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

Wait, evanston's not a suburb?

Evanston, like Oak Park, is a weird case. I mean, technically they are both suburbs by definition, but huge chunks of both are structured a lot more like a city - dense, walkable, lots pf public trans, etc etc. Obviously both have exceptions (the huge lakefront houses on big lots in Evanston come to mind), but for the most part neither are like your typical image of a "suburb".

this is where you start to land in hot water imo/fyi - there's a difference between a bbq on the roof/in an NYC park and one where you can enjoy both privacy & the feeling of space. I know that that's selfish, to use a term you use upthread - and I think that's a fair criticism; but I also don't think you really speak much to what that selfishness means, what values people are also expressing when they like a family bbq. I get that, for you, solitude/privacy/space/quiet are either mystifying concepts/values or of so little importance that it's easy to table them. But understand that your values, your preferences, while both probably practical & reasonable, are fraught with the same perils that all personal values are.

^gonna keep reposting this after every dozen or so iatee/D-40/etc posts

inner-ring burbs v. outer-ring burbs, xpost

How big does a suburb have to be to qualify as a city?

It's not about size, it's about function. Like I said earlier itt, Grand Rapids, MI is a whole city that is basically one enormous suburb with almost all the disadvantages of suburbia or even rural areas, and almost none of the advantages of an urban area unless you live in a tiny enclave at the center of the old city.

Good plan. x-post

I think the main problem comes when people feel they deserve, are entitled to, or are socially mandated to live in a way that results in them consuming a disproportionate amount of resources.

I have a lot more sympathy for the family who wants a chill backyard bbq than I do for my coworker who's divorced/single with no kids and still thinks she needs a ritzy suburban house that has 4+ bedrooms because that's what someone of her economic/social status is supposed to have.

insisting that this thread is even about 'values' is momusian to begin with

Rapids, MI is a whole city that is basically one enormous suburb with almost all the disadvantages of suburbia or even rural areas, and almost none of the advantages of an urban area unless you live in a tiny enclave at the center of the old city.

sounds like Miami.

Thinking that sustainability is a positive or whatever else is a value!

Some people really don't care.

Yeah, my town (Everett, WA), while 30 miles from Seattle, isn't a mini-mansion exurb at all. About a third of the town is all pre-WWII grid streets with a decent-sized downtown. Because of its geographical quirks (water to the west, flood plain to the north and east), the only direction it's been able to expand is south toward Seattle (although there are other, more exurban type towns beyond the flood plain, along with inner-ring suburbs between Everett and Seattle). Paradoxically, though, it's the newest, suburban-feel parts at the southern edge of Everett that have the greatest population density, due to concentrated apartment developments rather than the older, more urban core, which is mostly single-family despite being built pre-automobile. xps

If I didn't have my driveway, it'd just mean I'd have more lawn to cut.

I actually thought about moving my driveway to the back and changing the space next to the house into more garden space!

making this about "personal values" is a p good way to elide the questions of resource consumption that are at the heart of the issue

And actually, the exurbs in the Seattle north-end aren't mini-mansiony at all, mostly full of fairly poor white folks. Most of the rich folks in the area live in older coastal towns like Mukilteo or Edmonds, or in Mill Creek, the 80s-era, covenant-guarded hellspawn of Earth.

i dont think id get a lot of sympathy if i said that i, personally, value burning styrofoam on my fire escape every day

what is the difference between a suburb and a small town?

mostly full of fairly poor white folks.

And increasingly, latino.

or, more accurately, that i, personally, value my styrofoam-burning enough to demand that it be incentivized thru public policy

I think of a "small town" as being in a rural area, surrounded by fields or forests or mountains, not by other towns.

I don't know to what degree anyone is arguing that suburbs don't use more than their proportional share of resources? And require a rigged system just to exist. But even people who acknowledge those facts can say, "But I don't care, I/my family/my parents want and deserve it." Probably where a nasty little term like "values" creeps in.

otm

Suburbs are next to larger cities or are part of a metro area. I typically think of them as fulfilling resource or social needs from the larger city.

Again, it depends what we mean by "suburbs." I really think some of the old-growth, neighborhoods with parks and shops suburbs definitely work pretty well and have a place in the mesh of the agrarian/rural/suburban/dense city hierarchy.

Saying that all suburban dwellers use more than their "proportional" share of resources makes an assumption about what resources we're using, how renewable they are, what we deem to be an acceptable human population, and so on.

