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

And the US Census must have a weird way of determining "urban areas" cuz San Jose definitely isn't dense!

yeah, on this, ultimately the line you draw is going to be arbitrary and the further out you go, the less dense the metro area is gonna be. so if you include far out rural connecticut in nyc, nyc is less dense. if you don't, it's more dense.

a better way to look at density is weighted density - basically it's the sum of the (density of neighborhood x) (pop of neighborhood x / metro area pop). you don't have to worry about the arbitrary metro area lines so much this way.

http://www.austincontrarian.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html

I get Campbell and Willow Glen confused, but they both have comic shops.

a better way to look at density is weighted density - basically it's the sum of the (density of neighborhood x) (pop of neighborhood x / metro area pop). you don't have to worry about the arbitrary metro area lines so much this way.

but that chart is still kind of crazy. so much of it is undeniably suburban.

it took 2 hrs by bus to get to Streetlight Records from my childhood home

san jose still #6 on that count, which maybe says more about america than about san jose. san jose's kinda like LA though, in that it's a huge sprawl of burbs and towns but they're much more compact than comparable metro areas, even if the area doesn't have the benefits that come w/ real density.

theres a great board game shop in santa barbara

yes

I spent my childhood there

also i saw a magician performing tricks in the street the one time i was there

(4th of july 2006)

that was me, if by magician you mean someone playing magic cards at the gameshop

mostly i remember trying to find a spot to smoke weed and failing

take california

nah the only guy who was at the gameshop was the czech (? something slavic ?) guy who owned (? worked at ?) it

was it just off state street?

i bought risk 2210 at his suggestion and still have not played it once

couldnt tell you

I mean afaik there is only one so it has to be the same one, euro dude definitely didn't own it when I was a kid tho

90% sure it was this place http://www.game-seeker.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aGRcRPjbEA

sick ad

ohhhh yeah that's a different one, that's next to all the bars. this was more a comic book shop.

Ooooh max, did you know that I have a copy of this book?

http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic29362_md.jpg

I already promised it to someone, but you could see it if you want?

whoa cool book!!

gamers: icky or dudes

america could build more places like this:
http://www.welcometosantabarbara.com/Beautiful-Santa-Barbara.jpg

and fewer places like this:
http://media.merchantcircle.com/6263965/mallpic_full.jpeg

that's the worst I could find, I couldn't find a pic of the goleta big box stores because who the hell would take pictures of them

google streetview?

That first one looks like an overly-bright approximation of real spanish-roofed cities with bullshit. The second one is ugly but probably more practical, sorry bro

places with buses and crosswalks?

lol the 2nd one isn't more practical unless you like shopping at a total of 6 big box stores and only eating at chain restaurants, maybe you do so idk

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=goleta+home+depot&hl=en&ll=34.428534,-119.8732&spn=0.000009,0.009645&z=17&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=34.428534,-119.8732&panoid=2Fe3eA63EdgxtTsx50Gu7A&cbp=12,350.56,,0,0

it looks like every other off-the-freeway strip mall in ca, could be anywhere today

That is disturbingly monoculture, but I don't see any local gardens or such in the first one, either! Meaning both are importing food, presumably, but one has a distribution chain that probably is minimizing the shit out of transportation and packaging costs, wal-mart style. So the one with public transportation and an infrastructure has that locked down, it's just more depressing. Your first one looks like it has ~suburb density~

the 1st one looks like a wealthy area on the outskirts of an urban area. like there are definitely parts of Berkeley and Oakland that might as well be suburban. it would take people living in those houses longer to get to the 7-11 or grocery store than some suburbanites

Also, clay roof stuff is awesome but limited to the southern climates as it's a locally-sourced solar-reflective-and-dissipating material. Which means it is probably awesome in that area, but not everyone is living in SoCal so the aesthetics are kind of a regional affectation.

by your logic shouldn't we just have one store per city? the ag in the region is mostly oranges and wine. most of the produce comes from...california. it has a 98 on walkscore, and they're increasing the low-income housing downtown. atm many people *can* walk to work, they just don't cause they're rich and lazy.

like there are definitely parts of Berkeley and Oakland that might as well be suburban.

i love berkeley but dude, it is, literally, a suburb.

population density? you haven't been talking about "what works for a certain community, in a certain clime, in a certain region." You've been talking about what is economical, overall. I understand if you mean to say that all people should move to temperate climates, but that is unreasonable for about eighty other reasons other than housing! And it's a major upset in the American populace, let alone the world populace.

berkeley's a suburb but it's also
a. a college town
b. regionally a business district

it's pretty dense (in all senses)

population density? you haven't been talking about "what works for a certain community, in a certain clime, in a certain region." You've been talking about what is economical, overall. I understand if you mean to say that all people should move to temperate climates, but that is unreasonable for about eighty other reasons other than housing! And it's a major upset in the American populace, let alone the world populace.

people walk to work / take local transit in small towns throughout the world.

I'm not arguing that all (or any) cities should look like santa barbara, I'm saying a fairly dense (currently densifying, actually) well-planned medium-sized city isn't some crazy 'only in europe' idea. ps santa barbara is far from perfect for a million reasons and you couldn't pay me to live there - but european tourists pay large amounts of money to fly across the world to visit santa barbara. they do not pay large amounts of money to fly across the world to visit the big box stores in goleta.

tourists fly across the world to play golf; we should build more golf courses

we should not be encouraging anyone to fly around the world

planes should be banned

okay otm

if you want to go to europe, theres a rowboat over there *points vaguely toward dock*

max ur turning into ned *disrobes*

what I'm trying to say is tourists should want to take the future cross-atlantic high-speed rail

but you have to admit, a great deal of practical area would have to exist that people wouldn't necessarily want to visit if they didn't have to! you're conflating aesthetic appeal with environmental/economic viability. areas can definitely mix the two, but it is a stretch.

would you like to visit "the bridges of madison county"

only if there is light rail going over the bridges

someone link to the part of this thread where jon starts having a tantrum