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

x-post It kind of all depends on the density of houses around a lake, how large the actually maintained yard space is, and the water table. Oh, and size of the lake and whether it's a feeder for a stream or whatever. There are a few lakes around this region that are fairly well-populated but fine, and a few that are silted-in messes.

I was raised near a lake that won awards as one of the cleanest in America. I'd drink out of it bare-handed before I gulped down some of that Hudson sauce.

I have watered/fertilized my lawn exactly never

way to destroy the earth John

If I ever put down any more grass seed to fill in the bare spots, I will water it a little. But that might require me to mow more often, which seems really environmentally unsound, so I think I will leave it be.

No fertilizer or pesticides in my yard either.

Did bury my dead cat back there last week.

Live cat kept getting out, though.

Is the cat in a box? If not, instant fertilizer

really.

Jesus Christ, I spit on my monitor.

Our yard is 90% moss with some grass growing in it.

Oh yeah. Sometimes I try to claim that my lawn is "native plants".

haha i also do this

yo I just wanna point out that this is the best post ever on this thread:

werewolves legitimately need a big lawn and a lot of space to run imo

thats why that american werewolf in london was so angry iirc

http://images.wikia.com/familyguy/images/b/b8/Hickory_Farms.jpg

iatee a total hero itt as always

nah

lol yeah forgot that he literally called each person who chooses to live in the suburbs conservative - outrage at that was totally righteous

he inspired me to submit to my condo association the names of every old lady who didn't walk to CVS.

idk considering that overall he really does seem to think that anybody who doesn't live in a metropolis is legitimately either a bad person or a total dumbass, I think he does a pretty good job of only presenting the less misanthropic aspects of his argument here

i love driving. from a purely selfish standpoint i wd do it every day if it wasnt obscenely expensive & unnecessary for my lifestyle

anyway iatee otm

pretty sure he does a better job at defending his position than you do k3v

so yknow there is that

i think that everyone here is ethically compromised at some level, imo its fine for iatee to observe that u know some ppl's earth-damaging footprints are larger here than others

the other day i used too much toilet paper & accidentally left some lights on when i left the house.

haha yes i tend to agree with his general thesis (wrote similar stuff in high school essays) but disdain at suburban people rather than strictly surburbs as civil structure/landscape always seeps out at some point
xps

i love driving. from a purely selfish standpoint i wd do it every day if it wasnt obscenely expensive & unnecessary for my lifestyle

I grew up in SoCal in the 80s before the traffic out there got permanently fucked - learning to negotiate the freeways & driving yourself to shows after you'd turned sixteen was a feeling I can't even describe, like getting on the onramp on a summer night & heading in to the show -- incredibly free feeling, sort of a You Are Young And This Is How It Feels thing

There's this one kid at the office who takes the H1N1 threat so seriously that he uses clean kleenex, towel paper, and toilet paper to open doors.

i disagree i think he pretty obviously said/implied the problem was with society and that the beliefs informing a preference for suburbian life were part of a general trend and not necessarily true of every single person

xp to aero

i dont think he really transmits 'disdain' although i think its perfectly fine to point out that ppl do make these *choices* and that they are *choices* instead of passing the buck to 'the system, man'

I grew up in SoCal in the 80s before the traffic out there got permanently fucked - learning to negotiate the freeways & driving yourself to shows after you'd turned sixteen was a feeling I can't even describe, like getting on the onramp on a summer night & heading in to the show -- incredibly free feeling, sort of a You Are Young And This Is How It Feels thing

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, September 7, 2011 5:43 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm!! i used to drive down, then up lake shore drive at night -- one of the most beautiful, amazing, fun drives in the summertime

i was going to mention lake shore drive. miss it.

I grew up in SoCal in the 80s before the traffic out there got permanently fucked - learning to negotiate the freeways & driving yourself to shows after you'd turned sixteen was a feeling I can't even describe, like getting on the onramp on a summer night & heading in to the show -- incredibly free feeling, sort of a You Are Young And This Is How It Feels thing

totally

there's different degrees of choices, he's simplistic about it

yeah for example by living in the suburbs my commute is much shorter than it would be living in the city - this was a prime motivator for both my (now) wife and i when we bought the house

I guess it's okay to prefer the city over the suburbs if you've lived in both, but so many great experiences happen even in the most anodyne environments. Isn't this what most of us who listen to and write about music love about our favorite songs? If you let the burden of expectations crush you or submit to the imagined squalor of your environs, then the problem is you, not geography.

i think i mentioned that upthread somewhere idk i am just killing the last hour or so of work carry on without me xpost

When I drive through Jacksonville I always think of early Pere Ubu songs, and there's an unexpected beauty to all that steel and boringness.

I was going to say something but I remembered that we established way upthread that I don't really live in "the city" since most of the metro area here has the population density of a suburb. I think iatee probably has disdain for most "cities" in the country other than the hyperurban

I guess it's okay to prefer the city over the suburbs if you've lived in both, but so many great experiences happen even in the most anodyne environments. Isn't this what most of us who listen to and write about music love about our favorite songs? If you let the burden of expectations crush you or submit to the imagined squalor of your environs, then the problem is you, not geography.

my overarching argument has been 'it's fine for people to have a personal preference for life in the suburbs, we just shouldn't have government policy (from the local to fed level) designed to promote and subsidize suburban growth'.

that doesnt sound like what he's said at all imo but we can let him answer that i guess xp

I was going to say something but I remembered that we established way upthread that I don't really live in "the city" since most of the metro area here has the population density of a suburb. I think iatee probably has disdain for most "cities" in the country other than the hyperurban

Yeah, I feel like we can't define population density or the term suburb to a degree of accuracy that would allow this discussion to make any sense.

idk iatee i have never gotten the impression that you are arguing from the position that those personal preferences are fine - ie distilling them to anti-social avoidance of other humans

idk considering that overall he really does seem to think that anybody who doesn't live in a metropolis is legitimately either a bad person or a total dumbass, I think he does a pretty good job of only presenting the less misanthropic aspects of his argument here

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, September 7, 2011 6:37 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

for someone who harps about how people should acknowledge the privilege that enables their place and status in life, you seem pretty blind to the fact that living in a suburb or rural area w/ a car is a pretty big fucking privilege

also iirc you think of things like road upkeep and highway projects as suburb subsidies and its a little more complicated than that

road and highway projects don't come close to paying for themselves these days

i don't have a preference for suburb livin so much as a dislike of city livin. that's true for most people (my age) I know who live in the 'burbs.

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/01/07/new-report-roads-dont-pay-for-themselves/

and?

like can we skip the part where we list off all the other things that dont visibly pay for themselves please