Because you are neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth
March 28, 2019 7:29 PM Subscribe
Suzannah Lessard, Why Do We Hate The Suburbs?
I don't hate suburbs at all. I hate suburbs that are designed around the car, often without so much as any concession at all to pedestrians and cyclists. A community designed to force all trips to be by car with an intentionally convoluted branching street layout that adds a mile or more to each trip are made to be soulless noplaces.
That said, some people love them and that's ok. While they can never be truly sustainable given their design, they can be made carbon neutral thanks to large roof areas and in most cases minimal tree canopy making them amenable to rooftop solar and the emergence of battery powered cars with multi-hundred mile range.
If people want to live there, I'm not going to tell them no. I am going to ask them to please do it in a way that won't dispossess millions of their countrymen and an order of magnitude more worldwide. Outside of a relatively few areas in some states, doing so literally makes you richer, even without any tax incentives. In many cases, it's a cash flow positive deal from day one even including financing costs. Don't be one of those assholes who wastes money just because you think climate change is a hoax.
posted by wierdo at 8:23 PM on March 28, 2019 [19 favorites]
That said, some people love them and that's ok. While they can never be truly sustainable given their design, they can be made carbon neutral thanks to large roof areas and in most cases minimal tree canopy making them amenable to rooftop solar and the emergence of battery powered cars with multi-hundred mile range.
If people want to live there, I'm not going to tell them no. I am going to ask them to please do it in a way that won't dispossess millions of their countrymen and an order of magnitude more worldwide. Outside of a relatively few areas in some states, doing so literally makes you richer, even without any tax incentives. In many cases, it's a cash flow positive deal from day one even including financing costs. Don't be one of those assholes who wastes money just because you think climate change is a hoax.
posted by wierdo at 8:23 PM on March 28, 2019 [19 favorites]
(admittedly, of that school, Stuart Hall did a fair bit more on issues of race and class, but c'mon, dude was still very definitely A Socialist, he didn't just muse about the hills of Wales)
posted by halation at 8:27 PM on March 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by halation at 8:27 PM on March 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I mean so many of the suburbs were historically set up post-WWII as implicit if not explicit "whites only" zones and where white people would move to to flee the cities full of brown people so there are a few reasons to hate suburbs that are not so superficial...
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:34 PM on March 28, 2019 [39 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:34 PM on March 28, 2019 [39 favorites]
...because they fucking suck. That's all I can say on this issue.
posted by jwest at 8:40 PM on March 28, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by jwest at 8:40 PM on March 28, 2019 [15 favorites]
I was priced out of Seattle and into the suburbs - which is saying a lot since my husband and I work in tech. I was pretty resistant to the move because I have always preferred the city, but since moving here I realize a lot of it is rooted in a snobbishness of sorts. This belief that the suburbs are full of Stepford wives and chain restaurants.
It turns out, many of the suburbs of Seattle are way more diverse than the city itself and there is a lot to experience here that would be less accessible from the city. We have great Indian, Taiwanese, and Szechaun food. My neighborhood alone is a mix of low-income apartments, middle class homes, and a few million-dollar homes. The schools are excellent. People are way more friendly and the Seattle freeze really doesn't exist out here. You can get to a quality hiking trail or ski lift in less than 90 minutes. You can have a garden to grow vegetables, and restaurant delivery isn't as much of a thing so you either cook or go out to a restaurant or bar and sit there.. and, gasp, talk to people.
Also, it is nice to get out of my liberal bubble. Some people here are a little more conservative. I don't agree with them but I feel more connected to my country hearing a more diverse set of opinions.
The only advantage the city has is the public transit for people who live and work in the city. Sadly, owning a car and driving still works out to be more economical both from a time and money standpoint than living in the city for me. I would like for that not to be the case, but city life is becoming unsustainable for a lot of us. Diverse housing options are important.
posted by joan_holloway at 8:47 PM on March 28, 2019 [40 favorites]
It turns out, many of the suburbs of Seattle are way more diverse than the city itself and there is a lot to experience here that would be less accessible from the city. We have great Indian, Taiwanese, and Szechaun food. My neighborhood alone is a mix of low-income apartments, middle class homes, and a few million-dollar homes. The schools are excellent. People are way more friendly and the Seattle freeze really doesn't exist out here. You can get to a quality hiking trail or ski lift in less than 90 minutes. You can have a garden to grow vegetables, and restaurant delivery isn't as much of a thing so you either cook or go out to a restaurant or bar and sit there.. and, gasp, talk to people.
Also, it is nice to get out of my liberal bubble. Some people here are a little more conservative. I don't agree with them but I feel more connected to my country hearing a more diverse set of opinions.
The only advantage the city has is the public transit for people who live and work in the city. Sadly, owning a car and driving still works out to be more economical both from a time and money standpoint than living in the city for me. I would like for that not to be the case, but city life is becoming unsustainable for a lot of us. Diverse housing options are important.
posted by joan_holloway at 8:47 PM on March 28, 2019 [40 favorites]
I grew up in the suburbs of Long Island. It was a comfortable, safe place, aside from the occasional ritual satanic murder. I don't miss it but I don't hate it, either. It is definitely less diverse than Philadelphia, and one of my most vivid memories is of bringing my Black studio partner to our local Sweet Shop and experiencing bald-faced racism. Definitely not where I would choose to live as an adult.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:14 PM on March 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:14 PM on March 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
This is specific to the town I grew up in, but I experienced the suburbs as a profoundly isolating place. There was no sense of community. I rarely saw people walking down the street. I'd go biking for hours passing through parks and playgrounds and see zero other kids. If this were the country, I would've understood, but I was surrounded by houses, so it was really unsettling - where was everybody? I've literally had more interactions with my neighbours in the last 2 years in NYC than in 20+ years in the suburbs.
posted by airmail at 9:18 PM on March 28, 2019 [24 favorites]
posted by airmail at 9:18 PM on March 28, 2019 [24 favorites]
Y'al, y'all, y'all... There are hordes of gentrifying white people erecting coffee shops and whimsical reclaimed vintage whatnot emporiums on twenty year-old notions of what the city is like as we speak. And there are Buddhist temples, Eastern European supermarkets, and Mandarin immersion schools being built atop the suburbs that struck you as overly homogeneous before you left for college.
Gentrification is a thing. Reverse migration into the suburbs is a thing.
My suburban fourth grader is in a class of 23, only four of which are white, and only one of those (not him, btw) being the child of two American-born parents. 2019 is way more complicated than "The city is diverse and the 'burbs are all TGI Friday's!"
If reverse migration hasn't hit where you live yet, give it time. Every overpriced vintage vinyl store and artisanal cheese and wine place that goes up in the city where a Polish butcher and a Mexican restaurant once were is matched with a Filipino grocery and a banh mi place going up in the 'burbs.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:46 PM on March 28, 2019 [119 favorites]
Gentrification is a thing. Reverse migration into the suburbs is a thing.
My suburban fourth grader is in a class of 23, only four of which are white, and only one of those (not him, btw) being the child of two American-born parents. 2019 is way more complicated than "The city is diverse and the 'burbs are all TGI Friday's!"
