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

I can't wait to see these imaginary cities that can absorb 5-10 times their current populations and provide housing and employment for everyone. I bet they'll look like this:

http://www.willhines.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/logans.jpg

something tells me that iatee wouldn't be this gung ho about cities if they weren't where he himself preferred to live. seems a bit selfish tbh.

I like how we are ready to wipe out all the middle Americans, but keep all the douchebaggy city dwellers that live in 4-story single-family homes and drive their SUVs 4 blocks to the Whole Foods.

We're going to be like the pioneers who foolishly tried to take their pianos in covered wagons across the prairie and had to leave them beside a river somewhere, only in reverse.

ya seems reasonable that there would be some correlation there xp

haha uh forgot that there was an iowan in the thread when I mentioned subsidies

― iatee, Wednesday, June 9, 2010 8:56 PM (58 seconds ago)

yeah see now you are just being kind of a dick

I like how we are ready to wipe out all the middle Americans, but keep all the douchebaggy city dwellers that live in 4-story single-family homes and drive their SUVs 4 blocks to the Whole Foods.

Oh, don't worry -- their time will come.

i am more inclined to want to wipe out those people first

me too

i liked the thread a lot earlier when it was talking about different types of suburbs (and city!)

Haha, I was just reminding some of the people in this thread that not all urban citizens can be held up as models of eco-friendliness.

The streets of at least three boroughs will be littered with abandoned grand pianos, sectional sofas, grandma's sideboards, and anything else that can't be carried to the 5th floor walkup.

you don't have to remind me of that! I care way more about that than rural subsidies ffs. xp

haha uh forgot that there was an iowan in the thread when I mentioned subsidies

fwiw, I think a lot of farm subsidies are total bullshit and weighted too heavily toward farms that are already profitable, and a little too much gets weighted toward the ADMs of the world. That and I hate Chuck Grassley, but that's mostly not farm-related.

just echoing mh, jj, rev in that agree w/the iatee's general argument, but bringing it down to a personal level is totally wrongheaded.

you don't have to remind me of that! I care way more about that than rural subsidies ffs. xp

I'm honestly not trying to single you out dude! Like most people here, I think you are on the right track, but I'm not 100% down with your hardline approach.

That's not most people, though, Jon, no matter what the NYT Style Section would like you to think. As opposed to outside of cities, where nearly every household has at least 2 cars.

As opposed to outside of cities, where nearly every household has at least 2 cars.

At the risk of opening a whole other can of worms here, its usually much more "necessary" for households to have 2 cars way out there. No public transportation, job centers up to 40-50 miles away, two parent working households, etc etc. Not saying this is "right", but pointing out why they all have 2 cars.

Yeah, um, duh.

yeah but it's necessary due to historic/political/economic/whatever decisions that were made.

You know who I really hate? Reasonable national or regional chains who finally decide to expand to your area, but they place their store in the ring of stores around a large shopping mall in the suburbs. I have no experience with them, but Trader Joe's is finally putting a store in around here and it's going to be near the monstrosity of a mall out west. So basically, the only reasons I ever go out there are:

Apple Store
Costco
Possibly this Trader Joe's
Giant movie theater that occasionally has a film that's not elsewhere

I'd kill for any of these things somewhere closer.

I live an 8-minute walk from TJs. The Costco here is somewhere ridiculous I can't remember.

this all (massive freeway expansion, clearing of urban neighborhoods, streetcar removal, subsidies for new suburb construction and sale, car sales as desire, then as necessity) goes hand in hand as a designed political direction presumably rather than an organic process, at end of ww2. interesting that its the one of the few areas where regulation was seen as a plus

This ties right into the food-desert thing where grocery chains refuse to build or maintain stores in depressed areas, leaving the residents with no access to fresh foods/staples. This is where govt has to step in, right?

Or do you think communities have to rally and convince the stores that business will be worthwhile, as if they have to show good enough effort to EARN the right to purchase groceries, but at least it's self-supporting and not based on government grants/intervention...until corporate looks at the balance sheets again in 5 years...?

yeah but when there isnt a chain in the area, things like my much beloved asian groceries or mexican/lebanese delis actually can survive there, which is shit tons better than another fucking cub imo

laurel otm about jjjusten living in park slope

No doubt. Food deserts, though, are neighborhoods where there are no other suppliers. In my limited experience, NYC is actually pretty well supplied with groceries even in marginalized areas, but I'm told that large parts of Chicago and Detroit, for instance, are devoid of anywhere to buy a thing that isn't from the corner store.

