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What a load of crap. I have never lived in a "suburb" that didn't have small local parks within easy walking distance. That's assuming the cops don't pick your kids up for being more than 2 blocks from home and then turns you over to child services anyway.
I don't want or need "shopping" next door or even a block away. I value my privacy and do not care for the added traffic that a "shopping center" or "downtown" brings, including all those extra strangers moving about.
A big part of suburban living is the fact that houses ARE set back from the curb, giving me a zone of safety from passing traffic, noise, and car exhaust. Also keeps people from walking right up to a window without ever leaving the sidewalk/road and peering RIGHT into my windows. I hate city living sooo much.
The much-vaunted "economic diversity" does not exist in cities any more than it does in suburbia. Bull to that idea as well. If you have money, you don't rub elbows with them as don't. If you don't have money, you are not moving to Park Ave anytime in this universal time-cycle. Get real.
Humans DO NOT "crave enclosure". My heavens, what a ridiculous idea! Some people tolerate crowding better than others, but just like rats, when crowding becomes too much, people turn on each other. Give me the wide open spaces, you can keep your cages and "enclosures". I just want a house of my own that is far enough away from the neighbors that they can't see into mine just by glancing out their window - which is 2' away from mine. I had many relatives who lived in those narrow houses with the barely-wide-enough-for-a-child-to-walk "side yards". HATE those things. You can keep 'em, and the cities they were built in.
I grew up in a house on an alley. Yeah, we parked in back - in an unattached garage. Actually a 100 year old barn. Give me an attached garage, or at least a good carport, in FRONT any day of the week. We were constantly having people sneak from the alley into the barn and our back yard and stealing stuff or doing vandalism, in a small farming community. This wasn't the inner city. Alleys are a waste of space and an invitation to trespassers. I'd rather have that space as part of my back yard and NO access for thieves and vandals. Especially in an actual city where this sort of anonymous stranger crime is even worse.
And the space in my yard is NOT WASTED, thank you very much. That is where my fruit trees, my garden, my flower beds, and my private patio where I can relax without having someone's slobbering dog jump into my lap trying to catch the frisbee that just hit me in the face. If you think a back yard is "wasted space", I invite you to buy a property that doesn't have one. In one of your cities, which you can keep all for yourself.
I live in an well-designed ranch home with centrally located heating so even though there is NO insulation in the walls at all, my heating bills have been so far under $100 a month since October (and its been below freezing every single day in that time) that I was running a $125 credit as of January. I am NOT trading this in for a crappy apartment or other city dwelling with no yard, no privacy, and windows right on the street so I can never leave them open and enjoy some sunshine without every Tom Dick and Harry who passes by being able to see right in. Oh. I forgot. Given the preponderance of tall buildings, there probably isn't any sunlight if you're on the ground floor anyway.
Some cities have little or no "public transport". However many suburbs DO have bus lines. Not all - but then not all cities have such either. Not a valid complaint, and besides, I just plain don't have time for "public transport" that takes 2 hours to get to a place that's a 15 minute drive. Plus I don't have to schlep grocery bags on the bus. Thanks anyway.
There is a bus line about 4 or 5 blocks from where I currently live. I just don't use it because its far to inconvenient and takes way too long to get anywhere. Which is true EVEN IF I lived inside the city. I lived in Portland for many years and they had excellent public transit - and it took hours on it to get anywhere useful.
Public transport ain't all its cracked up to be. I can quite easily spend 2 hours reading AT HOME, in peace and quiet and without the constant jostling of strangers, odd smells, and bouncing over city streets. There is absolutely no advantage whatsoever to reading on a bus as a byproduct of it taking 2 hours to get to the grocery.
This guy really needs to get over himself. Perhaps he would be happier if he went back to Europe. I know *I* would be, LOL!
I don't recall that I ever said that, because it's not true. If you recall from your foray to the Denver forum, Denver is one of the densest cities in the US outside of California. Lots are small here. Most people, my guess is at least 75-80% or more, live within 1-2 miles of a grocery store, which is usually in a strip mall of some sort with a liquor store (next door to almost every grocery, d/t CO's weird liquor laws); sometimes a drug store (Walgreen's, etc) although most groceries have a pharmacy, too; nail salon; small indy restaurants; beauty shops; laundromats; other small businesses.
Denver is one of the densest metros/urban areas; the city itself is not especially dense. I remember you mentioning the Denver neighborhood you lived in [Sloan Park? I saw you referenced it here again] wasn't that close to stores. But by not close I meant 1-2 miles...
I think the above describes much of Long Island; though probably not as high as 75% but at least more than 50%.