If reverse migration hasn't hit where you live yet, give it time. Every overpriced vintage vinyl store and artisanal cheese and wine place that goes up in the city where a Polish butcher and a Mexican restaurant once were is matched with a Filipino grocery and a banh mi place going up in the 'burbs.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:46 PM on March 28, 2019 [119 favorites]
halation, thank you very much for reading the link and reacting to something other than just bare text of the post. I appreciate it.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:50 PM on March 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:50 PM on March 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
By the way, I did grow up in an "ethnic" suburb. I'm not white, and neither were most of the people I knew. My problem with the suburbs had nothing to do with whiteness. But don't count on ethnic restaurants to add flavour to a community (*badum tish*).
posted by airmail at 11:01 PM on March 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by airmail at 11:01 PM on March 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Is it really so much 'the city is bad'
It was very much, and very explicitly, "people of color, especially black people, are bad." While there may have been local exceptions, this is just not at all possible to question as a general principle in the U.S. (I will recommend once again Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law to anyone even vaguely interested in race relations or cities or law in the U.S.) That inner-ring suburbs with bad transit are once again taking up a role as zones of misery doesn't change the fundamentals on which the present-day U.S. population distribution was constructed. One should really not be allowed to write articles like this one that wish this history out of existence, as if the issues were merely aesthetic.
posted by praemunire at 11:07 PM on March 28, 2019 [18 favorites]
It was very much, and very explicitly, "people of color, especially black people, are bad." While there may have been local exceptions, this is just not at all possible to question as a general principle in the U.S. (I will recommend once again Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law to anyone even vaguely interested in race relations or cities or law in the U.S.) That inner-ring suburbs with bad transit are once again taking up a role as zones of misery doesn't change the fundamentals on which the present-day U.S. population distribution was constructed. One should really not be allowed to write articles like this one that wish this history out of existence, as if the issues were merely aesthetic.
posted by praemunire at 11:07 PM on March 28, 2019 [18 favorites]
Hi, I am from burbs. My guesses:
* Burbs exist because "I wanna buy a house" and "I can't afford one anywhere I actually want to live." The farther away you get from anywhere anyone wants to live, the cheaper buying a house is. So you live out in the middle of nowhere, can't get a job there, and have to drive 2 hours to the city to work. Is a house THAT worth it?
* Public transport either sucks or is nonexistent, nobody walks anywhere and can't if they want to.
* There is jack fucking shit out there to do. Where I am from, they've finally fixed it up over the years and they have a very nice First Street (note: with a sex toy shop on it!), and some very nice movie and theater theaters, and now they have two mega craft stores. Still no bookstore though. But growing up there, NOTHING. Had to drive away to do anything.
* Burbs have limited opportunities for non-house-buying activities, so you always have to commute out somewhere in your car.
* Burbs have limited opportunities for say, budding artists who'd like to do certain activities but very few people in your burbs want to do them. I have had to drive out to the nearest city to find people to do improv with (in the past, anyway) and writing groups because there's only maybe 2-4 people here interested in that and then they all flake out.
Then there's the aforementioned snobbery, "good schools" drama, etc. on top of that.
On the other hand, I have walked home at 3 a.m. in the burbs and been fine, so there is also that. Less people does tend to mean less trouble and drama going on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:17 PM on March 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
* Burbs exist because "I wanna buy a house" and "I can't afford one anywhere I actually want to live." The farther away you get from anywhere anyone wants to live, the cheaper buying a house is. So you live out in the middle of nowhere, can't get a job there, and have to drive 2 hours to the city to work. Is a house THAT worth it?
* Public transport either sucks or is nonexistent, nobody walks anywhere and can't if they want to.
* There is jack fucking shit out there to do. Where I am from, they've finally fixed it up over the years and they have a very nice First Street (note: with a sex toy shop on it!), and some very nice movie and theater theaters, and now they have two mega craft stores. Still no bookstore though. But growing up there, NOTHING. Had to drive away to do anything.
* Burbs have limited opportunities for non-house-buying activities, so you always have to commute out somewhere in your car.
* Burbs have limited opportunities for say, budding artists who'd like to do certain activities but very few people in your burbs want to do them. I have had to drive out to the nearest city to find people to do improv with (in the past, anyway) and writing groups because there's only maybe 2-4 people here interested in that and then they all flake out.
Then there's the aforementioned snobbery, "good schools" drama, etc. on top of that.
On the other hand, I have walked home at 3 a.m. in the burbs and been fine, so there is also that. Less people does tend to mean less trouble and drama going on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:17 PM on March 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I don't understand how the author can write for so long on the topic of hating suburbs and not once mention cars. Cars are at the root of most things that are bad about the suburbs. Suburbs not built around cars are a different beast entirely, but rare.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:35 PM on March 28, 2019 [45 favorites]
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:35 PM on March 28, 2019 [45 favorites]
a springboard for twenty dissertations. that was some lovely writing, and engaging history that stopped right around the time you have to get serious about american industrialization and distinguish the usefully-inhabited-into-misty-antiquity "structure of feeling" concerning pastoral (if sometimes artificial) british and european landscapes from manifest destiny's conquest of a landscape ten generations separated from its own actual historicity as human habitation, so regarded as primal, wilderness, and then building cities with absolute disregard of the actual habitability of the terrain and hinterlands around industry and ranching and extracting resources at scale. (aha: i see it is an excerpt from suzannah lessard's the absent hand: reimagining our american landscape)
in my case, i guess i'm a child of suburbs, although the kind of suburbs that were once cities of their own, absorbed into larger adjacent cities mostly before my time, though still, administratively, politically, their own cities. sometimes in a suburban region but in a solitary house between scattered subdivisions; sometimes in an absorbed city in a subdivision. i live in a city that is a suburb now, on a street very like a town street, where, in the 1950's neighbors might have hailed each other from front porches and perambulated, but i know it was all one guy's farm (adjacent to the city) in 1900. so, suburb may encompass a wide spectrum of things. i have also lived in cities and in isolated rural locales. i relate to the landscape of the non(or pre-?)subdivision suburban house where there was a woods and a particular tree. the tree of my tree-climbing childhood whose lowest branch hung above the corner fencepost of the yard where we planted our rootball xmas tree every winter, and the woods and paths and creeks behind it yonder (leading, eventually to aspiring subdivisions with tantalizing incomplete houses gaping amid piles of mud and gravel). i think there is structure of feeling there, or nostalgia or something, but it is nothing that i shared with a prior generation nor will i pass it on to another. i begin to relate to the fraction of an acre rectangle i steward now where i learn to garden a bit and try to eradicate english ivy and regard with suspicion from a window that car idling at the curb (something about the road's feng shui: it is just where everyone needing to take a call or whatever pulls over i guess). i also often admire my neighbors' landscaping (oft performed by a hired expert) and flowers. my flowers are lovely but those surviving are my predecessor's, mostly not entirely mine.
