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How is it a myth? The amount of land used for residential development has skyrocketed since the invention of suburbia. Look it up.
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Originally Posted by mbradleyc
It is an attempt by some people to control other people. It means "you cannot live there. You must live here.
You must have forgot how the suburban development started in the first place... It was the government pumping trillions of dollars into "home ownership" programs by providing financial incentives, building highways, conspiring with automobile companies to destroy public transportation and then massively subsidizing car transportation. I'm not even touching on the government conspiracies behind suburbia like the destruction and segregation of minority communities by making sure the highways go straight through their neighborhoods which then allows the government to use eminent domain to seize all their properties.
Suburbia was the biggest state experiment in the history of this country. Are you okay with this type of control or do you feel stupid now?
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Originally Posted by mbradleyc
You cannot drive wherever you want whenever. You cannot drive at all. You may ride a bicycle, but if you want to go far you must ride a train packed with all the other people.
You can drive, we're just not going to reward you for that. You must pay the full price for that.
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Originally Posted by mbradleyc
Wal-Mart? How dare you! You will buy your things from this little local store that only has a few things, but they are all you need.
Walmart and all the other chain shops and their distributors/suppliers wouldn't be as big as they are now if not for suburbia. The next time you hear on the news about income inequality and big corporations, look at this chart as it explains everything:
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Originally Posted by mbradleyc
You know it's true.
Suburbia will be remembered as a giant American experiment that failed horribly costing this country trillions of dollars and probably even its superpower status.
Greek Unemployment Hits Record High
**ATHENS, Greece -- Unemployment in Greece rose to a new record high of 27.6 percent in May, leaving almost two thirds of young people without a job, the Hellenic Statistics Authority said Thursday.
The jobless rate rose from 27 percent in April and 23.8 percent in May last year. Young people were by far the worst affected, with unemployment among job-seekers aged 15 to 24 standing at 64.9 percent. **
People have to shop somewhere. Shame on them for wanting to shop in their own neighborhoods ...
What, are you a Communist?
Are you being sarcastic? How could you not see that big corporations benefit from suburban type of living? The proof is in the data. Suburbia was not born out of a free market, so don't give me your socialism garbage because without government, most suburbs would be ghost towns.
Some of us just want people to be able to choose the best tool for the job.
A car is a good tool to go to the Grand Canyon.
A car isn't necessarily the best choice to go to brunch a half mile from your house. Why not create infrastructure to let people choose between many modes of transportation to get there.
And often the car is the best choice for going to brunch a half mile from your house. I might walk, but sometimes I go to brunch with my 90-year-old grandmother. She doesn't do half mile walks anymore. Sometimes I go grocery shopping immediately after and it's more convenient. And other times I walk. I have family in Pacific Grove, which is really small. We often just walk when visiting them. Nobody is trying to stop you from walking.
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If the only housing we build if in a single use residential community, then where is the choice for people who want a different sort of housing option.
I prefer having a choice not to drive my car sometimes. But you can choose to drive yours. You can make space for me to walk or bike and still have room for you to drive. If more people walk and bike or take the bus there is even more room for you to drive and park your car.
So don't live in places like that. Maybe someone else want to live on an equestrian property. Being able to walk 1/2 a mile to anything and equestrian properties are mutually exclusive. One person might want to park in a free parking lot near where they shop instead of driving around looking for $2-5/hour for parking blocks away. They might value that more than being able to walk half a mile and get brunch, do their grocery shopping, etc, etc as is possible in a more urban environment. Someone else might prefer to live in Capitol Hill because they value walking, a neighborhood where parking is extremely difficult (100%+ capacity in the evenings) and expensive and difficult during the day ($2-$3/hour, 2-hour limit).
Not everyplace is everything for everyone. The Fact that the Montclair neighborhood in Oakland is completely single-use with a heavily centralized business district and generally very poor walkablility just may not be for you. Maybe a more urban neighborhood of Oakland would be more appropriate. Someone else might find Montclair unattractive because most businesses in the Montclair Business District do not have parking and they don't want to circle for $2/hour parking and end up walking a long ways to their destination.
