Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just curious why city dwellers are so h*ll bent on discouraging people that want space and low crime to move to the suburbs.
It's a good thing people like different things--
As far as the city having unique restaurants-- I see more chains downtown than in the burbs. everytime i go downtown I see plenty of locals flooding the lettuce-NOT-surprise-you restaurants; the steak houses Ruth Chris's, Mortons, smith & wolenskies, etc and dont forget the city dwellers favorite--Rainforest Cafe!!!!
Just curious why city dwellers are so h*ll bent on discouraging people that want space and low crime to move to the suburbs.
It's a good thing people like different things--
As far as the city having unique restaurants-- I see more chains downtown than in the burbs. everytime i go downtown I see plenty of locals flooding the lettuce-NOT-surprise-you restaurants; the steak houses Ruth Chris's, Mortons, smith & wolenskies, etc and dont forget the city dwellers favorite--Rainforest Cafe!!!!
You must be joking, but I cant tell for sure. How do you know they're locals? Its typically tourists and non-city dwellers frequenting the chains, because they dont know of good local places. Why would any local eat at those crapholes where there are literally thousands of outstanding mom and pop restaurants scattering the city? Just yesterday I walked into Water Tower Place for lunch for the first time in my entire life (didnt even really want to go in the first place, but a group of us wanted out of the office). It was tourist central...and I'm talking the kind of tourists who were taking photos of themselves in front of the Victorias Secret store. Good thing they traveled all the way to Chicago to see the sights...
People move to the suburbs for the illusion of greater freedom, but it is where there is density - more people & more kinds of people, more buildings & more kinds of buildings - that there are more choices. - Sandy Sorlien
To answer your first question, it comes down to sustainability. Modern exburbs are not going to be sustainable in the future, and that affects us all. Thats why I criticize them, because it will come back to bite all of us.
Suburbia is a collection of private benefits and public nuisances.
In a quality city, a person should be able to live their entire life without a car, and not feel deprived. - Paul Bedford
The most destructive force I continue to see is the grafting of suburban types - building-lot configurations, street types, landscaping, public works, open space - onto urban settings. This has fueled the destruction of the city as well as frustrated the construction of new urban places. - Chuck Bohl
When we build our landscape around places to go, we lose places to be. -Rick Cole
We are not running out of land. We are running out of urban places. - Andres Duany
In the suburbs you have backyard decks; in towns you have porches on the street. - Andres Duany
The "suburban conundrum": As density goes down in a suburban setting, both arterial sizes and retail format sizes tend to go up, while the frequency of both go down, resulting in longer trips, to fewer boxes, of ever increasing scale. - Seth Harry
If you design communities for automobiles, you get more automobiles. If you design them for people, you get walkable, livable communities. - Parris Glendening and Christine Todd Whitman
It matters that our cities are primarily auto storage depots. It matters that our junior high schools look like insecticide factories. It matters that our libraries look like beverage distribution warehouses. It matters that the best hotel in town looks like a minimum security prison. To live and work and walk among such surroundings is a form of spiritual degradation. It's hard to feel good about yourself when so much of what you see on a typical day is so unrelentingly drab. - Jim Kunstler
What's bad about sprawl is not its uniformity, but that it is so uniformly bad. - Jim Kunstler
We don't want slow growth. We want slow land consumption. - Unknown
The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation. - Albert Einstein
Last edited by via chicago; 12-01-2007 at 10:01 AM..
Via Chicago, if this board would allow me to give you more positive feedback I would! That's a great collection of quotes.
I've said before that there are suburbs, and there are Suburbs. Popular city neighborhoods like Lakeview were streetcar suburbs before the city annexed them. I personally only have a problem with suburbs that are built exclusively for automobile use (which is basically anything built after World War II). Places like Golf Road and Butterfield road offer a lot of different shops and ammenities, but the vast congested landscape of arterial roads and parking lots is a MISERABLE place to be with no sense of place. Could you imagine being a pedestrian in that commercial landscape trying to buy three things from different stores? People would think you were crazy.
The public realm in today's suburbs is non-existent outside of the privately owned domain of parking lots and shopping malls. Most newer subdivisions don't even have sidewalks! These residential neighborhoods act to separate and isolate people even more, and destroy our sense of community. Houses become islands to themselves in a sea of oversized lawns, and people stay away from each other. Most people only experience the public realm via their automobile in these conditions, with maybe a walk through the neighborhood once or twice a week (dodging cars the entire way, by the way). Where is the place to bump elbows with your common man? Where are the public squares and walkable rows of shops?
And don't even get me started on the recent residential architecture in the suburbs... Houses are getting uglier and uglier every year. We are now seeing every imaginable historical style bastardized and combined in horific ways on the new suburban monstrosities! At least the ranch houses of the past showed some restraint!
... The original 'op' statements seem(?) to be a method of instigating arguments for many pages.
With my own threads, I always analyze to the bottom line. So IF you want to live in Bucktown or Wicker Park or Logan's Square- - you name it in the city of Chicago - - then go for it and stay there. I don't have problems with that as a suburban dweller.
