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

it was a jersey poison tomato ya lol

hey aerosmith have a tomato...YA LOL YA

I love you for this

I wish that dude who was preaching "just let your lawn grow" had gotten some traction because when mrs ua & me were pretty poor we didn't have a lawnmower for a long time and the lawn on the corner in this tiny town just went nuts, and I loved it. and I'd guess the neighbors didn't, I think we got a note from the city about it at some point and they told us "you know your landlord's required to mow that if you don't have a lawnmower," so the landlord came and did it but seriously that grass was like two feet high at that point and I thought it was awesome, fuck manicured lawns imo stop shaving grow yr bush its totally hot

You can have a bbq in like 50 square feet, you just like looking at grass and knowing that it's yours, all yours.

Whatever, I guess this is exactly the attitude we've been talking about for the last 10 months or w/e, and how people with those ideas about land-use GOT those ideas. Thanks for being Exhibit A.

My parents live on acres of land out in the woods where they are running a private vineyard and growing about 75% of their own vegetables.

I have no point, I just wanted to brag

well also wanted to point out that all of us city ppl are pathetic

My current yard is occupied less by fescue and more by a wide array of native plants that have just sort of taken over. I like it visually, but it's not much fun to walk around on barefoot.

ya lol glad laurel is doing the dirty work for me

I see lots of bbqs in brooklyn and queens, maybe they aren't having as much fun cause they don't see grass (unless they're in one of the hundreds of parks in nyc)

You can have a bbq in like 50 square feet

you cannot play frisbee afterwards in that much space that's for damn sure.

you can also have sex in a sleeping bag but it isn't always comfortable

Sorry, I might be snappish today, I'm tired and really really sore and stiff from going indoor climbing two weeks in a row. Cannot lift arms, or spirits.

I just wish we could manage to debate this without sending the condescension levels into the red.

Oh boo hoo, some compromises against exactly what you want to do as a totally free agent in your own fiefdom might be compromised. God.

Sorry, is that level too high for you?

I really think, probably wrongly, that acreages that are actually rural are probably much better environmentally and economically than low-density suburbs. You're not putting a tax drain on the city, you rely on the county rather than the city for road work/services which is marginally more tax efficient, and you're probably using a septic tank and have the option to use well water for watering your plants.

Of course, my parents kind of made the green aspect of it backfire by manicuring a four acre lawn when they lived outside the city, but they also had about eighty trees.

Wow, you were quick to take that personally Laurel.

(xpost)

Nah, I was already finishing my typing previous post when yours came up, I didn't want to waste a good snark.

I see lots of bbqs in brooklyn and queens, maybe they aren't having as much fun cause they don't see grass (unless they're in one of the hundreds of parks in nyc)

this is where you start to land in hot water imo/fyi - there's a difference between a bbq on the roof/in an NYC park and one where you can enjoy both privacy & the feeling of space. I know that that's selfish, to use a term you use upthread - and I think that's a fair criticism; but I also don't think you really speak much to what that selfishness means, what values people are also expressing when they like a family bbq. I get that, for you, solitude/privacy/space/quiet are either mystifying concepts/values or of so little importance that it's easy to table them. But understand that your values, your preferences, while both probably practical & reasonable, are fraught with the same perils that all personal values are.

Like for example: I'm a vegetarian. I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the world would be a much, much better place if everybody else was, too. (Not if it happened overnight. That would pose huge problems. Even if everybody went veg in a year, it'd have some devastating effects on economies. But since that's never going to happen, nor anything like it, it's not really even a point worth considering.) But I try not to frame things in that way, because slow learning ua learned after an extended bout of evangelism that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

I wasn't trying to take sides, this is a complicated issue with a lot of different things to take into account and I hate it when we (as a whole here) get on this whole "well, your way is just WRONG". Because, there are lots of other considerations here, because none of us live in any kind of utopia.

btw laurel I am not mad or nothing you can zing me any time, you city-loving exhaust-breather you

get that, for you, solitude/privacy/space/quiet are either mystifying concepts/values or of so little importance that it's easy to table them.

