Rev, I am tempted to joke, "sorry about my dad," but not even my dad would say something that fucking evilly hateful to someone's face.
― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:35 (thirteen years ago) link
everyone watches youtube
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link
what I dislike about suburbs isn't really cultural. I dislike that the american suburb is structured in a way that allows people to blissfully ignore their externalities - the fact that people believe that a car and a large house are their god given rights as an american citizen. suburbs should be EXPENSIVE - they should be a luxury because in an environmental and social sense, they are.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link
My dad is straight country, though. He told me he was surprised people on the Tube in London were acting "weird" around him when he started cleaning his fingernails. What you have to know about my dad is he cleans his nails with the 5" pocket hunting knife that is on him at all times.
― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Last thing re city vs country: Oh and the buildings in a "nice" part of the city should be historical and architecturally attractive and vermin-free and feel like you're not actually in the city until you go outside. But nothing should intrude on your home life once you shut your door. Which basically explains why they live somewhere that you can't hit your neighbor's house with a rock while standing on your own porch.
Also: You have a porch.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Abbott, you are straight cracking me up.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
How did he get a knife on the plane, can you check that shit?
So you are obv talking about outer ring suburbs here, right iatee?
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Laurel, this was in 1999.
― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:39 (thirteen years ago) link
Lauren, I guess I don't see that as "looking down on", it doesn't seem based on snobbery? The rural&suburb-bashing city folk act like those people just haven't figured out how to be able to live in the city, or couldn't make it there once they did even though they obv must desperately want to.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:39 (thirteen years ago) link
whoa xposts
meant Laurel obv, sorry!
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:40 (thirteen years ago) link
It's based on the "master of own domain" idea that iatee referred to up there. The American dream, doncha know. If you can't have that, they just feel gently sorry for you...UNLESS you have enough money to live as insulated from the discomforts of a city as if you WEREN'T in a city.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:41 (thirteen years ago) link
I've reached the conclusion that I'll never buy a house if it doesn't have a good-sized porch I can kick it on. Porches are very important to me, for some reason.
what I dislike about suburbs isn't really cultural. I dislike that the american suburb is structured in a way that allows people to blissfully ignore their externalities - the fact that people believe that a car and a large house are their god given rights as an american citizen.
This is just as much of a baseless generalization as what I was railing against upthread.
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Yep.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:43 (thirteen years ago) link
last city i lived in most houses had porches
― harbl, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:43 (thirteen years ago) link
"suburbs require cars" is not really a baseless generalization
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:44 (thirteen years ago) link
But nothing should intrude on your home life once you shut your door.
^major peeve of mine about the suburbs. sometimes it doesn't even have the "once you shut your door" caveat. "I don't want to have to smell your food, hear your dog or your music, see your unkempt lawn, or otherwise be made aware other people exist". Seriously, an apartment lease I signed a few years back had a "must not cook with pungent spices" clause in it.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:44 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, a lot of the nice, old homes in my current city have dope fuckin' porches. The house I live in, however, does not.
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:44 (thirteen years ago) link
xps
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:45 (thirteen years ago) link
that's not really what you said though xxpost
― harbl, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:45 (thirteen years ago) link
― iatee, Tuesday, June 8, 2010 2:44 PM Bookmark
It's kind of a major stretch from "suburbs require cars" to "[suburban] people believe that a car and a large house are their god given rights as an american citizen". Sure, some do, but that hardly characterizes even the majority of people who live there.
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:47 (thirteen years ago) link
(this apt building w/that clause inthe lease was in an area that was historically upper mid class white but seeing an influx of people with an Indian/Pakistani background btw)
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:47 (thirteen years ago) link
Also, GD, I never lived in a suburb or somewhere that my peers shared a dream of moving closer to the bright lights of the nearest high-density urban area; it was pretty much us and the lakes and the trees. So I have different sensitivities.
