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

I've been purposely trying to keep race out of this discussion, and not because it didn't play a huge role in the birth of the suburbs and not because it doesn't play a huge role today, but because I think it's possible to explain what's wrong with the suburban lifestyle in 2010 (we make it too cheap) - and what can fix it (we make it more expensive) - without even touching on racism.

in 2010 solving the race problem doesn't necessarily solve our land-use problems - one could theoretically live in a blissful racism-free diverse suburb. likewise solving our land-use problems won't necessarily solve our race problems - "there's lots of racism in cities too."

Is Laurel turning into Glenn Beck or some shit? "Everyone who disagrees with me is drinking the tainted water".

"Let's have a spirited discussion about the suburbs, as long as we all agree"

So you're saying the suburbs have gotten more racist over the past century, but the cities less so? Bullshit.

Yes. Yes I am except suburbs a century ago were mostly only for the wealthy and weren't as widespread as they are now and I haven't denied the persistence of racism in any realm of American life, including cities.

I just cannot agree with that, at all Michael. Sorry.

One key functional point that I don't think has come up here yet is the impact on returning WWII soldiers on inner ring suburban growth, which was a very non-institutionalized factor. Also kind of singlehandedly established the reign of the duplex in these areas.

Yes, but a hell of a lot less than there was 90 years ago.

Waht

jon, it's more like the theme of this thread is now people willfully denying historical facts about the cultivation of the suburban dream/expectations, and currently scientific data about energy use etc, because the facts don't fit their personal anecdotal experiences, like everyone wants THEIR family history to be the exception.

It's possible that the bulk of ILXors and potentially their families ARE an exception to a number of historical trends but that doesn't negate the existence of the trends. And repeating yourself from post to post without offering any evidence for the facts not being factual except that you don't like them, is not an argument.

*current scientific data

Fingers ran away from me, there.

because the facts don't fit their personal anecdotal experiences, like everyone wants THEIR family history to be the exception.

You mean like everyone wants THEIR family history to be the rule?

MW, in most cities the existing racism a century ago in most of america was pointed at germans, irish, and italians, who were then replaced by eastern europeans. tbh, actual non-white minorities were considered kind of beneath racism, if you understand what im saying.

so i dont really know that you can measure the path of changes in racism the way some people might want to.

xpost: laurel i dont honestly think ive seen much in the way of scientific data on this thread from either side (a couple of things from goole and that chart about energy consumption are about it), most of it is pretty much personal opinion-based tirades. hi internet!

that was lots of xposts actually but eh

As I've said, the suburb I grew up in was very diverse and integrated. So just as it's a touchy subject for you, it is for me to get these blanket "surburbs=racist" judgements thrown about.

Hey, I realize that there are many diverse neighborhoods all around the US but my experience of racism in the ones where I've experienced it was as legitimate as yours of a less racist one. My grandparents and my parents were/are all loony progressives but my extended family contained people who are probably tea partiers, now, the kind fo people who would have willfully mispronounced your grandpa's name and thought him too exotic or whatever.

That said, and w/a bow to iatee, my problem w/suburbs and sprawl has always been (in a very parochially Californian way) about its devasating effect on the environment in California. As a kid, my dad and I would go over the Tioga Pass and camp on the east side of the Sierras at a time when Mono lake was slated to die a slow and disregarded death so some (expletive deleted) could have a green grass lawn in a Southern California desert.

No, Laurel, it's more that these facts are not in dispute, and people keeping bringing them up to try to disprove something that isn't even being argued against.

The standard level of come-back against MW, iatee, goole, and mh has been along the lines of : "Well those facts are awfully convenient for your argument, aren't they?"

Yes, because the argument was, err...based on them in the first place. The logic in use on tt has just fallen to, like, trolling levels.

kkvg, okay, yes, you could say that!

so some (expletive deleted) could have a green grass lawn in a Southern California desert.

or so a city of millions could sprout in the desert?

MW, in most cities the existing racism a century ago in most of america was pointed at germans, irish, and italians, who were then replaced by eastern europeans. tbh, actual non-white minorities were considered kind of beneath racism, if you understand what im saying.

so i dont really know that you can measure the path of changes in racism the way some people might want to.

Yes but for two reasons:

Catholics and Jews and Slavs and whatever became 'white' through assimilation and grudging religious tolerence (over quite a period of time);

Large black populations moving to the Northern cities for work really jumps after WWI and during the Great Depression and during the boom years of WWII.

I don't have a technical background in this topic except for my own recreational reading, but iatee and mh have convinced me that they're coming from having studied it. Maybe they have backgrounds in urban planning or residential architecture or something, I dunno. And maybe they'd be better off actually citing textbooks to back up their statements, but the way this thread has gone, half of you would probably disbelieve them anyway because those uh academics and city planners who said those things are just privileging the urban lifestyle, they probably all live in cities themselves so their studies are suspect.

Just because it doesn't fit the American narrative that we like to clutch to our breasts is no reason to discredit the messengers.

there's one group of posters saying basically "wow, suburbs, man!! crazy energy use there, what a mess! how on earth did our built environment come to be this way?"

and the other's saying "fuck you my grandma's not a racist!"

like, what

and i'm not even talking about race or culture or "the american dream" or anything, although some ppl are

or so a city of millions could sprout in the desert?

Yes, but one which had no compunction about destroying other counties nor much concern for sustainability and good land/resource stewardship.

GD, where are you from originally? I realize and have admitted that I am very definitely writing from a very California-centric pov.

