Why suburbia sucks (Atlanta, Forsyth: safe neighborhood, school, safe)

[wasel]

Originally Posted by abalashov

What W. Europeans would consider poorly planned sprawl. in the median case, does not come close to the egregious violations upon humanity visited by East Cobb.

And the tiresome Cobb bashing appears once again on Atlanta C-D!

[abalashov]

Sorry, didn't mean to single it out. It's no worse than 95% of metro Atlanta, or a place like DFW.

[wasel]

Originally Posted by abalashov

Sorry, didn't mean to single it out. It's no worse than 95% of metro Atlanta, or a place like DFW.

You don't have to apologize to me, I'm a proud DeKalb resident.

Can I ask why you chose to live in ATL, or the US for that matter? I'm seriously asking, not trying to be snarky.

[abalashov]

I don't have a good answer for you.

[wasel]

Originally Posted by abalashov

I don't have a good answer for you.

LOL well maybe you'll think of one. I feel sorry for you having to live in a place you obviously loathe!

[abalashov]

Pockets of it are reasonably habitable, or at least strive to be, though of course they can't achieve that without larger, integrated regional vision.

Midtown has made good strides. We use the car about once a month (mostly for pediatrician visits out in N Fulton, which is for historical inertia reasons). Still, it's an uphill struggle in a place that is very obviously designed with cars in mind as first-class objects, not pedestrians.

[abalashov]

But it bears repeating, the point of my article wasn't: "Alex rants about why he hates the place he lives because it doesn't accord with his tastes." There are more general implications to tease out for our society and polity as a whole.

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by jsvh

It must be hard seeing all these families moving back into the city for those obsessed with thinking suburban living is the only option.

Only if they live in an alternate reality. School enrollment in APS and ITP overall has grown little over the past decade. Enrollment is growing rapidly in most OTP school districts. There is no large scale movement of families into cities.

My move to Forsyth is the only time in my life that I've lived in a suburb. I've got nothing against urban living and we wouldn't have moved OTP if not for my wife taking a job in Forsyth. My kids were little when we moved and we had no intention at the time of moving OTP. But I knew we were an outlier among all families. Data simply are what they are. There is a niche trend among affluent whites to raise their children in cities, but the overwhelming majority of families continue to reside in the suburbs. This niche trend gets disproportionate attention in the media because urban-dwelling affluent whites dominate media. This is similar to the outsize attention media pays to admission to highly selective colleges. It's an affluent white (and Asian) issue, not a reflection of the actual experience of most of the population.

[wasel]

Originally Posted by abalashov

But it bears repeating, the point of my article wasn't: "Alex rants about why he hates the place he lives because it doesn't accord with his tastes." There are more general implications to tease out for our society and polity as a whole.

Right, but when you characterize 95% of Atlanta as an "assault on humanity" or however you put it, it sounds like a horrible place to live and expose your children to.

[abalashov]

From the standpoint of children, my main concern is that, living in a place without spatial definition or cohesion, they cannot explore it except to the extent that we're willing to drive them from supervised activity to supervised activity. Despite growing up largely in the US, I was narrowly able to escape this fate (mostly because I didn't grow up in the newer Sun Belt cities).