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the270.com wrote
Ha ha ha, the suburbs are the new cool
By wyliemac | October 11, 2007
With all due respect to the Columbus Underground urban apologists, but you really ought to rethink your urbanery (i.e. urban snobbery). I know you don’t want to admit it. But the suburbs are cool. Need proof? Check out Detail’s “Is it time to move to the suburbs?”
So let’s think local. And for me, Dublin is local. We’ve got TehKu. We’ve got Corazón. We’ve got Old Dublin. We’ve got Giant Dancing Bunnies. And of course, we’ve got giant freakin Corn. Oh yea, we’ve got the Dublin Irish Festival.
Yea, we might not be a very walkable city. But we’ve got excellent bike paths. So please CU urban guys, stop putting the ‘burbs down. You know who you are.
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Personally, I think one of the supposed “charms” of the suburbs is the friendly, safe, community thing…and I just don’t buy it. I grew up the first 18 years of my life in U.A. and my folks are in Hilliard, and I can say without a doubt they don’t have nearly the sense of community and neighborly friendship that I experience every day in German Village. And although there’s certainly less violent crime in most burbs, I doubt the property crime really is all that different (at least it wasn’t when I was growing up).
I agree with the Details article and columbus in that a lot of first tier cities ahve gotten way too expensive in certain areas. But alot of them, new york included, still have tons of neighborhoods that are affordable (whether everyone wants to live in them is besides the point). But new york is so well laid with subway and busses that most places people would move are reasonably well connected.
When I lived in NYC, Fort Green was sort of this “eh” place to live, now it has become a really neat neighborhood to live in……..and that sort of thing spreads…..
Battleground CU: Urban vs. Suburban
Why is is that there needs to be a polarizing civil war on what is a “better” place to live?
I live in Columbus, but it’s more suburban neighborhood. I do so cuz my “kid” is a German Shepherd who needs some stomping (read: pooping) ground. So…that is what i have to have for my family’s lifestyle.
I dig downtown Columbus and would otherwise love to live in the SN, Arena VV area.
Having said that, I never understand the “we’re better” arguments…as if there is some objective way of quantifying a residential choice. I just think that if folk can’t picture their wants, needs in a different environment they should not simply assess the alternative as inherently bad.
Coremodels, as expected, is throwing this exact tripe around by asserting unequivocally that the suburbs do not possess a sense of community….
Sorry coremodels…but your absolutism is subjective…and also laughable.
It’s no different that a suburbanite posting that downtown is just a cesspool of homeless crackhead prostitutes.
Of the many mistakes polarized folk make while assessing “the enemy” let me make one thing objectively clear: there is WAY more traffic in the burbs than downtown.
Downtown Columbus is the greatest city for getting in, eating, drinking, hockey-watching, etc etc that I have ever experienced. Ample parking, easy in-out road access. Simply fan-effin-tastic.
I cringe if I have to be in Westerville, Polaris, Powell, Dublin, etc anytime from 4-6PM as it’s nuthin but brake lights and frustration.
So when a suburbanite mentions “downtown traffic”, I cringe.
I think ANYWHERE to live is what you make of it. Based purely on my own observations, I think a major reason why urban areas are seen as more social/friendly/higher sense of community is because you’re out and walking more – walking to get to the park, the store, the bar, etc. Since you’re out walking more, you’re more likely to run into people and therefore more likely to get to know folks.
That said, for the folks who take the time to get out & walk in their suburban neighborhoods (for exercise, air, fun, whatever), or get involved there (even with *gasp* the dreaded Homeowner’s Association), you’ll find the people you run into are JUST as friendly, and you’ll find yourself experiencing the same feeling of community. It just takes a little more effort because you’re otherwise not out walking there.
Yeah, I thought that too. The whole show is basically about what looks good on the outside is rarely the case on the inside.
“And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.”
Actually, the credits and show parallel this discussion.
The credits take the position of urbanites: that the burbs are the same houses filled with the same people doing the same things the exact same way.
The show goes on to assert that while presumptions are made that all ib suburbia is “made of ticky-tacky” that those little boxes are actually inhabited by:
widowed drug dealers
brilliant, socially conscious youth
breast cancer survivors
corrupt politicians
middle-age crises
childeren of bitter divorce
materialistic jesus freaks
and most importantly:
3-toed fetish porn stars
Hardly “ticky-tacky”. Thus the point of the show and a legitimate comparison for the sake of this thread.
Sorry coremodels…but your absolutism is subjective…and also laughable.
Being that my post was my opinion…of course it’s subjective. I’d be happy to link definitions on dictionary.com for you of “opinion” and “subjective” if you’d like…
My opinion however, is based on 18 years of suburbs living and 20 years of urban living.
Much like your opinion that the burbs are a better place to have a dog, while mine…again…are exactly the opposite, and a huge reason I live in GV is because I’m able to allow my dog to play off leash with 10-30 dogs every single day for 2-3 hours at Schiller. As opposed to having a big yard he can poop in by himself.