there is a lot that is stupid and sucks about suburbs. that's for sure. i don't hate them, particularly. actually, i don't feel about them at all. they were there before i was; i managed to find meaning (or not, mmmv) there and not feel my individuality too impugned by drab uniformity. hell, deploring drab uniformity was old before i was even born. in contrast to my recent city dwelling, i like not being in a tenants' association and constantly struggling with a landlord (the bank, meh. equity or something, right?), and the quiet relative isolation; i am disappointed that an affordable grocer is not within reasonable walking distance, and that, it turns out, i have traded the frequent ambulances at the corner outside the urban apartment for the fire brigade heading anywhere east. public transport pretty good both places (but don't tell the local transportation authority i said so).
i often suspect a casual evaluation of coolness informs many a reflexive suburbophobe; but, i bet a majority of your avowed suburbophobes were raised in the suburbs, and just like those farmboys and small-town girls of storied yore yearned to break out, make it to the big city, yeah, really be someone. and most of them aren't and never will be, but are just people who labor somewhere in this hellscape and need to live somewhere, maybe with a family.
there is a lot that is stupid and sucks about dense concentrations of people. there are a lot of people in the suburbs: they wouldn't all fit in the cities and neither the cities nor the cities' intellectuals would want or welcome them.
posted by 20 year lurk at 11:40 PM on March 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
in my case, i guess i'm a child of suburbs, although the kind of suburbs that were once cities of their own, absorbed into larger adjacent cities mostly before my time, though still, administratively, politically, their own cities. sometimes in a suburban region but in a solitary house between scattered subdivisions; sometimes in an absorbed city in a subdivision. i live in a city that is a suburb now, on a street very like a town street, where, in the 1950's neighbors might have hailed each other from front porches and perambulated, but i know it was all one guy's farm (adjacent to the city) in 1900. so, suburb may encompass a wide spectrum of things. i have also lived in cities and in isolated rural locales. i relate to the landscape of the non(or pre-?)subdivision suburban house where there was a woods and a particular tree. the tree of my tree-climbing childhood whose lowest branch hung above the corner fencepost of the yard where we planted our rootball xmas tree every winter, and the woods and paths and creeks behind it yonder (leading, eventually to aspiring subdivisions with tantalizing incomplete houses gaping amid piles of mud and gravel). i think there is structure of feeling there, or nostalgia or something, but it is nothing that i shared with a prior generation nor will i pass it on to another. i begin to relate to the fraction of an acre rectangle i steward now where i learn to garden a bit and try to eradicate english ivy and regard with suspicion from a window that car idling at the curb (something about the road's feng shui: it is just where everyone needing to take a call or whatever pulls over i guess). i also often admire my neighbors' landscaping (oft performed by a hired expert) and flowers. my flowers are lovely but those surviving are my predecessor's, mostly not entirely mine.
there is a lot that is stupid and sucks about suburbs. that's for sure. i don't hate them, particularly. actually, i don't feel about them at all. they were there before i was; i managed to find meaning (or not, mmmv) there and not feel my individuality too impugned by drab uniformity. hell, deploring drab uniformity was old before i was even born. in contrast to my recent city dwelling, i like not being in a tenants' association and constantly struggling with a landlord (the bank, meh. equity or something, right?), and the quiet relative isolation; i am disappointed that an affordable grocer is not within reasonable walking distance, and that, it turns out, i have traded the frequent ambulances at the corner outside the urban apartment for the fire brigade heading anywhere east. public transport pretty good both places (but don't tell the local transportation authority i said so).
i often suspect a casual evaluation of coolness informs many a reflexive suburbophobe; but, i bet a majority of your avowed suburbophobes were raised in the suburbs, and just like those farmboys and small-town girls of storied yore yearned to break out, make it to the big city, yeah, really be someone. and most of them aren't and never will be, but are just people who labor somewhere in this hellscape and need to live somewhere, maybe with a family.
there is a lot that is stupid and sucks about dense concentrations of people. there are a lot of people in the suburbs: they wouldn't all fit in the cities and neither the cities nor the cities' intellectuals would want or welcome them.
posted by 20 year lurk at 11:40 PM on March 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
That the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 11:46 PM on March 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
The unattractive truth
That the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 11:46 PM on March 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
> Suburbs not built around cars are a different beast entirely, but rare.
In my limited experience, they are everywhere in Europe. The Dutch and Swedes built and live in a lot of suburbs. But they have safe bike paths, a mix of apartments and villas, and grocery store locations zoned within walking distance of 80% of houses.
(they are still boring as hell to visit though)
posted by anthill at 11:50 PM on March 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
In my limited experience, they are everywhere in Europe. The Dutch and Swedes built and live in a lot of suburbs. But they have safe bike paths, a mix of apartments and villas, and grocery store locations zoned within walking distance of 80% of houses.
(they are still boring as hell to visit though)
posted by anthill at 11:50 PM on March 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
Because, unlike the city, you cannot even pretend to have any intimacy with the people living next door. The physical distance exceeds your ability to deceive yourself.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:32 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Going To Maine at 12:32 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: a comfortable, safe place, aside from the occasional ritual satanic murder.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:37 AM on March 29, 2019 [21 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 12:37 AM on March 29, 2019 [21 favorites]
I've literally had more interactions with my neighbours in the last 2 years in NYC than in 20+ years in the suburbs.
I lived in the suburbs for nine years before moving back to the city and I had more interactions with my neighbors in a week than I had in almost a decade out there. It was just so profoundly isolating living in the burbs. We even lived in a townhouse complex so it's not a distance issue, they just wouldn't talk to us.
posted by octothorpe at 3:13 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I lived in the suburbs for nine years before moving back to the city and I had more interactions with my neighbors in a week than I had in almost a decade out there. It was just so profoundly isolating living in the burbs. We even lived in a townhouse complex so it's not a distance issue, they just wouldn't talk to us.
posted by octothorpe at 3:13 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I hate the suburbs because I don’t drive and so sparse development with large parking lots and inconsistent sidewalks is inconvenient for me almost to the point of feeling hostile. It’s really simple. I agree that not mentioning cars was a real weird choice for this piece.
posted by eirias at 3:43 AM on March 29, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by eirias at 3:43 AM on March 29, 2019 [13 favorites]
Sadly, owning a car and driving still works out to be more economical both from a time and money standpoint than living in the city for me. I would like for that not to be the case, but city life is becoming unsustainable for a lot of us.
This is an odd definition of unsustainable. Switching from public transit to private cars is not increasing sustainability.
posted by Dysk at 3:57 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
This is an odd definition of unsustainable. Switching from public transit to private cars is not increasing sustainability.
posted by Dysk at 3:57 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I guess it depends on the suburb and the neighborhood? I grew up in the DC suburbs, which were and are multi-national. My family knew and talked to all the neighbors, the majority of whom were immigrants. My neighbors on one side were Greek, on the other side were English and when they moved out, an older German couple moved in (German Christmas cookies!) Across the street, Armenian. There was a lot of sharing of food, especially around the holidays, and spontaneous summer outdoor parties. My parents live at the bottom of a steep hill, and have a long driveway, and after the Armenians bought a snowblower one winter, it got passed around the neighborhood like communal property.
I now live in what I guess might be called a suburb. It's not urban, and it's not rural -- it's single family homes but built in the 1910s-1920s, so compact houses on 1/8th or 1/10th acre lots. My neighbors on one side are standoffish and don't even wave back when I see them outside, but the others are friendly and we chat occasionally. Again, people are outside a lot, biking or jogging or walking the dog. I think most everyone has a car because this city is car-dependent even if you live in the middle of downtown, but that doesn't stop people in this neighborhood from being outside and interacting.
