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Old 06-11-2013, 01:52 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,613 posts, read 77,432,847 times
Reputation: 19101

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Quote:
Originally Posted by HeavenWood View Post
Bigger lawns, more living space, better schools, peace and quiet, move-in ready new construction homes, among other things. Again, not saying your reasons for disliking where you grew up are illegitimate, but other people feel differently, and even though I don't like sprawling suburbia either, I'm ok with that. Why can't you be? People are entitled to make our own choices and our job is to listen to what they want and advise them on how to get it.
It's great if one person wants to live in sprawl. It's great when two people want to live in sprawl. When everyone wants to live in sprawl, then we get Cranberry Township---everywhere. That's NOT healthy for our region at-large as it just encourages greater dependency upon fossil fuels and personal vehicles, which increases traffic congestion and hinders air quality. People initially move to the outer suburbs/exurbs "cuz it's cheaper" or "cuz it's a free country". Then everyone else follows and taxes have to be raised to build new schools, new roads, upgrade septic systems to public sewers, enforce mandatory recycling, new police departments, shifting volunteer fire departments to paid ones, etc. Then everyone just moves further out, destroying more open space, natural habitats, and prime farmland in the process. We're already seeing this as Cranberry Township ITSELF is now generating a new wave of sprawl in surrounding townships. I have a feeling greg42's tranquil Economy Borough in Beaver County will be overrun with spillover development over the next 20 years, and I don't see how it's beneficial for an area that has had either a declining or a stagnant population for generations to simply pick up that dwindling pool of people and spread them further and further apart from each other and everything else on an annual basis.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fleetiebelle View Post
I prefer living in the city, but I grew up in the suburbs and can definitely see why my parents chose to live where they did. The school district is excellent, yards are large, the neighborhood is safe and fairly diverse--I grew up having matzoh with the Jewish neighbors and kim chee with the Korean family down the street. We rode bikes just fine and got rides from parents when we needed to go anywhere. Personally, my suburban childhood did not crush anything, including my soul.
I suppose when I think "large yard" I think "exclusive". I'd rather have lived in a neighborhood with tiny yards but numerous parks and playgrounds to encourage more neighborliness. When you have no yard of your own, then you and your neighbors are all forced to recreate in a common place and form great social bonds with one another. When you all have your own large yards you are more likely to have your own pool, your own grill, your own everything---and stick with your own family/extended family for recreation. I suppose I'm just in the wrong era. I want to live somewhere that's like Bedford Falls, where you can run down a Main Street and everyone knows your name. Now everyone just drives into their two-car garage in the 'burbs after work, sits in their La-Z-Boy with their iPad, and puts the TV on for background noise as they eat in separate rooms even from other immediate family members for dinner.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hinsey86 View Post
I am lmao. What a totally ridiculous post. So now the suburbs create only dull people and are responsible for you dullness. You are a card dude. I guess all the hundreds of kids, probably much more, that rode their bikes in the burbs are exceptional. Was your suburb in middle of a prison or war zone?
I suppose your suburb has bike lanes, sidewalks, etc. Your suburb is the exception---not the rule. I was nearly hit on numerous occasions as a teenager RUNNING on the shoulder of the four-lane highway that our subdivision fed into, and I couldn't imagine biking on it as a child would be any safer. I would judge your parenting skills if you felt comfortable letting a child ride his or her bike on the shoulder of a road as cars whizzed by at 45 miles per hour or more. Contrariwise I see kids biking on the bike lanes here in the city all the time. I know SOME suburbs, such as Katiana's Louisville, CO, were planned with "smart growth" in mind. The vast majority of PA's newer suburban areas weren't/aren't. I don't see many kids riding bikes along Route 228 in Cranberry Township.
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Old 06-11-2013, 01:56 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
29,696 posts, read 34,240,753 times
Reputation: 76906
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelCityRising View Post


I suppose when I think "large yard" I think "exclusive". I'd rather have lived in a neighborhood with tiny yards but numerous parks and playgrounds to encourage more neighborliness. When you have no yard of your own, then you and your neighbors are all forced to recreate in a common place and form great social bonds with one another. When you all have your own large yards you are more likely to have your own pool, your own grill, your own everything---and stick with your own family/extended family for recreation. I suppose I'm just in the wrong era. I want to live somewhere that's like Bedford Falls, where you can run down a Main Street and everyone knows your name. Now everyone just drives into their two-car garage in the 'burbs after work, sits in their La-Z-Boy with their iPad, and puts the TV on for background noise as they eat in separate rooms even from other immediate family members for dinner.
We're super off-topic now (sorry, OP,) but did you not have a group of neighborhood kids to play with? We were always running around, in and out of each other's yards and houses. If someone had a pool, pretty much everyone was in the pool. Neighbors had parties in the cul-de-sac and pot lucks and progressive dinners.

