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

walkability score should obviously be fixed to include zipline data

I suggest building one of those reverse-bungee things you see at amusement parks and carnivals

eh i don't want to know what you'd shake out of the clientele with one of those things

it gave my home a 60% (somewhat walkable), but really the only thing that's within walking distance is the train station and lil transit stub at the side of the page said "no data available" so uh??

sister A, lives in suburb about 12mi from city limits: 95
sister B, lives in heart of city: 89

mayor daley needs to address this dearth of tittymag n booze options :(

no idea what walkscore.com is using to parse & recognize businesses but yeah it's got some weaknesses. and they're not at all upfront about their methodology

pretty insidious

probably part of the "move to new hampshire" conspiracy

mind you sister A's suburban location IS extremely walkable, by any definition.

so wtf are you complaining about

point out where i complained

complain complain complain

hope this helps (Granny Dainger) Wednesday, June 16, 2010 1:12 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

o fuck

he's got you there, dude

It gave mine an 86 and I live in one of the most walkable neighborhoods I've ever lived in. I spend by far more time walking than I do on the bus/train or in my car.

I seemingly live exactly 12 blocks from everything useful. I kinda live on the mostly residential outskirts of my neighborhood, away from the commercial/public center of it tho. It's a 12 minute walk/5 minute ride to that area.

I think the site works better on the neighborhood-level

I got an 86 but it listed an auto upholstery business as a restaurant, and an audio/video store as a theater.

I eat auto upholstery all the time.

goes great with a nice Avanti

It's called Sardo's, and apparently there's a Sardo's bar and grill about 15 miles away, so that must be the reason.

lol my parent's house has a 20/100. my old house in philly has a 89/100. ;_;

my hometown city's average is 70 which is pretty good actually (on par w/ dc) but my childhood home (in a suburban part) is 38.

current place is 94.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/newhomes/ct-home-0709-mixed-use-developments-20100707,0,6426551.story

note that the places mentioned are all privately developed and financed, and not very affordable

also unrepresentative of most of the development going on elsewhere

Sorry, that photo looks nothing like Andersonville.

elsewhere being?

What?

elsewhere being everywhere? I mean there's lots of these little new suburbia experiments and they're cool, but unless they put things in that context you get something like a nyt-trend piece.

"Density (often credited as a factor in urban flight) is now acceptable in the suburbs," says Patzelt.

er 'that context' referred to a sentence that got deleted: 'but the large majority of new developments in america aren't these kinda things'

Also lol @ the fact that half the businesses mentioned in that article are chains.

yeah imagine that

I mean there's lots of these little new suburbia experiments and they're cool

This is all the article is saying though? Your criticism is that 100% of suburban developments aren't like this and so the article is bad journalism?

David Patzelt says suburban development is taking a urban-inspired, mixed-use approach with condominiums and apartments built above commercial space. Patzelt is president of Shodeen Residential in Geneva, which developed Dodson Place.

"Density (often credited as a factor in urban flight) is now acceptable in the suburbs," says Patzelt. "Intermixing commercial and residential is the way of the future."

delete those two paragraphs and it's fine

Oh man, we have crap like that now, but they're developments right near large roads. So you end up with these "mixed use" places with first-floor businesses, either below ground or ramp parking, and nearby restaurants.... right in the middle of a shopping district. There are some "condos" on the west side that have balconies that overlook a Target parking lot.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/in-this-family-we-maintain-the-ways-of-the-old-sub,17844/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.html?_r=3&sr

It's interesting as a theoretical exercise and a prod to make us build differently in future (and tbh I've never thought about parking spaces, so good on the article) but his point doesn't and CAN'T apply to MOST OF THE COUNTRY who have no choice not to drive places. There's no other way to get ANYwhere. This is not a choice!

blow it all up and start again

"this is not a choice" - I mean yeah, I grew up in socal and am aware of how shitty the transit status quo is

but my earlier points in this thread were:

1. the current 'this is not a choice' = the end result of many choices! such as zoning + aforementioned mandatory parking + meager public transit funding etc.

2. the car-or-gtfo american status quo is not just some market equilibrium that came about because everyone loves driving and is wililng to pay for it - it's actually quite uneconomic and requires subsidies, in this case on the business/developer level. if parking were more expensive everywhere, alternatives would seem much more appealing (both on the personal and the political level) and 'this is not a choice' could actually become a choice.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

lol yes fire this fuckin thread up lets GO

at least I keep it to one thread

high-density trolling

man u h8 cars

i was kind of serious, the free parking issue is a big deal

fat suburban cokeheads

a hummer, parking on a human face, forever, with some blow in the trunk, and the air on, and chillwave playing