One of the greatest social costs is that owning a car is required to work even for minimum wage. People who are too poor to buy a car or have a health condition that prevents them from being able to drive are literally second class citizens.
Can you say "Vespa"? I knew you could. Or even better - bicycle. When I was young and healthy I rode nearly everywhere. I lived in Portland OR without a car for the better part of a year, but it was too hard on my son to schlep back and forth on public transport. Too little to walk long distances and too big for me to carry.
People with "health conditions" are nearly always eligible for assisted transport. I see an assisted transport vehicle in my suburban neighborhood several times a week. And this neighborhood is where the less well off live - housing here is about half what it is in the city proper.
I don't feel like going into depth at the moment, but I'd be surprised if the mixed use zoning applied to most of the city let alone its suburbs.
some haves stronger hierarchies than others. From the article:
The endless cul-de-sacs, winding loops, and seas of parking lot in suburbia empty into larger “collector roads,†often constraining traffic in a given neighborhood to a single preordained path.
Traditional neighborhoods and cities are designed in a dense grid and/or interconnected web of streets, so there are many alternative paths between two points.
In older cities, usually you can take side streets it just would be slower. At the other extreme, with the "collector roads" there's only one path out. often resulting in a much longer path for pedestrians
Well, I posted three links regarding the Atlanta area including some mixed-use "toolkit", so you might well be surprised.
Yes, some places have stronger hierarchies than others, which means this heading is untrue: 2. Hierarchical traffic distribution Also untrue as a general statement is this (under that heading): "The chief complaint of most residents of suburban sprawl is traffic." In point of fact, many people live in the burbs to get away from city traffic.
Not all suburbs are designed with "endless cul-de-sacs, winding loops, and seas of parking lot" (parking lot?) Why "seas of parking lot" in suburbs where most people have off street parking? Parking lots of suburban businesses are generally in business areas, along major roads. But many suburbs have grid or modified grid street layouts. Cities have collector roads too.
Really? And just how are the non-walking such as the elderly and the disabled supposed to get around in this fishbowl?
Wait a minuite. How on earth is this form of suburbia:
harder to get around than this form of suburbia:
My whole point is that the first form is better than the second, not the other way around. Not all suburbs are created equal, and though I much prefer the urban core over either, one is clearly preferable.
Denver is one of the densest metros/urban areas; the city itself is not especially dense. I remember you mentioning the Denver neighborhood you lived in [Sloan Park? I saw you referenced it here again] wasn't that close to stores. But by not close I meant 1-2 miles...
I think the above describes much of Long Island; though probably not as high as 75% but at least more than 50%.
You know, it's funny. Many people on this forum rag on Denver about not being dense enough, yet it turns out the metro as a whole is one of the densest in the country outside of Cali. It was Sloan's Lake, or Sloan Lake (both seem to be acceptable) where we lived. I don't want to give you my address, but we were close to the lake on the northeast side Yes, there were stores within 1-2 miles of our home. I posted a Google map of it, you can look for yourself. There is tons of stuff on 32nd and 38th Avenues, and a Safeway at 44th and Lowell. There's also stuff in Edgewater now, just across Sheridan Blvd. Most of that wasn't around when we lived there. There wasn't much of any place to buy clothes, you had to go into d/t Denver, or to the suburban malls. We were much closer to the suburban malls.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 03-05-2017 at 05:15 PM..
3. Set-backs from the street and parking ratios
That's not true in every burb either. Here's a shopping center (a more neutral term than strip mall I think) in my area: https://www.google.com/maps/search/v.../data=!3m1!1e3
The big empty space is now apartments. Mixed use, eh? Plus, as you can well see, there are many single family houses in the immediate vicinity.
4. Proximity does not mean pedestrian accessibility
The author is a huge whiner. I don't get why people who will put up with all told inconveniences to live in "the city", can't walk around a barrier, or across a curb cut.
4. Proximity does not mean pedestrian accessibility
The author is a huge whiner. I don't get why people who will put up with all told inconveniences to live in "the city", can't walk around a barrier, or across a curb cut.
It's rather frustrating to make a long detour to get to something right nearby. Unclear how long the author has in mind, but I've seen some rather annoying ones. What inconveniences are you referring to?
It's rather frustrating to make a long detour to get to something right nearby. Unclear how long the author has in mind, but I've seen some rather annoying ones. What inconveniences are you referring to?
Noise, no place to park your car nearby. You may recall that both my daughter and her bf were both victims of hit and run while their cars were parked on the street in that crime-free city, St. Paul, MN. Higher crime rates (in general), traffic. Walking in the city is sometimes aggravating d/t traffic.
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