By contrast, I recently went to a dinner party hosted by a colleague who lives in a McMansion development a couple miles away. It was a lovely warm evening, but aside from some people at the nearby golf course, I didn't see a soul outdoors. The houses were enormous, set well back from the street, all with attached garages. No cars in driveways. You honestly couldn't tell, until it was late enough for the sun to go down and houselights to go on, if anyone was home or not. And the shutterless empty voids of McMansion windows are really damn creepy. I'm sure the people in those houses are perfectly pleasant -- I know my colleague is -- but damn, their homes are hostile.
posted by basalganglia at 4:13 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
I now live in what I guess might be called a suburb. It's not urban, and it's not rural -- it's single family homes but built in the 1910s-1920s, so compact houses on 1/8th or 1/10th acre lots. My neighbors on one side are standoffish and don't even wave back when I see them outside, but the others are friendly and we chat occasionally. Again, people are outside a lot, biking or jogging or walking the dog. I think most everyone has a car because this city is car-dependent even if you live in the middle of downtown, but that doesn't stop people in this neighborhood from being outside and interacting.
By contrast, I recently went to a dinner party hosted by a colleague who lives in a McMansion development a couple miles away. It was a lovely warm evening, but aside from some people at the nearby golf course, I didn't see a soul outdoors. The houses were enormous, set well back from the street, all with attached garages. No cars in driveways. You honestly couldn't tell, until it was late enough for the sun to go down and houselights to go on, if anyone was home or not. And the shutterless empty voids of McMansion windows are really damn creepy. I'm sure the people in those houses are perfectly pleasant -- I know my colleague is -- but damn, their homes are hostile.
posted by basalganglia at 4:13 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
Sustainable doesn't have to equal environmentally sustainable. Can't do it forever because the money will run out is a kind of unsustainable too.
posted by deadwax at 4:15 AM on March 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by deadwax at 4:15 AM on March 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
>
It seems obvious to me that joan_holloway means unsustainable in terms of “we cannot personally sustain the lifestyle” financially, or on another practical short-term axis like that, rather than “it is environmentally sustainable that we are unable to afford living in this particular city.”
posted by XMLicious at 4:16 AM on March 29, 2019 [11 favorites]
Sadly, owning a car and driving still works out to be more economical both from a time and money standpoint than living in the city for me. I would like for that not to be the case, but city life is becoming unsustainable for a lot of us.
This is an odd definition of unsustainable. Switching from public transit to private cars is not increasing sustainability.
It seems obvious to me that joan_holloway means unsustainable in terms of “we cannot personally sustain the lifestyle” financially, or on another practical short-term axis like that, rather than “it is environmentally sustainable that we are unable to afford living in this particular city.”
posted by XMLicious at 4:16 AM on March 29, 2019 [11 favorites]
Trading one unsustainability factor for another is not more sustainable.
posted by Dysk at 4:19 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 4:19 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I really don't understand why you are behaving as though the only meaning of the word “sustainable” is “environmentally sustainable”. If you're watching the Tour de France or something like that and a commentator says “He can't sustain that speed!” you don't start asserting that travelling by bicycle is definitely sustainable, do you?
posted by XMLicious at 4:23 AM on March 29, 2019 [21 favorites]
posted by XMLicious at 4:23 AM on March 29, 2019 [21 favorites]
It was a comment about sustainable lifestyles. A lifestyle that depends on cars is inherently unsustainable. That another lifestyle might not be sustainable either (for whatever reason) does not make depending on cars sustainable.
posted by Dysk at 4:25 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 4:25 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I live in the suburbs now. Previously, I lived in a row house in a small village. I hated it: too close to our neighbors, so our dog barking was a reason for an unwelcome visit. Someone shouting during a fight might have a very undesired police response. Our black lives matter flag provoked immediate response with not only its theft, but blue lives matter flags popping up on all the other houses. When you live next to someone, you're all up in their business, and personally, my partner and I don't like that. We don't want people swinging by unannounced. We don't want to be bothered while we're sitting on the couch watching telly or reading. We don't want landlords asking about our long-term plans (the period in time when the landlady was showing the place and thus we had to endure multiple strangers in the house was unbearable intrusive). We want the freedom to be left alone.
And also, there just wasn't enough space for us to do the things we did care about. There was no space to build a woodshop that my partner uses to make a living. No place to garden, to grow a small orchard, to cultivate plants for beauty and consumption.
I'm from the countryside, so the suburbs are more packed together than what I'm used to, but it's better than my past. A nice 50s brick house that we're working to make sustainable (solar panels and geothermal heating/cooling go in in the next two months). A round loop to jog around where I don't have to worry about being hit by a car. A grocery store within a two miles. I wish there were more sidewalks and bike paths, but perhaps I can lobby the town to start building/maintaining those where I live. The irony is thick: only now being left alone can we feel like being part of the community on our terms.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 4:29 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
And also, there just wasn't enough space for us to do the things we did care about. There was no space to build a woodshop that my partner uses to make a living. No place to garden, to grow a small orchard, to cultivate plants for beauty and consumption.
I'm from the countryside, so the suburbs are more packed together than what I'm used to, but it's better than my past. A nice 50s brick house that we're working to make sustainable (solar panels and geothermal heating/cooling go in in the next two months). A round loop to jog around where I don't have to worry about being hit by a car. A grocery store within a two miles. I wish there were more sidewalks and bike paths, but perhaps I can lobby the town to start building/maintaining those where I live. The irony is thick: only now being left alone can we feel like being part of the community on our terms.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 4:29 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
This was a beautiful article.
Didn’t they realize that the “countryside” they loved was really a kind of picturesque park, an amenity, a redoubt of privilege? Didn’t they see that they hated suburbia because it was an intrusion on that comfortable and exclusive bastion?
Where I live used to be surburb until Toronto’s “the six” were amalgamated. (But really it is.) My street is directly on the Scarborough Bluffs and there’s an original home, along with the odd “winterized cottage” relict on the edge of them, interspersed with all the 1960s bungalows like mine. I’m much more aware of the landscape and nature here because, living right on the edge of Lake Ontario, I’m in it all the time. And yet the dreamy paths and hidden beaches I enjoy are almost entirely hidden from most of the people who drive by a bit north, and I feel sometimes that this was by design of a few property owners who held out. (More likely it was the railroad; also there are plans to connect us up along the lake with more popular beaches, which is fine by me as long as I can therefore bike everywhere.)
What strikes me though is that my neighbours both work from home and so that original industrial divide is starting to blur a bit...it’s not the same as having the cow pasture up against the kitchen garden, but they both tend their homes and frankly look after all us commuting schmoes much differently.
I almost want to re-read Howard’s End now. Thanks for the post!
posted by warriorqueen at 4:48 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Didn’t they realize that the “countryside” they loved was really a kind of picturesque park, an amenity, a redoubt of privilege? Didn’t they see that they hated suburbia because it was an intrusion on that comfortable and exclusive bastion?
