apartment below me - there's no point in trying to sleep till 8 am when the thing starts barking at 6:30 am anyway.

skywal_l 3y ago
One word: earplugs. It changed my life. Yes it's weird at first but sleeping like a baby beats any minor and temporary weirdness.
- badpun 3y ago
  Can't really use them because of my tinnitus...
4wsn 3y ago
Yeah. These romanticized threads always give me a kick. Every large city here in Germany has a chronic smell of diesel and dog piss. There's a level of grime to everything that would really bother someone used to an American suburb. Not to mention the majority of apartments are in old buildings with no ventilation or cooling. Like you said, there's advantages but ignoring the downsides is amusing if you've ever actually lived in a large city.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  It's a bit different in Australia in Melbourne/Sydney. You have suburbs but they have all developed micro cities around the train station. So you have these spots that don't smell like piss and smog, have a supermarket, bars, restaurants, and brand new highrises with high quality apartments. Super easy to live car free since your day to day stuff can be accessed by foot, and the train to the CBD is super easy to access as well.
  - 4wsn 3y ago
    Never had the pleasure of visiting but if this is accurate it might sound like the best of both worlds.
fzeroracer 3y ago
The 'peace and quiet' of suburbs is only assuming that you get lucky. Much like any place, if you have a horrible neighbor they can and will make your life hell, but in the suburbs you're stuck. As someone that lived in the suburbs as a kid I hope to never go back. Being in the city proper and having easy access to everything and nature within a bus / bicycle ride away is far better than living in the burbs and everything is 5-10 miles away. It's even worse if you're a kid, because I frequently had to wake up at 6AM for school, take a bus at 6:45 and get to school by 8AM. That was partly why I did so horribly in highschool.

ekianjo 3y ago

Supermarkets are not a result of cars. They are the result of people not wanting to spend 3 hours in 10 different shops to get what they need. Your logic is all wrong.

gnsdrths 3y ago
First, I don't know why this is going grey at my time of writing because it's true and if that's unsexy I guess me and a lot of Americans are just not meant for a life in France because bouncing around small specialty stores sounds like hell. Second, I honestly don't get the hate for super markets. You might not find high-end wagyu beef at Wal-Mart but you'll find basically any spice you want, a few different varieties of fish, lamb, beef, basically the same staple meats as any other country, and lots of regional 'niche' things from around the world. If the variety was bad it'd defeat the whole point of going to a supermarket. Yeah I guess you might miss out on the "opportunity" to buy a twelve dollar loaf of bread but if you can't make at least ten different good meals out of what's available in a supermarket your issue is frankly skill and not ingredients.
- IneffablePigeon 3y ago
  Except in France the bread is pretty cheap even from an independent bakery because there’s one every 50 metres so the competition keeps the prices down.
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    Bread has become way more expensive in France even in small bakeries. Easy to remember the price before the euro introduction and now and you will see the huge inflation in bread prices
    - nephanth 3y ago
      Inflation is huge. Doesn't change the fact that compared to anything similar you can get in the US, a €1 baguette is vastly cheaper
    - 3y ago

diob 3y ago

The weird thing is going to other cities around the world after visiting NY / SF and such, is that even NY / SF feel overpriced and subpar. It's odd just how much better food is in Tokyo / Melbourne / other great cities around the world. And cheaper!

Gigachad 3y ago
Currently living in Melbourne and it’s so hard to bother cooking at home because I can go on a 5 minute walk and find somewhere that will serve an absolutely delicious meal that looks like it could be put on display in an art gallery and it costs only a little more than cooking yourself.
- arroz 3y ago
  You are bad at managing money if you think eating out is just a bit more expansive than cooking
  - diob 3y ago
    The weird thing is in Melbourne, you can get top quality food for less or around equal to buying groceries. It's an actual "economy of scale", same with Tokyo. It's hard to comprehend for folks in places like the USA, where it's definitely way more expensive to eat out (and typically worse for you).
    - arroz 3y ago
      I lived in Tokyo When I lived there you would be able to get a gyudon for roughly 300-400 yens It will get you full but it’s not very nutritive You can eat many eastern / western fast food dishes for around that price, but if you want to go to an actual sit down restaurant it’s much more expensive I didn’t cook in Tokyo because I was on a scholarship so I didn’t care, but friends told me it would be cheaper to cook too
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    I can go out and buy a Bahn Mi for $10AUD which includes fresh bread baked that morning, fresh vegetables and grilled chicken. It's basically impossible to match this without doing it all from scratch and baking your own bread/grilling your own chicken. At which point you have to produce like 20 in a single go to match the value of the one I can buy pre made.