... The original 'op' statements seem(?) to be a method of instigating arguments for many pages.
Carter Glass
I am just amused at the amount of suburb-bashing that is posted on this site. If the suburbs werent attractive to a certain slice of Amreica, no one would live in them.
Most people I know who move to the suburbs from the city view it as a necessary evil. They don't like it, but they feel they need to take their lumps for the sake of their kids. The appeal of good public schools and more space for the dollar is real--just don't ask me to like it!
I'm a little weary of the buzzword "sustainable." It seems to be a catch-all phrase to use whenever you oppose something or other -- simply assert that it isn't "sustainable." (As a beer enthusiast, I've become aware of a movement pushing for "sustainable brewing" -- as if a process that has taken place for the last 4,000 years without anyone really noticing has just now, today, begun to imperil our survival. ) I fail to see how exurbs are not sustainable. Suburbia has been moving outward for the better part of two centuries, but only now is this trend somehow not "sustainable"? Sorry kids, I'm not buying it. Suburbs that probably wouldn't have been considered "sustainable" 50 years ago by today's "sustainability" cops are not only still there, but considered by those very same people to be far more sensible alternatives to the "not-sustainable" exurbs. And so it will be again 50 years from now -- mark my words.
Just curious why city dwellers are so h*ll bent on discouraging people that want space and low crime to move to the suburbs.
It's a good thing people like different things--
As far as the city having unique restaurants-- I see more chains downtown than in the burbs. everytime i go downtown I see plenty of locals flooding the lettuce-NOT-surprise-you restaurants; the steak houses Ruth Chris's, Mortons, smith & wolenskies, etc and dont forget the city dwellers favorite--Rainforest Cafe!!!!
I feel the same way. I remember that after Roosevelt Road's business districts were burned to the ground after MLK was assassinated people left in droves. IMHO, city people get down on their neighbors who want to move because that person's move represents one more individual/family who has chosen to abandon the "city" ideal. In some communities on the verge of a negative tipping point, every decent person who moves away causes a fragile community to weaken by one link. Too many links on one's block and the block becomes destabilized. Too many destabilized blocks and the community tips into becoming an undesirable (read on-you-way-to-becoming-a-ghetto)one. In the city, all you need is ONE house full of troublemakers to make everyone else's life on the street a living hell.
NO ATTACKS, fellow urban dwellers! I remember the racial change of Austin, Marquette Park and other places. It wasn't pretty. Things were so bad in some Chicago neighborhoods that neighbors didn't tell neighbors that they were selling and would move out Overnight, in cover of darkness. You'd literally wake up the next day and your next door neighbor was GONE! The house was Empty and the people gone. Neighbors that you knew all your life were g-o-n-e and no one knew where they went. But EVERYONE knew Why. Crime and demographic changes headed the list. People didn't tell their neighbors that they were moving because of how they would be treated. I remember people getting down-right ugly when someone was moving off the street. "He's RUNNING!" they'd all say. So self-righteous. That's still going on. I've seen people stop speaking to one another because the one was angry that the other was going to the 'burbs.
The bottom line is that urban people are Dependent upon one another in ways that don't exist outside of the city. When "good" people move it is more destabilizing because crime is an ever present concern. It is Self-interest,not lofty higher reasons that propel urban people to come down on their fellow urbanites who are suburb bound.
As for your comment about restaurants--I agree that one sees more of the chain type of restaurant than ever. And as for "unique" restaurants, I'm sure that there are many of them but there are less and less of the ethnic establishments that I have frequented my entire life.
Being European-born, I can tell you that many bakeries, pubs,cafes,and restaurants catering to the "Continental European" have simply disappeared. I could easily name a few dozen but I don't want to bore anyone. They are increasingly to be found only in the burbs. There is simply no reason to live in the city when one can no longer buy bread or other goods. The so-called ethnic restaurants are limited to Mexican, Central or South American or Asian. If you are a continental, forget it.
I've never lived in a suburb but I'm looking forward to making the change as soon as the market improves.
To answer your first question, it comes down to sustainability. Modern exburbs are not going to be sustainable in the future, and that affects us all. Thats why I criticize them, because it will come back to bite all of us.
I personally think that ex-burbs are wasteful on many levels, encourage racial segregation, and aid in the growing achievement gap between public school districts (i.e. the accepted way to get better schools is to simply move to a "new" community, not involve yourself to improve the schools in your existing community). I also think their appeal is going to diminish over time as more and more minorities discover their benefits. That will show their true colors I think (no pun intended). I believe that the revitalization of City neighborhoods and inner ring suburbs is preferable to further outward growth.
But that's just my opinion. As many are saying, it isn't right for me to self-righteously force it upon another -- and I try my best not to. I do, however, think when we're talking about ex-burbs, it's fair to express these opinions in the discussion without being attacked as un-American. Some people will think about them and others will disregard them. Via and I have just as much right to express our views as the folks who are pro-exburb. We live in a democracy, where all sides can be heard and a choice made from there.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In My View Point....
