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I'm not talking about staten island or surrounding suburbs. I'm talking about Manhattan. Everyone in Manhattan lives in an apartment unless they got a loft a long time ago or they have a lot of money. I know you can go outside to another borough and have space. Like I mentioned my mom's from there. She was born in Brooklyn grew up in queens and then moved to Manhattan when she was 18. All her relatives that remain there have really inexpensive rent controlled apartments that they've been living in for years.
Understood. To be fair, I was responding to your message where you said "New York isn't really the average American city. It's kind of like Paris in the way that pretty much everyone lives in an apartment instead of a house or flat." rather than Manhattan in specific. Sorry if I contributed to any threadjacking though..
We currently live in a semi-urban area on the fringe of Boston. We have two small children, and many of our friends have move to the suburbs in the last few years. We have stuck it out, and when we go visit our friends in the suburbs we always come back home, glad we live where we do, but also realizing its not for everyone. For so many, it seems to be a foregone conclusion that suburbia is best for kids, so here is a challenge to that:
1. Its quieter here. Sounds crazy, right? One catch - as long as you live on a side street. Almost everyone uses a quiet reel lawn mower and week-whacking takes all of 4 minutes per week. Contrast this with the relatively open plains of suburbia where the noises of construction and gas powered lawn mowers travel far and wide especially on Saturday afternoons. In dense areas the homes also create significant noise insulation.
Blah, blah, blah, lawn mowers again.
2. Independence for young teens. The 13-17 year olds in our neighborhood have an amazing level of freedom. They can walk to Harvard Square, or several other squares with their friends. They can walk to the train and go into Boston. Because of the high density of children, they can walk to the homes of most of their school friends.
Last things first, you live in an unusual urban neighborhood if there is a large "density" of children. IME, kids are more scattered in the city. Secondly, many burbs also have public transportation into "the city". Since your kids are young, you probably have no idea how immature 13 year olds are. Ask your neighbors if they let their 13 yos go off like that w/o adult supervision.
3. Exposure to the world for toddlers. The 1-4 year olds tend to get out more and see more without having to be strapped into a car every single time they leave the house. When you can throw them into a stroller and walk a few blocks to everything you need, they get exposed to the world much more. As a quick example, this Saturday we walked to the local Winter Market, then to the local butcher shop. Sunday we walked to lunch and then to the natural history museum.
Argument without merit. As if people in the suburbs just drive around. Newsflash! They put their kids in the car to take them places. Big whoop, the butcher shop! You think suburban parents don't take their kids to the grocery store, or take their kids to lunch and a museum? Not that a toddler gets much out of the museum visit; it's more for the adults and older kids.
4. Safety. Think I am crazy again? What's the #1 killer of teens? Car accidents. Teens that can walk are much less likely to be driving a car when they turn 17-18.
Please provide some evidence. The urge to drive a car is primal in some teens.
5. Social interaction. We can walk to 5 playgrounds from our house. Every one of them is full of families with kids every afternoon. Families often make an afternoon of it and bring lunch. Suburban playgrounds often tend to be empty, as the kids tend to play independently on the swingset in the back yard. There is a year round farmers market we can walk to, and in warmer months there is a fun kid-friendly street festival almost every weekend.
We can walk to several playgrounds from my house as well. The bold is untrue. We have a summer farmer's market which is walkable for many in this city. I already posted the festivals just here in town.
6. Diversity. I love the mix of people here. The other parents in our preschool have mostly non-corporate jobs. They are architects, non-profit managers and founders, artists, jewelry makers, and faculty at local universities. They tend to be people who pursued their interests in life as opposed to chasing money on the corporate ladder. Contrast this with the suburbs where it seems almost everyone has a corporate management job.
So you live in some artsy-fartsy university community! Oh, and "pursued their interests in life"! I hope none of them break their necks falling off their high horses. Your knowledge of the suburbs is sorely lacking. Now here in my burb, there are a few university professors, as the university is just a few miles away in Boulder. There are also many engineers, as this is a high-tech area. My neighbor to the east repairs cameras for a living, owns an optics lab, and is a photographer who has won numerous prizes in his spare time. The neighbor on the other side has a gaming business. In the suburb where I grew up, almost all the men worked in steel mills. (Despite what you see in "Dirty Dancing", women didn't work as steelworkers. There were a few women employed as secretaries. There were few women engineers then, and as engineers had to go into the mill itself, they probably couldn't have gotten a job in steel.) Most women, back in the 50s, were homemakers, though some worked as nurses, teachers, the stereotypical "women" stuff of the 50s.