Where I live used to be surburb until Toronto’s “the six” were amalgamated. (But really it is.) My street is directly on the Scarborough Bluffs and there’s an original home, along with the odd “winterized cottage” relict on the edge of them, interspersed with all the 1960s bungalows like mine. I’m much more aware of the landscape and nature here because, living right on the edge of Lake Ontario, I’m in it all the time. And yet the dreamy paths and hidden beaches I enjoy are almost entirely hidden from most of the people who drive by a bit north, and I feel sometimes that this was by design of a few property owners who held out. (More likely it was the railroad; also there are plans to connect us up along the lake with more popular beaches, which is fine by me as long as I can therefore bike everywhere.)
What strikes me though is that my neighbours both work from home and so that original industrial divide is starting to blur a bit...it’s not the same as having the cow pasture up against the kitchen garden, but they both tend their homes and frankly look after all us commuting schmoes much differently.
I almost want to re-read Howard’s End now. Thanks for the post!
posted by warriorqueen at 4:48 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Suburbs not built around cars are a different beast entirely, but rare.
In my limited experience, they are everywhere in Europe. The Dutch and Swedes built and live in a lot of suburbs. But they have safe bike paths, a mix of apartments and villas, and grocery store locations zoned within walking distance of 80% of houses.
(they are still boring as hell to visit though)
This is true in Helsinki (finland) also. When I lived within a 10 min walk of the city center, I never knew the others in my building. Now, out in the middling boondocks, I know 80% of the people in my building + closer friendships (coffee morning etc) with the family downstairs. I am greeted with recognition at the supermarket (a chain, not a local grocery) and, as the weather grows warmer, will join the hordes of walkers in the woods and forests we happen to be in the middle of. Its a nice mix of low rise apartments and single family homes, and more multicultural than you'd think, looking at it from the outside. I was forced to move here suddenly and had never lived outside of the tram lines in Helsinki but 4 years later, I'm still here and now thinking of buying in the zipcode. The tradeoff is community vs activities/cafes/museums/bookstores/shopping etc.
In the decade I was in the US, I've experienced Monroeville PA (a "suburb" of Pittsburgh) and the Golden Triangle in Chicago/Mason St in San Francisco, and the suburbs have always been an isolating nightmare for a non car driver like me. Here, now, in HEL, they're building a light rail system into the center that will eventually go past my place.
Suburb is a cultural construct and needs to be framed as such given the diversity of the site's readership these days.
posted by infini at 4:55 AM on March 29, 2019 [12 favorites]
In my limited experience, they are everywhere in Europe. The Dutch and Swedes built and live in a lot of suburbs. But they have safe bike paths, a mix of apartments and villas, and grocery store locations zoned within walking distance of 80% of houses.
(they are still boring as hell to visit though)
This is true in Helsinki (finland) also. When I lived within a 10 min walk of the city center, I never knew the others in my building. Now, out in the middling boondocks, I know 80% of the people in my building + closer friendships (coffee morning etc) with the family downstairs. I am greeted with recognition at the supermarket (a chain, not a local grocery) and, as the weather grows warmer, will join the hordes of walkers in the woods and forests we happen to be in the middle of. Its a nice mix of low rise apartments and single family homes, and more multicultural than you'd think, looking at it from the outside. I was forced to move here suddenly and had never lived outside of the tram lines in Helsinki but 4 years later, I'm still here and now thinking of buying in the zipcode. The tradeoff is community vs activities/cafes/museums/bookstores/shopping etc.
In the decade I was in the US, I've experienced Monroeville PA (a "suburb" of Pittsburgh) and the Golden Triangle in Chicago/Mason St in San Francisco, and the suburbs have always been an isolating nightmare for a non car driver like me. Here, now, in HEL, they're building a light rail system into the center that will eventually go past my place.
Suburb is a cultural construct and needs to be framed as such given the diversity of the site's readership these days.
posted by infini at 4:55 AM on March 29, 2019 [12 favorites]
Ironically, I used public transit much more when I lived in the suburbs. The commute to work in the city was so horrible by car that I gladly took the bus which runs in a protected bus route and is much faster than driving. I got so much reading done then. Now in the city, it's just so convenient to drive that I don't often bother taking the bus which is always slower and more expensive.
posted by octothorpe at 5:02 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 5:02 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Every overpriced vintage vinyl store and artisanal cheese and wine place that goes up in the city where a Polish butcher and a Mexican restaurant once were is matched with a Filipino grocery and a banh mi place going up in the 'burbs.
I wish that were true. I'm glad it happens sometimes tho.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:30 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I wish that were true. I'm glad it happens sometimes tho.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:30 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
One of my oldest friends grew up in a suburb north of Toronto where there were very few sidewalks or trees and absolutely nothing - no stores, no parks, no playgrounds, no landmarks - within easy walking distance. I have no idea how diverse or not the population was, because I almost never saw anyone outside unless they were in a car, or getting out of a car and walking into their house. They had a lovely home once you got inside the front door, but visiting that neighbourhood always creeped me out a bit. He told me his parents had moved the family there in part because they believed it was safer than downtown, but once he got to high school he and his peer group would, in the absence of anywhere to go or anything to do, just congregate in various basements and drink their faces off. To each their own, but I would rather live in a shoebox condo than a neighbourhood like that.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:32 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:32 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Once it's finished there will hopefully be a decent article about it, so I can make an FPP, but the former AT&T complex out here in Hoffman Estates has been purchased by developers and is being turned into a "metroburb." Essentially, they're turning it into a mix of condos, shared spaces, telecommuting pods, stores, small businesses, and park areas. It's a near idea that's intended to be millennial-friendly and less reliant on cars. There's one in Jersey that's from the same people that's open now.
It's interesting to see commercial developers noting the practical issues people have with the suburbs and trying to find new ideas to address them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:35 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's interesting to see commercial developers noting the practical issues people have with the suburbs and trying to find new ideas to address them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:35 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
As someone who can't drive, suburbs actively exclude me. Friends who move to the suburbs are friends I can't visit without a long gig economy ride.
I'd like more access to the edges of the cities though because of the reverse migration discussed above. All of the artists priced out of the city seem to be moving closer to the edges, and that's where the cool events are happening.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:42 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'd like more access to the edges of the cities though because of the reverse migration discussed above. All of the artists priced out of the city seem to be moving closer to the edges, and that's where the cool events are happening.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:42 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
From some of my family's point of view, the exclusion of people who can't afford cars is part of the beauty of the suburbs.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:43 AM on March 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:43 AM on March 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
I live in the Bay Area, and yes, in a suburb, because I can't afford city living either. Like joan_holloway observes, many people here live in the suburbs because city living is out of reach for all but a few (even tech people can't afford San Francisco anymore!). Where I live, this is one reason why suburbs are becoming much more diverse.
