People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

the idea that we'd all live in small, sustainable communities where people only consume local food and goods, truthfully, I'm completely behind that. but as soon as we turn those communities into places where people want cars and iphones that sustainable edge is completely gone - people in modern rural communities don't just consume goods and energy from outside, they consume food from outside too. so I mean you're on a weird tangent here - sprawl is not a phenomenon that really has anything to do with food, beyond 'moving food around has become so cheap that people who live in the middle of nowhere can still afford nice food'. las vegas and phoenix didn't boom because they were close to lots of nice sustainable farms.

none of the vaunted hi-density centers would survive a week if the people in the we-wag-our-fingers-at-you-resource-wasters places weren't growing their vegetables & raising their livestock & trucking it to their hi-density centers)

If you really want to help humanity, you could truck this bullshit to the nearest family farm and donate it to the cause.

...damn

sprawl is not a phenomenon that really has anything to do with food, beyond 'moving food around has become so cheap that people who live in the middle of nowhere can still afford nice food'. las vegas and phoenix didn't boom because they were close to lots of nice sustainable farms.

they could not have boomed (have boomt? idk) w/o transport of food is the point, you can't grow shit in Las Vegas except hydroponically! I'm a big gubmint libral I think unsustainable tariffs should be levied against interstate ag caveat arguer tho I have no idea what I'm talking about on this subject because I'm interested enough in the subject to shoot the breeze a little but it's not really my area of interest on account of as I say if I ever have to live in a high-density place it's curtains for underrated aerosmith so my sympathies to the reasonable argument are offset by the survival instinct

haha laurel just murked you

underrated aerosmith bootlegs laurel has pwned

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53595.html

L-R: laurel, ua

http://www.wbodydb.com/forumpics/owned_baby.jpg

I live in a sort of high-density version of suburbia, but this weekend went to my brother-in-law's, who lives in the part of the state we all grew up in - what I would consider an ideal suburban neighborhood. Anyway, for those of you who don't hate on suburbia, check out the fucking grass and trees:

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/216180_10150230077498783_556118782_8672568_5886763_n.jpg

Squee! It is one of my most sincere hopes that I get to live somewhere with that much lawn some day.

Also, his neighbors were very chill and not at all dicks.

my parents live in suburbia but they have also transformed their backyard into a tomato and vegetable garden, ya'll should come over sometime, have some tomatos, eggplants

wait didn't you create the 'redneck' thread xp

Yeah. I moved there because it's cheap. It is not ideal.

dayo learn to spell y'all

You could easily live somewhere with that much lawn as long as it's in a climate belt with the right conditions for grass or you're willing to water and chemical-treat it like it is, and far enough outside of major cities that land is cheap.

I swear to god, people.

xxxxp

NB: jk, ua!

I believe dyao was abbreviating 'ya lol'

lawns are about the worst use of open space from a sustainability p.o.v. besides maybe a parking lot? but enjoy, who really needs that water anyway

actual lol @ iatee xp

not "@" but english has no ablative "by means of"

or maybe dative

wow I really really don't wanna work today, huh

hey aerosmith have a tomato...YA LOL YA

they are an awesome use of open space from a barbecue p.o.v.

it was a jersey poison tomato ya lol

hey aerosmith have a tomato...YA LOL YA

I love you for this

I wish that dude who was preaching "just let your lawn grow" had gotten some traction because when mrs ua & me were pretty poor we didn't have a lawnmower for a long time and the lawn on the corner in this tiny town just went nuts, and I loved it. and I'd guess the neighbors didn't, I think we got a note from the city about it at some point and they told us "you know your landlord's required to mow that if you don't have a lawnmower," so the landlord came and did it but seriously that grass was like two feet high at that point and I thought it was awesome, fuck manicured lawns imo stop shaving grow yr bush its totally hot

You can have a bbq in like 50 square feet, you just like looking at grass and knowing that it's yours, all yours.

Whatever, I guess this is exactly the attitude we've been talking about for the last 10 months or w/e, and how people with those ideas about land-use GOT those ideas. Thanks for being Exhibit A.

My parents live on acres of land out in the woods where they are running a private vineyard and growing about 75% of their own vegetables.

