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There is nothing grossly inaccurate about the dimensions that I provided. I lived in the New York area for more than a decade, so I know exactly what kind of tissue boxes people choose to live in. I have had panic attacks on more than one occasion due to extreme claustrophobia. If anything, 7' high ceilings and 3' wide hallways is being generous.
It's obvious from the massive dense housing stock available in our cities that there are options for everyone. The fact that you keep saying that there are no options tells me that you want urban "amenities" the middle of nowhere, because urban "amenities" certainly do exist in URBAN areas. You clearly want new suburban development to fit your requirements when it is clear that this is not what most suburban people want.
AGAIN, no one is requiring you to live in the suburbs when you settle down. Some people like being squeezed like sardines into some apartment building, with people swarming around day and night. Most people settling down don't find this desirable.
You seem to think that urban living, by definition, means claustrophobia and danger. I didn't say anything about wanting suburban development to fit my requirements. And no, it's not obvious (or even factual) that there is a massive stock of dense housing available in cities--the vast majority of housing built in and around American cities since World War II is of the suburban model.
I don't think there is any such thing as "suburban people." Or "urban people" for that matter. "Settling down" merely means different things to different people.
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You have an option to live your urbane lifestyle. Move to the city .
(1) Mingling with strangers is not an exercise of "casual" social skills. When you have crack fiends and heroin addicts erratically shaking down the street trying to talk to your children, "casual" social skills will be the last thing on your mind.
(2) It's a shame that people brush off the very apparent gang problems many cities have. Once the bullets start flying from rival gangs, it will be anything but a "cute" situation.
(3) What planet do you live on where you think cars slow on streets JUST because they're narrower? All it takes is one out of control car to hop the curb and that's it. At least in a suburban community you're more than likely in a car yourself, eliminating the possibility of being plowed down.
I have my own opinion. You obviously have your delusions about what city life is like, clearly showing me that you have NEVER lived in a city before. City life is grueling, unsafe, filthy, and stressful. I have stayed with friends in New York and have been completely horrified, depressed, and shocked beyond sound that anyone would choose that lifestyle.
To each their own, I guess.
You're assuming that the suburbs are some kind of crime-free paradise. Plenty of suburbs have plenty of crack fiends. The worst parts of many walkable cities, especially in the west, are in neighborhoods that are quite clearly suburban--single-family homes, shopping centers, etcetera. And plenty of cities are quite law-abiding places. You're attaching a whole set of properties to a neighborhood's physical form, but there is nothing inherent about cities that attracts a criminal element, filth, decay, violence, or speeding--nor about suburbs that prevents their presence.
The bit about car safety is downright laughable--30,000 or so people a year get killed INSIDE the safety of their automobiles every year, so it's hardly an invulnerable suit of armor.
Meanwhile, most child abductions are the result of someone the child already knows (a parent, relative, friend etc.) rather than random strangers at the park. Statistically, they're safer in the city walking to the park than riding in the car OR bouncing off the kitchen counter at home.
How are there few urban environments available? We have cities? If you want urbanity, I don't see why you wouldn't live in an URBAN environment.
I do live in a relatively urban environment. But, if I had kids, I'd have the choice of paying to send them to a Catholic school, or move to the suburbs.
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The argument about urban schools generally performing poorly is tired. There are plenty of urban public schools (depending on the city, of course) which offer strong academics. If public schools don't work out, there is always the choice of parochial or some other private school.
Where are these good urban school districts? Why is "better schools" usually the #1 or #2 answer given when people explain why they moved to the suburbs?
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There is nothing grossly inaccurate about the dimensions that I provided. I lived in the New York area for more than a decade, so I know exactly what kind of tissue boxes people choose to live in. I have had panic attacks on more than one occasion due to extreme claustrophobia. If anything, 7' high ceilings and 3' wide hallways is being generous.
It's obvious from the massive dense housing stock available in our cities that there are options for everyone. The fact that you keep saying that there are no options tells me that you want urban "amenities" the middle of nowhere, because urban "amenities" certainly do exist in URBAN areas. You clearly want new suburban development to fit your requirements when it is clear that this is not what most suburban people want.
AGAIN, no one is requiring you to live in the suburbs when you settle down. Some people like being squeezed like sardines into some apartment building, with people swarming around day and night. Most people settling down don't find this desirable.
You have an option to live your urbane lifestyle. Move to the city .
(1) Mingling with strangers is not an exercise of "casual" social skills. When you have crack fiends and heroin addicts erratically shaking down the street trying to talk to your children, "casual" social skills will be the last thing on your mind.
