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

somewhat ot but would love to hear from an ilxor who grew up in an urban environment and then chose to live in the suburbs as an adult because it seems that the typical american here went in the opposite direction.

― buzza, Monday, September 5, 2011 4:23 AM (Yesterday)

I think there's a few reasons there aren't many:
a. age spectrum here generally falls between 25-45 - bet you can find a lot of people here who have *parents* who grew up in an urban area and moved to the suburbs (/ a lot of people who moved before they were 10)

b. inordinate desire for privacy / anti-social behavior = correlated w/ political conservatism, and how many republicans we got around here? was trying to think of an ilxor example of someone from a city who hated cities, and...roger adultry came to mind - prob not coincidentally one of the only loud conservatives we've had. I think he was from staten island tho, so...lol...

just to be perfectly clear about what my objection is

my question was not to bait iatee into another anti-suburb screed fwiw, i just feel like ilx can be so "of a certain demographic" a lot of the time and i sometimes want to hear from other voices. and jj's response sort of accomplished that.

Grew up in a suburb, albeit one that's only a couple of miles from the city centre. Spent my entire adult life living in apartments in the centres of Sydney, Paris and London. Recently moved to a suburb, albeit one that's only a few miles from the city centre. One chief motivation: a desire, inordinate or otherwise, for privacy. I was getting burned out from constantly hearing the people above me below me and beside me, getting woken up everytime the guy upstairs came home at 2 in the morning, every time he had a row with his girlfriend, etc etc. Also, I have a kid now and having a garden makes life much easier.

Personally I'm left-leaning but in general I imagine that there is some sort of correlation between living in the suburbs and being more right wing.

I imagine that the correlation has more to do with what part of the country you live in. I grew up in a suburb. There were very few Republicans in my schools and only one Republican family on my street.

Think the "suburbs" thing is a red-herring.

how do economic factors play in to suburb migration as a whole? for me, it was the primary (only?) reason I moved. now we stay bc our jobs are suburban, and we still can't afford a suitable space in the city.

to add another data point I grew up in the city from ages 0-16 - then we moved to the suburbs, and moved again, both times because my parents wanted more privacy. in our current suburb, we don't know *anybody* on our block though we've lived there for 5 years.

Personally I'm left-leaning but in general I imagine that there is some sort of correlation between living in the suburbs and being more right wing.

no.

there isn't because cities in america just aren't big enough to contain all the democrats so the law of averages sez no!

right. people in extremely dense urban areas are overwhelmingly liberal, but we have a very limited supply of walkable dense urban housing stock to begin with. if you asked the population of the 'can't afford sf' greater bay area 'given a good public school, affordable housing and job in the city, would you rather live in sf or bay area suburb x?' I'm willing to suggest that the people who'd prefer to live in sf are overall more left-leaning than the people who'd prefer the suburb. that doesn't seem like a particularly radical assumption.

and to jj, laurel pretty much said it but I was referring directly o the subset of people who grew up in a city and moved out specifically because they preferred suburban life to urban life (rather the price, job, etc)

I don't think cultural conservatism is as responsible for people moving to the suburbs today

er fucking phone one sec

I can accept that people who prefer living in SF lean left, but it's certainly not the case that people who prefer to live in the burbs lean right. Besides, "prefer" is an interesting choice of verb.

Jesus Christ, do some of you sleep that much better at night comforted by the smug knowledge that you are so much better than those lousy conservatives huddled with their guns and Palin books out in the suburbs? All I can do is rmde when ILX kicks into another suburbs/urban debate and the smug levels threaten to overtake us all.

rather: I don't think cultural conservatism is the primary reason people move to the suburbs today, but otoh it's impossible to sketch out the history of American suburban development - which got us on the overwhelmingly car dependent path we're on right now - without talking about white flight and other decisions that were made for 'politically conservative' reasons. that does not mean that everyone in the suburbs is republican obv.

one thing i can say about people who live in the suburbs is that theyre *reallllly* sensitive

Its not being sensitive for someone to be sick of lazy, inaccurate stereotypes that smug assholes promote to feel better about their life decisions.

lol I don't sleep well at all, I think our economy is pretty much fucked in when gas hits $7 and I'm not secretly happy about that just cause I live on a subway line right now.

*offers jon a tissue*

Fuck off max, seriously.

When is gas going to hit $7?

In Hawaii or something?

cool jon gets to play the victim card again

in your lifetime xp

can we call him Jon/via/suburb from now on

dayo, go fuck yourself and kindly die. Asshole.

You too iatee. I hope you all die of cancer.

Assholes.

Fuck this place.

people from the suburbs sound delightful!

In my somewhat limited experience, those who are more conservative are paradoxically more likely to live in housing that reflects current trends in suburban housing, or at least new development. It might be a cultural belief that owning a new home (or as the case may be, townhome or condo) is some sort of sign of success, but I think you're more likely to end up with property that has a diminished resale value or poor construction, even compared to older homes that need more maintenance.

I think one of the main factors in suburban growth in my area is less people moving away from the city and more people continuing to move toward the city. I think there's an entire generation of people who were born in small towns, went to college, got jobs in/around the city and live in a suburb. I think the conservatism or cultural background is what led them to chose that living arrangement, but I don't think it's due to a rejection of the city as liberal.

I've mentioned it on other threads, and probably upthread here, but I think that something some areas have done better is a more consolidated tax structure at the county or metro area level that allows cities to be better-resourced. I'm starting to waver on this, mostly because of the enthusiasm for urban living that seems to be growing. Still, people choose suburbs because the city now has high taxes and mediocre schools, but the more growth shifts to the suburbs, the more true that becomes!

If I moved back to the city, I'd want to live in a nice area of the city with lawns and fences and everything. Those exist. There are also shitty, communist-assed apartment complexes in the suburbs. It's true! I think there are very few people in this thread who have any idea what they're talking abot.

if you have a lawn you are part of the problem

also lol at lawns and fences being "nice" while apartment complexes are "shitty" and "communist-assed"

apartment complexes dont have asses

hmm didn't you start the thread about living with rednecks? xp

I lived in a 70s-vintage apartment complex in the suburbs for nearly five years after college (mostly due to inertia) and it leaned fairly left, as far as I could tell. It also had a nice lawn area and a pool and people met up to play volleyball and stuff.

Lawns are awesome.

TS: Running around under a sprinkler on a lawn vs. running around under a fire hydrant in the street.

You can feel free to drop by to weed my flower beds and mow my lawn, people who are into lawns but do not have them, if you like!

I apologize for the ridiulous outburst, just sick of people like max intentionally pushing buttons. Like, iatee didn't deserve any of the ire I threw his way, he is at least able to debate sensibly about this topic. But posters like max, spouting shit just purely to push buttons, annoy me to no end.

And its 100% not me being pissy because I live in a suburb, I'm pissy about the lazy stereotyping itt. And I don't believe I'm the only one.

u should move to the city, u'd get a thicker skin

what the fuck is your problem?

How about instead of telling everyone to get a thicker skin, you stop being an asshole?

i dont have a problem, my neighborhood has a walkscore of 92

I'm proud of you.

mine has a walkscore of 69, maybe you should think of the compromises you could make to live in a place with a hilarious walkscore like that.

Seriously max, I want to hash this out. How have I ever offended you? You came into this thread this morning specifically to fuck with me and goad me on? Why?

How awesome is it to walk your groceries home?