(as am I fwiw)

Sorry, but I'm struggling to see what your point is, Michael
Laurel, no one is saying iatee or mh or whomever is wrong that the majority of suburbs as currently structured are unsustainable and inefficient. I just think iatee is being a faux-humanist finger-pointing dick about it, and that gets no one anywhere.

hahaha I started skimming through this thread because I couldn't believe it attracted so many posts and when did iatee turn into gabbneb?

from IL

ehhh goole i think you are soft-pedaling what started off the powderkeg here which was the argument "fuck anyone who lives in the suburbs, lets drive them into the city with torches" which was honestly completely insane but did evoke a reaction.

xpost hahahahahaha

I am far too poor to be gabbneb btw

but I was expecting that eventually

Laurel, this also lies very much at the heart of the nexus of socio-economic climbing and egalitarianism and anti-elitism (-intellectualism) that is very much a part of the American psyche and Weltanschauung.

lets drive them into the city with torches
=

'lets drive them into the city w/ a more logical tax structure? '

"fuck anyone who lives in the suburbs, lets drive them into the city with torches"

Very environmentally incorrect, btw. Think of global warming and the effect of the smoke on the local songbird populations.

there was also an awful lot of "people who live in suburbs are like THIS" style argumentation that seems to be given a pass because of some handwaving about all the supposed hard facts cited up there which like i mentioned are kind of few and and far between if you read the thread again.

xxpost: dude come on, if youd come off like that this thread would be like 70 posts long

I mean, my personal stance is "srsly fuck living in a suburb unless it's in the mold of Cambridge/Somerville - > Boston, ie practically indistinguishable from its parent city" but I recognize that's pretty much just me and mostly born from growing up in a super rural area with decidedly urban interests; making up specious arguments to make me feel better about my prejudices isn't something I'm particularly into.

.. "mould"? argh stupid britishisms ruining language for me

Yeah, see, I see suburbs w/local plants that are suited to the environment and better bus systems and bike lanes and tax incentives for solar panels and whatnot and think there may be real hope and I don't hate suburbs or tract housing as much as I want new developments to be much, much more rational.

if suburuban regs were relaxed they would become more dense and more city-like in the aggregate. it's not about people "moving back into the city" proper, it's about the whole urban area (urb + suburbs) being allowed to build up instead of being forced to build only out

― goole, Thursday, June 10, 2010 11:02 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark

I don't if relaxed is the word I'd use, goole, 'cause the regs have to be there, just changed or adapted.

MW, in most cities the existing racism a century ago in most of america was pointed at germans, irish, and italians, who were then replaced by eastern europeans. tbh, actual non-white minorities were considered kind of beneath racism, if you understand what im saying.

WAHT

"considered kind of beneath racism" = even stronger racism, yeah?

Yeah, see, I see suburbs w/local plants that are suited to the environment and better bus systems and bike lanes and tax incentives for solar panels and whatnot and think there may be real hope and I don't hate suburbs or tract housing as much as I want new developments to be much, much more rational.

― If the US had a dictator we'd call him coach (Michael White)

this is where being california-centric might make you a little too optimistic

rev, I believe that's what he was suggesting.

He is saying that non-white people weren't even really considered to be people and had a shitload of codified-into-law institutionalized discrimination built in against them, putting them beneath notice and reserving the behavior we consider to be "racism" today for white ethnicities that received the stamp of disapproval (ie, the ones he listed).

It's kind of a horseshit point because no matter how badly the white people were treated, the non-white people were treated worse* but there was a lot of white-on-white discrimination too.

Go USA.

* obv I am speaking of the US here as I can't think of anything globally that compares to the Holocaust or various African genocides

uh obv I meant "locally" there

Uh, I wouldn't make that point w/Native Americans, Dan.

Keeping up with this thread would be a full-time job & so I've not done it but I wonder if you've already discussed what people who would be priced out of the suburbs if they were to be priced "appropriately", are supposed to do. And especially what families are supposed to do. (I suspect I know the answer.)

Yeah, I understood, but was trying to get at the horseshitness of the point. Dan being way more lucid than me.

(I mean, it's a valid academic point but one that is very difficult for me to take seriously when my own family history has as a significant incident in it as recent as my father's family fleeing Alabama in 1948 to prevent one of his cousins from getting lynched.)

xp: I am not downplaying the genocide of Native Americans, I'm saying I have no idea how many of them there were and therefore have no idea if the sheer numbers matches what happened in the Holocaust.

And really, I should have remembered it regardless of my personal lack of data re: body counts

basically the entirety of human experience/progress is built off of someone else's blood

euler: the "pricing" goes for builders as well as for home buyers. there could be more apartment buildings (not nec. huge ones either) and fewer big-ass houses. in a lot of places it's a huge legal hurdle to build multi-family housing, or even anything over 2 stories

right, goole---I'm just wondering why the pricing isn't just going to be passed onto renters/leasers/buyers, and why the result won't just be that lower-income people & families will be forced to move even further away from cities. You have to live somewhere, & it's not clear that "the market" is going to price suburbia in a way that's doable for those people.

basically the entirety of human experience/progress is built off of someone else's blood

Depressing but basically true.

The real crux of Euler's post is that, if iatee and I are right, how do you make the switch to a more expensive and more sustainable model w/o seriously fucking the people Euler is talking about? There lies the rub, because the more stridently you talk about protecting resources and sustainability, the more those people will vote Republican.