(2) It's a shame that people brush off the very apparent gang problems many cities have. Once the bullets start flying from rival gangs, it will be anything but a "cute" situation.
(3) What planet do you live on where you think cars slow on streets JUST because they're narrower? All it takes is one out of control car to hop the curb and that's it. At least in a suburban community you're more than likely in a car yourself, eliminating the possibility of being plowed down.
I have my own opinion. You obviously have your delusions about what city life is like, clearly showing me that you have NEVER lived in a city before. City life is grueling, unsafe, filthy, and stressful. I have stayed with friends in New York and have been completely horrified, depressed, and shocked beyond sound that anyone would choose that lifestyle.
To each their own, I guess.
I'm not going to bother trying to reply to the rest of this. If your concept of the American city is based only on your experiences in the NYC area, then you really do have skewed ideas of what American cities are like.
Who said that you need to be able to walk everywhere? However, if you compare a nice pedestrian environment and the Target parking lot or a 6-lane collector street, you're not going to find much vibrancy in the latter(s).
I take the bus to the mall, grocery store, work, restaurants, and other area cities where I spend the day walking. And yes, to Target. I don't walk everywhere. But I live in a vibrant, pedestrian-oriented environment, one of the very few in my area (which was originally built hundreds of years before cars). Multiply this scarcity by hundreds of metro areas and you find you're lacking in options for vibrant, pedestrian-oriented environments, comparatively speaking.
Edit: Oh, also, never once did I say that people should be able to walk everywhere or that doing so is the only way to define vibrancy. While I did respond to what you wrote, please don't put words in my mouth.
Personally I tend to use "walkable" as a catch-all to refer to the kind of urban design that promotes not just walkability, but also public transit of all sorts: zero lot line buildings, mixed-use neighborhoods, a certain level of density. Designing a neighborhood to be practical and useful for transit also generally makes it walkable: a good transit neighborhood is easy to walk across, because that makes the transit element accessible and useful (transit lines can't run to every house, so routes to the transit should be plentiful, comfortable and convenient.) It doesn't rule out the use of the automobile, or require that everyone walk everywhere, but some folks, when anyone mentions the idea that the automobile not be allowed to be the sole, universal form of transportation in a city or neighborhood, assume this is the case.
]You have an option to live your urbane lifestyle. Move to the city .
(1) Mingling with strangers is not an exercise of "casual" social skills. When you have crack fiends and heroin addicts erratically shaking down the street trying to talk to your children, "casual" social skills will be the last thing on your mind.
(2) It's a shame that people brush off the very apparent gang problems many cities have. Once the bullets start flying from rival gangs, it will be anything but a "cute" situation.
(3) What planet do you live on where you think cars slow on streets JUST because they're narrower? All it takes is one out of control car to hop the curb and that's it. At least in a suburban community you're more than likely in a car yourself, eliminating the possibility of being plowed down.
I have my own opinion. You obviously have your delusions about what city life is like, clearly showing me that you have NEVER lived in a city before. City life is grueling, unsafe, filthy, and stressful. I have stayed with friends in New York and have been completely horrified, depressed, and shocked beyond sound that anyone would choose that lifestyle.
To each their own, I guess.
Oh, my.
1) I've never seen that happen in any neighborhood of any city I've ever been in. No doubt that situation exists, but it's pretty rare, limited to the worst of the worst cities. That's like Camden, NJ stuff. The worst that usually you see are homeless people asking for money. Regardless, these issues are normally the result of depopulation of the city, not an inherent feature of cities themselves. Honestly, the idea itself sounds like a lack of fully developed social skills.
2) Gang problems in cities have been on the decline for quite a while now. As I said earlier, in the worst neighborhoods of the most notorious cities, yes, that may be the case. But in most urban environments, it's nowhere near that bad. Crime and violence can exist anywhere. Again, what role does depopulation and the resulting monoculture play in creating the problems where they do exist?
3) Earth. The narrower the street, the slower the cars. As wburg pointed out, inside a car is not the safest place to be. In fact, out of all traffic fatalities in 2009, pedestrian, bicycle and other non-motorist deaths accounted for a total of just under 5,000 out of over 33,000. It would seem you're actually safer outside the car.
You obviously have your delusions about what city life is like, clearly showing me that you have NEVER lived in a city before. I live in a smallish northeastern city and the only real drawback is the amount of auto-centric stuff around it. There are bad neighborhoods, of course, as in any city in the world, but it is nothing like what you describe. No city I've ever been to or lived in has been like you described. The fact that you write only about visiting people in New York, which can indeed be grueling and stressful at times, backs up that inexperience.
