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

yeah exactly, goole! i don't need much "open space" to alleviate that suffocation feeling.

fwiw I would rather live anywhere in the world & have no arms + legs than live anywhere in Germany with both arms + both legs so I'm kinda biased on this q

U mad, dogg, I lived in Germany for three years as a child and have spent significant time there for work and I love it. Would live there in a New York minute. (<---- U see what I did there?)

Definitely not warmer there, though -- nearly all of Germany is farther north than New York. But the seasons are, to my recollection, fairly mild, at least in the central and southern portions of the country.

GD, I'm feeling ya on the wide open space at least as far as this: I can live in a city on a body of water -- at least you always get one direction where the view goes all the way to the horizon, if you can get up high enough. I'm not sure I could live in a landlocked city -- have never lived anywhere landlocked at all and I can sort of barely imagine it, but probably more space of any kind would stave off coastal withdrawal.

avg jan high in NYC: 32
Berlin: 37
fwiw Rome is at the same latitude as Chicago

Speaking on a general basis and not trying to sound personal toward Laurel, but nothing would make me more ready to mangle than having to hear a German walk around New York City, going "You call zis zee public transit? In my country, zee streets around den park are much much wider!"

lolololol he was extremely gracious and never said such a thing! But as it turns out, that partic guy is well-traveled and used to adapting. And NYC is kinda stressful, esp until you get familiar enough with your commute/frequent destinations to switch to mental auto-pilot.

land-locked cities seem stifling to me. i also think it's a little strange that los angeles is the only major city i can think of at the moment that is very close to a major body of water but has its downtown located 15 miles inland.

i think my ideal cities in terms of geography and vistas are seattle and vancouver.

i also think it's a little strange that los angeles is the only major city i can think of at the moment that is very close to a major body of water but has its downtown located 15 miles inland.

Not strange though when you look at Los Angeles' early history as a farming/pueblo outpost instead of a big shipping/trading center.

Landlocked versus ocean-view cities doesn't really make sense to me. Oceans are nice, but what if I'm running away from someone and there's an ocean! I'm stuck! I can't go any further in that direction without a boat!

though not nearly as major of cities, salt lake city and brisbane AU are located near-but-far from major bodies of water. i bet in all these cases there were very local reasons for where they located: the great salt lake is nasty. brisbane's on a river anyway and the land near the ocean is swampy (? iirc)

The Great Salt Lake is a sea rather than a lake, so its level can change fairly dramatically. Also there was nothing anywhere else on it you'd want to travel to.

Los Angeles probably grew from the Spanish mission chain, travel between which was done by horse and wagon. It's kind of midway between the San Gabriel and San Fernando missions, near where two "rivers" meet.

(lol at SoCal rivers)

despite the l.a. history i still think it's a little unusual that eventually the oceanfront didn't develop into a more urban center. l.a. is just unusual all around for various reasons i guess, so the rules don't apply as readily.

i bet in all these cases there were very local reasons for where they located: the great salt lake is nasty

Brigham Young & crew saw the salty water & gulls and thought they'd actually reached the Pacific Ocean. That's why SLC is where it is.

http://mormonarchuletafan.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/photo4262.jpg

meaning the ocean

despite the l.a. history i still think it's a little unusual that eventually the oceanfront didn't develop into a more urban center.

Demographically, Long Beach is actually a pretty big city - more populous than Miami, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis but usually forgotten in LA's shadow.

(lol at SoCal rivers)

Oh go ahead and laugh, but for at least a hundred years the LA River was pretty significant as a primary water source for the area. That is until people got tired of all the flooding.

los angeles is the only major city i can think of at the moment that is very close to a major body of water but has its downtown located 15 miles inland.

― omar little, Monday, 8 November 2010 21:55 (Yesterday)

london, rome

he specified "major city"

(jokes bruv)

i was thinking since those cities had rivers running through them into the nearby seas that those didn't really count.

there was a river in los angeles, once

A river of sin and degradation maybe

that one's still there afaik

Ah shot you beat me to it. Comedic timing does not work on the Internet.

LA's (for the most part) a 20th century city = it didn't build up around water routes for trade/transport the same way that older cities did

record-breaking zinger's remorse there aerosmith, ruined it for me a little tbh

sorry d-mac it's like I have had some of the best times of my life in London so I couldn't let the zing hang around too long

I read that zing as rome-only for some reason

cause I mean...italy

I've only ever been to a tiny little town called Rovereto & I was only there for like 12 hours. then we flew out of Milan but it was like 5 a.m. so the zing was actually secretly only a London dis because all of what I know about Rome ends with the reign of Tiberius.

guess what else...during those 12 hours I didn't have any decent food at all

my experience with Italy sucked tbqf

e wasnt gladeatethere

rome is my least favorite city in the world I think

the parts everyone goes to see are still the greatest things i think i've ever seen, but yeah tbh the rest of it was not pleasant.

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-14-moving-to-the-suburbs-for-your-kids-think-again

About the Author
David Owen is a staff writer for the New Yorker, a contributing editor to Golf Digest, and a frequent contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. His other books include The First National Bank of Dad, The Chosen One, The Making of the Masters, and My Usual Game. He lives in Washington, Connecticut.

*thinks again, gets in car, laughs at people at the bus stop*

I may read his book, and will probably agree with a lot of it. I just found it amusing that he lives in the middle of nowhere. Guess he isn't crazy about living in urban density himself. I wonder if he commutes to his job in NYC.

wikipedia:

Transportation

Route 202 runs east-west in the northern part of town, connecting the villages of Marbledale, New Preston, and Woodville. Route 109 runs east-west near the town's geographic center, connecting Washington Depot with New Milford and Morris. The main north-south highways are Route 47, Route 199, Route 45. There is no public transportation within the Town of Washington.

iatee can i just say, now that the hubub of this thread has died down, that you were a total right-on trollin' otm bro upthread. i loved what you gave itt

:) thx

Was talking with coworkers about how I never really go far outside my neighborhood + downtown outside of work anymore, because I don't have to. They said they really don't go far outside their general suburban areas. The difference being that the places they go are all chains and strip malls. There are some pretty cool local businesses, but you have to go around the giant parking lots and jump from... strip mall to strip mall.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/29/AR2010122904445.html

I sometimes think of things - crystal beings - things in the woods.

With fuel prices surging don't u think this trend will reverse?

I mean I'm dismayed by the news but not totally surprised.

in the longer-term yeah, I do think it will, but it's amazing how quickly the national recession-era decision making disappeared

We'll tell our kids of our belt tightening ways, how we trekked to Jennings ford and bought the escape instead of the expedition and how grandma cried that day but we made it