And jj, although your house and your nabe and your life sound perfectly charming and I pretty much want them all, you are taking the perfection of YOUR suburban-by-some-definition life and using it to defend things just as generalized as any of the champions of cities may be doing on this thread.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Nothing at all. You only seem to grasp it though when it applies to city dwellers.
no, it's just much more likely to be the case with them because they live in an environment suited for it, or near public transit.
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
ok so at this point i think iatee is arguing that people who commute to their suburban job out of the city are in fact living in a one person suburb that orbits around them.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
waht
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
as much as i apreesh the "hey ppl in suburbs aren't JUST commuting to cities" sentiment the fact that fucktons of people do just this remains.
have there been any studies/proposals/etc. for creating environmentally sustainable models of living in outer-ring suburbs as they are understood in the u.s.? because i would like to read those.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
This is interesting because...it seems like another way of saying, "Make areas with access to Stuff be more like cities." Which is fine, it's great! but you're basically admitting that the high-pop-den urban model is more desirable on a human scale.
Did I ever say otherwise?
Also, a lot a lot-lot-lot of residential areas have ZERO access to amenities. You'd have to CREATE the amenities where they didn't exist before. Do you...use govt money, tax concessions, whatever, to promote developing these businesses?
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 Suggest Ban Permalink9:37 AM Bookmark
It wouldn't be perfect, but a lot of this could be handled with simple zoning changes. One of the problems with suburban planning is the hard seperation of land use into seperate commercial and residential areas. Allowing some commercial or (preferably) mixed-use development into areas where only residential use exists could incrementally make those spaces more livable.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/48/107880025_1a2b75d75a.jpg
reposting this because i think its an impt piece of data, it's generalizble to say that suburban space is more energy-inefficient and i think that's all iatee has been getting at
― i don't always play indie, but when i do, i prefer xx (m bison), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Or what Granny said.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link
xp yeah exactly--is there any model that refutes or mitigates this?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link
bison, I think you are saying the opposite of what you mean?
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:44 (fourteen years ago) link
and nah laurel, im not generalizing at all about what other suburbs are like, and i wouldnt be caught dead living in some that are around here. i just think that it bears mentioning that the preconceptions about "suburbs" getting tossed around on this thread are a little bizarre. some suburbs suck. so do some cities. some rural areas are awesome. some are not.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Re redding-up the suburbs: Sidewalks and bike lanes are USELESS in parts of the country where the temperature is below freezing for half of the year, there could be several feet of snow on the ground, and everything you might want to buy or do is 5-50 miles from home. I gotta figure this is most of the northern US, from east to west?
Rev: Good, this is what I was thinking/getting at. However, the next hurdle seems like the fact that people who live in the burbs are unlikely to vote for or allow those zoning changes because none of them want to live near business or places/services that will gather groups of (possibly undesirable, possibly noisy, etc) people together. Should the municipality make the changes over their heads? Go on a campaign to show people the benefits and hope they're open to changing their minds?
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:45 (fourteen years ago) link
xxpost for clarity i shouldve have said less energy efficient than more inefficient?
― i don't always play indie, but when i do, i prefer xx (m bison), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
oh never mind, I misread your post
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
think of something like the mortgage income tax deduction or 1st time home buyer credit -- there's a lot of research indicating that it doesn't really encourage more home ownership; it encourages people who already would have bought a house to buy a bigger one, and therefore encourages builders to build bigger houses.
it's a government expenditure that super-sizes houses, along with (maybe even instead of) its intended effect: easing home-ownership and allowing more people to enter the middle class.
it doesn't seem like much, but you multiply it over a whole nation and it adds up: larger houses, more heating and cooling, more upkeep roads between them, more driving between them. it's a classic case of the government paying for the "wrong" thing
i don't get a break from the gov't on my rent, so what gives? (i might from the state i live in, but my income is too high)
― goole, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
It's a very old debate.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lVkm%2B0uPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
Alas, the problem was tackled much earlier:
http://www.allingtonbooks.com/allington/images/items/000028.jpg
― Do you like my indifference curves? (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
the fact that people who live in the burbs are unlikely to vote for or allow those zoning changes because none of them want to live near business or places/services that will gather groups of (possibly undesirable, possibly noisy, etc) people together.
