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

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?_r=0

I just came to link to the gawker article on that.
this weekend I went to visit my girlfriend at bard college (ah so ok, this will have nothing to do with poverty) and couldn't get a taxi at the train station. realized there is no such thing as a bus in the area, and that it is actually impossible to walk anywhere at all (all semi-rural highways with little to no shoulder).
it was totally enraging and I got to hang out at the locked train station for about an hour in the middle of the night before my gf could scramble a ride. everytime I'm up there I think it's basically immoral or unethical to build a place like that. literally impossible to do anything without owning a private car. I don't know how anyone could justify that kind of planning!

if you can't afford a car you're written off as a lazy criminal. our only hope for better planning is if rich people want to walk or take more public transportation, and it'll only be in enclaves they can afford to live in. the people who need it these resources the least. that's just the society we live in.

one problem with that article is it is doing percentiles nationwide. so a whole areas can go up or down in avg income (witness north dakota). in that sense its not only a mobility story, but a story of which regions have been doing well or poorly, and the two notions get mashed together. also not clear how they inflation adjust, etc. can't drill in more to the details, because the website is down :-(

Pretty crazy that in some of those North Dakota regions there's like a 20-30% chance that a child born in the bottom fifth rose to the top fifth. Just shows how powerful the oil boom is.

remember that's not top fifth north dakota -- that's top fifth nationwide. so just everyone in ND is better off than before -- not an indicator of relative mobility in ND.

sites back up for me, skimmed the data, they don't seem to have put any thought into the sort of things i'm worried about -- no story on inflation adjustment, etc.

also as far as i can tell they're not comparing kids at _their parents age at time of survey_ with the incomes of their parents. so that's why you get this "everything towards the middle" effect. like obv income should grow over time. but because their cohort were born '80-81 they're all 33 or so now. if their parents income is from when their parents were e.g. 40 then at least for some classes of jobs, even if they were exactly in their parents footsteps, they would be making less b/c they're younger. for other classes of jobs you're going to top out in earnings earlier. so that's another confounding factor that makes this data v. up for interpretation

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/03/the_suburbs_are_dead_and_thats_not_a_good_thing/

RIP suburbs

Hey, found a no-car, pedestrian neighborhood away from the city for iatee.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9xxylA5XN1qe0wclo1_500.jpg

A+

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/business/affordable-housing-drives-middle-class-to-cities-inland.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=MostEmailed&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

Moving from the US coasts to inland cities & burbs (and finding jobs presumably)

Oklahoma City, for example, has outpaced most other cities in growth since 2011, becoming the 12th-fastest-growing city last year. It has also won over a coveted demographic, young adults age 25 to 34, going from a net loss of millennials to a net gain. Other affordable cities that have jumped in the growth rankings include several in Texas, including El Paso and San Antonio, as well as Columbus, Ohio, and Little Rock, Ark.

Newcomers in Oklahoma City have traded traffic jams and preschool waiting lists for master suites the size of their old apartments. The sons of Lorin Olson, a stem cell biologist who moved here from New York’s Upper East Side, now ride bikes in their suburban neighborhood and go home to a four-bedroom house. Hector Lopez, a caricature artist, lives in a loft apartment here for less than he paid to stay in a garage near Los Angeles. Tony Trammell, one of a group of about a dozen friends to make the move from San Diego, paid $260,000 for his 3,300-square-foot home in a nearby suburb.

“This is the opposite of the gold rush,” Mr. Trammell said.

The Oklahoma Laters.

lol

feel like you'd have to keep a knife at my throat continuously to get me down there

My city's mentioned in that paragraph. Gotta say, the weather's nice, the costs are cheap, my morning commute is about 10-15 minutes.

The state's getting overrun by lunatics, but for someone who doesn't leave the house that often, it's not so bad. We city folk are pretty progressive when it comes right down to it.

Now Ok-lol-homa on the other hand is a different story, imho.

I'm still kind of in awe of how much the downtown of my city has been revitalized. Maybe too much, some days.

