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Different strokes indeed. As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the car

Different strokes indeed. As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating.

whalesalad 3y ago
> just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness Truthfully this is the dream.
jjav 3y ago
> As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating. This sounds like a cartoon version of suburbs! Can you point at actual suburbs (google map links) where you might be surrounded by endless nothingness and can't walk anywhere? I've lived most of my life in suburbs in the US and have never experienced this. The only time I lived in a place I couldn't walk to any destination was when I lived in a quite rural area. But that was rural, not suburban.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  > Can you point at actual suburbs Not the OP but when I lived in the US as an exchange student I lived in a suburb that looked exactly like the one in this video[1], which seems to be a fairly typical middle class neighborhood. Like him I had the same experience of barely being able to walk anywhere, given how little space there even is for pedestrians. [1]https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509 https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509
  - jjav 3y ago
    In the middle of the aerial shot I see what looks like some kind of store complex and there's another commercial-looking building on the far left of the frame. Can't tell what kinds of stores are in these buildings, but they are within an extremely short walk from the houses in the video. So I'm not sure how this is an example of suburbs where one can't walk anywhere.
    - Barrin92 3y ago
      There's more parking lots and roads reserved for cars then there's space for people to walk. When people think of walkable towns they mean something like this: https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 Car free zones, shops, restaurants and pedestrians taking up 90% of the space, mixed. Not one lonely sad mall. It's not an exgaratation to say when you pull up an aerial google map shot of a US suburb, there's more asphalt than people or buildings.
      - jjav 3y ago
        > There's more parking lots and roads reserved for cars then there's space for people to walk. When people think of walkable towns they mean something like this: https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 Ok but that's changing the goalposts of the discussion. I totally agree it's more cute to walk in Heidelberg than the suburban area shown in that video (wherever it was). I've spent some time there and it was nice. But the claim in the top of the thread was that in a suburb you are forced to stay home because it is basically impossible to walk anywhere, nothing is reachable on foot within reasonable distance. In my experience that's not true and I question whether it is true in most areas. Whenever I've lived in suburbs in the US (which is most of my life) I've always been able to walk to nearly everything I need within a reasonable & convenient walk. I often do because it's nice to walk. If you change the discussion to be whether it's prettier and nicer to walk in a pedestrian street like in the video, then sure, I agree.

whalesalad 3y ago

> just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness Truthfully this is the dream.

jjav 3y ago

> As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating. This sounds like a cartoon version of suburbs! Can you point at actual suburbs (google map links) where you might be surrounded by endless nothingness and can't walk anywhere? I've lived most of my life in suburbs in the US and have never experienced this. The only time I lived in a place I couldn't walk to any destination was when I lived in a quite rural area. But that was rural, not suburban.

Barrin92 3y ago
> Can you point at actual suburbs Not the OP but when I lived in the US as an exchange student I lived in a suburb that looked exactly like the one in this video[1], which seems to be a fairly typical middle class neighborhood. Like him I had the same experience of barely being able to walk anywhere, given how little space there even is for pedestrians. [1]https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509 https://youtu.be/39QOw4IL0Gk?t=509
- jjav 3y ago
  In the middle of the aerial shot I see what looks like some kind of store complex and there's another commercial-looking building on the far left of the frame. Can't tell what kinds of stores are in these buildings, but they are within an extremely short walk from the houses in the video. So I'm not sure how this is an example of suburbs where one can't walk anywhere.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    There's more parking lots and roads reserved for cars then there's space for people to walk. When people think of walkable towns they mean something like this: https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 Car free zones, shops, restaurants and pedestrians taking up 90% of the space, mixed. Not one lonely sad mall. It's not an exgaratation to say when you pull up an aerial google map shot of a US suburb, there's more asphalt than people or buildings.
    - jjav 3y ago
      > There's more parking lots and roads reserved for cars then there's space for people to walk. When people think of walkable towns they mean something like this: https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 https://youtu.be/zDLa-uCq9Ws?t=137 Ok but that's changing the goalposts of the discussion. I totally agree it's more cute to walk in Heidelberg than the suburban area shown in that video (wherever it was). I've spent some time there and it was nice. But the claim in the top of the thread was that in a suburb you are forced to stay home because it is basically impossible to walk anywhere, nothing is reachable on foot within reasonable distance. In my experience that's not true and I question whether it is true in most areas. Whenever I've lived in suburbs in the US (which is most of my life) I've always been able to walk to nearly everything I need within a reasonable & convenient walk. I often do because it's nice to walk. If you change the discussion to be whether it's prettier and nicer to walk in a pedestrian street like in the video, then sure, I agree.