Now, I realize it might seem contradictory to say how overblown the problems of the city are but then say (earlier in the thread) that we don't have enough options in terms of good urban environments. Well, it doesn't need to be like this poster described to be unpleasant, either aesthetically or otherwise. We have far too many cities in the US that are awful urban environments, way too many that have only small pockets that are functional and an abundance of suburbs. Whether you like or dislike suburbia, it's hard to argue that we don't have enough of it. Re-investing in cities is a public policy decision and it does not need to negatively affect the suburban way of life.
The bit about car safety is downright laughable--30,000 or so people a year get killed INSIDE the safety of their automobiles every year, so it's hardly an invulnerable suit of armor.
Meanwhile, most child abductions are the result of someone the child already knows (a parent, relative, friend etc.) rather than random strangers at the park. Statistically, they're safer in the city walking to the park than riding in the car OR bouncing off the kitchen counter at home.
FWIW: I can't stand the phrase "to that end". It doesn't seem to mean anything.
Regarding auto accidents: auto/pedestrian accidents are counted in those, so no, the child isn't safer walking to the park.
1) I've never seen that happen in any neighborhood of any city I've ever been in. No doubt that situation exists, but it's pretty rare, limited to the worst of the worst cities. That's like Camden, NJ stuff. The worst that usually you see are homeless people asking for money. Regardless, these issues are normally the result of depopulation of the city, not an inherent feature of cities themselves. Honestly, the idea itself sounds like a lack of fully developed social skills.
2) Gang problems in cities have been on the decline for quite a while now. As I said earlier, in the worst neighborhoods of the most notorious cities, yes, that may be the case. But in most urban environments, it's nowhere near that bad. Crime and violence can exist anywhere. Again, what role does depopulation and the resulting monoculture play in creating the problems where they do exist?
3) Earth. The narrower the street, the slower the cars. As wburg pointed out, inside a car is not the safest place to be. In fact, out of all traffic fatalities in 2009, pedestrian, bicycle and other non-motorist deaths accounted for a total of just under 5,000 out of over 33,000. It would seem you're actually safer outside the car.
You obviously have your delusions about what city life is like, clearly showing me that you have NEVER lived in a city before. I live in a smallish northeastern city and the only real drawback is the amount of auto-centric stuff around it. There are bad neighborhoods, of course, as in any city in the world, but it is nothing like what you describe. No city I've ever been to or lived in has been like you described. The fact that you write only about visiting people in New York, which can indeed be grueling and stressful at times, backs up that inexperience.
Now, I realize it might seem contradictory to say how overblown the problems of the city are but then say (earlier in the thread) that we don't have enough options in terms of good urban environments. Well, it doesn't need to be like this poster described to be unpleasant, either aesthetically or otherwise. We have far too many cities in the US that are awful urban environments, way too many that have only small pockets that are functional and an abundance of suburbs. Whether you like or dislike suburbia, it's hard to argue that we don't have enough of it. Re-investing in cities is a public policy decision and it does not need to negatively affect the suburban way of life.
I'd just like to take the statements in bold a little further. I live in Youngstown, one of those notorious cities. Until the population declined below 75,000 a few years ago, we had regularly been ranked in the top 15 of the "most dangerous cities" lists for as long as they have had those lists. (thankfully, the crime rate has also been declining--and at a faster rate than the population)
What miamiman describes as "normal" city life is laughable, even in most of Youngstown's neighborhoods.
I'd just like to take the statements in bold a little further. I live in Youngstown, one of those notorious cities. Until the population declined below 75,000 a few years ago, we had regularly been ranked in the top 15 of the "most dangerous cities" lists for as long as they have had those lists. (thankfully, the crime rate has also been declining--and at a faster rate than the population)
What miamiman describes as "normal" city life is laughable, even in most of Youngstown's neighborhoods.
Youngstown is one of those Rust Belt cities that is doing everything it can to remake itself. It seems to be doing an admirable job. The Blueprint America series on PBS has done a short series on it called "How to Shrink a City" - it describes how the city has made shrinking a revitalization tool. The first page of this link has a few videos you might find interesting.
Youngstown is one of those Rust Belt cities that is doing everything it can to remake itself. It seems to be doing an admirable job. The Blueprint America series on PBS has done a short series on it called "How to Shrink a City" - it describes how the city has made shrinking a revitalization tool. The first page of this link has a few videos you might find interesting.
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