People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

there was a period when mookdad types ended up convincing companies to leave, eg ibm, pepsi, mastercard, jc penny, but really the overwhelming number of companies headquartered in manhattan are in industries where network effects really matter ie finance, publishing, media. consumer goods / retail companies are much less likely to be headquartered in ny but thats okay cause they won't exist soon.

what's the worst that could happen?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/honduras-signs-deal-create-private-cities-17154881#.UEeAh42PWgx

Investors can begin construction in six months on three privately run cities in Honduras that will have their own police, laws, government and tax systems now that the government has signed a memorandum of agreement approving the project.

An international group of investors and government representatives signed the memorandum Tuesday for the project that some say will bring badly needed economic growth to this small Central American country and that at least one detractor describes as "a catastrophe."

...

The "model cities" will have their own judiciary, laws, governments and police forces. They also will be empowered to sign international agreements on trade and investment and set their own immigration policy.

Congress president Juan Hernandez said the investment group MGK will invest $15 million to begin building basic infrastructure for the first model city near Puerto Castilla on the Caribbean coast. That first city would create 5,000 jobs over the next six months and up to 200,000 jobs in the future, Hernandez said. South Korea has given Honduras $4 million to conduct a feasibility study, he said.

sounds like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia

aren't there places like that already in florida. on a smaller scale obv

what do you mean, disney world is huge

the places in florida are lame utopian planning and

is this the new Reddit Island

it's not like disney got the power to change the legal system or trade agreements in Florida

like nobody moved to celebration florida to flee corruption and trade barriers

it's not like disney got the power to change the legal system or trade agreements in Florida

― iatee, Thursday, September 6, 2012 12:04 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bet we could find counterexamples

joeks

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/08/16/housings-fortune-depends-on-apartment-living/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/us-usa-campaign-teaparty-agenda-idUSBRE89E04J20121015

tbf most of these people think they're going to still be living in mcmansions in suburbs and driving their oversized cars at the age of 85, as god intended

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/11/what-republicans-are-really-against-population-density/3953/

not that this is new or anything but I like this graph

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/11/26/density_red_blueWEB.png

Isolated Cabin Dwellers More Likely to Vote Republican (The Atlantic)

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/27/how-people-live-in-the-suburbs/

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/6557287/list/Get-a-Bird-s-Eye-View-of-America-s-Housing-Patterns

The "multifamily island" looks to me like it might actually be an business hotel/extended stay sort of place.

HIPSTURBIA http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/fashion/creating-hipsturbia-in-the-suburbs-of-new-york.html

are american suburbs more fun to grow up in than english ones? i imagine you spend your days zooming about on yr skatebaord and then go home and listen to hardcore. in the sun.

They were awesome for the skateboarding years. Pure hell when I got old enough to want to go to shows.

I grew up in a "suburban" part of a city - inside city limits but public transit was very limited and there was no commercial area within walking distance. It was good in some ways -a yard to play football in, places to build snowforts and sled, quiet, etc. I was pretty miserable as a teenager though when I couldn't get anywhere without taking a long bus ride to the metro -- 1hr trip to anything worthwhile. Although I guess that's better than not having it at all.

I spent my weekends in a planned community. Cul-de-sacs out the wazoo. Walking and biking paths snaking through the neighborhoods. Only two ways into the town. Playgrounds close by. That part of town where every street was named after a PGA golfer.

As a kid, my step-brother and I would enter a drainage tunnel and walk along through it to see where we'd come out at. Our local playground was this "tree-house", where there was a long tube with a ladder inside it that would lead to a circular platform, walled off with metal bars.

It must've looked pretty sharp when people started moving in during the late 70s, but by the time we were done with it around 1990, all that new had worn off in a bad way. All those houses with the wooden facades started looking pretty bad. Traffic was getting heavier, winding up and down those curvy streets to the cul-de-sac of your choice. Those walking and bike paths that went between and behind the houses were perfect for scoping out burglaries, peeping toms and even the occasional rape. People kept peeing down the tube of our "tree-house", so the community nailed plywood over the openings.

We went back over there recently for a Christmas party. There's a big five lane "loop" going around the city, mere feet from some people's backyards. They razed all the land around the lake my family would picnic at, so now it looks like this little pond surrounded by strip malls and Walmart Neighborhood Grocery. Those two routes into the city were clogged and I read that they're thinking about adding a third artery, if the state highway department lets them put in a new interchange on the interstate.

Instead of the planned "New Town" that the commercials for the place advertised, it looks now just like a regular town... albeit one that is choking itself through the shortsighted planning of that utopia that never quite came to pass. And it's STILL 30 minutes removed from any other city. I don't know why people still move out to those brick mini mcmansions on the slab. The crime is still there. The county property taxes are the same as in the "big" city. You can't see the stars at night. I honestly couldn't tell you what is the pay-out for all that.

That part of town where every street was named after a PGA golfer.

We had a part of town where every street was named from Tolkein.

A Frodo Lane, everybody wants one.

haha I was just thinking "Out on my skateboard the night is just hummin'."

this is a good piece about the nutty vegas street names

http://www.theawl.com/2013/01/the-street-names-of-las-vegas

there's a road near me called 'good intentions road'

I drove down it once and it got really warm inside the car

Of course.

I like the vegas article

http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/

did we talk about this? this seems like the right thread for it, somehow

lumping AK and HI into the continental states seems like a major error to me crossedarms.jpg

I think you mean contiguous, Alaska is still on North America, man

http://i.imgur.com/z6wu8or.png

Some of the name choices are just dummmmmmb.

keep looking for a state named "Candy" next to it

Seems like a fun way to shake things up in the states, can we vote on this to be put into legislation somewhere

if you want to move you have to find someone in another state to swap with

no they just redraw the borders every day

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/business/homeownership-may-actually-cause-unemployment.html

trolololo

https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/2312704942/Troll_Face.jpg

cool jpg man

suggest ban

Me too, btw. Keep that shit outta here.

That NYT article is the sort of bullshit that newspapers can't resist, even when they know there's nothing real there. On a par with something headlined "Do Blondes Really have More Fun?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?_r=0

I just came to link to the gawker article on that.
this weekend I went to visit my girlfriend at bard college (ah so ok, this will have nothing to do with poverty) and couldn't get a taxi at the train station. realized there is no such thing as a bus in the area, and that it is actually impossible to walk anywhere at all (all semi-rural highways with little to no shoulder).
it was totally enraging and I got to hang out at the locked train station for about an hour in the middle of the night before my gf could scramble a ride. everytime I'm up there I think it's basically immoral or unethical to build a place like that. literally impossible to do anything without owning a private car. I don't know how anyone could justify that kind of planning!