You can't scream "meanie gentrifiers!" to city dwellers and at the same time howl "ugly Americans!" to suburbanites. People have to live somewhere. The alternative to gentrification is, often, a suburban dwelling. Yes, it would be really great if public transit were better in the suburbs (my particular 'burb is working on it - we have a free commuter shuttle and free BART-to-downtown shuttle, both of which get heavy use) and, at least in California, lawns were replaced by native plants and xeriscaping (my county is giving rebates to people who install drought-tolerant plants in place of lawns, which don't belong in California, IMO). But the suburbs aren't going away unless and until our population drastically decreases somehow and/or a miracle of housing is created in cities.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:02 AM on March 29, 2019 [17 favorites]
You can't scream "meanie gentrifiers!" to city dwellers and at the same time howl "ugly Americans!" to suburbanites. People have to live somewhere. The alternative to gentrification is, often, a suburban dwelling. Yes, it would be really great if public transit were better in the suburbs (my particular 'burb is working on it - we have a free commuter shuttle and free BART-to-downtown shuttle, both of which get heavy use) and, at least in California, lawns were replaced by native plants and xeriscaping (my county is giving rebates to people who install drought-tolerant plants in place of lawns, which don't belong in California, IMO). But the suburbs aren't going away unless and until our population drastically decreases somehow and/or a miracle of housing is created in cities.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:02 AM on March 29, 2019 [17 favorites]
A lot of my crankiness about suburbs* these days is purely financial. I live in the city, without which the surrounding suburbs would not exist. But because of how school funding works (especially in Pennsylvania), and how infrastructure maintenance is funded, my kid's schools and my roads are struggling, while people in the suburbs get to look down their noses at the city and our bad schools and shitty roads. The city's roads that hoards of suburban-dwellers drive on daily in order to get to their jobs and their entertainment but don't pay taxes to maintain (there is a $52/year commuter tax, which does not even come close to making up for the burden on city services). The city's schools that are struggling to serve diverse and at-risk populations while the most affluent take their property taxes and their kids elsewhere. And I mean, like, what did you people expect? If you're going to take your ball and go to Upper St. Clair I don't think you get to criticize the results.
I also dislike many suburbs for various other reasons, but mainly it's fueled by the fact that this exists simultaneous to my own kid's classroom now being down to one working computer because as they break there is no money to repair or replace them.
*Municipalities are tiny where I live, and the City boundaries of Pittsburgh are still what they were in the 1920s, so there's a lot of the Greater Pittsburgh Area that isn't officially Pittsburgh, but also isn't a suburb.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:08 AM on March 29, 2019 [14 favorites]
I also dislike many suburbs for various other reasons, but mainly it's fueled by the fact that this exists simultaneous to my own kid's classroom now being down to one working computer because as they break there is no money to repair or replace them.
*Municipalities are tiny where I live, and the City boundaries of Pittsburgh are still what they were in the 1920s, so there's a lot of the Greater Pittsburgh Area that isn't officially Pittsburgh, but also isn't a suburb.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:08 AM on March 29, 2019 [14 favorites]
(Also I'd argue that the situation is different in mid-sized/lower cost of living cities than in places like NYC and San Francisco and Seattle. "City" is not yet synonymous with "100% gentrified and out of reach to all but the 1%". The suburbs of Indianapolis look a lot different than the suburbs of DC.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:12 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:12 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
The original article went off on a tangent I didn't quite understand, about how the suburbs were "democratizing" the country - I think the upshot was that they made the natural world more accessible to everyone, as opposed to the pre-Industrial English model of the Lords and Barons snapping up a whole lot of land for themselves and having it be as it suited them, and the little people sort of carving whatever existance they could for themselves as they could. The suburbs therefore were more of a democratizing thing becuase they gave more people access to land they could control. At least that was my read on the article (that could be wrong).
However, I'm not sure that "democratizing" was quite the right word. Because my own aversion to the suburbs is based on a very different experience; that it was more homogenizing rather than democratizing. Granted, I'm not thinking from the perspective of land ownership - although that certainly does apply too - but from a kind of approach to thought. My hometown was a biggish small town, and I'd call it more suburban than rural; little housing developments carved into the country surrounding a dense center. (I've compared it to "imagine if you ripped the East Village up and airlifted it to a pasture in Montana, and then waited a couple years for the edges to get fuzzy").
And even though there was a fairly wide range of opinions, I still felt like there was a definite perspective on what were the "right" ideas and what were the "wrong" ones, and if you didn't have one of the "right' ones you got looked at funny. And I'm not even talking about things like sexuality or race or politics; I was definitely feeling like an outsider as a kid, for the things I valued and cared about. They were different than most other people's, and even though I'd lived in that town my whole damn life and most of the people I was talking to had seen me grow up, people still kind of held me at a courteous arms-length like I was a stranger. All because I professed to different values than most others.
That's not "democratizing". That's homogenizing, and it's stifling, and it's why I dislike the suburbs. If things are different now, more power to the suburbs, but it's the reason I pulled out - I had to come to the city to find the space to just think what I wanted to think about anything at all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:27 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
However, I'm not sure that "democratizing" was quite the right word. Because my own aversion to the suburbs is based on a very different experience; that it was more homogenizing rather than democratizing. Granted, I'm not thinking from the perspective of land ownership - although that certainly does apply too - but from a kind of approach to thought. My hometown was a biggish small town, and I'd call it more suburban than rural; little housing developments carved into the country surrounding a dense center. (I've compared it to "imagine if you ripped the East Village up and airlifted it to a pasture in Montana, and then waited a couple years for the edges to get fuzzy").
And even though there was a fairly wide range of opinions, I still felt like there was a definite perspective on what were the "right" ideas and what were the "wrong" ones, and if you didn't have one of the "right' ones you got looked at funny. And I'm not even talking about things like sexuality or race or politics; I was definitely feeling like an outsider as a kid, for the things I valued and cared about. They were different than most other people's, and even though I'd lived in that town my whole damn life and most of the people I was talking to had seen me grow up, people still kind of held me at a courteous arms-length like I was a stranger. All because I professed to different values than most others.
That's not "democratizing". That's homogenizing, and it's stifling, and it's why I dislike the suburbs. If things are different now, more power to the suburbs, but it's the reason I pulled out - I had to come to the city to find the space to just think what I wanted to think about anything at all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:27 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
(Also I'd argue that the situation is different in mid-sized/lower cost of living cities than in places like NYC and San Francisco and Seattle. "City" is not yet synonymous with "100% gentrified and out of reach to all but the 1%". The suburbs of Indianapolis look a lot different than the suburbs of DC.)Sure, but the same people who have contempt for the suburbs also have contempt for the kind of city where middle-income families can afford to live. And when people have contempt for all the places where middle-income families can live, you kind of have to start wondering if the object of their contempt is the places or the people.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:30 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
You can't scream "meanie gentrifiers!" to city dwellers and at the same time howl "ugly Americans!" to suburbanites. People have to live somewhere.
