Is America's suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? (Dallas, Plano: for sale, rent)

[Grainraiser]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

Old and crumbling, huh? I assume your being sarcastic and poking fun at the "if it wasn't built within the last 5 years, it's old" mentality we seem to have in our region. Funny stuff.

Brian

I guess I should have been more specific. I am talking about the neighborhoods around Fair Park, West Dallas etc. (Wow I think I am to the first person to ever mention West Dallas on this board). I certainly not trashing Dallas cuz it been home for 45 years

[Lakewooder]

As gas prices increase, so do crowds at park-and-ride lots | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas News on Yahoo! | The Dallas Morning News

[Lakewooder]

DART smashes ridership records | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Latest News

[DWong]

Good to see ridership start going up... even though it ranks near dead last for % ridership for a metro.... it will get there...

[Lakewooder]

The Frontal Cortex : Buying the Wrong House

"They'll imagine all sorts of scenarios (a big birthday party, Thanksgiving dinner, another child) that will turn the suburban house into an absolute necessity. The lengthy commute, meanwhile, will seem less and less significant, at least when compared to the allure of an extra bathroom. But, as Dijksterhuis points out, that reasoning process is exactly backwards: "The additional bathroom is a completely superfluous asset for at least 362 or 363 days each year, whereas a long commute does become a burden after a while."

[Lakewooder]

Annals of Transport: There and Back Again: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

"“I was shocked to find how robust a predictor of social isolation commuting is,” Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist, told me. (Putnam wrote the best-seller “Bowling Alone,” about the disintegration of American civic life.) “There’s a simple rule of thumb: Every ten minutes of commuting results in ten per cent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected to social isolation, which causes unhappiness.”

[loves2read]

not disagreeing with the comments about the negative effects of commuting but I wonder how many people now affected by rising gas prices are car-pooling

I did that when I was first out of college and lived in Houston and teaching and certainly did it when my children were in school and I or my husband were driving them there and back---
but I think while some people have begun to do that, it is like court of last resort for most people and I can understand why that might be so
but it would help to ameliorate some of the "social isolation" that commuting itself creates...

and I love this quote from the New Yorker article:
People adapt to a higher living standard but not to social isolation. Frey and Stutzer infer that some people, even when the costs become clear, just lack the will power to change. “People have limited self-control and insufficient energy, inducing some people to not even try to improve their lot,” they write. In this regard, they say, commuting resembles smoking and failing to save money.

nough said about the American malaise that has frozen this country for almost two generations to a certain extent--it explains the low number of voters (even with trememdous increases most recently), the lack of pressure on govt to do something about clean air/energy standards/govt policy on green-house gases, businesses that dig themselves deeper and deeper into a hole while ignoring the changes going on around them (a la GM and smaller cars)...
most of us are ruled by inertia rather than any other personal trait or outside event...

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by DWong

Good to see ridership start going up... even though it ranks near dead last for % ridership for a metro.... it will get there...

Wrong, Wong. DART only covers a small part of metro DFW. No, it does not rank near dead last.

[Synopsis]

Originally Posted by loves2read

not disagreeing with the comments about the negative effects of commuting but I wonder how many people now affected by rising gas prices are car-pooling

I did that when I was first out of college and lived in Houston and teaching and certainly did it when my children were in school and I or my husband were driving them there and back---
but I think while some people have begun to do that, it is like court of last resort for most people and I can understand why that might be so
but it would help to ameliorate some of the "social isolation" that commuting itself creates...

and I love this quote from the New Yorker article:
People adapt to a higher living standard but not to social isolation. Frey and Stutzer infer that some people, even when the costs become clear, just lack the will power to change. “People have limited self-control and insufficient energy, inducing some people to not even try to improve their lot,” they write. In this regard, they say, commuting resembles smoking and failing to save money.

nough said about the American malaise that has frozen this country for almost two generations to a certain extent--it explains the low number of voters (even with trememdous increases most recently), the lack of pressure on govt to do something about clean air/energy standards/govt policy on green-house gases, businesses that dig themselves deeper and deeper into a hole while ignoring the changes going on around them (a la GM and smaller cars)...
most of us are ruled by inertia rather than any other personal trait or outside event...

Excellent point.

[caligurltotx]

Lakewooder found this article and felt it was related to this topic

The End of White Flight - WSJ.com

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

Is America's suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? - CNN.com

"This change can be witnessed in places like Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan, and Dallas, Texas, said Leinberger, where once rundown downtowns are being revitalized by well-educated, young professionals who have no desire to live in a detached single family home typical of a suburbia where life is often centered around long commutes and cars"...