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Old 08-13-2012, 11:43 AM
 
Location: The City
22,379 posts, read 38,711,733 times
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It would seem to me people can choose where they want to live; not sure anything is forced on anyone in the larger sense...

 
Old 08-13-2012, 11:43 AM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,667 posts, read 24,806,479 times
Reputation: 18893
Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg View Post
It's an utterly false premise--but it fits the basic narrative of "We are under attack by sinister forces seeking to destroy our way of life!"
*cough* suburbs, white flight, highways *cough*

But I would agree with you. I really don't see any serious effort. I mean you have SACOG Blueprint and Darrel Steinberg who pops up every decade or so, but other than that. And I wouldn't call SACOG an attack, it's just a plan to limit growth in unincorporated areas. It's at best an attack on the way of life of those living in unincorporated areas, mostly El Dorado and Placer. For example, Blueprint calls for a 90% reduction in growth in unincorporated Placer County, but is that really an attack? Most of the people in unincorporated Placer would like to see the growth limited or at least corralled into Granite Bay and possibly North Auburn. They're pretty much lost to suburban and McMansion (on mini-estates in North Auburn) anyway. Blueprint just puts an emphasis on redirecting semi-rural and rural growth and concentrating growth in Roseville, Lincoln, and Rock. It's pro-suburban. The "attack" is on rural and semi-rural living, not suburban. You have plenty of paranoia about it and the whole "Agenda 21" stuff, but people and their conspiracies.

El Dorado County is a little different. Unlike Placer which is mostly anti-growth outside of the Lincoln and Roseville-Rocklin areas, El Dorado Hills is pro-growth. The major growth region in El Dorado is unincorporated EDH (Pop. more than doubled from 18 thousand to 42 thousand during the last census; El Dorado County as a whole grew to 181 thousand from 156). So 95% of growth in El Dorado is already occurring solely in EDH in contrast to Placer which is seeing lots semi-rural and rural growth. It's just that SACOG is anti-unincorporated growth and EDH is anti-big government. Aside from the technical detail that SACOG is anti-unincorporated and EDH is unincorporated it's also not exactly the right kind of growth either. EDH has some Blueprint-approved housing (basically the high density is Blueprints low-density) but it's near exclusively residential drive-to-everything-because-it's-too-damn-far-to-walk-anywhere. Basically all of what little commercial activity there is right off Highway 50. You get off the freeway, do your errands, and drive home. They're starting some neighborhood shopping centers (the one on Francisco and Green Valley) but you're still literally talking about a minimum of four miles of nothing but houses. You might find a daycare or a small professional office at best, but it's essentially four miles of nothing but housing. SACOG is pretty much toothless but the principles of it are an attack on that lifestyle, which is one of the reasons El Dorado County does not participate with SACOG.

Anyway, if there's an attack, it's a totally ineffective one. I don't really see promoting Blueprint as an attack on non-Blueprint growth. Your not banning it, you're just pushing growth in another direction that's more sustainable where you don't have four miles of uninterrupted big-lot houses.
 
Old 08-13-2012, 09:01 PM
 
8,680 posts, read 17,203,538 times
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Malloric: Thing is, there were active efforts to force people out of cities and into suburbs (or just "out wherever" in the case of certain folks.) That's pretty easy to demonstrate and very well documented. The idea that there is a counter-movement to demolish the suburbs and force everyone downtown is ridiculous and imaginary. And, as you say, the real "attack" going on right now is the continued suburban assault on America's rural communities, farmland, and open country.

The SACOG blueprint, and other regional "smart growth" plans like it, are only an attack on the "way of life" of suburban real estate developers. The idea is to keep rural places rural as much as possible, currently suburban places suburban as much as possible, and encourage growth in city centers where there is already growth.

As you say, if there's an attack, it is toothless and ineffective, which makes the idea of an attack hard to justify as anything other than a fantasy. Rhetoric, or not liking the way someone else lives but being powerless to do anything about it, hardly counts as an attack, except by those who are threatened and traumatized by the mere idea that someone might think differently.
 
Old 08-13-2012, 09:03 PM
 
578 posts, read 1,088,700 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Irishtom29 View Post
"Independent pub"? What's that? What us oldtimers call a tavern?


Great photos !!!!!
 
Old 08-13-2012, 09:09 PM
 
578 posts, read 1,088,700 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Irishtom29 View Post
Most people don't go to concerts and plays or "fine dining" regardless of where they live (I think the current fixation on restaurants and coffee joints is odd, as is the search for authenticity in restaurants rather than in day to day behavior). Some see cities as playgrounds for elitists others see them as places where people find work and hang their hats. I guess that depends on whether you moved to the city from an affluent suburb or from some place like Poland or Mexico.