Besides, Bedford Falls is small-town America, not urban living.
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Old 06-11-2013, 02:02 PM
 
Location: North Oakland
9,150 posts, read 10,858,950 times
Reputation: 14503
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobick View Post
I still wish I grew up in Manhattan and not Nassau County.
Same with me and New Jersey. Unlike the rest of the kids in my neighborhood (not a subdivision, btw), what I wanted when I grew up was not a driver's license, but a doorman.
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Old 06-11-2013, 02:39 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Morningside)
14,362 posts, read 16,946,112 times
Reputation: 12400
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelCityRising View Post
I don't see how ANYONE would benefit growing up in a neighborhood with no sidewalks, no diversity, and along a cul-de-sac that fed into a busy four-lane commuter belt. I couldn't ride my bike anywhere and, consequently, am embarrassed to admit that as an adult I don't know how to ride a bike. A new "power center" anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter now abuts my parents' subdivision, yet they can't walk to it due to fencing around the property boundary severing the retail and residential areas. When a lesbian couple from Philadelphia pondered purchasing a home in the subdivision it was the "talk of the town". I ran recreationally along the commuter-belt and had frequent near-misses with soccer moms in SUVs who were drifting onto the shoulder as they texted. I felt "trapped" until I was 16 and able to drive.
Dude, I had an unhappy childhood in the suburbs too (Connecticut in my case, as I said before). And I dislike suburbs as a result - they remind me of the feeling of social isolation, boredom, and unhappiness which comprised my teen years. But I recognize that as visceral as the dislike is, it's subjective. I'm sure the preppy kids, jocks, whatever I grew up with liked the life just fine. I'm never going to like the suburbs, for the same reason I'm never going to like wearing Polo shirts or listening to the Dave Matthews Band. But that doesn't make the people who do bad people.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday View Post
It's interesting to hear this coming from you. I think many 16 year old suburban kids had the same feeling when they were able to drive, but came to a completely different conclusion. They associate their cars (and thus the roads, driveways, and garages that go with them) with the youthful freedom of some of their best years.
Didn't learn how to drive until I was 19 personally. I hated bumming rides from friends from 16-19 - mainly because I'm the kind of person who likes always being punctual, and I was forced to rely on friends who could be super late.
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Old 06-11-2013, 06:53 PM
 
