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

who likes to "make people angry"?? mystifying!

so much sarcasm!!! cant really figure out whats going on!!!!????

what happened? I am confused.

I'm trying to follow it myself...I think max refuses to mow granny's lawn, but granny is rich and can afford $13/g gas

i am against car-dependent suburbs. i am also against urbanites who are callous towards people who don't want to live in urban areas and who would never have to make the sacrifice of living somewhere they don't want to because it just so happens they love cities.

I find it a very compelling argument that because granny dainger can afford to pay $13 a gallon for gas, that the America government should continue its policies subsidizing and encouraging the development of suburbs, why, because granny dainger can afford to pay $13 a gallon for gas

i'm not rich. my commute is 5 miles, and i can take the train to go places. suburbs are crazy huh.

dont worry, u will change ur tune at the re-education camps in the united states of new hampshire

granny all I'm trying to get you to say is "a. yeah this is probably unsustainable and b. american public policy should bet set in a manner that disincentivizes unsustainable lifestyles." I don't care if you like or don't like suburbs, or if you like or dislike lawns. the point is...that's not the point.

the America government should continue its policies subsidizing and encouraging the development of suburbs

let me hold your hand lil boy and walk you through this. wait ok here, lemme post this for the 3rd time and maybe it'll sink in:

so have all car-based suburbs either convert to public trans-based ones or die; get rid of those zoning laws too, and?

i dont care what happens to granny as long as i can keep my castle and gardens

yeah this is probably unsustainable and b. american public policy should bet set in a manner that disincentivizes unsustainable lifestyles.

but max and dayo feel free to continue to think i'm against to continue their awesome zingathon

awesome, I'm glad that's settled. let's go play golf

ok i can ~walk~ across the street and meet you at the course

that's actually my lawn

stop holding iatees hand

everyone should be embarrassed by what is going on itt

j0rdan isn't allowed on my lawn

i dont think theres anything embarrassing about having the exact same argument with granny dainger for the fortieth time in the same thread

iatee can i get you to say there may--MAY--be a way to have mid-density areas that are sustainable?

absolutely

ps my idea of mid-density is san francisco

well if i'm going to have to live in a city, it is going to have to have beautiful scenery and weed-delivery services

but if you want me to respond to whatever you're imagining, you'd have to give some measure and context. sustainable depends on overall consumption - dude living in the middle of the forest can live an emissions free lifestyle in a not-particularly-dense world. and it's not that people in hyper-dense manhattan live anywhere close to sustainable lifestyles atm (lol, rich people), but they'd have to give up less on the path to sustainability. so yes, people at any level of density can, in theory, pay off their externalities on the world. and if you're willing and able to pay 13/g for gas, well, that's a good start.

13/g gas would effect more than suburb dwellers, don't know if that's something you really wanna be shooting for

it's not a matter of 'shooting for' but rather determining what the cost actually is, how it is paid, and who pays for it

the thing is, though, that 13/g gas is not something we can choose to want or not, it's pretty much inevitable if not within the next 10 years then certainly within the next 20. unless we start magically finding vast new sources of oil or maybe God can create a bunch of dinosaurs and kill them and convert their carcasses into hydrocarbons within the next 5 years

stop being so callous

sorry I should have thought more about the fate of the dinosaurs

wait can god create the dinosaurs but let me kill them?

would be kinda epic

and that doesn't even start to consider the question of should we americans consume resources at a pace that far outpaces the rest of the developed world (except for tiny oil rich places in the middle east which use oil to flush their toilets with)

my whole life could be like the faerie queene

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.PCAP.KG.OE

like the only countries that consistently use as much power as or more than the US are middle eastern oil kingdoms and scandinavian countries (I guess cause it's cold all the damn time and they don't want to freeze to death)

damn scandos

and canada

aussies too but they are forgiven because it is really fun to ride jeeps in the outback, in fact it's compulsory

this is why we need to make more transit-oriented megacities in coastal california

also you can ignore those other countries because combined I'm not sure their populations would approach even 1/6 of america's

oh damn 35 million people live in canada... who knew... okay maybe 1/4

and like iatee said it's not a question about what we want to do it's a question about what we can afford to do. like I want to live in an airship, it would be really rad - but I can't afford it. but if all of a sudden the gov passed a national law that said "dayo and only dayo can construct and build an airship and we will subsidize 99% of the cost" then fuck yeah, I'm gonna take out a loan and build an airship.

btw do any of ya'll want to come and hang out on my airship, I've got xbox 360

don't make this about our military-industrial complex

speaking of industrial policy, another take on things:

http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/special-interests-and-the-general-interest/

like I want to live in an airship, it would be really rad - but I can't afford it.

cute lil analogy bro but right now there are not millions of people and businesses based in airships. there are, however, in suburbs.

people right now are driving 15mpg SUVs. i don't think in just 20 yrs it's gonna go from that to motor vehicles as a whole being unaffordable. anyway i don't know why y'all are still obsessed with gasolina. 4th time:

so have all car-based suburbs either convert to public trans-based ones or die; get rid of those zoning laws too, and?

...

it's not a matter of 'shooting for' but rather determining what the cost actually is, how it is paid, and who pays for it

right. i just got the impression that iatee thinks 13/g gas would be a good thing.

a. an environmentally sustainable world would be 'a good thing'
b. 13/g gas would be 'a very bad thing' for the american economy

i dont get what were supposed to do with that sentence you keep quoting

it would be a good thing insofar as the true cost of oil would be laid bare and we would be forced to plan around it, would be a kickstart to plans of upgrading america's public transportation system. the question is now, do you amputate the foot, or do you wait until gangrene sets in and lose the leg. (to give you another cute lil analogy, bro, since you seem to love them)

oh max just keep making snappy terse rejoiners, it's brilliant

rejoinders too