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I had to look back to see what I was talking about when I made that statement. Yes, I agree with you, Ben. My point was, I don't think these highly educated people are all being manipulated into moving to the suburbs. Some of them actually want to live there.
I like the 'burbs because I have a yard big enough for a garden, a patio for eating outdoors, and an above ground pool for my kids. I like the smaller community because it provides more opportunity to become involved in civic affairs. I like the lower crime rates. Just a few things I like about the burbs. If I really had my druthers, I'd like a small town or a rural area, but we have to eat. Nurses can work anywhere (though it's harder sometimes to find a job in a very small area), but IT people can't. Plus, my DH says he does not want to EVER look for a job again!
Pittnurse70, do you always associate suburbs with being more safe? Maybe I lived in Seattle too long but I find middle class, single family home living in Seattle much more safe, more educated, more worldly(lol) than most suburbs around here. Even houses appreciate more in Seattle than most of its suburbs. Many people choose to live in the suburbs because they can't afford to live in the city.
I haven't read all this, but I wanted to weigh in. First, a distinction must be made between types of suburbs. Take for example my hometown of Mpls. Richfield begins on 62nd Street. It is a suburb, but they are small, WWII bungalows on smallish lots. It wouldn't be any different from the adjoining parts of the City. Lakeville (where I lived for a dozen years) was built between 1990 and yesterday. The city planner's daughter threw spaghetti on the table and a street plan was made. The lots are 1/3 of an acre. These are two very different places. Sprawl is not inherently bad. IF DONE RIGHT. You can have a large house and a pretty big lot and still have a cohesive community. Sadly, this isn't being built. Streets sohuld have sidewalks, no matter where it is. You don;t need a four car garage, its glut. It is not the end of the world if you can walk to a hardware store. Suburbs would have been fine had they not infringed on my city. Cities are not inherently bad either. People lived in them for 300 years before we bulldozed them. It is your right to live freely, but it was also a right to live in a city that doesn't look like Baghdad. It cannot be argued that suburbs were created for safety and good schools. Before there were suburbs, cities had them. As soon as suburbs infringed on these rights, there was a problem. It makes me livid that we have not tried to solve this. Look at Portland a "liberal, new urbanist" conspiracy. There are suburbs for people who want them. There is a beautiful city for those who want it. They work in harmony because they stopped plowing down the fields. They spent infra. dollars on transportation instead of another layer of freeways. Both benefit from it, fewer people on roads, and a stronger city. Good planning can include both city and suburb, somebody just as to slow down and seriously look at it. The current system will prove unsustainable. 50 years ago people could go 10 miles from the core city and have a new house and a quick commute. It was OK, it worked. Now we are 30 miles from the city, choked in smog and time. That old suburb that was nice 40 years ago is going downhill. Minneapolis, for one, has made a good come around. New downtown development. Alot of great old, urban neighborhoods. Population growth. More units have been built in the city than any suburb. It is not because the city is so undesirable. Now there are slums in inner-ring suburbs. The place that was so nice 40 years ago is now the crime-ridden place with s hit schools. Irony, huh? Well, I could write a book, but I needed that little rant. Hopefully you could make some sense of it. Good thread Scranton-guy.
-----Minnehahpolitan
I haven't read all this, but I wanted to weigh in. First, a distinction must be made between types of suburbs. Take for example my hometown of Mpls. Richfield begins on 62nd Street. It is a suburb, but they are small, WWII bungalows on smallish lots. It wouldn't be any different from the adjoining parts of the City. Lakeville (where I lived for a dozen years) was built between 1990 and yesterday. The city planner's daughter threw spaghetti on the table and a street plan was made. The lots are 1/3 of an acre. These are two very different places. Sprawl is not inherently bad. IF DONE RIGHT. You can have a large house and a pretty big lot and still have a cohesive community. Sadly, this isn't being built. Streets sohuld have sidewalks, no matter where it is. You don;t need a four car garage, its glut. It is not the end of the world if you can walk to a hardware store. Suburbs would have been fine had they not infringed on my city. Cities are not inherently bad either. People lived in them for 300 years before we bulldozed them. It is your right to live freely, but it was also a right to live in a city that doesn't look like Baghdad. It cannot be argued that suburbs were created for safety and good schools. Before there were suburbs, cities had them. As soon as suburbs infringed on these rights, there was a problem. It makes me livid that we have not tried to solve this. Look at Portland a "liberal, new urbanist" conspiracy. There are suburbs for people who want them. There is a beautiful city for those who want it. They work in harmony because they stopped plowing down the fields. They spent infra. dollars on transportation instead of another layer of freeways. Both benefit from it, fewer people on roads, and a stronger city. Good planning can include both city and suburb, somebody just as to slow down and seriously look at it. The current system will prove unsustainable. 50 years ago people could go 10 miles from the core city and have a new house and a quick commute. It was OK, it worked. Now we are 30 miles from the city, choked in smog and time. That old suburb that was nice 40 years ago is going downhill. Minneapolis, for one, has made a good come around. New downtown development. Alot of great old, urban neighborhoods. Population growth. More units have been built in the city than any suburb. It is not because the city is so undesirable. Now there are slums in inner-ring suburbs. The place that was so nice 40 years ago is now the crime-ridden place with s hit schools. Irony, huh? Well, I could write a book, but I needed that little rant. Hopefully you could make some sense of it. Good thread Scranton-guy.
-----Minnehahpolitan
Portland is nuts. Just crazy. Liberal and new urbanist doesn't cover ever the half of it!