QFT. QFMFT, actually.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:45 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
QFT. QFMFT, actually.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:45 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
DirtyOldTown: "Hoffman Estates has been purchased by developers and is being turned into a "metroburb." Essentially, they're turning it into a mix of condos, shared spaces, telecommuting pods, stores, small businesses, and park areas. It's a near idea that's intended to be millennial-friendly and less reliant on cars. "
So... they're building a town? Because it sounds like they are reinventing the town.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:52 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
So... they're building a town? Because it sounds like they are reinventing the town.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:52 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
CleanYoungTown
posted by Going To Maine at 7:02 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 7:02 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
Disrupting the town. Uber for civilization.
posted by glonous keming at 7:04 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 7:04 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
the same people who have contempt for the suburbs also have contempt for the kind of city where middle-income families can afford to live
Citation needed?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:14 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
Citation needed?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:14 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
This essay (I read the first half of it before giving up in disgust) lacks any sort of self-awareness. The Berkshires are democratic?
posted by JamesBay at 7:16 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by JamesBay at 7:16 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I always am caught off guard about what are the acceptable living arrangements of human beings. I'm talking about geography, location, neighborhood, job, and actual housing, because I feel like it would be rather narrowly defined to some people.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 7:16 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Lord Chancellor at 7:16 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
It should be pointed out that the Long Island/Connecticut "suburbs" the author is referencing in their first few paragraphs don't look anything like the suburbs in the majority of the US. Also the history and design of English suburbs is so different from American ones that I don't understand why the author went for that comparison.
posted by backlikeclap at 7:23 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by backlikeclap at 7:23 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Sure, but the same people who have contempt for the suburbs also have contempt for the kind of city where middle-income families can afford to live. And when people have contempt for all the places where middle-income families can live, you kind of have to start wondering if the object of their contempt is the places or the people.
I hate suburbs and so I chose to live in flyover country where a walkable/transitable house was within my budget. I believe you that you’ve seen this contempt somewhere, but please don’t assume that e.g. those of us who populate such cities also feel it. My town is amusingly high on itself, in fact.
posted by eirias at 7:24 AM on March 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I hate suburbs and so I chose to live in flyover country where a walkable/transitable house was within my budget. I believe you that you’ve seen this contempt somewhere, but please don’t assume that e.g. those of us who populate such cities also feel it. My town is amusingly high on itself, in fact.
posted by eirias at 7:24 AM on March 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Yeah this is ...confusing a lot of types of suburbs. Back Bay in Boston was a Streetcar suburb of the city but you wouldn’t call it a suburb now , and the new towns of England don’t really have an analog in the states. And Foster was able to reconcile his nostgalia for feudalism and his declaration of caring cause he was ... landed gentry, that’s like what they do. There’s a very marked different between suburb (and exurb) and town in the American context.
Anyway, I really liked this essay about the culture and mode of the mass American suburb: the authoritarian surround - after all the most famous 50s style American suburbs, Levittowns, where sold expressly as all-white separate communities.
posted by The Whelk at 7:30 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
Anyway, I really liked this essay about the culture and mode of the mass American suburb: the authoritarian surround - after all the most famous 50s style American suburbs, Levittowns, where sold expressly as all-white separate communities.
posted by The Whelk at 7:30 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
I don't think the "metroburb" developers think they're replicating city life, let alone improving it. I think they're trying to bring elements of what's missing from it in the burbs over to the burbs.
That, and they're finding better uses for giant twentieth century style corporate campuses that have fallen out of use.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:39 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
That, and they're finding better uses for giant twentieth century style corporate campuses that have fallen out of use.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:39 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Following the opinions of this thread is how you get Doug Forcett.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:42 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 7:42 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
I think a lot of people talk about suburbs in ways that seem really unaware of the economics of suburbs. There’s a lot of “those entitled bastards, how dare they want to own a house and a little plot of land!” that somehow erases the number one desire for the house and plot of land which is /family stability/ and being able to make do with less money and /not having to fear landlords/.
Most suburban mortgages go for a fraction of what it costs to rent a (much smaller) apartment, and that’s even without adding in “pet rent” or extra occupant fees or the other nonsense they tack on. And if you don’t pay your mortgage one month, they don’t start foreclosure proceedings, which take years to get you out of a house. Compare that to apartments which can have you out in weeks in most locales- in some for being less than $100 short- and tack on hundreds of dollars in late fees if you pay on the 8th instead of the 1st.
And that’s not getting into the other horrible things landlords do - like demanding everyone who lives in the apartment have a good credit score or they will evict everyone. They can’t discriminate because you’re married, but they can discriminate if you get married to someone with a bad credit score. They can’t discriminate because you have kids, but if your kids run around too loudly in the afternoon, or they fly a paper airplane out a window and someone gets annoyed, or if they leave the bath running and it drips down, they can threaten to evict you. My experience of renting is an experience of living in constant fear.
And those “cookie cutter houses” people sneer at are the houses middle class people can afford- because they were all made at the same time, the builders were able to cut costs. Yes, they are more shoddily made in many cases than the individualized houses made with care and love that have been meticulously maintained over the last fifty years, but the people buying suburban houses can’t afford the other ones, so it is a similar house or no house. Just like nobody can afford to own a house in the city anymore.
posted by corb at 7:49 AM on March 29, 2019 [29 favorites]
Most suburban mortgages go for a fraction of what it costs to rent a (much smaller) apartment, and that’s even without adding in “pet rent” or extra occupant fees or the other nonsense they tack on. And if you don’t pay your mortgage one month, they don’t start foreclosure proceedings, which take years to get you out of a house. Compare that to apartments which can have you out in weeks in most locales- in some for being less than $100 short- and tack on hundreds of dollars in late fees if you pay on the 8th instead of the 1st.
And that’s not getting into the other horrible things landlords do - like demanding everyone who lives in the apartment have a good credit score or they will evict everyone. They can’t discriminate because you’re married, but they can discriminate if you get married to someone with a bad credit score. They can’t discriminate because you have kids, but if your kids run around too loudly in the afternoon, or they fly a paper airplane out a window and someone gets annoyed, or if they leave the bath running and it drips down, they can threaten to evict you. My experience of renting is an experience of living in constant fear.
And those “cookie cutter houses” people sneer at are the houses middle class people can afford- because they were all made at the same time, the builders were able to cut costs. Yes, they are more shoddily made in many cases than the individualized houses made with care and love that have been meticulously maintained over the last fifty years, but the people buying suburban houses can’t afford the other ones, so it is a similar house or no house. Just like nobody can afford to own a house in the city anymore.
posted by corb at 7:49 AM on March 29, 2019 [29 favorites]
Following the opinions of this thread is how you get Doug Forcett.
I feel like "fossil fuels are hosing the planet, therefore cars and car culture are a Problem" and "mid-20th century American suburb creation had lots to do with racism and classism" are moderate positions supported by the available facts.
Or were you trying to characterize some other stance(s) as unreasonable and extreme?
posted by bagel at 7:49 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
I feel like "fossil fuels are hosing the planet, therefore cars and car culture are a Problem" and "mid-20th century American suburb creation had lots to do with racism and classism" are moderate positions supported by the available facts.
Or were you trying to characterize some other stance(s) as unreasonable and extreme?
posted by bagel at 7:49 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
But again, there are a lot of cities where it's perfectly attainable for a middle class family to own their own home, and yet those cities also have suburbs.
Most suburban mortgages go for a fraction of what it costs to rent
Most mortgages anywhere are less than what it costs to rent because that's how renting works.
