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...
― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 03:40 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― naus (Robert T), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 03:58 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 12:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 12:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:02 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:13 (seventeen years ago) link
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, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:26 (seventeen years ago) link
I guess that's the thing I don't understand, going into tremendous personal debt to have...the same exact identical poorly made house as everyone else?
― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:29 (seventeen years ago) link
My wife was at a meeting (after getting lost in numerous cul-de-sacs) at someone's house in the suburbs (for work, not PTA, nor Pampered Chef) and someone in the group said, "I was in this house last week." My wife was the only one who did not understand that the person meant the same model of a house in another subdivision, and not the exact same house.
― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 13:43 (seventeen years ago) link
Those metroplexes confuse me, especially around Arlington. The developers completely turn away from an existing city and build a planned shopping/living center with underground parking that exists in its own little orbit.
― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2006/06/local_man_makes.phphttp://la.curbed.com/archives/2006/06/northeast_la_go.phphttp://la.curbed.com/archives/2006/06/beverly_grove_g.php
― sometimes it takes an earthquake to know where the fault lies (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 9 June 2006 01:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 9 June 2006 02:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― sometimes it takes an earthquake to know where the fault lies (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 9 June 2006 02:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Friday, 9 June 2006 10:54 (seventeen years ago) link
og i miss the greenery
― Surmounter, Friday, 11 July 2008 18:16 (fifteen years ago) link
the parks where like no one goes for some weird reason when you decide to go to the park
just empty
i miss the trails in the woods, the delis where the highschoolers would pull up in their cars and like get a soda
― Surmounter, Friday, 11 July 2008 18:17 (fifteen years ago) link
get a blog dude
― dan m, Friday, 11 July 2008 18:18 (fifteen years ago) link
Are you in NYC? I lived there for just 4 months once and I remember flying home to Texas and it was just so totally alien, looking out the window on approach seeing sky and green and open space between buildings and all those cars, none of them yellow!
This thread has some bad US/UK disconnect. Suburbs are for the rich!
― wanko ergo sum, Friday, 11 July 2008 18:24 (fifteen years ago) link
i'm in NYC. everytime i visit Nashville i'm awed by all the oxygen.
― Surmounter, Friday, 11 July 2008 18:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Gardening while visiting my mom's house...birdsong everywhere, huge trees rustling in the breeze, big cornflower blue sky with big ol' white fluff clouds hanging around, green and sun, green and sun, green and sun. Serene backyards with late-afternoon shadows, rabbits, cardinals, honeybees, beetles, sun and green
Surmounter otm
― dell, Friday, 11 July 2008 21:11 (fifteen years ago) link
I try to remind myself that most of the things I find great about suburbs -- the sun and lawns and sometimes idyllic coziness of them -- is totally based on them triggering the experience of suburbs as a child. And while those things remain good as an adult, they leave out all the stuff that would be tiresome about maintaining an upscale suburban lifestyle as an adult, even apart from making the money to do it: mostly the weird neighbor relationships of competitiveness and enforced lawn-care and the way your life is observed and scrutinized and needs to fit within certain parameters to have any kind of social clout.
But there are pockets lots of places of a less upscale but no less nice suburban-feeling lifestyle that doesn't have those weird regimented drawbacks, I think; I remember plenty of people I knew finding places in the nearest Chicago suburbs (or places like Skokie) where they could step into little-lawn pleasantness and avoid the strangeness of strict subdivision stuff. (Actually I think the single thing that makes this difference is still being on some kind of gridded street arrangement, rather than the cozy cul-de-sac subdivision thing where it's suddenly like you live in a 20-family village and are all responsible to one another for stuff like what color you paint your door.)
― nabisco, Friday, 11 July 2008 23:23 (fifteen years ago) link
(I should note that I didn't live in a "suburb," as a child, but in a planned subdivision in a town of about 100,000 -- i.e., basically the same as a suburb except you don't hear about cool new stuff from people in a nearby city.)
― nabisco, Friday, 11 July 2008 23:25 (fifteen years ago) link
Haha wow, not here (Aus) they aren't. The outer burbs are where all the lower middle class families go, because theres no way in hell they could afford even an apartment closer to the city. Inner suburbs here have students in rental, and extremely wealthy ppl in all the older homes/mansions/fancy condos. No one chooses to go live in the sticks, its just all most can afford if they actually want a house and a yard.