Columbus, Ohio is kind of great. It's in no way a suburb though.

seriously! why are they calling these small-to-midsize cities suburbs?

anything that's not nyc or l.a. is a suburb, obviously.

Wait, what, who called Columbus a suburb?

Also this guy

Aasim Saleh, 30, moved to Oklahoma City from Seattle to coach kayaking in the city’s Boathouse District. The ability to buy a home without having a desk job was one major draw for him.

must really enjoy professional basketball.

in america most cities are suburbs

i'm definitely not "icky" fwiw

Wait, what, who called Columbus a suburb?

I just mean we're somehow talking about "moving to Columbus" in the "moving to the suburbs" thread

Tony Trammell, one of a group of about a dozen friends to make the move from San Diego, paid $260,000 for his 3,300-square-foot home in a nearby suburb.

Unless your last name is Duggar or The Hutt, nobody needs a 3,300 sq. ft. house.

Columbus, Ohio is kind of great. It's in no way a suburb though.

Over the last 50 years Columbus annexed all the unincorporated land in Franklin County (and even some in 3 adjoining counties) and in doing so became the largest city in Ohio in population and land area. Columbus has even made enclaves of several of their suburbs by completely surrounding them. Most of the population of Columbus resides in what the functionally a suburb.

*is functionally a suburb

This isn't a city. This is a stain left over after someone threw a tomato at a map of Ohio.

http://i.imgur.com/zekZydO.png

And don't forget Columbus' Congressional districts:

http://i.imgur.com/rNVjQmO.png

Not classy or icky. Maybe some are dudes. Most of all, I think, they are enthusiasts. I may be imagining that American suburbs are equivalent to the normal populace in smaller countries such as Belgium or France or Korea where young people can get caught up in things and older people go bowling. But listening to Seamonsters and remembering Steve Albini, I can't help wondering what happened to the Smashing Pumpkins when everybody still loves the Wedding Present. (Oh, I thought he produced one of their albums, but it appears that he merely criticized them. Then which top nineties album did he produce (other than Seamonsters)?)

I think of Columbus as a small city because it is gritty at the core. (Maybe I am not properly recognizing the surrounding areas that are really a part of it. The Twenty-Seventh City by Franzen may be relevant. But, yes, the people still seemed suburban in their preoccupations ... )

That Warstler guy is an idiot. He's a regular commenter on Scott Sumner's blog, where I quickly learned to ignore him.

― o. nate, Tuesday, March 6, 2012 1:42 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

stories i came across recently of interest to almost nobody:

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/deep-stealth-rick-perry-opening-doors-for-firm-see/nnyPb/
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/rick-perrys-work-for-govwhiz-doesnt-pass-smell-tes/nny5b/

"megalomaniac twitter troll runs scammy non-company with ties to rick perry"

(funny he was discussed here 3 years ago. lol yglesias)

a ridiculous tale of the special hell that is homeowners associations
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/in-a-community-of-million-dollar-homes-a-fight-over-a-500-mailbox-ends-in-court/2017/01/23/1adbdb88-e186-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html

Sometimes lately I have this recurring thought that I'm a bit shamed of -- "Fuck this place, we should just move to the suburbs." Part of it is definitely having a baby on a way, which seems so predictable in a way that I never thought would happen to me. But I also just get sick of the crush, the ugliness, the encroached feeling. I think the suburb I have in my mind's eye isn't really like a real suburb though.

― Helping 3 (Hurting 2), Saturday, September 3, 2011 11:47 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ok so I'm not imagining things with hindsight, I really have been feeling this way for a long time

In the early days of “Shelter in Place”, I experienced a bit of longing for the ‘burbs. Like you said, it’s probably more of an idealistic version that doesn’t really exist.

It was mostly the lack of traffic on our neighborhood streets. Being able to skateboard down the middle of streets typically full of impatient drivers. Going to big empty parking lots that would normally be bustling on a weekday.

I have also been pining for a proper house with space for a home office and a place to put exercise equipment.

I moved a bit as a kid, and always lived in older neighborhoods close to big cities, but I never actually lived in the kind of development suburbs that people generally think of.

i tell you what it has been pretty great living in a suburban area in a state with low covid numbers through all of this. like i can just go for a run outside and see no one and it's fine.