Actually, the decline of the inner ring or 'street car' suburb is a huge head scratcher for me. I sometimes wonder if that is where those of us who enjoy living in urban areas are going to end up when we get priced out. I currently live in an urban area, but I could easily see myself wanting to setting down with an actual house and yard someday and I grew up in one of those little 3 bedroom inner ring style home (probably around 1200-1500 square feet and a small yard), it seemed fine to me (of course as I kid I thought it was boring, but I could still walk to the train and be in Chicago's LOOP in 40 minutes, try doing that in the outer burbs).
as far as living freely's concerned, i agree we should be able to live basically "freely". but then, we do not have the right to dump our trash in the forest or light our neighbors' lawns on fire, and for very good reason. some shaping of the dynamic of growth by public policy, much as the shaping of the dynamic of our behavior as citizens of a sustainable and healthy society, is not inherently bad and often a very good thing.
i personally find some of the "assembly line" and circuit board character of some of suburbia a little unsettling.
thanks, minnehahapolitan, for seconding the "there are good and bad ways of going about any growth that has to occur"!
Last edited by hello-world; 05-21-2007 at 09:42 AM..
there's some talk about some of what goes into grabbing resources for, among other things, sprawl in the southwest and mountain west, for example. seems "jazzlover" is pretty well informed as far as such things go.
Urban Sprawl is a curse that has now caught up with the country and could very well force people to think again about living in distant sub or exburbs as gas rises. I feel that evenutally whether they are real or not gas shortages will begin, there are just too many similiars to the 1970's and now. We are in no way capable of handling that in this day and age. We have sprawled so far out, it is nothing anymore for someone to drive 40 and plus miles each way to work, on top of mileage for other activities in their daily lives. I believe that the country will eventually have to be closer to daily activities, or such strick mileage requirements on vehilces/ and or smaller vehicles will have to take place. I don't think the Phoenix type sprawl and complete auto dependence in such areas, where one drives however many miles to just buy a loaf of bread in a big SUV is a way of life that is practical or intelligent any longer.
The city planner's daughter threw spaghetti on the table and a street plan was made. That was pretty funny, minnehahapolitan!
I spent most of the 70's and 80's growing up in in a generally middle-class suburb just north of Philly. It was pretty much a high-density area although they managed to put sidewalks along a lot of the single-family and semi-detached homes. Commuter rail and buses were very convenient and used often by my friends and I to head downtown before any of us obtained driver's licenses. I lived walking distance from a main thoroughfare where I could get to a nearby supermarket, pharmacy, pizza shop, etc. For better or worse, the shopping mall that was built around 1980 spawned many nearby strip malls looking to feed off the consumer traffic. Although the town was a pleasant, relatively diverse place to grow up, I was glad to leave as an adult as I found myself tripping over the proverbial sidewalks being rolled up as the mall closed.
For X amount of years, I lived in and around Philly. The city neighborhood I enjoyed the best (University City) actually reminded me of my old bedroom community suburb in that it was quiet, walkable and convenient to downtown. I actually miss it sometimes.
Today I live in a DC suburb less than ten miles from the city limits. The local strip malls (some of which I admit are relatively attractive per the reference to the Phoenix thread) are conveniently located but one must cross the insanely busy thoroughfare to get to most of them. It's not the most glamorous neighborhood but it's easy driving distance for my lady's employer and commuting distance by bus/train for myself. I do believe there are neighborhoods around here similar to my beloved University City... but they have long since been discovered and are ridiculously expensive to rent let alone buy into.
All that needless background was to set up my point:
I have done time in both the cities and suburbs and I definitely prefer the city. Then again, I am a bit of a "freak of nature". I am a permanent Empty Nester who doesn't need an abundance of space and (shudder!) chooses not to drive. The latter part of that sentence is why I admit my total bias towards any upgrades in mass transit. However, I can respect those who want more "breathing room" for themselves and their families and feel that their kids will get a better education in the 'burbs than what unfortunately tend to be underperforming urban school district or who simply don't want to be bothered with people. Still, I think there's a growing demand for convenience as shown by the "town center" shopping phenomenon becoming popular in many places. If more homebuilders would think outside the box and add more walkable communities, perhaps that would stanch some of the desire for more and more sprawl.
And for the record, I chose: "I don't like the suburbs but I've been priced out of my city."
Pittnurse70, do you always associate suburbs with being more safe? Maybe I lived in Seattle too long but I find middle class, single family home living in Seattle much more safe, more educated, more worldly(lol) than most suburbs around here. Even houses appreciate more in Seattle than most of its suburbs. Many people choose to live in the suburbs because they can't afford to live in the city.
Excellent point, pwright1. My middle class city neighborhood is right smack dab in the middle of the Mpls/St Paul metro area. Its crime rate is lower than many suburbs, and its houses have appreciated faster than virtually all suburbs. The one thing I want to challenge in your post is that "Many people choose to live in the suburbs because they can't afford to live in the city". For many, it's not about affordability, it's about prefeneces. A $300k house in my neighborhood will not be the same as a $300k house in the burbs. The house in the city will have a smaller lot (which I prefer!), but the quality of the contstruction will be better. It will have better transit options and shorter commutes, but to get to the big boxes and the malls you have to drive farther. It will be smaller in size. It will be closer to good restaurants and cultural activities, but will be farther from the countryside. Etc, etc.
When I hear people say they can't afford to live in the city, I know what they really mean is that the things they value are not avaliable or less accessible in the city.
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was to set up my point:
) chooses not to drive. The latter part of that sentence is why I admit my total bias 
towards any upgrades in mass transit. However, I can respect those who want more "breathing room" for themselves and their families and feel that their kids will get a better education in the 'burbs than what unfortunately tend to be underperforming urban school district or who simply don't want to be bothered with people. Still, I think there's a growing demand for convenience as shown by the "town center" shopping phenomenon becoming popular in many places. If more homebuilders would think outside the box and add more walkable communities, perhaps that would stanch some of the desire for more and more sprawl.
