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I put my kid in a stroller and take him to the park almost every day along with the dog. People in car dependent suburbs do walk their kids in strollers. i know its shocking to hear that, but people car dependent suburbs do walk in their neighborhoods.
No, it's not shocking to hear that people in the burbs use strollers to go places. It is just not a reality that the average suburb provides the number of amenities within walking distance that more urban places offer. It is not the end-all be-all of life as we know it, but it is a reality.
How about this, instead of finding the exceptions and managing your arguments from that sole perspective, why don't you look at the big picture and try to debate based on the average environment. I wouldn't argue that pizza is just as healthy as a salad because pizza has some protein and fiber.
How about this, instead of finding the exceptions and managing your arguments from that sole perspective, why don't you look at the big picture and try to debate based on the average environment. I wouldn't argue that pizza is just as healthy as a salad because pizza has some protein and fiber.
More than one, gauging the responses from this thread.
There weren't too many places I couldn't go as a suburban kid. The bus took me downtown and to the farther-flung shopping centers and movie theaters, everywhere the kids in the city could go. I walked or rode my bike to school, to friends' houses, to our suburban Main Street and nearby shopping plazas, to church youth group, or to my after-school jobs. School buses took us to athletic events in neighboring districts. After I took the bus downtown, I could catch a ferry to the beach. Bumming a ride from Dad was a convenience (or his insistence) rather than a necessity.
The buses and ferries still run same -- I think there's more bus service now, actually, going more places, and a new trolley route -- so the transportation options have not changed for kids living where I grew up.
You have a very valid example, but would you say that there are many suburbs that don't provide what you had as a child? I can tell you that I have lived in a variety that don't.
No, it's not shocking to hear that people in the burbs use strollers to go places. It is just not a reality that the average suburb provides the number of amenities within walking distance that more urban places offer. It is not the end-all be-all of life as we know it, but it is a reality.
How about this, instead of finding the exceptions and managing your arguments from that sole perspective, why don't you look at the big picture and try to debate based on the average environment. I wouldn't argue that pizza is just as healthy as a salad because pizza has some protein and fiber.
you and rest of your buddies want to desperately believe that you can't walk anywhere in the suburbs, and all we're doing is simply pointing out is that its alot more common than you believe and that our kids won't be deprived just because we send them to suburban schools.
you and rest of your buddies want to desperately believe that you can't walk anywhere in the suburbs, and all we're doing is simply pointing out is that its alot more common than you believe and that our kids won't be deprived just because we send them to suburban schools.
Name one place where me and my buddies (which ones are they now?) have said you can't walk anywhere in suburbs? Oh wait a minute, here's another three places on this page where you didn't read what I stated:
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The AVERAGE suburb does not provide the carless independence that the average urban environment. It simply can't, based on average build. In other words, there are many many very unwalkable suburbs, which is what a lot of people want.
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That very same poster (who lives in an urban suburb) stated that they have lots of events and places they take their children by walking out the front door with a stroller. This means that they get to bypass dealing with loading up the car, unpacking and then putting them in the stroller (plus the return trip). Are these not real activities?
Great points, and an even bigger "miss" on those that misjudge suburbs is...
...is the assumption that 'density' by itself is even a good thing -- for crying out loud you don't need to go to the extreme of failed high rise urban project to find out that quality of life is not at all correlated with just density. There are crummy "market rate" apartments owned by private landlords that are just as dense as projects and some of them are terrible, it ain't just "slum lord" type apartment either -- the wrong of residents can make higher density apartments a nightmare.
And then you also have examples of densely built high end apartments / condos in nicer suburbs or posh spots inside big cities that are quite lovely for some residents but far from ideal for people with large pets that need exercise, families with active children, and even folks like musicians or artisans whose work creates loud sounds that travel through even well constructed walls.
Of course in the context of which area is "naturally better for education" there is obviously no winner to be found simply on the basis of density -- either environment could be beneficial to children of differnce talents / temperament and the opposite is true as well: kids dropped into the wrong environment will flounder.
One thing that is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that pretty much without exception the adminstrative / leadership roles that are needed to effectively lead schools to high levels of success do NOT scale up well at all. While individual principals can often have some positive effects on one school and some mid-sized districts do benefit greatly from strong leaders there are NO truly large monolithic citywide urban school districts that are being uniformly led well. I think this has a lot to do with the relative success of affluent school districts which, even when they serve many students in a moderate number of schools (a Humber of about a dozen or so seems relatively easy to manage) still remain strongly tied to the input / influence of success oriented parents. As the number of schools in a political unit grows the odds of success decline. Getting much past fifty or so high performing schools is a rarity. I don't think this just about affluence either. If one looks to a very differnent kind of organization it also seems there are limits to sustaining high performance -- the size of organizations in diverse segments of the adult world seem to have limits to scale as well -- how many people can say they are a Navy Seal? How many locations can a well run (and not particually luxury oriented) retailer like The Container Store keep focused? How many congregations can a dynamic religous ministry sustain before splitting into sub-units?
The "urbanists" ought to give more thought to blowing up their monolithic bueracratic school management structures and accept the fact that different sized units of both leadership and even financial accountability need to be pursued and the dreams of "savings through consolidation and shared common services" are simply not worth the horrendous side effects of far too many children being horribly miserved in effectively organized districts.
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Originally Posted by nighttrain55
1. Not all suburbs are created equally, and I think urbanist underestimate the amount of the suburbs that have high density.
2. People move to the suburbs for different reasons, do some move for more quiet, less hectic, yes they do, but that is not reason for every person in the suburbs.
3. I still don't know what walkability and indepedence means anyway. If walkability is being a 5 minute walk from a grocery store, you can find that in the suburbs.