It's more that people have been taught to want these things, in certain ways, and to believe that having them is "making it" -- and this entire 10 months-worth of thread has been an attempt to talk about what grew these values and how they are not natural or organic or inevitable in human society. Not ALL privacy or tranquility, OBVIOUSLY, but in the amounts that many people/Americans/some ilxors desire in order to feel "good" about their circumstances.

otm

See, aero, you're just a victim of false consciousness. If you'll just report to your nearest re-education camp we can cure you of all those icky values and feelings right quick.

Yeah, I don't hate on people who want to shuffle their few meager possessions from cramped little box to cramped little box, each with it's unique neighborly thumps and smells and limited views for the rest of their lives until they die. Commies.

It's more that people have been taught to want these things, in certain ways,

"in certain ways" is true - the notion that people would naturally be more high-density seems unsupported by immediate evidence to my mind

There are cultural factors that make us look at people in modest/small residences on ecologically responsible plots of land who live within their means and are mindful about resources, and NOT say, "These people have figured out how to live, I want to be like them someday."

No. Having more, having bigger, having space and quiet and land and basically being able to go to your castle and feel like other people don't exist, this did not become a societal goal by accident.

"naturally" is kind of a funny word there, that helps to sidestep the important point that the US government subsidizes unsustainable development in a major way

xp

It's more that people have been taught to want these things, in certain ways,

I mean I'm with you in the deep sense on this, politically - here are some other things people have been taught to want, in certain ways:

clothes
hot water
chocolate
bacon
the internet

you know?

Sorry, I should back up for a sec: people are WELCOME to have all the space and quiet and land and trees they want, there's plenty of it. But they'll also have to live in a rural(ish) area and deal with the consequences of that.

I'm pretty sure I would have found bacon even if Mom hadn't cooked some for me.

Bacon isn't consequence-free either, last time I checked my waistline/cholesterol/whatever. ;_;

It's just like somehow we accept that you have to pay for internet, bacon, silky clothes that are nicer to wear, etc, but we don't think that about suburban life???

I'm pretty sure being really high-density actually makes people go nuts, but that's me.

You city people pay for bacon? In the 'burbs we just

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_de4hwGSX9H4/SxM7miZovbI/AAAAAAAAAAM/SeSYB5x3D8A/s1600/push_button_receive_bacon_enjoy_bacon.jpg

Oh boo hoo, some compromises against exactly what you want to do as a totally free agent in your own fiefdom might be compromised. God.

who are you even talking to here, you incredibly crazy person

INDOOR CLIMBING

case solved

Oh that was for kkvgz and his "you can't play frisbee after your bbq if you don't have a big yard all to yourself" sob story.

haha okay, I thought my sleeping bag joke massively offended you!

That would be crazy!

apologies all around, let us hug in our apartments/condos

True lols at "enjoy bacon" -- if the future is one of those dispensing devices in every home, where do I join?

I can't stand bacon, it stinks up the house. If you live in the city, all your neighbors have to smell it. And believe me, you'll probably get a call from your landlord. On the other hand ethnic food cooking can put an entire building at ease.

It's true, I have a friend who used to live right above an Indian couple and he never had to worry about anyone smelling his copious marijuana consumption, such was the overwhelmingness of the curry odor.

It's true. I made some yesterday in the oven and the apartment smelled like a pork belly for hours, even with 10,000 candles lit.

It's true, I have a friend who used to live right above an Indian couple and he never had to worry about anyone smelling his copious marijuana consumption, such was the overwhelmingness of the curry odor.

was your friend's name Jesus because it sounds like he lived in paradise

Can I tell the story about how much CS Lewis hated onions and garlic, because these were the scents of foreign, non-English cooking??? And he made the Calormenes smell like these things, in his books, and used it to make them seem gross to his readers. Backfired, imo.

It was actually ames, iowa. heh.

Can I tell the story about how much CS Lewis hated onions and garlic, because these were the scents of foreign, non-English cooking??? And he made the Calormenes smell like these things, in his books, and used it to make them seem gross to his readers

The Calormenes also dedicated bad poetry to a bird god named Tash.

I live in the suburbs with a lot of creaky frame houses. People panic every time a neighbor barbecues. Are those ribs cooking or is someone's house on fire?

suburbanites = people who can't tell the smell of burning wood from the smell of grilling flesh

fuck manicured lawns imo stop shaving grow yr bush its totally hot

i just imagined UA getting all pretty ricky on his lawn