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

hipsters did unaffordable nyc rents

dayo dude trolling is like drinking a fine wine you dont just dump the whole bottle out into your glass like that

re: picking our battles - i enjoy these debates because they arise from actual ideological rifts in this community that can seem pretty monolithic in thought sometimes. stuff like land use, gun rights, the death penalty, etc - it's not really possible to have an honest disagreement on most other issues of the day since most of us approach them from about the same place

this seems so fundamentally contradictory to your attitude in the politics thread o_O

Do I contradict myself? Very well. I contradict myself.

this seems so fundamentally contradictory to your attitude in the politics thread o_O

Do I contradict myself? Very well. I contradict myself.

this seems so fundamentally contradictory to your attitude in the politics thread o_O

Do I contradict myself? Very well. I contradict myself.

Also, serious question for people who know about planning, environmental stuff, etc. Which is worse, living in a suburb a half hour outside of NY or LA, or living in a denser neighborhood in an inland city? About half of the shipping containers that come through the Port of Los Angeles end up east of the Rockies. It seems that in some ways, living in the suburban sprawl of southern California is more responsible than living in many of the other "big" cities in the U.S.

whoa -- do I repeat myself? Very well. I repeat myself.

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.

― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, September 7, 2011 3:49 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

awesome post

― runaway (Matt P), Thursday, 8 September 2011 00:06 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

co-sign, w/belated caveat asserting my right to continue hating on places i live/have lived for depriving me of the thrills i was looking for. it is a different thread, i think; taking sides between a city of manufactured opportunities and absorbing distractions and social communion, versus, the sheer impetus and repurposable fury you get from hating where you live & being denied the amenities that would pass an evening sweetly. i am thinking of moving atm, & when you are actually trying to quantify + sort through the various repercussions & benefits of having access to certain things it makes your head spin.

what city did you live in (or still live in an adjoining suburb) jjjusten? what was its population density?

what cityies

I just wanna know about the one where he had his apartment

it's funny that members of ilx's 'hard left' seem to think this isn't a pretty basic left/right issue both w/r/t the environment and the fact that the costs of owning a car / lack of alternatives are an enormous burden on the american poor.

iatee otm

I don't actually disagree w/you iatee (though as I think I've said, if I had to live with lots of noise & around a lot of people I would probably commit suicide which for me would suck but how I feel isn't really a factor in things in the long view) it's just that y'all for whom this is a Big Working Issue sound like Hugo from The Iceman Cometh pretty much every time the subject comes up

yeah but that happens to all of us whenever our axes get sent up in the daily rotation

About half of the shipping containers that come through the Port of Los Angeles end up east of the Rockies.

This is more about the fact that they come from Asia, than it is about where they're headed. It's still more efficient to import containers to West Coast ports and take them to the middle of the country or even the East Coast by rail, than it is for Asian goods to reach an East Coast port.

yeah but that happens to all of us whenever our axes get sent up in the daily rotation

no wai I always sound reasonable & even-keeled

lol

it's funny that members of ilx's 'hard left' seem to think this isn't a pretty basic left/right issue both w/r/t the environment and the fact that the costs of owning a car / lack of alternatives are an enormous burden on the american poor.

are members of said 'hard left' against more sensibly-planned, enviro-friendly, sustainable communities??

so what are we arguing now -- are suburbs ok then?

no

*burns Alfred's condo down*

probably not gd but those sensibly planned, enviro friendly sustainable communities are the exception and not the norm in america, regardless of how much greenhouse gas your sister or cousin or whoever is saving

*burns Alfred's condo down*

I'd prefer it if you burned Mr. Cheney's condo, Mr. Secretary.

sorry, got lost on the way

probably not gd but those sensibly planned, enviro friendly sustainable communities are the exception and not the norm in america, regardless of how much greenhouse gas your sister or cousin or whoever is saving

yeah uh no shit? so the underlying beef here is that when given the limited "choice" of suburb, rural area, small town, city, people shouldn't be choosing what they feel is the only viable option among far-from-ideal ones, because it's dooming the planet?

