4 ms·

Cities are not just where the jobs are, cities are where everything is. You'd likely have to offer double my salary before I'd consider exchanging my life here

Cities are not just where the jobs are, cities are where everything is. You'd likely have to offer double my salary before I'd consider exchanging my life here in the heart of it all for the lonely, empty, car-dependent barrenness of the suburbs.

ghaff 2y ago
It's obviously fine if that's your preference. But many jobs are in the suburbs and you can access many city amenities pretty conveniently without living in the wilds.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
I guess it depends on your idea of the suburbs. I can walk to a major grocery store, coffee shops, restaurants, and breweries, but have a quarter acre with fruit trees and gardens. Im happy to trade that for having to spend an hour in car/train a few times a year to see a show or museum. I would take a pay cut to work closer to home.
- xerox13ster 2y ago
  Like many in the suburbs have convinced themselves they're rural as a result of oil company propaganda (rural identity sells big mall crawler trucks), it sounds to me like you live in a central, quite urban area that's otherwise sparse on local options and have convinced yourself it's your extra special private enclave in the hills, completely separated from the economic center, despite it literally being your economic center. Ditch the suburbanite identity politics and start advocating for the development of shows and museums in your local area that you could walk to, instead of taking your money away from your economic center at the benefit of oil companies (bc let's be real, suburban identity sells car dependence and even if you take the train, all the cultural momentum from the propaganda shaped your life decisions to move there and what's that train run on?).
  - int_19h 2y ago
    I find it amusing that so many activists in US believe that the sole reason why people like the suburbs over the cities is some kind of "propaganda". I'm from a country where suburbs are far less common and I grew up in a city of 300k and then lived in a megapolis for several years. And yes, we did have public transportation etc. When I moved to US, I chose to live pretty much as far as I can from the nearest large city that wouldn't be considered straight up "rural" (although we do have a bunch of farms around here). And the reason is because I don't want to live in what is, in effect, a giant human anthill.
    - xerox13ster 2y ago
      The sprawling car based American suburbs are actually a result of propaganda and master planning by white supremacists. I find it amusing. That so many people are so sure that so many things are innate without having ever done an ounce of research or investigation into the source of why things are the way they are. It’s OK to admit that you don’t actually know or maybe that you even have learned something today, but I did actually do a research paper with how and why we came to live in suburbs as a core point of research, and guess what? It was a result of master planned communities by white supremacists and their oil and motor industry buddies. Most of the best old suburbs in America were built organically through bit by bit demand around street cars, not car cars. Then the motor industry executives and oil industry executives got together and lobby the government to create the crime of jaywalking, to buy up all the street cars and remove them from American cities, to build out the highway system, and to change zoning laws, to encourage if not outright force the building of car dependent American suburbia. Do not get me wrong streetcar, suburb, designed suburbs are fantastic, walkable compact, wonderful wonderfully tight communities. But today in today’s world this year of our Lord 2025? Today those street car suburbs are urban compared to the car dependent suburban sprawl that we have now.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    It really depends on how you draw the lines between urban and suburban. For this conversation, we're talking about the cores of tier 1 cities where the high paying jobs are most abundant. I considers a location suburban if they are predominantly single-family homes and if many of them commute into the Metro for work. I'm going to ignore all that identity politics stuff because frankly I don't understand what you were trying to say there
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Haha, cities are where everything is if you want everything and experiences delivered up to you in a one stop mall like package and don't have personality enough to organically find things. Personally I find city people the most boring and socially/culturally stunted because they think a cultivated/curated 'mall like setting of stuff' = culture. They also tend to think buying access to art/culture because they have money = having artist style/culture. The music scenes/art scenes are overly (often self) curated pap. Lots of cities 'diverse' districts are just... suburbs... that the cities absorbed. Even for things like 'exotic' foods I routinely find bombed out suburban strip mall restaurants to be superior and less 'catered' to American Paletes than places in cities that have to be more generic because they serve such a large population. I also have personally found when I have been lonely in life, being lonely in the city is the worst kind of loneliness.
HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
Jeez, you'd hate it here then :-) Looking out my window, I can't even see another house. If I twist my neck, I can see a neighbor's barn about half a mile away, though.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  That sounds quite rural - not suburban at all - and I am sure it is a lovely place to spend time! It is sprawling, car-dependent, low-density development I can't abide, the kind of cul-de-sac-ridden suburbs the US has been building around its urban fringes for the last 80-odd years. It feels suffocating to be surrounded by mile after mile of other people's stuff, with nowhere to go but strip malls and nothing to do but drive from one parking lot to another. People talk about wanting a house with a yard, but when that yard is the only place you can be without justifying your presence there by participating in some transaction, it can feel like a very confining space indeed.