BTW, that’s one of the reasons (and as Shroud mentioned, walking) that I think it is a more friendly place, because people have more situations to interact more regularly.
p.s. Other than posting an opinion of my opinion and rereading your post twice…do you actually have an opinion on the issue at hand? Because best I can tell it was “I live in the suburbs…but I’d like to live downtown…but traffic is bad in the suburbs…but traffic is good downtown…”
This only holds if you work downtown. Just driving around 270 you can see office park after office park of non-downtown working environments.
To me, it’s a bit of chicken/egg problem. Did people move out to the subs and then the office parks followed? Or did the office parks create more suburbia?
I don’t know that there’s necessarily a correlation at all – I think it’s more a parallel thing. Office parks crop up in the burbs because it’s cheap to build them there. New housing subdivisions crop up in the burbs because it’s cheap to build THEM there.
There are other more social aspects as well – white flight-type factors, but cost is a big one – especially for the office parks.
I would say New Albany is the only one I’d definitively say was a suburb built around an office, so to speak.
It has it’s place I guess, It’s just not my cup of tea.
How are the German Village Society Guidelines not the same thing as a Home Owners Association?
Also, where are these gated communities that some seem to detest so much? Maybe I need to get out more.
LOL…GV’s are a helluva lot stricter ;)
This only holds if you work downtown. Just driving around 270 you can see office park after office park of non-downtown working environments.
To me, it’s a bit of chicken/egg problem. Did people move out to the subs and then the office parks followed? Or did the office parks create more suburbia?
+1
I work in Westerville and while I don’t have quite as much time sitting in traffic as I would if I were driving into downtown, there’s still quite a bit of traffic…..
Well said! :D
Regardless of what is considered cool, or what our personal preferences are, the choice to live a largely car-centric lifestyle requires buying lots and lots of gasoline, which also means dependence upon foreign oil.
If the cost of energy continues to rise over the long-term, will the suburban way of life remain a viable option, even if it is preferred?
Yes, I believe it will. I saw on tv last month where some talking head said that if gas rose to 10 bucks, Americans would cut almost everything out of their lives to drive. It’s a powerful force. And today, the majority (especially young people) didn’t ‘leave” the city or “flee” it. They grew up in a subdivision. It’s what they know. It’s normal. Cities are fighting against this cultural norm, and most are perpetually losing the vote of feet.
I have a feeling that if energy prices actually rose to the levels that some are predicting, the effects that it would have on the modern, suburban lifestyle are far greater than most anyone can foresee. It goes far beyond just our driving habits. What about the cost of heating all of the suburban McMansions? Who is going to pay to maintain highways that fewer and fewer people can afford to use?
Though some people consider him somewhat of an alarmist, I think that James Howard Kunstler makes some fairly persuasive arguments regarding just how great an effect the future shortage of oil may have on suburban (and even urban) America. No more Caesar salads trucked in from California, as he likes to point out.
At that point, it won’t matter what is cool or what is preferred.
Regardless of what is considered cool, or what our personal preferences are, the choice to live a largely car-centric lifestyle requires buying lots and lots of gasoline, which also means dependence upon foreign oil.
If the cost of energy continues to rise over the long-term, will the suburban way of life remain a viable option, even if it is preferred?
Yes, I believe it will. I saw on tv last month where some talking head said that if gas rose to 10 bucks, Americans would cut almost everything out of their lives to drive. It’s a powerful force. And today, the majority (especially young people) didn’t ‘leave” the city or “flee” it. They grew up in a subdivision. It’s what they know. It’s normal. Cities are fighting against this cultural norm, and most are perpetually losing the vote of feet.
I have a feeling that if energy prices actually rose to the levels that some are predicting, the effects that it would have on the modern, suburban lifestyle are far greater than most anyone can foresee. It goes far beyond just our driving habits. What about the cost of heating all of the suburban McMansions? Who is going to pay to maintain highways that fewer and fewer people can afford to use?
Though some people consider him somewhat of an alarmist, I think that James Howard Kunstler makes some fairly persuasive arguments regarding just how great an effect the future shortage of oil may have on suburban (and even urban) America. No more Caesar salads trucked in from California, as he likes to point out.
At that point, it won’t matter what is cool or what is preferred.
If gas does rise that much through unfettered demand, then perhaps we should just pass a law requiring that all suburbanites or their children serve in our armed services for at least a few years so we can recoup the investment in grabbing more oil lands and justify the services that extend outwards from the city core to them.
Surburbs are an interesting outgrowth of our always changing opinion of where it “safest” for us & our progeny to exist. The cities past drawing power was linked to a perception of safety achieved through “safety in numbers”, and of course physical limitations on the extension of various services: fire, water, police etc.