Maybe Montclair could do what Walnut Creek has done and add some mixed-use. There's currently 475 units and 38,000 SQF of mixed-use projects being built in Walnut Creek with another 1,000+ units and 40,000 SQF that has been proposed and is under review, plus the massive Broadway Plaza project.
And often the car is the best choice for going to brunch a half mile from your house. I might walk, but sometimes I go to brunch with my 90-year-old grandmother. She doesn't do half mile walks anymore. Sometimes I go grocery shopping immediately after and it's more convenient. And other times I walk. I have family in Pacific Grove, which is really small. We often just walk when visiting them. Nobody is trying to stop you from walking.
California is pretty decent about making it possible to walk places. Many other places in the US are not. I spent 5 years consulting, going to typical suburbia and found out there were no crosswalks in the business park area with strip malls. Last time I was in DC we staying in a hotel fairly close to the metro in a suburb. There was a huge strip mall about 2-3 blocks away. We decided to try and walk there......and we got denied. It was separated by the freeway, we couldn't see a crosswalk anywhere nearby. So we had to take the hotel shuttle to go basically across the street. #fail
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So don't live in places like that. Maybe someone else want to live on an equestrian property. Being able to walk 1/2 a mile to anything and equestrian properties are mutually exclusive. One person might want to park in a free parking lot near where they shop instead of driving around looking for $2-5/hour for parking blocks away. They might value that more than being able to walk half a mile and get brunch, do their grocery shopping, etc, etc as is possible in a more urban environment. Someone else might prefer to live in Capitol Hill because they value walking, a neighborhood where parking is extremely difficult (100%+ capacity in the evenings) and expensive and difficult during the day ($2-$3/hour, 2-hour limit).
Not everyplace is everything for everyone. The Fact that the Montclair neighborhood in Oakland is completely single-use with a heavily centralized business district and generally very poor walkablility just may not be for you. Maybe a more urban neighborhood of Oakland would be more appropriate. Someone else might find Montclair unattractive because most businesses in the Montclair Business District do not have parking and they don't want to circle for $2/hour parking and end up walking a long ways to their destination.
Maybe Montclair could do what Walnut Creek has done and add some mixed-use. There's currently 475 units and 38,000 SQF of mixed-use projects being built in Walnut Creek with another 1,000+ units and 40,000 SQF that has been proposed and is under review, plus the massive Broadway Plaza project.
Montclair does actually have a few apartments/condos on the business district or within a block. I don't think that neighborhood needs to change to suit my preferences. But there are walkable areas that can't keep up with demand (walkable transit friendly) that are screaming for more development, and people are clamoring for those neighborhoods too. So existing owners are rewarded with quick sales and rentals.
Too many people think those of us who are pro-transit choice are anti-car, which is what I was responding too. We make an assumption that everyone is using a car by choice, when we aren't really providing reasonable options to not choose a car.
Is it just me, or is a big part of our sprawl problem that we seem to always have a need to have new and shiny things? In my state anyway, the older suburbs are starting to get neglected with roads falling apart. Instead of fixing the streets and sidewalks, seems like here, and seemingly everywhere else, decide that just building a new neighborhood is better than rehabilitating an existing one. Coupling that with American consumerist attitudes, can it be explained (whole or in part) that we Americans desire something "new and shiny" as opposed to old and renovated?
I so agree! In Tampa there are miles and miles of prime real estate left to rot! It's sad really.
The overwhelming majority of us have enough common sense to know what they want, where they can buy it, and whether or not they are willing to pay more for a gallon of milk at a 7-11 or a mom & pop convenience store a block or two from their house ($4.59 here in Los Angeles) or drive 5 minutes away to a shopping center with a Ralphs & CVS side-by-side, and buy the same gallon of milk for $3.39 and perhaps a few other things.
Suburbs are fine for those of us willing to improve our quality of life for ourselves as well as our kids, or for personal objectives such as buying a home in a good school district in a safe neighborhood.
Some urban planners are really full of themselves, and are constantly exposed as being extremely stupid and/or clueless about how frequently their 'bright' ideas turn out to be hysterically asinine when they're put into motion by local politicians, leaving their so-called 'projections' not being worth the paper they were written on, esspecially when you toss in their 'projections' when they're discussing transit-oriented developments.
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