I have no point, I just wanted to brag

well also wanted to point out that all of us city ppl are pathetic

My current yard is occupied less by fescue and more by a wide array of native plants that have just sort of taken over. I like it visually, but it's not much fun to walk around on barefoot.

ya lol glad laurel is doing the dirty work for me

I see lots of bbqs in brooklyn and queens, maybe they aren't having as much fun cause they don't see grass (unless they're in one of the hundreds of parks in nyc)

You can have a bbq in like 50 square feet

you cannot play frisbee afterwards in that much space that's for damn sure.

you can also have sex in a sleeping bag but it isn't always comfortable

Sorry, I might be snappish today, I'm tired and really really sore and stiff from going indoor climbing two weeks in a row. Cannot lift arms, or spirits.

I just wish we could manage to debate this without sending the condescension levels into the red.

Oh boo hoo, some compromises against exactly what you want to do as a totally free agent in your own fiefdom might be compromised. God.

Sorry, is that level too high for you?

I really think, probably wrongly, that acreages that are actually rural are probably much better environmentally and economically than low-density suburbs. You're not putting a tax drain on the city, you rely on the county rather than the city for road work/services which is marginally more tax efficient, and you're probably using a septic tank and have the option to use well water for watering your plants.

Of course, my parents kind of made the green aspect of it backfire by manicuring a four acre lawn when they lived outside the city, but they also had about eighty trees.

Wow, you were quick to take that personally Laurel.

(xpost)

Nah, I was already finishing my typing previous post when yours came up, I didn't want to waste a good snark.

I see lots of bbqs in brooklyn and queens, maybe they aren't having as much fun cause they don't see grass (unless they're in one of the hundreds of parks in nyc)

this is where you start to land in hot water imo/fyi - there's a difference between a bbq on the roof/in an NYC park and one where you can enjoy both privacy & the feeling of space. I know that that's selfish, to use a term you use upthread - and I think that's a fair criticism; but I also don't think you really speak much to what that selfishness means, what values people are also expressing when they like a family bbq. I get that, for you, solitude/privacy/space/quiet are either mystifying concepts/values or of so little importance that it's easy to table them. But understand that your values, your preferences, while both probably practical & reasonable, are fraught with the same perils that all personal values are.

Like for example: I'm a vegetarian. I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the world would be a much, much better place if everybody else was, too. (Not if it happened overnight. That would pose huge problems. Even if everybody went veg in a year, it'd have some devastating effects on economies. But since that's never going to happen, nor anything like it, it's not really even a point worth considering.) But I try not to frame things in that way, because slow learning ua learned after an extended bout of evangelism that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

I wasn't trying to take sides, this is a complicated issue with a lot of different things to take into account and I hate it when we (as a whole here) get on this whole "well, your way is just WRONG". Because, there are lots of other considerations here, because none of us live in any kind of utopia.

btw laurel I am not mad or nothing you can zing me any time, you city-loving exhaust-breather you

get that, for you, solitude/privacy/space/quiet are either mystifying concepts/values or of so little importance that it's easy to table them.

It's more that people have been taught to want these things, in certain ways, and to believe that having them is "making it" -- and this entire 10 months-worth of thread has been an attempt to talk about what grew these values and how they are not natural or organic or inevitable in human society. Not ALL privacy or tranquility, OBVIOUSLY, but in the amounts that many people/Americans/some ilxors desire in order to feel "good" about their circumstances.

otm

See, aero, you're just a victim of false consciousness. If you'll just report to your nearest re-education camp we can cure you of all those icky values and feelings right quick.

Yeah, I don't hate on people who want to shuffle their few meager possessions from cramped little box to cramped little box, each with it's unique neighborly thumps and smells and limited views for the rest of their lives until they die. Commies.

It's more that people have been taught to want these things, in certain ways,

"in certain ways" is true - the notion that people would naturally be more high-density seems unsupported by immediate evidence to my mind

There are cultural factors that make us look at people in modest/small residences on ecologically responsible plots of land who live within their means and are mindful about resources, and NOT say, "These people have figured out how to live, I want to be like them someday."

No. Having more, having bigger, having space and quiet and land and basically being able to go to your castle and feel like other people don't exist, this did not become a societal goal by accident.

"naturally" is kind of a funny word there, that helps to sidestep the important point that the US government subsidizes unsustainable development in a major way

xp

It's more that people have been taught to want these things, in certain ways,

I mean I'm with you in the deep sense on this, politically - here are some other things people have been taught to want, in certain ways:

clothes
hot water
chocolate
bacon
the internet

you know?