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

I’m from Arlington and have been heartened to see some smart development there on my trips home.

fwiw "acres of buffer" is completely out of the question in any of the suburbs I've looked at unless you have a few mil to spend. I was basically willing to consider any lot 6000sf or above and considered houses as small as 1200sf, and we chose a walkable "village" rather than "more for our money". Place we are renting has an 8000sf lot and is walkable to everything including metro north and bus. IDG why anyone would want anything above like half an acre unless they are planning to grow a substantial amount of their own food. NYC just feels like constant stress though, maybe that makes me "part of the problem" but I am kind of saying fuck it at this point.

as a pedantic side note: the american habit of talking about 'western' consumer habits is v sloppy. there are lots of weird anomalies w/ carbon footprints for smaller countries especially, but the US/Canada/Australia are more than double the EU average per capita carbon emissions, either in total or just consumption-related (& still lower than a lot of big oil-producing states). kuwait, s korea, singapore, mongolia, saudi arabia, kazakhstan, trinidad & tobago, iran, oman, japan, and malaysia all have higher consumption-based emissions per capita than france or spain (w/ china in between the two).

talking about 'western' consumer habits is v sloppy. there are lots of weird anomalies w/ carbon footprints for smaller countries

why would you think that the only measure of consumption worth noticing is carbon footprint? people consume land. they consume ocean resources. they mine, cut forests, dump toxic chemicals, and destroy wetlands. and they often outsource their mining, logging, and less energy efficient manufacturing processes to poorer countries, along with their carbon emissions and pollution.

and ship their trash/recycling elsewhere, don't forget

In France, 'la banlieue' (the suburbs) is usually code for 'the projects'.

― pomenitul, Saturday, May 30, 2020 3:36 PM (yesterday)

yes, we are all quite aware of this, and have been making banlieue jagger jokes for at least a decade

banl0u1s

aimless you might be surprised to learn that I'm actually well aware of the existence of not just forestry and mining, but all the things you mention in your post, and had in fact taken them into account before asserting that US consumption cannot reasonably be conflated with some wider 'west'. carbon footprints are just convenient & readily available stats to give some indication of the stark differences between the US and European averages, but if you prefer you could look at meat consumption, fish consumption, energy consumption, the exporting of plastic waste, the production of solid waste or the importing of timber, all of which have interesting breakdowns, & none of which show the US in line with the other 'western' countries, ahead of everyone else

In France, 'la banlieue' (the suburbs) is usually code for 'the projects'.

― pomenitul, Saturday, May 30, 2020 3:36 PM (yesterday)

yes, we are all quite aware of this, and have been making banlieue jagger jokes for at least a decade

― sarahell, Sunday, 31 May 2020 21:43 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

excellent

US consumption cannot reasonably be conflated with some wider 'west'

yeah sorry for this i meant western as in "western movies"

and the pet shop boys song "go west"

my galaxy brain armchair bored-and-high-posting cannot be faulted for a lack of attention to detail

what about the west end girls in a dead end world?

having a peruse one thing that european countries and the US are leading the table together in is e-waste exported per capita. "the west" as a trope feels like a hangover from the cold war or mb some nonsensical clash of civs biz, but unless western literally just means high consumption its noticeable that lots of Definitely Not Western countries have p high consumption in some respects, and that the US is way ahead of most large european countries on most of these metrics

how do we feel about "the global north" ?

aimless you might be surprised to learn that I'm actually well aware of the existence of not just forestry and mining, but all the things you mention in your post, and had in fact taken them into account before asserting that US consumption cannot reasonably be conflated with some wider 'west'

All of which information was rather vital to understanding what you were asserting and was missing until you supplied it. If I am surprised, it is because you were vague.

But all you have now brought to the discussion is that there are some anomalies that do not fit a simplistic model, not that on average the 20 wealthiest countries, which tend to be clustered in Europe and North America, and are often considered to represent a lifestyle described as 'western', consume far more of the world's resources per capita than the average of the remaining 140 or so countries.

Nor do you address what I perceive as the strong desire among the populations of those 140 less wealthy countries to raise their standards of consumption to match those of the 20 wealthiest predominantly 'western' nations and why you think such desire is not important to the future behavior of those nations.

Or we could just agree that the expectation of an ever-increasing global population acquiring ever greater amounts of consumer goods per capita is not something that can be sustained, when we are already in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction Event at current levels of human pressure on the environment, and leave it at that.

coincidentally this quite credible Pet Shop Boys pastiche is also relevant to the thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wqfcwgT0Ds

I made it

What happens out there?

Is it still bad

A family stopped by to bring us muffins.

And Trump lawn signs? (I kid, I kid...)

were the muffins dudes? or classic? or icky?

I've seen one trump sign so far, but I chose an extremely granola suburb.

TBF, that's one more than the number of Biden signs I've seen.

sometimes I feel an eerie sense of time moving at a different speed, or perhaps being outside of time

I'm sure the pandemic heightens this. Also being new and not having a full sense of being grounded within the town, not having a mental map. At some point in my old neighborhood I could really visualize the entire thing from above, almost as though there was a network of wires connecting my family/apartment, the playground, the school, certain other people's homes, certain restaurants and stores, etc. -- maybe not even wires but just a sense that these places were all linked and all part of the same map. I don't have that yet with my town -- things feel a little more independent of each other in my mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XDuHPLzsxM&feature=emb_logo

or maybe

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8XDuHPLzsxM

never mind. Just going for a Man (Alive) Out of Time reference

Update: I've bought a massive trampoline

Off Road Vehicles are next!