I don't know to what degree anyone is arguing that suburbs don't use more than their proportional share of resources? And require a rigged system just to exist. But even people who acknowledge those facts can say, "But I don't care, I/my family/my parents want and deserve it." Probably where a nasty little term like "values" creeps in.

Thing is, seems like some people here are thinking that's the only attitude suburbanites have and that they could relatively easily move to a city, problem solved, but they're just too selfish to.

that is not what pro-density people are are saying, in this thread

Pretty sure that regardless of what any of us think, shrinking energy resources are going to change how we move and live anyway. And no one has said that, but you have perfectly articulated how the suburban-defenders itt have HEARD what the pro-density people are saying, which is kinda getting butthurt when you have all the advantages, imo.

Yeah it's not what any one has said after they stopped saying it, you're right.

i totally am!

I think there's a compromise to be recognized in that I don't believe we're all on the same page when it comes to an "optimal" way of living.

We could come up with an ideal -- like 1000 sq ft inside per person, a quarter acre of outside space per every three people, etc. to be fair, but then recognize that a fair number of people are going to want to deviate in either direction. I have no problem with people wanting more space, it's just the recognition that we need to do so responsibly, and perhaps not everyone who uses all this space really does want it all that much.

pretty sure i came up with the solution upthread

we all move to new hampshire

I can see the appeal of the suburbs now that I have kids. But I still live in a (small) city. Don't think I myself could do it. Then again if I would have to buy a house: I'd move to the suburbs in a split second. A tiny tiny house is about 200.000 euros (talking two bedrooms max).

new hampshire is not the solution to any problem

i don't think there is an optimal way of living! people should pay for what they're getting, is the point. because the real costs will be always be paid, somehow, in the end

That's true, and really the point of the thread, and I'm just deviating off base.

goole pretty much said it all in two sentences.

on the earlier city/suburb confusion upthread: http://www.grist.org/#/cities/2011-04-21-suburbs-and-cities-stop-the-name-calling-already

that's generally how I think about and use the terms

i don't think there is an optimal way of living! people should pay for what they're getting, is the point. because the real costs will be always be paid, somehow, in the end

does anybody actually disagree with this except strawmen? I'm as tax-and-spend as they come, tax people who consume resources & spend the money on any government project that helps people out

trying not to take bait elsewhere but feel like I gotta point out that the first six words of Oak Park's wiki are "Oak Park, Illinois is a suburb"

Wait, who's D-40, again? I thought it was aerosmith for a while, there, and this thread got really weird when he was arguing w himself.

deej

i love where i live. i don't know what you would call it. i loved living in a city too though. did NOT like living on an island. hey, after they build the new train station here i will be able to take the train down the street to NYC! woo hoo!

what's pretty ridiculous is that my sister and I both live in Chicago suburbs, both a short walk from the train station, we're about 15 mins apart by car...but in order to take the train from my place to hers it'd mean 1st going all the way to Union Station to transfer. Would be 2hr journey.

how is that 'ridiculous'?

how is it not

I think the general idea is that certain suburban/exurban ways of life use resources disproportionately to taxation, especially city resources that are provided by a city but not paid for by neighboring suburbs.

Granny, that is because no one wants to go from suburb to suburb to the extent that it's worth building a direct point-to-point system. I think what you're saying is that neither of your suburbs has anything worth visiting on its own, but residents of both want to visit the city, right? :)

Arguably there would be things called "buses"

America having such shitty transit infrastructure *is* ridiculous, considering our wealth. but yeah, don't blame trains for not being able to do stuff that they can only do when the infrastructure exists. if the highways weren't regularly paved i imagine the drive would take more than 2 hours.

America has amazing transit infrastructure, it just assumes that everyone outside of a major city owns a car or two and the willingness to pay for road repairs and snowplows.

Granny, that is because no one wants to go from suburb to suburb to the extent that it's worth building a direct point-to-point system.

haha no, that is really not true. just as many if not more (and do non-work related travel) from suburb to suburb than from suburb to city in the Chicago area at this point.

omg you guys are complete asshole morons c ya

here i've been blaming the TRAINS this whole time when it's really this thing called "infrastructure" that's to blame!

have you checked a bus schedule? i dunno.

does it seem like a good idea to build a train between two places with a 15 minute drive time? maybe it would be, if all other priorities were taken care of and it was part of a larger and longer traffic pattern. getting people around/between suburbs, which is a big need, ought to be done better in a lot of ways, the solution so far has basically been beltway freeways.

xp lol way to freak out touchypants