why exactly is this an assumption? this seems like strawmanning of the highest degree
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
I mean I think you guys are just failing to see how I'm using the word suburb, (in the suburban vs. urban sense, and not in any sense related to the size, political border or location of a city) - your examples of 'suburbs that are actually nice!' are actually just suburbs that are not very suburban by this definition, and well...are almost by definition the opposite of the things I dislike about 'suburbs'.
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Uh, not exactly. It snows about 2 days a year in the PNW. I hadn't taken the less temparate climates of other parts of the country into account tho.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
"The fact that" usually signals the unfurling of an opinion.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
brian setzer has a condo by where i work in mpls. i bet that shit cost a fortune
― the dj screwtape letters (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:49 (fourteen years ago) link
I admit I only read like one-third of A Pattern Language before I gave it to my little brother for Christmas while he was in arch school. So I don't know shit about shit, obviously.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:50 (fourteen years ago) link
as it pertains to externalities, if you've got newly developed residential communities that explodes to such an extent that the freeway that feeds it can no longer manage the flow of traffic, the denizens of that suburb do not internalize the full cost of constructing expansion of that freeway.
xpost to add to goole's pts
― i don't always play indie, but when i do, i prefer xx (m bison), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:50 (fourteen years ago) link
that totally fucking false! minneapolis has lots of bike lanes and its a big reason why there's great numbers of bikers here.
i've been biking to work about 3 times a week and bike lanes make that possible.
― the dj screwtape letters (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:51 (fourteen years ago) link
This whole discussion reminds me of a running (friendly) argument we've been having with friends. A couple years ago my wife and I turned into (apparently, according to this thread) worthless, boring fucks when we had the chance to buy a house in the suburbs. Now, this is where our argument comes in. Our house is literally four blocks from the Chicago city line and we live in a suburb that is pretty much at times an extension of the city - shared public transportation, all of that. So friends of ours started calling us "fucking suburbanites" all the time, but we found that kind of hilarious since they live in the city - but only a total of twelve blocks south of us, in a neighborhood that really isn't much different from ours (same tightly packed houses, garages on alleys, etc.). Its just kind of funny to see how hard and fast people draw these lines.
― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Do you...use govt money, tax concessions, whatever, to promote developing these businesses?
Start w/zoning. Suburbs were very often founded w/restrictions on commercial lots and minimum size to insure single family middle-class homes.
― If the US had a dictator we'd call him coach (Michael White), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Hey, back off, all of you alligators. You only have to read through yesterday's discussion itt to see plenty of evidence of people not wanting the outside world to intrude on their residential idyll and the American dream of perfect privacy, perfect quiet, perfect kingship of your own domain. And also plenty of people commenting that the dislikeable things about cities are their noise and congestion -- and at the same time, there's general agreement that one way to fix up and possibly save suburbia is to increase population density AND the number of places for people to gather for activities and/or services...which is going to lead to exactly what made people with a certain mindset MOVE to the suburbs in the first place.
I might not have pretty graphs or studies to quote to back it up, but I hardly manufactured it out of whole straw.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:54 (fourteen years ago) link
your friends sound kinda dickish tbh
― the dj screwtape letters (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:54 (fourteen years ago) link
xpost
much of political nyc and la are absolutely 'suburban' - so yeah, city borders lines are generally meaningless from this POV
xp
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:54 (fourteen years ago) link
sorry for using the correct definition of "suburb" and not your personal, negative-connatation-already-included definition
yeah the govt home owner subsidies are some bullshit
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh yeah, I forgot you fuckers got voted #1 biking city ahead of use when we have way more bicyclists than you. Grrrr! Anger!