It’s not NOT one of my dreams to live on 5+ acres and use a dirt bike to get around. They’re offensively loud so I probably wouldn’t, but I’ve thought about it.

Get some goats. You can hitch two or three of them up to a cart and get around that way. Also you won't need to mow, because they will eat the grass (among other things).

Problem solved.

(While creating other, unrelated problems. But hey.)

5% of US air pollution is caused by gas powered lawn mowers, and using a mower for 1 hour is equivalent to driving a typical car for 350 miles https://t.co/H7H8MTU1BN https://t.co/6Pi9zP0CVX

— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) October 4, 2020

(leaf blowers too)

It's pretty nice to live in an arid area and not be regularly woken up by a cacophony of lawn mowers

Gah, leaf blowers are horrible. My neighbor is all sanctimonious about using an unpowered push lawnmower, but then uses a frickin leafblower that can be heard a half-mile away.

I have a corded lawnmower that claims to be "green" (presumably through offsets - like, I bought the mower and they planted three trees in Norway or some shit).

Next time I kinda want a cordless one, though - I'm sure it's no better for the environment, but I would love to be free of worrying about mowing over the cord.

Ultimate goal is to replace the grass entirely with no-mow clover, but that's been slow going.

At place I lived before current place, there was an outlet mall and an apartment complex right behind me. The mall had a guy who'd leaf blow Mon and Wed literally for hours and hours. Keep in mind this is AZ, so there's not even leaves to blow; just a few twigs and natural debris. Then Tuesday the apartment complex had a guy leaf blowing the shit all back onto the outlet mall's lot. Rinse and repeat. I actually called the cops and got the mall to totally stop.

Moved to the suburbs a few months ago and first purchase was an unpowereed push mower. Honestly its been really amusing how many people have reacted to this fact as if its a completely insane oldtimey affectation akin to churning butter or drinking out of gourds, or that its something thats going to ruin my health pushing around, as if it weighs 1000 pounds or something.

I didnt even care about the environmental aspect of it, but just the fact that it doesnt involve dealing with a smoking screaming engine and flesh-rending helicopter blades spinning 5 inches away from my feet. Its honestly turned mowing into a complete pleasure - quiet, relaxing, I can go at my own pace, listen to music or something while I do it. I guess it might be a pain to sharpen the blades whenever I have to get that done, but I can live with it. Luckily our yard is flat and not too big, which helps too.

I have seriously considered a push mower for exactly the reasons you say, but our yard is probably too big and too not-flat for it. Right now we just pay someone to do it. I hate lawnmowers though. I've also been eying the electric lithium battery ones.

Massive trampoline is one of the greatest things I've ever purchased btw. It was a bitch to retrieve (got it used) and assemble but that just made the finished product all the more sweet.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/120997571_10164176423760304_3109134177647736429_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=3cabszQS3ksAX9yYnsV&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&tp=6&oh=0fe0df0aea71317ae40a30f5e49d2fae&oe=5FA468A0

gaze upon my majestic trampoline!

You literally can’t get an umbrella liability policy if you have one of those in your yard, that’s how awesome they are.

I have one of those policies and the questions are like “are you a journalist” “are you a doctor” “do you have livestock” etc. A bunch of things that make you likely to get sued. And then the last one is “do you have a trampoline”.

i think i'm going to look seriously at battery-powered mowers. i have a gas one but i fucking hate it, checking oil and constantly filling the gas tank are very much not my jam. it's being sluggish and i can't even get a lead on a decent small engine repair place around here. my yard is flat and just about 1/4 acre so i think it's doable.

a glorious trampoline, man alive. insurance is for the weak, you dont need it. our neighbor a couple houses down has a trampoline and every night after work i'll sit in my backyard sipping coffee like an old tired suburbs guy and hear their tween kids on it for hours, just casually jumping and shooting the shit, and I think "godDAMN I'm jealous of that trampoline."

You literally can’t get an umbrella liability policy if you have one of those in your yard, that’s how awesome they are.

I have one of those policies and the questions are like “are you a journalist” “are you a doctor” “do you have livestock” etc. A bunch of things that make you likely to get sued. And then the last one is “do you have a trampoline”.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 7 October 2020 02:59 (nine hours ago) link

https://decider.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/debbie-downer.png?w=646&h=431&crop=1

easy fix

https://i.imgur.com/gSIIYuZ.jpg

good grief do I hate mowing lawns, a not insignificant reason why I will never live anywhere again where that's necessary. the stench of the exhaust, the heat of the engine, the dust and debris, not to mention the animals I've accidentally killed doing it (snakes, mice, little bitty bunnies): it's enough not to have a backyard.

I mean I hate all housing upkeep so lawn mowing is just a particularly vile instance of what I hate. I'm not talking about chores like cleaning the toilet or doing dishes, I mean like fixing holes in the walls or whatever other shit you have to do with a dumb house, I've lived in apartments for the last seven years now & it's just way better for me.

I love mowing the lawn. The stench of the exhaust, the heat of the engine, the dust and debris...

Years ago, when we were between Great Danes, I almost mowed over a warren of little bunny rabbits. One jumped out right before I got there, and as soon as I turned off the mower, they were everywhere.

The mama showed up, who looked both very worried and very relieved at the same time.

https://i.imgur.com/QlRneph.jpg

You can see one of the babies partially hidden in the grass in the middle.