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

http://sylviagarza.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/bio-dome.jpg

Did a little fooling around on Google Maps today to see, based on where I live now in relation to my office in Cleveland, what would be the equivalent if I worked in our NY office, which is on E. 52nd. Apparently I would live as far as Fort Lee or Jersey City, Borough Park, Flushing Meadows or Morris Heights, to name a few.

I live 10 miles from where I work, which translates to 12 mins drive.

dunno what your point is, but all of those but fort lee have easy transit to midtown xp

Was just an intellectual exercise for me. Since I bike to work, wondered what I'd be facing in another city.

Fort Lee has plenty of commuter buses and some off-peak and weekend bus service, although no full-time underground rail option like the MTA or the PATH to NJ.

He he

ha

yeah Montreal is a good case---I was there in October one year & it was really cold already, gather the winter is savage. But I spent a lot of time in the underground city---didn't have to go far outside, at least within what I gather was the city center.

& it's true that other parts of the world have shittier weather than e.g. Houston or even Chicago for that matter (which has shitty winters & summers imo) but the parts of the world with the best public trans for the most part don't have shitty weather. My impression is that the big cities in Scandinavia are pretty mild in the winter but maybe I'm wrong there.

define mild? stockholm hits the low 20s and stays there, day and night, for about four months. and it rains and snows a fair amnt in the fall

And that day is like 30 minutes long, right?

low 20s are paradise compared to Midwest US winters (at least the ones I've had the misfortune to experience over a bunch of years)

well BOO HOO

hahaha yeah max speaking as the dude in mpls/stpl that sounds like balmy paradise to me

Hey, West Michigan is totally survivable. It's cold, sure, but it's no Upper Peninsula.

why do you guys LIVE IN THESE PLACES

I would live in Plainfield, Boonton, Briarcliff Manor, or Levittown.

This is why, max:

http://media.mlive.com/grandrapidspress/photo/-cbe46ad4df102dc9_large.jpg

I don't think weather plays as much a role as you'd like to think. Los Angeles has amazing weather when compared to basically any other large metro area in America (depends on tastes, but I'd take LA's weather over most of Europe's) and it clearly didn't naturally bloom into a walkable, transit paradise. Whereas Chicago has better public transit than most of America, and worse weather than most of America. There are historical and political reasons for these things - weather might be a variable somewhere in the mix, but it'd be hard to argue that it's a key factor in a world where it's easier to live without a car in Finland than it is in California.

yeah, iatee, I agree; it's part of the mix but it's def. not the main reason why cities in the USA aren't walkable.

ftr, lots of cities in Europe aren't particularly walkable; e.g. provincial cities in France like Besançon. It's def. complicated why this is so.

FYI the average high in Stockholm in Jan/Feb is about 31 F per wikipedia, which really isn't that bad.

can someone define "walkable"

Basically the weather in every part of Europe (except maybe Russia) is better than the weather in every part of the US except the West Coast.

xp

like, Boston is "walkable" but you're not going to see all that many people walking from Charlestown to Back Bay on a regular basis, so what exactly do you mean here and is it something that is actually particular to certain cities or (as I suspect) is it something you can basically do in any major metropolitan area as long as you pick the right places to live and work?

Walkable means that you moved close to the grocery store.

OTM!

I think if you don't have a car the key to moving to a new city is finding the best grocery store & then finding an apartment near it.

pretty much (re. what's walkable)! It comes down to whether you "need" to use a car to get normal-ish tasks like shopping for food/clothing done. not sure how others are using it but that's what I mean.

kongvzilla and abbott otm. I live by something like 5 grocery stores. it's dope imo.

this site: http://www.walkscore.com/ tries to turn 'walkability' into a statistic. it's not perfect, but it uses a definition of walkability that most people would more or less agree on?

62/100 - "somewhat walkable"... but it's missing loads of stuff, and thinks the nearest library is at the football stadium!

Of course you have to get everybody to agree on what a "grocery store" is.

define "everybody"

Walk Score: 72 out of 100 — Very Walkable

Walk Score: 32 out of 100 — Car-Dependent

And that's only because they considered Royal Farms to be a grocery store. LOL.

http://www.royalfarms.com/images/kitchen/goodtogo/case.jpg

Fresh tittymag choices morelike.

Yeah, Walkscore considers the liquor/convenience store across the street from me to be a "grocery store."

so to summarize: Walkscore does NOT use a definition of "walkable" most people would agree to but is awesome because it considers booze and porn to be staple items

went from 80% in DC to 94% at our first SF apt to 95% now!

I hope you're walking right now.

its definition of walkable, fwiw:
What makes a neighborhood walkable?

* A center: Walkable neighborhoods have a center, whether it's a main street or a public space.
* People: Enough people for businesses to flourish and for public transit to run frequently.
* Mixed income, mixed use: Affordable housing located near businesses.
* Parks and public space: Plenty of public places to gather and play.
* Pedestrian design: Buildings are close to the street, parking lots are relegated to the back.
* Schools and workplaces: Close enough that most residents can walk from their homes.
* Complete streets: Streets designed for bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit.

Walkscore lists the little kosher convenience store down the street from me as a grocery store, but not the Dave's Supermarket the same distance in the other direction. ¯\(°_0)/¯

also lol @ my parents and their (expected) score of 0

why do black people never want to walk

my walkscore is 95/100. it's true. kinda got it all right here.

Might be slightly counter-intuitive but I think of walkable cities not so much as "you can walk to most stuff" but also one that has a public transport infrastructure that means if you go to a different part of the city its walkable at the other end too

I think of the former description being more "walkable neighborhoods" than "walkable cities"

I just rechecked mine since I moved a few months ago and it's 100%. Does that mean I'm not allowed to post to this thread anymore?

When I was in Seoul it felt like when the urban stopped the rural started immediately which gave this feeling that even in the densest center of the city you could be out in the mountains very quickly

why do black people never want to walk

Well, they live in the woods off a gravel road; walking = ticks.