Keep in mind my entire multi-generational family, every single one of them, cannot fathom how I can live in NY -- they all sort of congratulate me for navigating it but they think I'm crazy. One of my cousins moved out of Seattle because it wasn't green enough for him. They don't envy me in the slightest although they are very nice about not saying so specifically.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:48 (thirteen years ago) link
xp haha, good luck with the pungent spice clause
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:49 (thirteen years ago) link
suburbs are complicated
― harbl, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:50 (thirteen years ago) link
so ignore the american dream aspect - doesn't particularly matter. suburbs, almost by definition, create massive externalities and allow people to live without having to confront them. that makes it inherently a more selfish lifestyle.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:50 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah Laurel can totally see how that could be every bit as annoying for you as city folk snobbery can be
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
iatee, this may amaze you, but a rather big percentage of people in my hometown were poor and lived in apartments and rode buses (at times, myself) and not really plugged into this whole white picket fence American Dream thing.
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
I always wished I lived in the suburbs when I was a kid. I was so jealous of kids who could just walk a few houses down to play with their friends, rather than ride bike 5 miles into town.
― breaking that little dog's heart chakra (Abbott), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
i think you should write a thesis on this, iatee
What exactly do you mean by massive externalities?
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:53 (thirteen years ago) link
Assuming everyone in the suburbs is an upper-middle class homeowner is as much a fallacy as assuming everyone is white.
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:53 (thirteen years ago) link
Me too, Abbs. I didn't know suburbs existed, I just wanted to live somewhere with a sidewalk, like they had In Town. I was sure I would have had more friends that way.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:54 (thirteen years ago) link
― harbl, Tuesday, June 8, 2010 2:50 PM Bookmark
^!
― donk quixote (The Reverend), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:54 (thirteen years ago) link
at this point it seems that a lot of the chicago suburbs are more ethnically/racially diverse than most parts of the city itself
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, June 8, 2010 3:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Do you mean more diverse, or more integrated?
― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:58 (thirteen years ago) link
no, that doesn't amaze me rev, I grew up in a suburb that is basically 50% poor hispanics. I'm not making any arguments about race or income of people who live in suburbs. the poor are seriously underserved by bus systems. transportation-wise, suburbs are a horrible place to be poor - that doesn't mean that there aren't lots of poor people.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 21:59 (thirteen years ago) link
(and it's not necessarily their fault that they live there either)
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:00 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm totally prepared to live and let live with all my extended family who are bros, they aren't superior or inferior about anything plus they have much lower standards for like physical comforts and what is "good enough" than my parents do. And even my parents mean well...but their baseline for an acceptable standard of living is way out of my reach in this city. Maybe in Chicago or St Louis my salary would look shinier, but here it doesn't stretch that far, and they feel sorry for me and think that my life must be very "hard".
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Iatee, you are making some sweepingly dumb generalizations here.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:03 (thirteen years ago) link
anyway I gtg for now, but I leave you with wikipedia graph on per capita electricity use -
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Electricity_use_kwh_per_customer_2000-05.PNG
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:03 (thirteen years ago) link
Being poor in the city often sucks a lot as well. Last I checked, being poor pretty much sucks everywhere.
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:04 (thirteen years ago) link
agreed
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:04 (thirteen years ago) link
iirc this book was good on this topic too but i can't remember which chapters, looks like 4 and 5
― harbl, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:05 (thirteen years ago) link
and i don't think the whole thing is on google books
In an upscale ownership-based subdivision where real estate values and people's sense of the American dream is at stake and people's kids all play together, you are policed and confronted with a lot of expectations about how you're fitting into things -- socially, professionally, etc. It's fundamentally a fake scale recreation of a "village," and you're known to all and carry all the responsibility of a good villager, only more so.
― nabisco, Monday, July 14, 2008 10:39 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark
You could say exactly the same thing about living in the city.
Anyway, I think most people only move to suburbs for the sake of their children. There's a point where school districts become more important than your proximity to the best restaurants, cool clubs, etc.
― Darin, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:05 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh nevermind I didn't see that you specified transportationwise
― Adolf Hipster (jjjusten), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:05 (thirteen years ago) link
specific parts of the city are less diverse than many suburbs as a whole, the city as a whole is less integrated than many subrubs as a whole.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:06 (thirteen years ago) link
the cool people i know here who live in suburbs usually cite property taxes and crappy/unsafe public schools in the city as the biggest reasons, not necessarily selfish imo
― harbl, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:07 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean i would much rather live in a city but don't really blame individuals for their decision to move out if they have kids to worry about, it's not their fault, more like everyone's fault
― harbl, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 22:09 (thirteen years ago) link