Ok so I'm not imagining things with hindsight, I really have been feeling this way for a long time

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, May 20, 2020 5:53 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol not to be rude but i've thought of you as "the new york guy who wants to live in the burbs" for as long as i can remember

There is a bit - I repeat, a BIT - of potential posturing in stuff like "not a real suburb" / "the kind of development suburbs that people generally think of".

And I hasten to note that don't excuse myself from the accusation.

Lots of people who don't live inside what some regard as "city limits" are quick to note that their suburb isn't one of THOSE suburbs, you know, the soulless ones. Hey, we have public transport, density, diversity, walkability, sidewalks, local restaurants, quaint shopping, community spirit, architectural variety, nightlife, etc.

It's only the OTHER suburbs that suck. You know, those ones that are always just a bit further out - the ones with sprawl, homogeneity, cookie-cutter houses, strip malls, chain restaurants, nothing but PTA meetings and youth soccer, etc.

I love where I live, but I am as guilty as anyone in this. People living downtown - or slightly closer to downtown - think I've sold out and might as well be in bumfuck Iowa. I probably think the same of people living slightly further out.

I hate the suburbs here, even worse than the suburbs of Glasgow I grew up in (at least those place were old, not completely built with cars in mind) but would possibly move there in order to live somewhere bigger. only in the Metro Vancouver area property (including rental) is really expensive, even in the shittiest, far-flungest 'burb.

Lots of people who don't live inside what some regard as "city limits" are quick to note that their suburb isn't one of THOSE suburbs, you know, the soulless ones.

I'm the opposite, I live quite close to downtown in a medium-sized city but I would never deny that the landscape I live in is suburban; it is suburban! It is single-family houses with driveways and lawns, almost 100% owner-occupied, I drive a station wagon which I take to the mall (or do when there's no pandemic), etc. The fact that I can walk to a locally owned coffee shop and pizza place doesn't make it not suburban. The fact that it is in fact in the inner section of city doesn't make it not suburban. It's suburban! Most cities are, once you get a little away from the downtown core.

it's true tho not all suburbs are the same. lots of different kinds of places in between rural and urban.

eephus and Mordy, right! In my area, there are loads of places where a single-family house with a yard and driveway (with a minivan in it) is within city limits but the virtually identical house across the street is in a suburb. It's a mushy area.

But the binary is real in many people's heads; these people will sneer at you over their locally-owned coffee and defend their status as urbanites, etc. over a block-long accident of geography rather than admit that it is mushy.

Theory: "Proximity to the city" as an indicator of "cosmopolitan/livable" was already in decline 20 years ago. Rather than a majority of commutes being burb-to-city, a majority of commutes became burb-to-another-burb. Also, the close-in "streetcar suburbs" (not too car-dependent, walkable, transit-friendly, diverse) have urbanized quite a bit.

So our old friend, the narcissism of small differences, creeps in.

I am wondering if the post-COVID atmosphere (presumably more friendly to telework) will continue to erode the distinction.

i've been seeing a bunch of memes that are all about hoping that the gentrifying white collar workers will migrate back to the suburbs / mid-west / places-that-aren't-our-cool-cities as a result of covid and post-covid allowances for remote work.

Yes, how dare uncool people try to live near us in our havens of coolness

they drive up the rents and housing costs and complain about things and tend to be BBQ Beckys?

as in literally -- BBQ Becky was one of those ppl in my city

i'm a cool person who doesn't want to be downtown and is liking the suburbs. oh wait i'm a burnout. certain older suburbs are great for burnouts.

Seconding sarahell's point, speaking as a gentrifier but one with 20 years in NYC. Idk what that makes us longer term transplants.

suburbs are really uncool though it's true. i find it kind of bracing.

the city of Seattle is suburban enough within itself, if all the wealthy knowledge worker types (other than me) flee to the actual suburbs maybe I'll be able to buy a townhouse within the like 1 square mile of the city I want to live in sometime.