I dunno GD afaict your main argument on this thread is "my sister lives in this cool place so nyah nyah nyah"

well then you're a complete moron, don't know what to tell ya broskilov

people should be making choices that have the environmental costs already factored into the price

the only viable option

That is just not...

anytime anyone ever gets you to try to expand on your point or clarify your argument, you make some snide deflecting comment, don't really know why you bother to interact at all
xp

I...you...are you looking in a MIRROR when you say that???

Laurel, what are the 3 words that preceded those?

Who ARE you? You're like the Dr Morbius of this thread!

This is more about the fact that they come from Asia, than it is about where they're headed. It's still more efficient to import containers to West Coast ports and take them to the middle of the country or even the East Coast by rail, than it is for Asian goods to reach an East Coast port.

But the effect is what's important. And our poor air quality in Los Angeles is basically subsidizing someone else's good air quality so they can buy a bunch of Chinese stuff at walmart. My point is just that it's way more complex than simply "suburbs bad, cities good."

And I don't even really know what a suburb is for the sake of this discussion. I grew up in what I would consider to be the archetypal suburban sprawl (although actually the 10th largest city in the US) and now I live in a suburb or maybe an "exurb" outside of los angeles, but it's 15 minutes away from some decent density. Which to me is pretty different than living "downtown" in a place like say Portland.

where do you live in la?

granny dainger likes basketball

And our poor air quality in Los Angeles is basically subsidizing someone else's good air quality so they can buy a bunch of Chinese stuff at walmart.

As someone who imports a ton of shit through LB and Seattle ports, I'm v curious about this. Are ships waiting to dock/docking/unloading/reloading major contributors to local pollution? Relative to normal automobile use?

yeah! i was under impression from the commentary track on Roger Rabbit that the reason LA's air is so bad was a conspiracy to destroy the public transit infrastructure -- but you're saying all the pollution is from being a shipping hub?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Los_Angeles#Environment

I think what happens is giant cargo ships filled with concentrated polluted air from china sail to LA, dock in the harbor, and then using a fleet of helicopters fan all of that air directly over LA

where do you live in la?

in an unincorporated, hilly part of LA county. would rather not say specifically

http://www.nrdc.org/air/pollution/ports/images/exec1.gif
http://www.nrdc.org/air/pollution/ports/execsum.asp

WOOOOOWWWWWW I had no idea! How is this being assessed, is this emissions from the container ships themselves, plus...whatever forklifts and vehicles maneuver the cargo on and off of ships and into storage areas?

Sorry sorry, reading the wiki now.

do have to tip my cap to dayo for continuing the proud internet tradition of reading innocuous posts in a way that paints the poster in the most unfavorable light possible kiu

How is this being assessed, is this emissions from the container ships themselves, plus...whatever forklifts and vehicles maneuver the cargo on and off of ships and into storage areas?

the way I understand it, it's mostly from the ships sitting there idling offshore while waiting to get a spot in the port. something like that. and the stuff they burn is super dirty.

wk, was mostly curious where you lived w/r/t your earlier question -

there's not an easy answer for LA suburb vs. elsewhere cause the energy and resources you're using depend on your lifestyle not just on where you live. everything else being equal, the basic day-to-day life of someone in a dense area is gonna require less energy than in a suburb. but NY and LA aren't at all the same places, and 'suburbs' half hour outside of them can really mean a variety of things. suburban sprawl of southern california has a leg up on the rest of the country because it's actually pretty dense, there's less weather-dependent energy use and the people who live there actually stopped enjoying driving a while ago, so mass-transit is finally making inroads.

dayo my apartment(s) have been in both minneapolis and saint paul (so twin cities mn), my suburb is an inner ring suburb of saint paul

noted accurate source of info wikipedia says 7024 per square mile - please note that several sources dispute that due to the hardcore green space movement that has always existed in mpls, also the fact that we have a shit ton of rivers and lakes occupying lots of space in the city limits, and it is hard to live on a lake.

the energy and resources you're using depend on your lifestyle not just on where you live. ... 'suburbs' half hour outside of them can really mean a variety of things.

this is exactly the point I was trying to make