Location: North by Northwest
9,322 posts, read 12,953,726 times
Reputation: 6171
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobick View Post
If you tell me it's essentially about space...I can see that i guess; Schools I think are based on what I see as a misperception ... but OK.
That's partially true, in the respect that people tend to overthink test scores and US News rankings. For instance, Colfax and Minadeo are fine elementary schools, even if they are "meh" as far as test scores alone go. But a lot of urban public schools (Pittsburgh's included) lack basic things like chalk and construction paper, and due to the behavior of a few especially bad apples, are legitimately dangerous for students and teachers alike.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobick View Post
I guess I just feel like I'm missing something as to why they're (suburbs) so popular and viewed by many as a superior place to live, although i do confess to having that reaction to much of what is popular today.
When did I ever say the suburbs were inherently superior? There's nothing to "miss." You either like something or you don't, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it shouldn't be hard to understand why many people happen to prefer the suburban lifestyle, which is not a new-fangled fad, but something that has been going on en masse for three generations. If anything, suburban popularity is starting to decline somewhat, though I don't think most will become ghettoes the way certain urbanists believe (more like wish).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobick View Post
I just thought there must be a different, more compelling reason out there and was hoping for somebody to point me in the right direction.
Again, there's nothing to "compel." It's all a matter of personal taste.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelCityRising View Post
It's great if one person wants to live in sprawl. It's great when two people want to live in sprawl. When everyone wants to live in sprawl, then we get Cranberry Township---everywhere. That's NOT healthy for our region at-large as it just encourages greater dependency upon fossil fuels and personal vehicles, which increases traffic congestion and hinders air quality. People initially move to the outer suburbs/exurbs "cuz it's cheaper" or "cuz it's a free country". Then everyone else follows and taxes have to be raised to build new schools, new roads, upgrade septic systems to public sewers, enforce mandatory recycling, new police departments, shifting volunteer fire departments to paid ones, etc. Then everyone just moves further out, destroying more open space, natural habitats, and prime farmland in the process. We're already seeing this as Cranberry Township ITSELF is now generating a new wave of sprawl in surrounding townships. I have a feeling greg42's tranquil Economy Borough in Beaver County will be overrun with spillover development over the next 20 years, and I don't see how it's beneficial for an area that has had either a declining or a stagnant population for generations to simply pick up that dwindling pool of people and spread them further and further apart from each other and everything else on an annual basis.
We have one life to live, and while I personally think the Cranberries of the world are both present eyesores and long-term unsustainables, I blame absolutely no one for electing to live somewhere they can get the living space, lot size, and public school quality they desire at a relatively affordable price-point. Even if they happen to prefer sprawl, that's a choice I feel they have every right to make. This mock altruistic BS is really unnerving on your part. Stop grandstanding and try to understand why many people view the world differently from yourself.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelCityRising View Post
I suppose when I think "large yard" I think "exclusive". I'd rather have lived in a neighborhood with tiny yards but numerous parks and playgrounds to encourage more neighborliness. When you have no yard of your own, then you and your neighbors are all forced to recreate in a common place and form great social bonds with one another. When you all have your own large yards you are more likely to have your own pool, your own grill, your own everything---and stick with your own family/extended family for recreation. I suppose I'm just in the wrong era. I want to live somewhere that's like Bedford Falls, where you can run down a Main Street and everyone knows your name. Now everyone just drives into their two-car garage in the 'burbs after work, sits in their La-Z-Boy with their iPad, and puts the TV on for background noise as they eat in separate rooms even from other immediate family members for dinner.
I happen to like big houses on big yards--similar to what you'd find in the auto-centric, Fox Chapel-like custom construction half of my otherwise walkable, Mt. Lebanon-esque home suburb. I like walkable areas, but I value living space a bit more, and don't mind putting up with a short walk or car ride to get to a charming village center in order to live in the home I desire. Totally legitimate that you feel otherwise, though the fact people no longer tend to interact with their neighbors is far more a generational thing than an urban-suburban divide. Most of the people I know, whether they live in trendy city neighborhoods; charming inner-ring suburbs; or sprawling outer exurbs; use their homes as a place of relaxation and respite. Their friends come from school, work, social clubs, civic organizations, houses of worship, etc. etc., with whom they're naturally more likely to have things in common than any random set of neighbors.


Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelCityRising View Post
I suppose your suburb has bike lanes, sidewalks, etc. Your suburb is the exception---not the rule. I was nearly hit on numerous occasions as a teenager RUNNING on the shoulder of the four-lane highway that our subdivision fed into, and I couldn't imagine biking on it as a child would be any safer. I would judge your parenting skills if you felt comfortable letting a child ride his or her bike on the shoulder of a road as cars whizzed by at 45 miles per hour or more. Contrariwise I see kids biking on the bike lanes here in the city all the time. I know SOME suburbs, such as Katiana's Louisville, CO, were planned with "smart growth" in mind. The vast majority of PA's newer suburban areas weren't/aren't. I don't see many kids riding bikes along Route 228 in Cranberry Township.
Let's forget my "charming, inner-ring suburb" (which itself isn't universally walkable) for a moment. South Jersey, which mostly developed in the '50s-'70s, is sprawling as hell, but the residential portions are extremely walkable and pedestrian-friendly for the most part. The problem therein lies with the main arteries, along which most of the businesses and other points of interests lie (plenty of Olive Gardens and other chain restaurants, which I know you happen to love ). On the other hand, I wouldn't want a kid riding a bike along Forbes or Fifth the same way I'd be hesitant to let him/her ride on McKnight Road or William Penn Highway.
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Old 06-12-2013, 04:59 AM
Yac
 
6,049 posts, read 7,709,051 times
It would be super awesome if the thread got back on topic. I wouldn't have to close it
Yac.
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