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I will always prefer suburbs to urban areas. Give me nice houses, and call them cookie cutter if you like, low crime, good schools, manicured lawns, a "sleepy bedroom community" over ugly urban/inner city/trash-strewn/ghetto/run down/no green space/crime ridden areas any day.
Yea I'm the same way. Asian urban is not appealing to me unless it's Singapore. I love the overuse of plants in that city.
Just build with better materials, build walkable suburbs (you can walk to a corner store without too much trouble). Eliminate cul de sacs.
I prefer urban only because suburbia as it is in today, is a joke...but it doesn't have to be.
What's wrong with cul de sacs? I live in one. They are great--dead ends so kids can safely ride bikes in the street because the only traffic is the four families that live here.
I live 25 miles outside of the urban core. My house was custom built (no, it's not a "McMansion" and we included far more energy efficient building concepts than any oder "city" home would have to offer.) Why would it make no sense for me to live in the city? Because my job is in the suburbs, and the type of industry I work in doesn't translate well to urban areas, yet it is crucial to urban infrastructure.
So it seems the "waste" you speak of is hyperbole at best, formed by someone who doesn't really know the first thing about suburban living.
By the way, I don't attend church. So you're wrong on that one, too.
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Originally Posted by annerk
What's wrong with cul de sacs? I live in one. They are great--dead ends so kids can safely ride bikes in the street because the only traffic is the four families that live here.
Exactly! I can't tell you how many times I've said similar on this forum, though I do attend church, but I don't know what the burb-haters have against that. There are a lot of beautiful churches in "the city".
It's funny. . . . Someone did a poll recently, about have you ever lived in the suburbs, and about 90% of the people on this forum have lived in the burbs at some point in time. Yet many of them still believe all the stereotypes about the suburbs, even though I seriously doubt that's their real-life experience with burbs.
Listing sold is fine, but you have to look at the totality.
1) From the description is fixer and also was an estate sale. Means someone died in it, people stop taking car of homes when they get old. Just realize it's not a "turn-key" sale, the steep discount on asking was probably because it needed a lot of work which got priced into the sale. If you look at comps, $200-300k would be about right, probably on the low end of that.
Can't really make a judgement based on the description. For all we know, that house might have an original kitchen, for example. Some people would insist on a complete gut of the space, while others--like me--would work hard to keep everything original. In any event, you'd still have $35k to spend, to make the house comparable to the suburban example I posted earlier. (or $85k to make it comparable to the example you posted in Worthington)
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2) No yard. Is that an issue? Can't really say much.
3) Condo was a flip, bought for $66k with "60k invested" and then put on the market for $150k. Never sold, it's either a rental or the guy is sitting on it until the market improves. In other words, it looked nothing like what it does in that listing if there was anything at all like $60k in renovations done to it. That's a complete overhaul (and it looks like it) on something that small. At $130k (last listed price), would you go for it? To me it's ugly. Whoever went flipper on it probably won't take less than 130k as that's his break-even.
It's not my "cup of tea" either. But I wouldn't call it ugly.
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Most of those priced too good to be trues aren't. They have stories behind them, the same as the way below market homes in the suburbs do. If it were me, I'd go a few blocks over. Go across Parsons heading east and prices fall off a cliff.
I don't disagree, but my original point was that these urban and suburban neighborhoods are comparable. Whichever one you like better is subjective, but you can't accuse me of lining up a premier urban neighborhood with a tract home suburb.
Yes, decent places in the city are expensive. But not because of the urban form per se. People aren't clamoring for 300 square foot apartments in Manhattan because they like 300 square foot apartments. They want them because they want to live in Manhattan. Build such things somewhere else, and you'll get few takers, and certainly nothing at Manhattan prices.
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and how does putting good people in an urban environment make them go crazy and stupid? It's all about demographics. The reason your suburb does well is due to the people that live there. College educated? White? 100K HHI? > 700 FICO? check, check and check. Of course that community will flourish no matter what the urban planning
You keep setting up this strawman. I never said that putting good people in an urban environment would make them go crazy and stupid.
I felt compelled to make a username after reading through this thread. I spent pretty much all of my childhood living in a suburb. I happen to live in the mid-atlantic region on the east coast though so the neighborhood I live is in a bit older than the new ones popping up in the sunbelt. It's alright. It's not walkable and I would never choose to live here now that I'm an adult. Some of the houses in the older part of the neighborhood have some charm to them. There's nothing extravagant about them since most of the people here are working class blue collar workers, but that's why the neighborhood feels nice.
As I said earlier however, I wouldn't ever choose to live here. For the past couple years, I have lived in a small city. At first it was a bit of a culture shock since it was giving me the stimulation I had always felt when I went to the larger shopping areas back home where I lived, except it was amplified. I was seeing and experiencing things new things that you just didn't see in the suburbs. What appealed to me the most about living in a city was accepting residents were of other cultures and people which is something you don't see as much in the suburbs. I had felt that way before I left which was the primary reason why I choose to move away, but when I go back the difference between them is like night and day.
I don't dislike suburbs persay(though I dislike the policies that favor them over urban areas), the thing I can't stand is the sheltered mentalities a lot of surbanites have when it comes to things outside their comfort zone. I notice it when I'm back at home and I've noticed on more than several occasions reading through this thread the extremely negative association people place on cities involving minorities and poor people. It's only when I'm back in the suburbs do I hear people routinely misuse a word such as "ghetto" to describe a minority or a place that isn't new a shiny. Or not wanting to use public transportation or go to a wal-mart because there's a sizeable amount of lower income people(or "sketchy" people as some call them) who might use said service. Or even thinking that their life is in danger because they happen to be walking on the same side of the sidewalk that a "sketch" person who happens to be walking on. My personal pet peeve is those who feel the need to say something bordering on racist when someone drives by playing hip-hop, yet are silent when something other than hip-hop is playing.
I'm not saying every subanite is sheltered like that, but those are just my experiences from my personal life, reading some of the things on this site, the media, and the general apathy Americans have towards it as Attny. Gen. Eric Holder once stated when he said Americans find it difficult to talk about race and class.
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I love the overuse of plants in that city.
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