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Nothing wrong with wanting to live in a suburban environment. It isn't even wrong to plan cities to sprawl out because people want to live in a larger space and shop at malls and power centres. If that is the lifestyle the collective wants so be it. Still though, I just don't get looooong commute times. How do you enjoy your house or your family or your life if your total daily commute time is greater than 2 hours - insane regardless of your income.
I agree completely. I live in a part of Southern California where people are moving farther and farther away from their jobs to find "affordable" housing. I hear about these long commutes, can be 2 or 3 or more hours a day, and not even straight driving, which might be tolerable, but being stuck creeping along in traffic jams. It just seems like having a ball and chain tied to your leg.
Good point! I'm fascinated by individuals who would spend more than 1 hour commuting each way to work. I wouldn't do that unless I absolutely had to. I mean how do you enjoy a life.
My parents started doing that a few years back, because their jobs moved almost to the other side of the metropolitan area but the community they wanted was so perfect that they would rather commute than uproot the family. Now both my parents commute anywhere between 45-1:30 minutes depending on traffic every morning for the past couple of years.
People in cities such as NYC tend to live in smaller apartments and to shop in urban areas, and the same is true in terms of most major cities.
I disagree completely NYC is suburban as hell. For every Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan their are several suburban counties with similar populations of commuters. Is it more urban than other places? Definitely but go outside of the 3 densest boroughs and half of queens and throw in some of New Jersey and a few other dense cities and towns and Metro Toronto still makes a ton of New York City look downright rural and Toronto isn’t even that dense to begin with. Most major cities might offer more urban living but the main difference between an urban area in the U.S that is considered dense and one that isn’t is that one is 40% of citizens living in High density the other is 10% or even 5% of citizens living in such density, still 8 times as many people living in high density compared to other U.S cities but not the majority. This is even throwing in dense suburbia/ SFH as high density when you take that out even New York is only having 20%-30% living in truly high density with the rest living in dense SFH and just straight up suburbia.
The other huge factor is that many if not most US cities have become crime havens with horrible schools so people escaped to the suburbs with good schools and low crime...Detroit would be a prime example as would Atlanta.
Atlanta city proper is not a crime ridden haven. It's a booming urban core. It still has some bad areas, but it's the last thing I would call 'crime ridden'
Baltimore, Saint Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, on the other hand are.
I disagree completely NYC is suburban as hell. For every Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan their are several suburban counties with similar populations of commuters. Is it more urban than other places? Definitely but go outside of the 3 densest boroughs and half of queens and throw in some of New Jersey and a few other dense cities and towns and Metro Toronto still makes a ton of New York City look downright rural and Toronto isn’t even that dense to begin with. Most major cities might offer more urban living but the main difference between an urban area in the U.S that is considered dense and one that isn’t is that one is 40% of citizens living in High density the other is 10% or even 5% of citizens living in such density, still 8 times as many people living in high density compared to other U.S cities but not the majority. This is even throwing in dense suburbia/ SFH as high density when you take that out even New York is only having 20%-30% living in truly high density with the rest living in dense SFH and just straight up suburbia.
Toronto is still more dense than most U.S cities including its burbs. In terms of contiguous urbanized density only NYC, L.A and Chicago are greater or about the same in the U.S. NYC is obviously an outlier in the U.S. I think you need to look at it on the whole and treat cities like NYC (a metro of over 20 million) and to a lesser extent L.A and Chicago as typically more dense in their urban cores vs other U.S cities. Canadian cities generally are more dense and compact vs U.S cities who form the majority of the U.S urban landscape - there are exceptions but as a general rule of thumb this is the case. Compared to Europe, Asia and Latin America however, Anglo N.A cities including Montreal in Quebec are not exactly dense - just that Canadian cities skew more dense and compact than American as a general rule of thumb and while i'd never say Canadian cities are mass transit superstars - transit ridership in Canadian cities is still significantly greater than in the U.S. Again, NYC being the obvious outlier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare
My parents started doing that a few years back, because their jobs moved almost to the other side of the metropolitan area but the community they wanted was so perfect that they would rather commute than uproot the family. Now both my parents commute anywhere between 45-1:30 minutes depending on traffic every morning for the past couple of years.
My partner and I used to live in DT Toronto. I work at the airport and up until about 5 years ago it was about a 45 min commute time from DT to work. This was acceptable to me. I started to notice after 2014 the commute time was just creeping longer and for me 1 hour was the cutoff. I'm glad we moved closer to work because i'm sure the commute time each way now is over an hour. We are ok where we live now though - still in walking distance to a subway line.
Toronto is still more dense than most U.S cities including its burbs. In terms of contiguous urbanized density only NYC, L.A and Chicago are greater or about the same in the U.S. NYC is obviously an outlier in the U.S. I think you need to look at it on the whole and treat cities like NYC (a metro of over 20 million) and to a lesser extent L.A and Chicago as typically more dense in their urban cores vs other U.S cities. Canadian cities generally are more dense and compact vs U.S cities who form the majority of the U.S urban landscape - there are exceptions but as a general rule of thumb this is the case. Compared to Europe, Asia and Latin America however, Anglo N.A cities including Montreal in Quebec are not exactly dense - just that Canadian cities skew more dense and compact than American as a general rule of thumb and while i'd never say Canadian cities are mass transit superstars - transit ridership in Canadian cities is still significantly greater than in the U.S. Again, NYC being the obvious outlier.
My partner and I used to live in DT Toronto. I work at the airport and up until about 5 years ago it was about a 45 min commute time from DT to work. This was acceptable to me. I started to notice after 2014 the commute time was just creeping longer and for me 1 hour was the cutoff. I'm glad we moved closer to work because i'm sure the commute time each way now is over an hour. We are ok where we live now though - still in walking distance to a subway line.
I agree, BTW your slightly off. I'm pretty sure that the densest urban areas in the U.S also include- and Chicago isn't dense enough in the city to counteract the sprawl like NYC is.
San Francisco/Bay Area- Natural Boundaries keep it dense
Honolulu- Same as San Francisco
Miami- same as the others except its to protect wildlife/natural environment of South Florida.
Atlanta city proper is not a crime ridden haven. It's a booming urban core. It still has some bad areas, but it's the last thing I would call 'crime ridden'
Baltimore, Saint Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, on the other hand are.
Atlanta's suburbs grew because it was a crime haven and the schools were horrible leading to a population wehre the suburbs had 10 times the population of the city. It's been gentrifying in areas but their murder rate is still 5 times higher than the national average (see CD statistics on Atl). Maybe the gentrification will one day lead to a low crime rate in Atlanta but it hasn't happened yet.
Good point! I'm fascinated by individuals who would spend more than 1 hour commuting each way to work. I wouldn't do that unless I absolutely had to. I mean how do you enjoy a life.
Not much emphasis is put into enjoying life. Americans live a combination of a workaholic and material things which includes having a house, preferably a big one, lifestyle. Many people admire those who commute long distances for this lifestyle. Those who avoid it are frequently considered lazy.
Not much emphasis is put into enjoying life. Americans live a combination of a workaholic and material things which includes having a house, preferably a big one, lifestyle. Many people admire those who commute long distances for this lifestyle. Those who avoid it are frequently considered lazy.
See now this is a very interesting observation to me.. Most of the people I know are aiming for a better work/life balance. In my city, part of the reason why you see soooo many condo's going up isn't just because of geographic cutoffs (greenbelt), it is because people want to live closer to the largest economic clusters in the city, live closer to mass transit lines and also to be in close proximity to urban amenities and entertainment venues.
Last edited by fusion2; 05-27-2018 at 04:41 PM..
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