4. The much bigger point is, being in an urban enviroment doesnt automatically mean you are going to have culture, vibrance, independence, and walkability. I have family that grew up and still live in the projects, none of my cousins can sit there and say they had independence and could walk anywhere they wanted to. I also doubt they have ever stepped into an art museum.
I'm sorry, isn't the main benefit of the suburbs that they're more spread out (lower density), thus providing a quieter, less hectic place to live? With that environment, aren't zoning regulations largely in place to designate single zones for residential development, commercial development, etc.? I can understand arguing that cities have more face-to-face robberies, or that suburbs have better schools, but I have a really hard time understanding how anyone can argue that suburbs at large provide the walkability and carless indepedence that urban environments do.
Are there suburbs that are walkable? Yes! Is the average suburb more walkable than the average urban environment? NO! People can't have it both ways. Kids can have independence in suburbs, but if anyone thinks that this carless independence in the AVERAGE suburb is greater than carless independence in the AVERAGE urban environment, you're wrong.
Now, that's not to say a kid can't grow up perfectly happy in the suburbs with a degree of independence, but it doesn't mean that that kid has the carless mobility that a kid in an urban area necessarily has. There are exceptions to the rule, but then again, what are we talking about here? One person's exception?
Not everywhere. There are "mixed use" zonings. Amazingly, before some of you became interested in urban planning, there were PUDs (Planned Unit Developments) and other multi-use zonings.
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Originally Posted by AJNEOA
Fine, so your suburb in Louisville is walkable in areas. It certainly isn't too walkable here, which is very close to the center of town:
Are these places beautiful places that provide a high quality of life? Sure. Are they truly walkable? No! The definition of walkable isn't measured within the confines of a person's physical ability to walk places (sure, we could all walk 1.5 miles to the closest grocery store, but it isn't going to happen frequently), it's measured against whether it is as convenient or more convenient to walk to amenities (e.g. stores, school, etc.) than it is to drive.
All of the place chosen above are pretty standard suburbs; some more walkable, some less walkable. And before you cherry pick places within city limits that are not walkable, I agree that there are places within cities that are not urban enough, thus providing a real walkable environment. The point here is that the average suburb is not as walkable as the average urban neighborhood.
Your cherry picked picture of Louisville proves nothing. The picture is zoomed in so far all you see are a couple of houses. Do note that there are sidewalks on both sides, and very little traffic (ONE car). It is but a short distance from Church Lane (which actually does have a Lutheran church on it) to the Louisville Recreation Center, where there are all sorts of activities for kids, including drop-in gym time and pool time for kids who just want to "hang out". (0.1 mile away, according to Google)
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Originally Posted by AJNEOA
Where would you take little kids who fit in strollers in the suburbs? Are the following examples not good enough? Because they were provided when you asked the question 10 posts ago:
That very same poster (who lives in an urban suburb) stated that they have lots of events and places they take their children by walking out the front door with a stroller. This means that they get to bypass dealing with loading up the car, unpacking and then putting them in the stroller (plus the return trip). Are these not real activities?
Well, stroller aged kids are not likely to get much out of a Honk! festival though I agree about the sense of community. I pointed out that my community has similar festivals, also a farmer's market, also restaurants that are kid friendly, and public transportation into the city. None of this stuff is likely to appeal to stroller-aged kids, and the public transportation around the city is hardly an activity for such aged kids.
I usually took my kids to a park when they were that age. Believe it or not, there is one within walking distance of my house.
Name one place where me and my buddies (which ones are they now?) have said you can't walk anywhere in suburbs? Oh wait a minute, here's another three places on this page where you didn't read what I stated:
Thoughts?
The average suburb provides all the amenities that one needs to live on. Suburbs do have grocery stores, restuarants, parks, and whatever other garbage you want to throw out. Alot of suburbs have a main street, or some type of downtown. Now, is every suburb going to have an art gallery opening, or the opera playing, than no, they probably won't have that. You seem to be of the opinion that all suburbs that rely on a car just have houses and nothing else.
Not everywhere. There are "mixed use" zonings. Amazingly, before some of you became interested in urban planning, there were PUDs (Planned Unit Developments) and other multi-use zonings.
Your cherry picked picture of Louisville proves nothing. The picture is zoomed in so far all you see are a couple of houses. Do note that there are sidewalks on both sides, and very little traffic (ONE car). It is but a short distance from Church Lane (which actually does have a Lutheran church on it) to the Louisville Recreation Center, where there are all sorts of activities for kids, including drop-in gym time and pool time for kids who just want to "hang out". (0.1 mile away, according to Google)
Cherry-picked? I'm sorry, aside from the 20 square block center, there is a large number of surrounding suburban development that swirls and sprawls. Is there not? In other words, there's a large number of non-walkable areas in your own city that do not fit the description of where you live (sounds like you live in the core). This has to be factored into the discussion, does it not?
Also, sidewalks do not provide walkability in and of themselves. You can surely walk to a park or walk to a neighbor, but it doesn't mean it's a truly walkable neighborhood if there aren't a variety of amenities within convenient walking distance. This is the point.
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Originally Posted by Katiana
Well, stroller aged kids are not likely to get much out of a Honk! festival though I agree about the sense of community. I pointed out that my community has similar festivals, also a farmer's market, also restaurants that are kid friendly, and public transportation into the city. None of this stuff is likely to appeal to stroller-aged kids, and the public transportation around the city is hardly an activity for such aged kids.
I usually took my kids to a park when they were that age. Believe it or not, there is one within walking distance of my house.
While your community (central Louisville, CO) is a good example of what you typed above, there are many places that are not....again, even within the suburbs of your city. Again, this has to be factored in.
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Great points, and an even bigger "miss" on those that misjudge suburbs is...