Then you have people like me who grew up in Chicago yet feel very little in common with many newcomers. And I don't mean Poles and Mexicans.

In any event Americans have a history of self righteous finger wagging that goes back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Many of the people who now look down their noses at suburbanites would've been the same people looking down at Blacks 50 years ago. The comforts of bigotry don't change but the victims of it change with the current fashions.
Well Tom I have season opera tickets go to concerts monthly and eat out often. Most times I walk to these events. More often than not I am seated next to a "cough" suburbanite. So some do dine and seek out entertainment. For the record to compare folks who dislike the sterile suburbs with racists is like someone who's looking for an answer. It doesn't resonant. Sorry dude
 
Old 08-13-2012, 10:09 PM
 
10,629 posts, read 26,638,574 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kidphilly View Post
It would seem to me people can choose where they want to live; not sure anything is forced on anyone in the larger sense...
Not so sure that's really true. I get where you're coming from, but not everyone really has much of a choice in their living arrangements. Sometimes you go where you can find a place to live.

Then again, I am still a bit dazed after emerging (with an apartment!) from a long and difficult Bay Area apartment search. The rental market in the city of San Francisco is absolutely brutal right now -- few apartments to be found, even if you can afford one. We ended up in a suburb as a result, although we were lucky enough to find a place in a suburb that offered many of the "urban" amenities that we value.

But overall, I agree that most people have some power in the type of neighborhood or community in which they choose to live, although in real life people don't always get everything on their wish list that they want. That may sometimes lead to problems. (I know that in some of the urban neighborhoods in Minneapolis there are plenty of people who buy homes a few blocks from major commercial districts and then pressure the city to make the city more like other, quieter neighborhoods, making one wonder why they just didn't buy in those other neighborhoods to begin with! Just as I'm sure there those who move to very quiet suburban neighborhoods and then complain because it is not exciting. Every location has its pros and cons, and most people aren't lucky enough to get everything they want in one single package, especially when those wishes conflict: dense vibrant urban neighborhood with easy street parking, for example, or big lot and house on quiet suburban street with robust, bustling downtown a block away.)
 
Old 08-13-2012, 11:01 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,244,119 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by deliz View Post
Well Tom I have season opera tickets go to concerts monthly and eat out often. Most times I walk to these events. More often than not I am seated next to a "cough" suburbanite. So some do dine and seek out entertainment. For the record to compare folks who dislike the sterile suburbs with racists is like someone who's looking for an answer. It doesn't resonant. Sorry dude
Calling the suburbs "sterile" is like someone looking for an answer, too. It doesn't resonate b/c it's not true.
 
Old 08-14-2012, 06:49 AM
 
Location: Youngstown, Oh.
5,496 posts, read 9,440,487 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
Calling the suburbs "sterile" is like someone looking for an answer, too. It doesn't resonate b/c it's not true.
I don't know if deliz intentionally chose their words this carefully, but read their post again. They said: "folks who dislike the sterile suburbs." You're not arguing that there aren't suburbs that fit the sterile suburb stereotype, are you?
 
Old 08-14-2012, 09:16 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,244,119 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by JR_C View Post
I don't know if deliz intentionally chose their words this carefully, but read their post again. They said: "folks who dislike the sterile suburbs." You're not arguing that there aren't suburbs that fit the sterile suburb stereotype, are you?
It's hard to know which suburbs s/he was talking about; people that make those statements generally think all suburbs are "sterile". I've lived/seen a number of suburbs, and while I don't like them all, there are none I would call "sterile". A sense of community, etc goes beyond appearances.
 
Old 08-14-2012, 09:55 AM
 
3,417 posts, read 3,060,918 times
Reputation: 1241
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
It's hard to know which suburbs s/he was talking about; people that make those statements generally think all suburbs are "sterile". I've lived/seen a number of suburbs, and while I don't like them all, there are none I would call "sterile". A sense of community, etc goes beyond appearances.
As always, urbanist seem to assume all suburbs are the same. Its one of the ways they justify their hatred of the suburbs. They just want to assume all suburbs are cookie-cutter, car dependent, no entertainment, applebees, target, 110% white, and whatever other garbage they want to think. What still amazes me, they think there is nothing wrong with an urban/city environment, there is no downside, all upside and can't see how anybody woud live someway else. They continue to live in a delusional state of mind.
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