What are suburbs today was once the “frontier”, subject to raiding parties, pretty defenseless outside of self-defense, and generally a pretty inhospitable place for the “soft” city dweller. The advent of the interstate system and the upgrade in communications capabilities made the extension of services easier, and the perception of “safety” expanded outside the typcial city. Of course riots, demostrations, etc eroded the perception of “safety” linked to cities as most people (myself definitely NOT included) don’t yearn for revolutions on a regular basis. What once was “safe” is now the “frontier” and what once was the “frontier” is now “safe”. A key indicator is that older couples who’ve raised their progeny now are moving back into the city (meaning it’s not families coming here who think they’ve have the most to risk, but those who think they have the least).
Surbubia’s day of reckoning is just starting to dawn as endlessly increasing extension of services requires a continuous massive allocation of resources, resources they just can’t provide for themselves with such low population density. As such, their bill is just beginning to come due in the same way the riots, demostrations, and the like were the bills marked decades past due to the cities. For refernce, go look up some fascinating articles recently on some of the suburban ghost towns out in Arizona due the to home bubble popping, a certainly minor bubble comparing to people’s perceptions of resource availibility.
The next couple decade(s) will certainly be interesting in that I think we’ll see if the suburbanites have the stomach to fight for the resources they’ll need to keep their lifestyle choices afloat.
Yeah, I really hope I am an alarmist, but I really think peak oil is soon to come (if it has not already.) OPEC is drastically lying about their reserves (according to ( http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Desert-Coming-Saudi-Economy/dp/0471790184/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9517215-5503928?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192210772&sr=8-1 ) Europe is grabbing the North Sea and Russian oil. China and India are grabbing all the new exploration (Africa and SA), while the dollar is hitting near lows against just about all currencies (which would be good for reducing the trade deficit, only if we aren’t importing oil that is getting expedientially more expensive) . Shit is going to hit the fan very soon. As long as there is not anarchy, I think I will enjoy the world more after peak oil. Although, it would be so nice if we would put in some of the needed infrastructure before shit hits the fan. :(
Aren’t most McMansions built recently, and therefore would probably be pretty energy efficient? At least more insulated than, let’s say, an 1925 Craftsman that’s in Clintonville? Would have an updated furnace, double pane windows, etc…. I don’t think the cost of heating is going to be that large of an issue.
If fewer people use the highways, won’t they need to be maintained less? Instead of keeping a 5 lanes up to code, maybe just one or two.
Though some people consider him somewhat of an alarmist, I think that James Howard Kunstler makes some fairly persuasive arguments regarding just how great an effect the future shortage of oil may have on suburban (and even urban) America. No more Caesar salads trucked in from California, as he likes to point out.
At that point, it won’t matter what is cool or what is preferred.
Somehow I think that suburbia will survive without the current luxuries. The way I’m reading this, it seems to me that you don’t think that people will adapt or we won’t make advances that will enable our way of life to continue.
This whole “peak oil” discussion reminds me of how people thought we were going to run out of food before the agricultural revolution. Sure, lack of food probably limited population growth for a long time, but we worked it out, and now there are billions of humans. Lack of oil will slow us down for a while, something will come along and we’ll have Mr. Fusion powering our cars or something.
Who knows.
I doubt that whatever happens that people will abandon the suburbs. They’ll change and adapt just like everything must to survive.
Sorry coremodels…but your absolutism is subjective…and also laughable.
Being that my post was my opinion…of course it’s subjective. I’d be happy to link definitions on dictionary.com for you of “opinion” and “subjective” if you’d like…
My opinion however, is based on 18 years of suburbs living and 20 years of urban living.
Much like your opinion that the burbs are a better place to have a dog, while mine…again…are exactly the opposite, and a huge reason I live in GV is because I’m able to allow my dog to play off leash with 10-30 dogs every single day for 2-3 hours at Schiller. As opposed to having a big yard he can poop in by himself.
BTW, that’s one of the reasons (and as Shroud mentioned, walking) that I think it is a more friendly place, because people have more situations to interact more regularly.
p.s. Other than posting an opinion of my opinion and rereading your post twice…do you actually have an opinion on the issue at hand? Because best I can tell it was “I live in the suburbs…but I’d like to live downtown…but traffic is bad in the suburbs…but traffic is good downtown…”
This…
“I grew up the first 18 years of my life in U.A. and my folks are in Hilliard, and I can say without a doubt they don’t have nearly the sense of community and neighborly friendship that I experience every day in German Village. “
…you stating “fact”, and “without a doubt”.
This…
“I never understand the “we’re better” arguments…as if there is some objective way of quantifying a residential choice. I just think that if folk can’t picture their wants, needs in a different environment they should not simply assess the alternative as inherently bad. “
…is my opinion (note the “I think”) and exactly my stand on this argument
Read.
Comprehend.
Post.
LOL…I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that every post on a fucking FORUM needed to come with the disclaimer of “I THINK” or “IN MY OPINION”.
Get over yourself BCOZ…shouldn’t you be making flyers for the next OSU game so someone comes to your restaurant and buys a 12.00 hamburger or something?
There, I’ve changed my signature to avoid confusion.