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:55 (fourteen years ago) link
ahead of us*
there is no 'correct definition of suburb' ffs
― iatee, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Nah, I know them well enough to know they don't mean harm by it, but they are totally the types that will never move out of the city and don't understand how anybody could do so. They aren't being dicks, but there is a lot of truth when the say it.
― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:58 (fourteen years ago) link
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:54 AM Bookmark
No disagreement.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Laurel, I'd like to think there's a happy medium between super hi density urban living and bloated inefficient unsustainable suburban sprawl. ie you can shift current suburbs TOWARDS the hi density urban model and obtain much of its benefits while still retaining much of the attractions of suburban living.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:58 (fourteen years ago) link
well "suburb" as a legally distinct entity separated from "the city" is a different thing from low-density single-owner freeway-dependent developments. but when you way "suburb" everybody is talking about the latter.
i mean, one radical solution i'd propose is erasing all urban-suburban legal boundaries and have each metro area as one constituency under one administration. bingo, problem solved.
― goole, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:59 (fourteen years ago) link
jvc but i don't understand--if you live blocks apart and the neighborhoods are similar the fact that they're within chicago city limits is that valuable to them?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Granny otm.
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:59 (fourteen years ago) link
my sister lives in the suburbs and i live in an urban neighborhood in minneapolis..her's is very new development big homes, cul de sacs, etc
but honestly....they seem to be way more engaged in their neighborhood than we are...it's just very safe and everyone has elementary aged kids and everyone's kids hangs out at everyone else's house and they have little pool gatherings in the summertime....
i lived in the same house for 9 years and BARELY knew my neighbors
― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 4:55 PM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
We started this gangsta shit? And this the motherfuckin' thanks we get?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Tallbike.jpg/450px-Tallbike.jpg
http://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/a27/d7f/a27d7ff7-6227-44b7-ab09-1923fafa3f82
― the dj screwtape letters (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:59 (fourteen years ago) link
totally don't know what you mean by "is"????????? cause for me "is" means "bathwater".
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 16:59 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean i guess technically i moved to a suburb of boston last week but it's the damn city afaic
or elect iatee to a zoning commission in North Korea.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:00 (fourteen years ago) link
people who live near where they work create fewer externalities...what is complicated about this idea?
What if they work in a POLLUTION FACTORY, smarty-pants?
BTW I live in a city where it's below freezing mostly from December to April and I would KILL for more bike lanes and sidewalks.
― I guess for copraphiles this is gonna be awesome (Pancakes Hackman), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Granny OTM, I mean, here's a view of my neighborhood in the suburbs.
― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:00 (fourteen years ago) link
― goole, Wednesday, June 9, 2010 12:59 PM (1 minute ago)
i am for this, also abolish states thx
― harbl, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:01 (fourteen years ago) link
I mean, by implication, if it's below freezing for half the year, that still makes bike lanes and sidewalks usable for the other half of the year. And even then, they're still useful for walking to bus routes, etc. Plus, I saw plenty of hardcore cyclists biking to work all winter long in Cleveland. I haven't worked up to that, but I hope to.
― I guess for copraphiles this is gonna be awesome (Pancakes Hackman), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Many American cities are single-family dwelling sprawls. I've lived in lots of 'suburbs' but ones like Mill Valley or Sausalito are distinctly different from even the western part of the city of San Francisco.
― If the US had a dictator we'd call him coach (Michael White), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:03 (fourteen years ago) link
erasing all urban-suburban legal boundaries and have each metro area as one constituency under one administration.
Megalopolis, here we come!
they seem to be way more engaged in their neighborhood than we are...it's just very safe and everyone has elementary aged kids and everyone's kids hangs out at everyone else's house and they have little pool gatherings in the summertime....
Do you think it would be accurate to say that some of the ease of their suburban community comes from the fact that many/most of the residents are very similar to the others with their priorities and where they are in life? This strikes me as the comforts of similarity, that we feel better w people most like us. It might make it easier to know and/or feel good about knowing your neighbors, but it's not a very...robust community.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:04 (fourteen years ago) link