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

I want to believe.

Where I live is in the official city limits. I need only walk a couple of blocks in one direction before I hit a major, well-traveled thoroughfare, and a few blocks in another direction before I hit a highway. Therefore, one could consider my neighborhood an "urban" one. Yet, all of the residences on my street have large front and back yards, are houses, are pet-friendly, and are largely quiet and separate entities from one another. Plus, we've spotted deer and peacocks around the area and have even had a deer come into our back yard. Therefore, one could also classify my neighborhood a "suburban" one. To complicate matters further, the actual suburbs that border San Antonio were largely rural towns in the not-too-distant past and do still sometimes have that countrified feel to them.

Maybe it's because I live in an area with a lot of growing pains and a heck of a lot of space to move around in (the city as of 2000 had an area of 333 square miles and it just keeps on growing outward). Approximately 50 years ago, the neighborhood I live in now was largely rural itself. But then the hospitals came, and the home builders decided to construct neighborhoods, and demand for housing in the area skyrocketed, and things just snowballed from there.

Hm. How fascinating do you guys find me? Maybe not at all, maybe somewhat, maybe very -- I have no clue. I would like to think I'm an interesting person who is worth getting to know, and I am a product of an environment that is a mixture of "urban" and "suburban", not to mention one that is purely driver-friendly (which is the case for the whole of the city, really). I drive a (small) SUV (a Chevy Blazer, a model of vehicle which existed L-O-N-G before the term "SUV" came into being), was educated on how to drive starting at 17, got my driver's license at 19, have never lived in an apartment before in her life, like gardening, love dogs, and sometimes harbor fantasies of living in London (where some of my fondest life memories took place).

Just stuff to think about, 'tis all.

Case in point:
http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1981/38405/graphics/Highlands_Ranch1.jpg
By the way that's not my house.

I haven't been there in just over ten years.

This is outside of saint louis. The 'Laumier Park' mentioned is a sculpture park.

I live on an old city street, but we have old, grand bungalos built in the 20s. And some stupid asshole "custom builder" just put up a travesty in an empty lot a few houses down from us. It's a big fucking garage, with 5 bedrooms and a greatroom. Stupid fucks. It doesn't match the neighborhood at all...

Legacy Village- east side

http://www.legacy-village.com/images/gallery/1.jpg

It would be nice if there were buyers out there who were actually interested in building homes like that instead of the ugly, elbows-to-assholes mcmansions that are invading the suburban countryside and gentrification projects around the country.

This statistic kinda blew my mind...

Though its gotten alot harder to meet people in St. Louis: The city lost half of its population due to outmigration between 1950 and 1990. Once the fourth largest city in the country, St. Louis was ranked as the 49th largest after the 2000 census.

This is what's been happening in Hinsdale, IL for years now (a few other older suburbs in the chicago area, too). It's completely retarded. People are attracted to the town and willing to pay relatively high real estate prices in large part because---unlike most other cookie-cutter suburbs in the area---there's a lot of neat, differentiated old houses there, and then they move in, tear one down and put up a "modern" gray monstrosity that sticks out like a sore thumb and barely fits in the lot. I just don't get it.

The faux-downtowns are everywhere now. There was an article in the _WSJ_ last week quoting a shopper in one of the ones in Dallas -- 'I don't go downtown, there's too much riff-raff down there'. There ya go -- The Urban Experience w/o all those pesky minorities and poor people!!

Legacy Village -- if the sterility doesn't scare you away, the lack of parking will. At least the Crocker Park developers mixed in a parking ramp.

And yes, let's hope some preservationist with deep pockets befriends the StL house.

i've spotted a few in LA but thankfully not THAT many -- probably more in OC.

The whole house is vaguely reminiscent of my grandparents' friends' house on LI.

/pedant.

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

Subdivisions ---
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions ---
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory
Of lighted streets on quiet nights...

(cue some guy posting about how he hates reading lyrics, how i'm thirteen, how i wrote these lyrics myself, how this is a serious post, etc......)

The Chicago suburbs have a lot of really cool houses from that era that I would hate to see torn down, including my grandparents' former house, which my Grandma just sold. The lot is pretty small so I'd be surprised if it gets torn down.

If you really want to be pedantic, not according to Wikipedia:

Suburbs are inhabited districts located either on the outer rim of a city or outside the official limits of a city (the term varies from country to country), or the outer elements of a conurbation.

The presence of certain elements (whose definition varies amongst urbanists, but usually refers to some basic services and to the territorial continuity) identifies a suburb as a peripheral populated area with a certain autonomy, where the density of habitation is usually lower than in an inner city area, though state or municipal house building will often cause departures from that organic gradation. Suburbs have typically grown in areas with an abundance of flat land near a large urban zone ...

Not the same thing as "the suburbs" I realise =) But here, unless you actually live in "Melbourne, 3000" as your postcode, you live in some suburb or other - some are innercity and old, some are new and sprawled and a long way out...

When I was younger I used to spend my summers with my grandparents on Long Island. I remember them taking me through Levittown once and pointing out the houses that still looked original from the outside. I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but now I realize that they were showing me the genesis of all that I despise about my culture.

the problem i have (if the issues of white flight, sprawl, land use, and inner city/inner ring suburban decay are put aside) is an issue of personal taste. from what i've seen, it really doesn't matter how much money you plow into new construction currently. you end up with basically the same thing (at least from the outside view) as your neighbors. perhaps you have a wine cellar and someone else has a pool or an in-law suite above the garage, but the building styles are pretty indistinguishable.

that, too. the house i largely grew up in was built in the 50s. it had italian marble in the front hall and a sandstone fireplace in the family room, and it was a 3-bedroom split-level in a working/middle class community. you could spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands in a gated development today and not get that.

OK, now TOMBOT can show up and call me prejudiced for thinking the rich guy is a dolt and doesn't deserve what he has.

8Versailles pronounced correctly. No points deducted there.

Dave, I actually doubt dude is really rich. These ppl all be doing this by putting themselves into tremendous debt. At least from the ones I know buying into suburban monstrosities and middle-of-nowhere "luxury condos" etc.