Yeah absolutely I'm critical of suburbia as I see it currently implemented.
There's nothing wrong with the concept of living outside of the city, but the problem is the design and form of development that many suburban cities have taken.
Yeah, suburbia is not the problem. I'd much rather live in suburbia than a city. But if you can't go outside on your own, that loses a lot of the benefit.
While I agree with most of what you're saying, I'm not sure suburbanization is a good example. Some people, like me, like the suburban lifestyle and thrive in it. Others prefer city or rural. When dealing with a matter of opinion, I'm not sure one can say that suburbanization "hurts" communities - anymore than any other type of zoning, at least.
I'm not a big fan of suburbs but in no way did this trend begin with suburbs, nor are densely urban or sparsely rural areas close to the community model described in the article.
The whole point of both of those is that suburbia as currently conceived is a massively-subsidized unsustainable mode of living that is an aberration from how successful settlements were built.
The whole point leans on the fact that building cities where residents are required to lock in 15% of their earnings to automotive expenses to be economically productive is insane.
Well, as someone in the rural US, I don't want to see the landscape peppered with suburbs. I think suburbs are a terrifically ugly invention and have a number of nasty externalities (a rant for another time).
So places like where I live (semi-rural northwest) are incentivized to make it difficult to expand. I like urban apartments/condos/flats, I think those are a good solution, but as a culture, outside of the urban areas, people like houses.
I'm not PG (obviously), but I also see suburbia pretty negatively and want to chime in.
To me, suburbia is that neighborhood with the tree-related name that offers four different house models and three different colors of paint. All the lots are roughly the same size, all the people are roughly the same, and the streets don't particularly go anywhere. When viewed from an airplane it looks like a giant millipede wrapped in on itself (driveways). You have to drive everywhere, and the only non-house structures within 20 miles are schools and chain restaurants.
Honestly I think suburbia works well for what it is designed for, which is raising families in a safe environment with a yard and lots of other kids to play with. I view it negatively now only because I'm in my mid-20s, without kids, and it's boring to me. I could take issue with suburbia's wasteful land/energy use, but I won't bother. My view is entirely personal preference.
I think what bothers me is that a lot of people don't realize there is any other way of life out there. Frankly, your opportunities in suburbia are mostly limited to working a 9-5 job and raising a family, so a lot of people I knew in high school just automatically went into that mode after graduating. If they went to college at all, they only did it because all their friends did, but they didn't have any goal for their degree. I think in the backs of their minds they knew that graduating from college meant getting married, moving to the suburbs, and having kids. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with marriage or kids, but why rush it? It just makes me wonder what those people might accomplish or see if that wasn't the automatic life plan.
I roll my eyes at a lot of the urban infatuation but I mostly agree. I've always felt that conventional suburbs brought together the worst of urban environments (you're in fairly close proximity with others) with the worst of rural living (you have to drive everywhere). I live in an exurb on a fair bit of land. If I were to live somewhere different it would probably be in a city or at least a town center of some sort.
To each their own. I've lived in cities and suburbs, and I personally greatly prefer the latter. I'm not alone - I promise.
It's fine if some, or even most, think that suburbia is hell on earth. Criticize suburbia all you like. Don't live there. Go someplace you enjoy. Also, try not to assume that your feeling on this matter is objectively correct.
I am not a fan of more suburban sprawl which is what it sounds like you're advocating for. So, no thank you. Instead we should focus on building walkable neighborhoods that have higher density, less reliance on cars, and more emphasis on cycling+walking+public transit.
Affordable housing is housing that is passed down from generation to generation. We don't need to build "affordable housing". We need to build good high quality housing that will then get transferred down to other people through sales. (And with proper land value taxes - these will not be appreciating assets)
Moving away from the suburbs ? moving away from rural
Also suburbs aren't inherently bad, they used to be good but currently their design today is car centric.
This contributes to sprawl, devouring land in an economically unsustainable way.
I would guess that has a lot to do with how one defines the term.
I love living outside of the city. I wouldn't have it any other way. When I'm ready to retire, I plan to move even further away from the city.
I grew up in the suburbs. I am raising my children in the suburbs. I detest going into the city. The traffic, the parking, the population density and the crammed nature of city living all irritate me to no end.
Unfortunately, I have to go into the city for work. That is the primary reason why I'm waiting until retirement to move further away.
Within the last 10 years we have had a real problem in the area. The gentrification of certain inner-city areas has made it impossible for the low income residents to remain there, so they've been moving out to the suburbs and bringing a lot of crime with them.
Try as we might to escape the problems of city living that drove us out two generations ago, the city keeps sending its problems our way.
"Suburbia" as a term in the US pretty definitionally includes single-family homes on small plots, single-use zoning, homogenous family incomes and home values, and a strict street hierarchy with culs-de-sac. Add all these up and you tend to get 'bad design' by default. Remove these and you get something resembling an organically developed small town instead of suburbs.
Seems a lot of the arguments is based around the fact that suburban developments are poorly designed, not that the idea of suburban life is flawed.
The "kids have nowhere to go unless their parents drive them" argument I don't understand - is there something preventing a forest from being next to a block of flats? The point of not living in the city for me is being closer to nature. I live in suburbia because I (or my kids) can bike to the lake or walk in the forest.
I agree an endless sprawl of square blocks is a bad idea - but developers and city planners surely realize that people aren't willing to pay for non-city life unless it actually delivers the benefits of not living in a city (space, possibility to walk, good air, low noise, safety, proximity to nature).
Living in the country is fine. Living in a city is fine. But suburbs are dumb. They're too high-density to have good privacy or really have a "slower pace of life", and too low-density to have good relationships with your neighbors.
- I don't like the constant driving to get anywhere.
- I don't like the malls, the big box stores, the "clone" button that seems applied across the landscape.
- I don't like the giant roads carving their way around, splitting communities.
- I don't like the squandering of resources on lawns! individual houses! low-density housing!
I can say, with confidence, I'd like to live in a place where I own my house, where I have some property to do with as I please, where children can play nearby on grass, and where I don't sweat getting rent raised. On the other hand, I can easily see own a very small piece of land and having access to some neighborhood commons as part of a community.
There's nothing wrong with the concept of living outside of the city, but the problem is the design and form of development that many suburban cities have taken.
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