Benefits of suburban vs semi-urban:
1. More room to roam - yards, and sometimes even woods to explore. I find that this is especially beneficial to boys from the ages of 5-11. After age 12 the wears off and the isolation and car dependence of the quiet cul-de-sac kicks in. My experience with girls is that they tend to be fine with smaller yards at any age. Outdoor space is critical, but mose suburban yards are much bigger than they need to be for kids.
Not in the west. You have a very limited perspective.
2. Perception of Schools - High scoring schools makes parents feel better. However if you believe the overhwelming data showing that student scores are driven almost exclusively by SES and parental imvolvement, regardless of the school, this holds less water.
Way to turn a "good" into a "meh". Suburban schools tend to have higher graduation rates.
(Mine in color)
BTW: Here's my response from the time-
1. I don't know how much time you've spent in suburbia on a Saturday afternoon. The idea that everyone is out mowing their lawn at the same time, or conversely, in staggered times all day long, is erroneous. If you live in a developed neighborhood, there is no construction noise nearby, either.
2. Having raised two kids to adulthood, I'd be hesitant about letting a 13-14 year old go into a large city w/o an adult. You can get to the city on public transportation from most suburbs. By 15-16, they may be old enough to do that. I don't remember that mine ever did. Believe it or not, there is plenty for teens to do independently in most suburbs w/o going into the city. You're lucky if there's such a high density of kids that they can walk to their friends' homes. My kids could do that too. There are usually lots of kids in the suburbs.
3. Toddlers need stimulation, yes, but they can get it in many ways. Since you have to take them with you whenever you go out, or hire a baby sitter, which most of us can't afford to do every time we need to run an errand, they get plenty of exposure to grocery stores and the like. You can make an excursion into "the city" and take them to the natural history museum, the zoo, etc.
4. I doubt it. Post a link.
5. Again, how much time have you spent in a suburb on a warm afternoon? Our local parks tend to be quite busy most of the time. It helps that in your neighborhood there are all these people who don't seem to have traditional "day" jobs. In neighborhoods where most parents work, city or suburb, kids aren't in the parks so much during the day. It's also nice to be able to send your kids out to play in the backyard when you're busy. Often, the neighbor kids would join my kids in our yard, or mine would go to theirs.
6. Maybe in Boston. Not everywhere. Probably not in Boston, either.
Benefits of suburban vs semi-urban:
I'll comment on these two together. It's called damning with faint praise. We all know how to do that.
Please note I did not bump this thread. The OP referred to his first post in another thread on Urban Planning and I responded. To make a long story short, the post ended up here. And the movie about Pittsburgh I was referring to is "Flashdance", not "Dirty Dancing".
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 06-04-2017 at 05:00 PM..
Please note I did not bump this thread. The OP referred to his first post in another thread on Urban Planning and I responded. To make a long story short, the post ended up here. And the movie about Pittsburgh I was referring to is "Flashdance", not "Dirty Dancing".
Cities here usually are several times more dense than the suburbs, resulting in many more kids per square mile. It's not unusual at all.
Lawnmowers and everything else noisy carries farther across open suburbs compared to dense urban housing.
I know a few 13 year olds who are free to walk down to the square and even ride the train. Perhaps because they grew up in the city they are a bit more street smart and not as immature as you seem to be experiencing. When they hit 15-6, it's the norm to be able to walk around - to skate parks, movie theaters, the rock climbing gym down the street and the subway.
I guess it's anecdotal but none of the 17 year olds here I know have a car, some don't even bother to get a license because they don't need one. A car is unnecessary, a hassle, and bad for their health. Our household often goes mon-fri without using the car once. On weekends we tend to take trips out of town and drive. You can see this carrying into their 20s also, the millennials here almost never own a car.
Last edited by nei; 06-07-2017 at 06:33 PM..
Reason: rude
Cities here usually are several times more dense than the suburbs, resulting in many more kids per square mile. It's not unusual at all.