ghaff 2y ago

It's obviously fine if that's your preference. But many jobs are in the suburbs and you can access many city amenities pretty conveniently without living in the wilds.

s1artibartfast 2y ago

I guess it depends on your idea of the suburbs. I can walk to a major grocery store, coffee shops, restaurants, and breweries, but have a quarter acre with fruit trees and gardens. Im happy to trade that for having to spend an hour in car/train a few times a year to see a show or museum. I would take a pay cut to work closer to home.

xerox13ster 2y ago
Like many in the suburbs have convinced themselves they're rural as a result of oil company propaganda (rural identity sells big mall crawler trucks), it sounds to me like you live in a central, quite urban area that's otherwise sparse on local options and have convinced yourself it's your extra special private enclave in the hills, completely separated from the economic center, despite it literally being your economic center. Ditch the suburbanite identity politics and start advocating for the development of shows and museums in your local area that you could walk to, instead of taking your money away from your economic center at the benefit of oil companies (bc let's be real, suburban identity sells car dependence and even if you take the train, all the cultural momentum from the propaganda shaped your life decisions to move there and what's that train run on?).
- int_19h 2y ago
  I find it amusing that so many activists in US believe that the sole reason why people like the suburbs over the cities is some kind of "propaganda". I'm from a country where suburbs are far less common and I grew up in a city of 300k and then lived in a megapolis for several years. And yes, we did have public transportation etc. When I moved to US, I chose to live pretty much as far as I can from the nearest large city that wouldn't be considered straight up "rural" (although we do have a bunch of farms around here). And the reason is because I don't want to live in what is, in effect, a giant human anthill.
  - xerox13ster 2y ago
    The sprawling car based American suburbs are actually a result of propaganda and master planning by white supremacists. I find it amusing. That so many people are so sure that so many things are innate without having ever done an ounce of research or investigation into the source of why things are the way they are. It’s OK to admit that you don’t actually know or maybe that you even have learned something today, but I did actually do a research paper with how and why we came to live in suburbs as a core point of research, and guess what? It was a result of master planned communities by white supremacists and their oil and motor industry buddies. Most of the best old suburbs in America were built organically through bit by bit demand around street cars, not car cars. Then the motor industry executives and oil industry executives got together and lobby the government to create the crime of jaywalking, to buy up all the street cars and remove them from American cities, to build out the highway system, and to change zoning laws, to encourage if not outright force the building of car dependent American suburbia. Do not get me wrong streetcar, suburb, designed suburbs are fantastic, walkable compact, wonderful wonderfully tight communities. But today in today’s world this year of our Lord 2025? Today those street car suburbs are urban compared to the car dependent suburban sprawl that we have now.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  It really depends on how you draw the lines between urban and suburban. For this conversation, we're talking about the cores of tier 1 cities where the high paying jobs are most abundant. I considers a location suburban if they are predominantly single-family homes and if many of them commute into the Metro for work. I'm going to ignore all that identity politics stuff because frankly I don't understand what you were trying to say there

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

Haha, cities are where everything is if you want everything and experiences delivered up to you in a one stop mall like package and don't have personality enough to organically find things. Personally I find city people the most boring and socially/culturally stunted because they think a cultivated/curated 'mall like setting of stuff' = culture. They also tend to think buying access to art/culture because they have money = having artist style/culture. The music scenes/art scenes are overly (often self) curated pap. Lots of cities 'diverse' districts are just... suburbs... that the cities absorbed. Even for things like 'exotic' foods I routinely find bombed out suburban strip mall restaurants to be superior and less 'catered' to American Paletes than places in cities that have to be more generic because they serve such a large population. I also have personally found when I have been lonely in life, being lonely in the city is the worst kind of loneliness.

HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago

Jeez, you'd hate it here then :-) Looking out my window, I can't even see another house. If I twist my neck, I can see a neighbor's barn about half a mile away, though.

marssaxman 2y ago
That sounds quite rural - not suburban at all - and I am sure it is a lovely place to spend time! It is sprawling, car-dependent, low-density development I can't abide, the kind of cul-de-sac-ridden suburbs the US has been building around its urban fringes for the last 80-odd years. It feels suffocating to be surrounded by mile after mile of other people's stuff, with nowhere to go but strip malls and nothing to do but drive from one parking lot to another. People talk about wanting a house with a yard, but when that yard is the only place you can be without justifying your presence there by participating in some transaction, it can feel like a very confining space indeed.