forrestthewoods 3y ago

To a hammer, everything is a nail. To some people, everything is the fault of cars. I find this broken record to be uncompelling and tiresome. > It has bad community culture of all sorts. On this I agree. The irony is that rural America, highly dependent on cars, has, imho and experience, radically stronger community than dense urban centers! When it comes to food I'm far more inclined to blame the economics. American restaurants try to get as many patrons in and out as possible. Clear that table and get the next guest in. This is just as true in SF and NYC as suburbia. TBH I genuinely do not understand how the economics of restaurants in Japan and Paris work. I've been to both and when I look at the prices, patrons, and staff I don't get it. If there is any root cause to the woes of America it's probably the cost of land/housing/real estate. The monthly lease for a half decent commercial space is so astronomical there's no option but to cycle as many patrons through as possible.

fzeroracer 3y ago
> On this I agree. The irony is that rural America, highly dependent on cars, has, imho and experience, radically stronger community than dense urban centers! This isn't particularly true. There's been many writings on the 'loneliness epidemic' that hits the hardest in the rural parts of America, where people die of drug abuse or alcohol or health issues alone and ignored. The community effort fully coalesces around the religious experience, but sharply ends after Sunday for most people. It's been noted multiple times over that Americans generally trust eachother lower than ever, the amount of close friends has gone down and more. This is before we get into the community dynamics of rural communities being very exclusive towards certain groups of people.
- athrun 3y ago
  I think it's important to separate rural and suburbia. I agree that the sense of community can be high in rural areas. People who live there can be very strongly rooted in the place. Depopulation is taking its toll though. Suburbia on the other hand...

sologoub 3y ago

The poor quality of US food is not about cars, but about the ingredients. When you compare US food vs EU food, you immediately notice that US food has a lot more ingredients and those ingredients are often very questionable. Much of that comes from how profitable it is and how EU tends to restrict things until proven safe, whereas US tends to allow until proven unsafe. Take bread for example. Bread needs nothing more than flour, water, yeast and some salt. Here are the ingredients for Wonder Round Top White Sliced Bread: “Unbleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Sugar, Yeast, Contains 2% Or Less Of Each Of The Following: Calcium Carbonate, Wheat Gluten, Soybean Oil, Salt, Dough Conditioners (Contains One Or More Of The Following: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate, Monoglycerides, Mono- And Diglycerides, Distilled Monoglycerides, Calcium Peroxide, Calcium Iodate, Datem, Ethoxylated Mono- And Diglycerides, Enzymes, Ascorbic Acid), Vinegar, Monocalcium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3), Soy Lecithin, Calcium Propionate (To Retard Spoilage).” Source: https://www.target.com/p/wonder-round-top-white-sliced-bread-20oz/-/A-15077154 https://www.target.com/p/wonder-round-top-white-sliced-bread... That’s a lot of ingredients for the most basic of foods. I’d argue that’s not a good thing… While the large cities in US have an amazing diversity of food, the quality of this food is abysmal. US also restricts many normal European foods because of the requirement to pasteurize. While I’m sure the periodic table laden recipes are dangerous if not pasteurized, I personally have yet to have an issue eating EU food within EU norms (yes, things spoil rather quickly by US standards; that’s why fresh food is important).

frutiger 3y ago
Just wait until you find out what yeast is made of.
- beAbU 3y ago
  Please enlighten us?
- skywal_l 3y ago
  What's wrong with mushrooms?

jjav 3y ago

> (because it somehow dissappears the second they step in Europe for vacation) To be fair, that is because people on vacation are by definition living out of a suitcase. It is easy to live in a tiny hotel room in a very dense building among dense buildings when all you own (for a few days) is a suitcase. A lot of people in the US like to have space for hobbies and toys and cars and home offices and yards and so on. Which is difficult in a dense city, but irrelevant while on vacation.

jjav 3y ago

> Suburbia is literally characterized by being boring. Not by everyone. Suburbia is bad for bar crawls, but after my 20s that wasn't a priority. Suburbia is great for access to mountain biking, road biking, playgrounds for the kids, sports fields, walking to friends houses, having space for a yard and BBQs, having friends over (plenty of parking) and countless other activities. It's really pretty awesome.