I mean "isn't a chain in the area" - how many suburban areas can fit this description?

No no, that's not a suburban problem. But since we're talking about government encouragement/requirement that stores be peppered throughout residential areas instead of in separate enclaves that everyone drives 50 miles to...?

No one in the suburbs lives 50 miles from a grocery store.

I just said that!!! But the stores you WANT to shop at might be that far away, like mh just said about the new Trader Joe's going in near him.

i grew up on a farm, it was pretty cool

That fate is for the near future (2014-2030) as petroleum distribution brakes down.

On the bright side, suburbia permits a modicum of self sufficiency. Where's your copy of Square Foot Gardening....

Laurel, the Des Moines metropolitan area isn't even half of 50 miles from one end to the other.

I'm assuming it's due to assuming that the market for such stores would be larger in the suburban shopping island, that property is cheaper out there and the buildings are either build-to-spec or at least fairly new when leased, and that people are already used to those areas as shopping destinations and they're able to keep a larger stock due to larger buildings.

Still, this whole area still kind of drives me nuts sometimes.

oh man des moines...yikes

I'm assuming it's due to assuming that the market for such stores would be larger in the suburban shopping island, that property is cheaper out there and the buildings are either build-to-spec or at least fairly new when leased, and that people are already used to those areas as shopping destinations and they're able to keep a larger stock due to larger buildings.

Basically.

what's all this yikes about, here?

when i lived near des moines the places i wanted to go were about 1000 miles away

des moines freaks me out in a way i can't really describe

actually iowa does in general

I was planning on leaving pre-downtown revitalization, and here I am a decade later. Oh well.

i think it's because i grew up in southern minnesota and obv our area was like exactly like northern iowa (flat cornfields) but as a kid if you headed north it felt like you were heading towards civilization (like..um...mankato haha or obv the twin cities) but iowa just seemed like this indication that the huge gaping nothingness kept going forever (or forever to the kid's mind)...like i liked living on a farm but sometimes i think i got slightly agoraphobic, like you were so alone you could just blow away in the wind or something

Iowa City is awesome, have known like 30 cool folks who hailed from there.

Only know one person from Des Moines and he is batshit insane and I am not gonna ask if you know him.

(did not mean that as a slur on Des Moines the place).

Grand Rapids is one of the largest cities in Michigan and I'm going to say that 100% of the city functions as a suburb and not as a city at all. (There's a teeny tiny downtown area where you can walk between stores but not enough of the population lives within walking or transpo distance of it to make any impression on the total.) Almost every single shopping area in the whole city is a variation on the big box store with massive parking lots, surrounded by other big box stores and chain restaurants with massive parking lots.

In the few areas where there are neighborhoods with sidewalks and independently owned smaller stores, I've had shop-keepers try to dissuade me from walking 5 blocks because maybe I didn't know that I might run into a rough element (read: non-whites) between point A and point B.

I cannot hate Grand Rapids enough in one lifetime.

Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota are barren wastes, yeah. Driving up I-35 is a complete slog once you get north of Mason City until you reach like.. Owatonna? Is that the one I'm thinking of? In any case, I would go completely insane if I was from there.

Iowa City is pretty sweet, I'd rate it as a cut above our other college towns and everyone knows about the writing workshop. For the love of god, avoid pretty much every other part of Iowa, especially Sioux City. urgh.

One of my best high school friends spent his grade school years down there in pig country MN, it scarred his brane forever.

The only times I've been to Grand Rapids were to go to this independent coffee shop I liked and to the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, which not only had some interesting exhibits but also showed art movies. (I saw julien donkey-boy there, IIRC.) I would drive an hour from Kalamazoo for this. So it's not all bad.

Oh, I also saw a Pavement show there.

Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota are barren wastes, yeah. Driving up I-35 is a complete slog once you get north of Mason City until you reach like.. Owatonna? Is that the one I'm thinking of? In any case, I would go completely insane if I was from there.

haha yeah owatonna (birthplace of Owl City) is at least somewhat decent size...my town would be head west at 35/94 interchange and drive about 45 minutes