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One of my childhood memories was going to the store with my uncle (RIP). It took about ten minutes or so to drive there but maybe a minute to drive back. Probably due to one way streets.
Yeah, I am not buying that. It sounds like this is more of an exaggeration of how close it is rather than exact time frame.
After reading a variety of posts in a variety of threads in this forum, I've noticed that the main participants live in a very few cities - Chicago, NY, Boston, Philly, DC, and so forth. IOW, eastern or midwestern large cities with a true urban core and decent public transportation. The rest of the country, for the most part, seems to be ignored despite the fact that a lot of folks live in the rest of the country (the flyover states and the west). The predominant attitude seems to be one of superiority that shuns "the rest of us" - generally speaking - and the living situations/conditions we face. It very clique-ish.
I live in Burbank and work in west Los Angeles near Santa Monica. I drive to and from work. I drive pretty much everywhere. I have a compact car and get great gas mileage. My commute can be pretty bad but I go in later in the morning which helps. I love living in the suburbs and my job (which I also love) is in a very congested part of the city where I have no desire to live. The commute is worth it to me. Public transportation would take twice as long as doing it by car. I'm also older and have some health issues that would make public transport pretty challenging.
I'm from Nashville, TN. Another city where you need a car. Public transport is very limited and is a spoke system where all buses go downtown. Most cities are like this. There are also more and more suburban office and business centers that are not on public transportation. But none of these things are really brought up - it's just a ongoing conversation (competition) about the trains in Philly, Chicago, etc... between the same basic folks who don't seem to take kindly to any challenge. There's an expression for this that involves circles and jerking but I won't use it in polite company. Just my observation.
But none of these things are really brought up - it's just a ongoing conversation (competition) about the trains in Philly, Chicago, etc... between the same basic folks who don't seem to take kindly to any challenge. There's an expression for this that involves circles and jerking but I won't use it in polite company. Just my observation.
I would say that you read enough to affirm your preconceived notions and haven't really absorbed much at all from the debates that happen here. That much is clear from your post.
A lot of highway bridges will include underbelly supports (sheets of plywood) to prevent dislodged chunks of concrete from falling onto unsuspecting motorists. Heck, there has been a couple of highway bridge collapses in recent months. America's highways are vastly underfunded, based on your very own determinant. Why focus on the crumbling transit infrastructure and make no mention of the crumbling highway infrastructure? More money needs to be spent on America's roads.
I didn't say "our highways are in great shape." I said "transit is (and has been) underfunded."
3 miles, then I have a hard time believing you could drive there, get what you need, and drive back all within 15 minutes.
That's because you live in a dense urban area with lots of traffic. The entire US is not like that. It takes me between 10 and 15 minutes to drive the 3.5 miles from my house to my job across town during morning and afternoon commute times. It will sometimes take a little longer if it's snowy.
After reading a variety of posts in a variety of threads in this forum, I've noticed that the main participants live in a very few cities - Chicago, NY, Boston, Philly, DC, and so forth. IOW, eastern or midwestern large cities with a true urban core and decent public transportation. The rest of the country, for the most part, seems to be ignored despite the fact that a lot of folks live in the rest of the country (the flyover states and the west). The predominant attitude seems to be one of superiority that shuns "the rest of us" - generally speaking - and the living situations/conditions we face. It very clique-ish.
I live in Burbank and work in west Los Angeles near Santa Monica. I drive to and from work. I drive pretty much everywhere. I have a compact car and get great gas mileage. My commute can be pretty bad but I go in later in the morning which helps. I love living in the suburbs and my job (which I also love) is in a very congested part of the city where I have no desire to live. The commute is worth it to me. Public transportation would take twice as long as doing it by car. I'm also older and have some health issues that would make public transport pretty challenging.
I'm from Nashville, TN. Another city where you need a car. Public transport is very limited and is a spoke system where all buses go downtown. Most cities are like this. There are also more and more suburban office and business centers that are not on public transportation. But none of these things are really brought up - it's just a ongoing conversation (competition) about the trains in Philly, Chicago, etc... between the same basic folks who don't seem to take kindly to any challenge. There's an expression for this that involves circles and jerking but I won't use it in polite company. Just my observation.
If antagonizing most of the regulars on the thread is excellent. It doesn't add anything new ideas to discuss other than "I think the most posters here are snobbish elitists". It is fairly obvious that public transportation doesn't work well in much of the country; I'm more interested in discussing places where public transportation is practical. But apparently doing so gives off a feeling of superiority. One side we have a few posters actually looking up interesting data, another just tossing insults.
Linda_d's description fits my home area well, too. That's something eschaton needs to keep in mind when he says Beaver Falls isn't a suburb of Pittsburgh. No, it's not a bedroom suburb, but it is certainly inter-connected to Pgh. In point of fact, there never were a lot of steel mills IN Pittsburgh. They were mostly in the river valleys around the city, the Mon(ongahela) Valley, the Ohio Valley, and the Beaver Valley. In the mill towns, the factories were interspersed with the residential areas; most people lived within walking distance of some sort of heavy industry, although not necessarily the one where they worked. When I was a small child, we lived a couple of blocks from a small steel mill.
I doubt it would make a difference to eschaton, as eschaton (as well as myself) have a different definition of suburb than you do. I believe you that Beaver Falls is inter-connected to Pittsburgh, but I didn't think that necessarily made it a suburb of Pittsburgh. I'm not sure I'd call the mill areas north of Springfield, MA suburbs of Springfield, just separate towns even though they economic ties — they all economic ties, Springfield is just bigger. One of the nearby ones (Chicopee) was part of Springfield until the mid 1800s when it seceded from Springfield. It doesn't seem like the locals refer to these places as Springfield suburbs, as far I can tell.
Yes, we've had this discussion on "what's the definition of a suburb" before. I don't think either of us is interested in repeating
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Here in metro Denver, there are a number of bedroom suburbs, but there are also many old farming and mining towns that just became suburbs eventually. I live in such a mining town.
Unless the surrounding of the big city was uninhabited, there's usually something that there before it become a suburb of a big city. Sometimes most of the town was built up before suburbanization, other times the old part is tiny.
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As far as transit, we have discussed this very issue many times. I could "dredge up some old threads" for you, nei, but I'm in a mood to be nice tonight. Many urbanists complain that transit to the burbs is limited to the working hours, and there is little (some will tell you none) in the evenings. One went so far as to question my veracity when I said we had a little local service here in my burb, even after I posted schedules.
I don't get why you're so interested in bringing up stuff from old threads, why do they matter much? Or are at all interesting? Especially since the ones you're mentioning are just over generalizations, why would anyone want to hear more of those? But yes, definitely thanks for not re-quoting those.
Also, I wasn't specifically referring to transit in suburbs. I was thinking more of places where transit gets more than negligible use, wherever that may be. Linda_d didn't just say no transit in the evening but none midday. Other than some commuter buses and a few commuter rail lines, that's not a common situation except maybe in tiny bus systems.
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Back to the 50s, the bus service in my home town ended at about 6 PM. In addition, the bus companies were all very local, to get two towns over you had to wait and transfer. The mills worked 24/7. There was no bus service to the mill by my home. I remember seeing the men (and it was 100% men, women weren't allowed to work the mills) walking to and from work. I think by the time I was old enough to remember, they were walking to/from their cars.
The bus system here is region-wide. However, buses mostly go no more than the next town over, you still have to transfer to the next bus, even though it's the same system. Some lines do shut down after 7 PM or so, others don't.
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