screye 3y ago
I don't see how that is true. > mountain biking The mountains are where the mountains are. Being the suburbs or cities changes nothing. > road biking I would never dare road bike on American roads. If anything, cities have more protected bike lanes. > playgrounds for the kids, sports fields Playgrounds are about having 22 people to play a game of football. Cities have both sufficient fields and sufficient people. Suburbs struggle with the latter. > walking to friends houses ?? More like, being forced to be friends with the 5 families on the block, because no where else is walkable. > having friends over (plenty of parking) Hah, solving a problem of your own creation ? Cities don't need parking. You can have plenty of friends over using transit, who can safely have a couple of beers, because they don't need to drive back. ___________ When people explain suburbs like this, I have to wonder what shaped their opinions of cities. Surely you must have a specific perspective on cities, which would lead you to believe that cities struggle to accommodate these exact things. To a degree, We are in agreement. No one wants to live in cities in the way the US has built them. IMO, Chicago, SF, NY, Boston, DC & Philly are the proper cities (as a non-American would recognize) in the country. Of those, SF & Philly refuse to deal with their public safety issues. Chicago has peculiar weather. Boston and DC are great, but are confusingly limited to oddly shaped and tiny city boundaries. This leaves NYC as the only city that is allowed to leverage its full city-ness. The issue with NYC is that most people do the FiDi -> Times Square pilgrimage and come out disappointed, having experienced the touristiest and therefore the worst that NYC has to offer.
- jjav 3y ago
  > I have to wonder what shaped their opinions of cities By far most of my city-time has been in the #1 densest city in the US, NYC (specifically in Manhattan). I'm on the record (in HN comment history) on how much I loved time in Manhattan when I lived in the east coast in my 20s. In middle age now my hobbies and lifestyle and family commitments are quite different and I'd hate living in Manhattan now. The second city I've spent most time in is the #2 densest in the US, San Francisco. > lead you to believe that cities struggle to accommodate these exact things Cities do struggle to accommodate these things. Cities do come with pros & cons, it's good to be open about that. Pretending there are no compromises at all to make with living in a city is not a good way to promote city life. Some people love it some don't, all depends on the priorities. Sometimes the same person (like me) will love it at one stage of life and then want nothing to do with it in a different stage, because life priorities change. > The mountains are where the mountains are. Being the suburbs or cities changes nothing. Despite the name, mountain biking does not require mountains. It is off-road biking in forests, open fields and sometimes actual mountains. Clearly being in the suburbs vs cities changes everything. It is difficult in a city to ride out your front door into a forest or the mountains in reasonable time (Central Park doesn't count, as much as I've enjoyed tons of time cycling there, it's not mountain biking). In many suburbs this is easy. In the suburbs I'm less than a mile away from forest land where I can ride for hours (or even all day). Such places rarely exist within a city. > I would never dare road bike on American roads. If anything, cities have more protected bike lanes. Yeah, no. I did spend a lot of time road biking in Manhattan but I was much younger and foolish. As a road cyclist (more than a mountain biker) I don't really want to risk my life road biking in any city. Out here in the suburbs, I can ride out my door into rarely-used mountain and rural roads where I'll see a car maybe once or twice an hour. It is prime territory for road cycling. If I was living in a city I'd have to put the bike in the car (but what if I don't have a car?) and drive out to the suburbs to look for safe cycling roads. > Playgrounds are about having 22 people to play a game of football. Playgrounds means for the kids. These exist in cities but out in the suburbs they are larger and easier to access, cleaner and safer. > Cities have both sufficient fields and sufficient people. Suburbs struggle with the latter. Suburbs don't struggle with this. Surely the term soccer-mom is familiar as an archetype of suburban life? Because it is so common. I have several soccer fields just across the street and the kids take full advantage. I don't have time to research how many people in Manhattan live within a block of a soccer field but it's a tiny percentage. > More like, being forced to be friends with the 5 families on the block, because no where else is walkable. There are more than 5 families in a suburb. In particular, all the kids from all the nearby suburbs go to the same few schools, so they can all walk to each others houses which is very awesome at that age. > Cities don't need parking. You can have plenty of friends over using transit Yes you can, as long as everyone lives in the same transit. If you live in Manhattan and everyone you know does as well, it's perfect. There's even Seinfeld episodes about how people move out to Queens never to be seen again due to this dynamic. It's a tradeoff. Dense cities can be really awesome, particularly in young adulthood. But it's not honest to pretend that there are no drawbacks. City living comes with a stiff set of tradeoffs, you gain many conveniences but you lose access to many activities as well. Whether it's paradise or hell really depends on what each person enjoys the most.

Gigachad 3y ago

I think you're on the money with this. I live in Australia in a pretty walkable inner city area and there are countless amazing food options all around and there is also a KFC which serves absolutely appalling food for higher prices than the much better stuff around. Yet there is always a queue of cars in it since it borders a main road. I can only assume people tolerate paying more to eat gristle if it means not having to park and get out of their cars. Meanwhile people on foot have access to everything.