Why suburbia sucks (Atlanta: renters, vehicle registration, lenders)

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by bu2

Atlanta isn't that humid. 70 in Atlanta is very pleasant. And 110 can kill you. You have to be pretty careful in those extremes.

I agree. Atlanta weather is pleasant in the spring and fall and it's often pretty nice in the winter months as well.

Our summers are not conducive to walking, however. It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by jsvh

This heat thing is a distraction. It all depends on the context you choose to live in. If you live in the suburbs you don't really have any choice but to drive. No matter the weather.

At my new home I will have a shorter walk to get groceries from my home than you will from your car in the back of the parking lot. Walking makes more sense than driving no matter the weather.

The latter is the way more people in the world prefer to live.

The thing is, most people still prefer to live in the suburbs.

I agree with abalashov that we can and should work to make our suburbs more walkable.

That's true of our intown neighborhoods as well, most of which were also designed with the automobile in mind. That includes the so-called streetcar suburbs -- most were built with separate driveways and on single use zoning principles.

Unless we blow things up and start over, it seems to me that we're still going to be a heavily car dependent city.

Fortunately there are a lot of possibilities between the extremes. No, we won't be walkable in the sense of old European cities or US cities like Boston and New York. But we can be mindful of ways to make things better.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by arjay57

The thing is, most people still prefer to live in the suburbs.

I agree with abalashov that we can and should work to make our suburbs more walkable.

That's true of our intown neighborhoods as well, most of which were also designed with the automobile in mind. That includes the so-called streetcar suburbs -- most were built with separate driveways and on single use zoning principles.

Unless we blow things up and start over, it seems to me that we're still going to be a heavily car dependent city.

Fortunately there are a lot of possibilities between the extremes. No, we won't be walkable in the sense of old European cities or US cities like Boston and New York. But we can be mindful of ways to make things better.

I beg to differ, many of what we think of historic, intown neighborhoods, were streetcar suburbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb#Atlanta and were not designed with private vehicles in mind. Ansley Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansley_Park was the first intown neighborhood designed and planned for cars.
It is true many homes were built with off-street parking-driveways, but they are narrow and were built as carriageways for parking a horse-drawn carriage. My driveway is too narrow for full sized cars, because it was built for horse carriages.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by arjay57

The thing is, most people still prefer to live in the suburbs.

Not true. Elsewhere in the world where you don't have government policies that subsidize suburban life, living in the city where you can walk to most things is the prefered option. People in the US are forced to the suburbs to save money / take advantage of artificial subsidies.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Not true. Elsewhere in the world where you don't have government policies that subsidize suburban life, living in the city where you can walk to most things is the prefered option. People in the US are forced to the suburbs to save money / take advantage of artificial subsidies.

It's not just the US.

Folks love their elbow room everywhere.

Move to Suburbs Continues in Western Europe | Newgeography.com

China, Nation of Suburbs - CityLab

New census data shows Canadian suburbs rule - Canada - CBC News

[abalashov]

Originally Posted by arjay57

It's not just the US.

Folks love their elbow room everywhere.

Move to Suburbs Continues in Western Europe | Newgeography.com

China, Nation of Suburbs - CityLab

New census data shows Canadian suburbs rule - Canada - CBC News

The variation in the meaning of "suburb" in these various places camouflages a lot of difference.

Suburbs exist everywhere, and aren't intrinsically bad. Not many places share our intense commitment to sprawling highway schlock, except, oddly enough, the developing world, where imitating the form (but not the function) of American prosperity is often a totem object of economic ascendancy mythos and an individual social status signal.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by arjay57

It's not just the US.

We are not the only one that gives subsudies to suburban life. But if you have ever been to many of these other countires you would realize the density of their "suburbs" never drops below that of intown Atlanta. You can be walking down a dense set of townhomes on a grid and all the sudden the next block is farm land. Very few of the cul-de-sac type setup that you can only drive to.

[abalashov]

Originally Posted by jsvh

We are not the only one that gives subsudies to suburban life. But if you have ever been to many of these other countires you would realize the density of their "suburbs" never drops below that of intown Atlanta. You can be walking down a dense set of townhomes on a grid and all the sudden the next block is farm land. Very few of the cul-de-sac type setup that you can only drive to.

Indeed. There are a lot of places that have developed a fascination lately with residential development outside of city limits (my native Moscow comes to mind), at least for wealthy people. However, that's not the same as building the entire city or the nation along these principles.

(Incidentally, the resulting Moscow gridlock is world-famous, to such a degree that wealthy oligarchs and smaller-scale robber barons used to buy themselves illegal police flashers to put on their car to bypass it. What saves Moscow and makes it viable to get around for everyone else is its metro, but unfortunately - and this goes with my developing world comment in the previous thread - there are people who have not yet grasped that sitting in traffic for three hours isn't the good life.)

[billl]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Not true. Elsewhere in the world where you don't have government policies that subsidize suburban life, living in the city where you can walk to most things is the prefered option. People in the US are forced to the suburbs to save money / take advantage of artificial subsidies.

Seriously? Where do I file for my subsidy? I've been living in the 'burbs for decades. Still haven't seen it.

[abalashov]

Originally Posted by billl

Seriously? Where do I file for my subsidy? I've been living in the 'burbs for decades. Still haven't seen it.

You'll see it as soon as you price out not living in the suburbs. :-)