Lawnmowers and everything else noisy carries farther across open suburbs compared to dense urban housing.
I know a few 13 year olds who are free to walk down to the square and even ride the train. Perhaps because they grew up in the city they are a bit more street smart and not as immature as you seem to be experiencing. When they hit 15-6, it's the norm to be able to walk around - to skate parks, movie theaters, the rock climbing gym down the street and the subway.
I guess it's anecdotal but none of the 17 year olds here I know have a car, some don't even bother to get a license because they don't need one. A car is unnecessary, a hassle, and bad for their health. Our household often goes mon-fri without using the car once. On weekends we tend to take trips out of town and drive. You can see this carrying into their 20s also, the millennials here almost never own a car.
I'm sorry but that doesn't make sense, according to the science of sound. You may not hear a lawnmower in the city b/c of all the other noise.
I will point out that I have raised two kids to adulthood; my parenting abilities have been tested. One of my kids has a doctorate and one a master's. The fact that I didn't let them go to downtown Denver on the bus at age 13 doesn't seem to have hampered them in any way. How about you get back to us when yours are 13 and let us know if you're letting them go to downtown Boston unaccompanied by an adult.
Last edited by nei; 06-08-2017 at 10:48 AM..
Reason: trolling
Having raised kids in both cities and suburbs (at different time periods, natural kids and foster children) I always find the city-clutching hysteria comical. Both places have advantages but the silly predictable list above really goes to the anxieties and insecurities of the average transplant city dweller who hopes that living in the city makes them interesting. It never does.
I'm guessing my foster son driving at 17 two hours north on his own to go rock climbing (on actual bluffs) is more immature than "I don't own a car and its bad for my health but I'm not afraid to walk 5 blocks to the museum" 17 year old world-wise kid raised in the city.
As I've said, both have advantages - but most of the things listed here are puerile nonsense, and really just self-justifying assertions to cover people's decisions about what's best for them - not their children.
I'm sorry but that doesn't make sense, according to the science of sound. You may not hear a lawnmower in the city b/c of all the other noise.
buildings absorb sound. So do trees. There's not much lawn area to mow where semiurbanite lives, so overall even if sound carried the same way, there'd be less lawnowner noise.
.Maybe such a maturity difference exists . Or doesn't. I don't think it does
buildings absorb sound. So do trees. There's not much lawn area to mow where semiurbanite lives, so overall even if sound carried the same way, there'd be less lawnowner noise.
I don't get what's offensive. He's talking about suburban vs city kids in general, not singling out yours. Maybe such a maturity difference. Or doesn't. I don't think it does, but it's not stooping low to discuss it.
Right now, I'm hearing nothing outside my open window. It's 10:06 AM. That's at least three random times that I've posted to report no noise in my neighborhood (or just birds). If su is living in such a dense place, there's probably more noise than in my neighborhood.
I know you don't get what's offensive. That's probably because you're not a parent. Oh, he said it "diplomatically". But he got his point across.
I've worked with kids almost my entire career, with a few years out for good behavior. I've seen 12 year old parents! Does that make them mature? No. As another one of my colleagues said, they seem mature because of the situation they're in, but once you talk to them a while, you find out they're not.
Is there a difference from kid to kid re: maturity? Yes. Are there 13 year olds that are more mature than some 15 year olds? Yes. But kids get more "mature" and better able to solve problems as they get older. Kid A is likely to be more mature at 15 than at 13. Kid A at 13 may be more mature than Kid B at 15. In all my career, I have never seen anything professionally or anecdotally or any other way that shows that "city" kids are more "mature" than suburban kids. Kids learn to navigate their environment. The suburban kid who can't read a bus schedule may know the rules of the road flat out. Would your parents have let you take public transportation to NYC for a day at 13?
Maybe not, but I didn't have much reason to go just by myself; can't remember.
Quote:
How about you get back to us when yours are 13 and let us know if you're letting them go to downtown Boston unaccompanied by an adult.
Dunno about Boston, but it's common in NYC for students to travel long distances to go to high schools. Knew many who went to a high school in downtown NY for high school; so 14 and a few at 13. I assume middle-school aged kids were traveling alone but not quite as far. I don't have much else to comment on the rest nor much of an opinion.
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