― Trayce, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:05 (fifteen years ago) link
mostly the weird neighbor relationships of competitiveness and enforced lawn-care and the way your life is observed and scrutinized and needs to fit within certain parameters to have any kind of social clout.
― circles, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:11 (fifteen years ago) link
Remind me to link this thread next time an American poster points and laughs at British class issues.
Back in the day, I would have agreed with the UK/US divide, and explained that British cities don't really map onto a straightforward urban/suburban plan, but since the outer boroughs of London elected Boris I don't feel remotely inclined to do so.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:28 (fifteen years ago) link
nabisco, as ever, otm
the suburb i grew up in was decent enough. it wasn't at all planned; our house was built in like 1940. there were no brown people (or non-catholics, really, except for me) but i think i largely emerged unscathed by the endemic racism.
cities are grebt and really the only place i wanna live. but there's certainly something to be said for having one's own green space as a child. even if you just turn it into a hockey rink/ballfield/football pitch in your mind.
― mookieproof, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:29 (fifteen years ago) link
thank god you emerged unscathed from that anti-catholic endemic racism, must have been terrible for you!
― bidfurd, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:39 (fifteen years ago) link
oh look, I found a dickwad on the internet.
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:41 (fifteen years ago) link
dude in basketball huddles when everyone's like 'forgive us our tresspasses' and you're all 'forgive us our debts' it can get pretty hairy
xp
― mookieproof, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:42 (fifteen years ago) link
? at my CofE schools we said trespasses
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:49 (fifteen years ago) link
sure, but do you say pop or soda?
― mookieproof, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:50 (fifteen years ago) link
pop
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 12 July 2008 00:51 (fifteen years ago) link
No-one says soda here unless they're talking about sodastreams or cream soda
"Forgive us our debts"? Wait, is this in the lords prayer or something else? "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who debt against us" doesnt seem like it works. Sorry, I'm very obviously not catholic (in fact I know sweet FA about catholicism tbh)
― Trayce, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:04 (fifteen years ago) link
Well I assumed Mookie meant the catholics say "trespasses" and protestants say "debts" unless I read it wrong. This isn't the case here AFAIK everyone says "trespasses"!
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:06 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.spiritheart.org/chapel/lordpryr.htm#matthean
Religion: It's not all fighting with people over translation.
― Noodle Vague, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:06 (fifteen years ago) link
I lived in the suburbs (VERY BRIEFLY) but I'm black and they were like 99% white so those days were more amusing than some of the experiences I'm reading here.
― VeronaInTheClub, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:06 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost so according to that site we were using the catholic version? Weird. Especially considering my secondary school was so protestant we had smashed up statues from the reformation in the school hall!
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:08 (fifteen years ago) link
I guess technically I grew up in a suburb as it was on the edge of town but it was a council estate so not really.
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:09 (fifteen years ago) link
^^Hahahaha.
My experiences were similar but different because I do live in England? Does that make sense? It wasn't wildly different it was typical classist bullshit and freaky neighbours that you can bet your sweet indie record collection were swingers and bible bashers at the same time, one of mine was this alcoholic typical absent father and he used to show up wasted and yell at his ex on the front lawn late at night. I got both 'trespasses' and 'debts'.Parents are protestants, school was catholic. FUN.
― VeronaInTheClub, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:10 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost
My non-denominational, probably CoE leaning schools used "trespasses". When I hear the Lord's Prayer in a Catholic church I'm pretty sure they don't say it. Can't remember what they use instead tho.
― Noodle Vague, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:11 (fifteen years ago) link
where i grew up the FUCKING MICKS said trespassing whilst the FUCKING APOSTATES or whomever said debts. although i think the methodists might have said trespassing as well? maybe it was just the presbyterians. jesus christ.
as to why any of this came up in the huddle of a public-school basketball team is a whole other thing
― mookieproof, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:15 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah I skipped over that whole basketball huddle thing
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:16 (fifteen years ago) link
I do have a pretty sweet indie record collection though.
― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:17 (fifteen years ago) link