But in my city, yes, we have luxury new construction apartments that cost bank, but just a cursory perusal of the rentals on Zillow just now revealed that the going rate in my city neighborhood for a 2BR apartment or whole house is >$1000/month and moving into a more hip, happening neighborhood it's more like $1300-$1500. Not peanuts and rent prices are a problem everywhere for those on a lower or fixed income, but no one is moving here because they can't afford rent in town.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:18 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Most suburban mortgages go for a fraction of what it costs to rent
Most mortgages anywhere are less than what it costs to rent because that's how renting works.
But in my city, yes, we have luxury new construction apartments that cost bank, but just a cursory perusal of the rentals on Zillow just now revealed that the going rate in my city neighborhood for a 2BR apartment or whole house is >$1000/month and moving into a more hip, happening neighborhood it's more like $1300-$1500. Not peanuts and rent prices are a problem everywhere for those on a lower or fixed income, but no one is moving here because they can't afford rent in town.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:18 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
The article is an excerpt from her book, The Absent Hand. I have always been fascinated by the language of place and the intimacy of belonging, so this is relevant to my interests. I am an aspiring landscape designer and this comes up a lot.
I live in the suburbs now, though this is New England and the suburbs tend to be much more rural than other places. There is a working farm on my street, two horse farms as my immediate neighbors, and I can follow a trail out of my backyard and walk in 1200 acres of conservation woodland.
I learned to drive because we moved out of Boston. I can't go to a grocery store here without driving, or the commuter rail, or my children's daycare. But when I lived in Boston hiking and volunteering on a farm and kayaking on the river were things I couldn't do without a car and in fact I never did them, and my life was poorer for it.
I am very sympathetic to the need for equitable access to suburbia, which is part of my town's new plan to build affordable housing, but I am not about to dismiss the whole concept of suburban living, but rather work to render it accessible. I used to live in Somerville, MA which used to be the most densely populated city outside of New Jersey. Gentrification is pushing people out of urban areas at a much faster rate than they can be absorbed elsewhere and that, I feel, is where we need to focus our attention: controlling rent but also expanding opportunities out of cities, including public transportation access. The relationship between people and their living spaces is changing and we need to change our relationship with suburbia to keep up.
I am the last person to want more McMansions, or to see natural habitat bulldozed to build dense rows of houses, but it doesn't have to be that way.
posted by lydhre at 8:20 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I live in the suburbs now, though this is New England and the suburbs tend to be much more rural than other places. There is a working farm on my street, two horse farms as my immediate neighbors, and I can follow a trail out of my backyard and walk in 1200 acres of conservation woodland.
I learned to drive because we moved out of Boston. I can't go to a grocery store here without driving, or the commuter rail, or my children's daycare. But when I lived in Boston hiking and volunteering on a farm and kayaking on the river were things I couldn't do without a car and in fact I never did them, and my life was poorer for it.
I am very sympathetic to the need for equitable access to suburbia, which is part of my town's new plan to build affordable housing, but I am not about to dismiss the whole concept of suburban living, but rather work to render it accessible. I used to live in Somerville, MA which used to be the most densely populated city outside of New Jersey. Gentrification is pushing people out of urban areas at a much faster rate than they can be absorbed elsewhere and that, I feel, is where we need to focus our attention: controlling rent but also expanding opportunities out of cities, including public transportation access. The relationship between people and their living spaces is changing and we need to change our relationship with suburbia to keep up.
I am the last person to want more McMansions, or to see natural habitat bulldozed to build dense rows of houses, but it doesn't have to be that way.
posted by lydhre at 8:20 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I was priced out of Denver central (a block from city park) and moved to the east side of town. Officially still the city, but it sure doesn't look or feel like it. There's some things I like, it's more diverse (it was all wealthy whites by the time I moved out of town)but at the same time the ride in to work is hell (bus, train). I work weekends and RTD in it's infinite wisdom has decided to cut back on bus service, it can be once an hour, most times except, rush hour on weekdays. So there is be to work early, and be to work really late. I hate the look of the cookie goddamned cutter architecture, though the inside of my apartment is really nice, lots of room, and unfortunately, wall to wall shag carpet in the bedrooms. I do miss being in the thick of things. I will never really like the suburbs, though I suppose it's better than it used to be.
posted by evilDoug at 8:20 AM on March 29, 2019
posted by evilDoug at 8:20 AM on March 29, 2019
Maybe there shouldn’t be landlords then.
posted by The Whelk at 8:20 AM on March 29, 2019 [16 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 8:20 AM on March 29, 2019 [16 favorites]
Suburbs not built around cars are a different beast entirely, but rare.
The suburbs of Indianapolis look a lot different than the suburbs of DC
This.
I live in one of the early commuter suburbs of DC, within the District but outside the historic city of Washington. It's mostly smallish single-family bungalows built in the teens and twenties, gradually butting up against multi-unit developments. But it was built based on access to the train, and I can bike the 6 miles to Dupont circle most of the year, and it was just designed before cars were ubiquitous.
There are few parts of Indianapolis proper that are as dense as my little commuter suburb.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:25 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
The suburbs of Indianapolis look a lot different than the suburbs of DC
This.
I live in one of the early commuter suburbs of DC, within the District but outside the historic city of Washington. It's mostly smallish single-family bungalows built in the teens and twenties, gradually butting up against multi-unit developments. But it was built based on access to the train, and I can bike the 6 miles to Dupont circle most of the year, and it was just designed before cars were ubiquitous.
There are few parts of Indianapolis proper that are as dense as my little commuter suburb.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:25 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Forster was hella snobby and would rather see the working classes crushed by a symbolic bookcase than own a little house with, god forbid, new furniture. I don't know why this author is acting like his attitude is such a mystery when she could just get his diaries from the library and find out.
posted by betweenthebars at 8:47 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 8:47 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
There's a particular way in which I hate the suburbs, and that is because they hate me.
In Toronto, suburbs consistently vote against my interests on all levels of government. In municipal elections, surburban councillors vote for public transit expansions that make no financial or planning sense because they think it'll appease their voter base, even though polls have shown that "subway or nothing" support is much more about how those proposals are sold to the communities and not about the intrinsic benefits of any given proposal. They vote to maintain crumbling road infrastructure that serves maybe 5,000 people during rush hour and pooh-pooh removing car traffic from transit-heavy streets that serve many multiples that.
In provincial elections they elect asshole conservatives who decide, among their very first acts of power, to fuck up Toronto's city council elections by arbitrarily forcing a major change in the size of council IN THE MIDDLE OF SAID ELECTION for no other reason than he's a big baby who never got his way when he was a city councillor or mayoral hopeful, and has decided now that he's Premier that Toronto is public enemy #1. Fucking up Toronto serves no purpose for anyone outside the city besides schadenfreude. They elect people who decide, hey, let's upload Toronto's subways back to the province in a way that will probably cost everyone billions of dollars and get nothing done, because maybe hopefully that will get the suburbs more subway extensions that still feed into a hopelessly overloaded system that can't even store new subway cars to support said extensions until 2030. They scream whenever anyone suggests that Toronto might try congestion charges in the city because hey we drive through your city and we don't want to pay so too bad, the provincial government overrules your request.
In federal elections, the suburbs go full-on conservative because their only requests are that they keep taxes low. The bizarre contradiction is that the suburbs are also heavily ethnic, so the one silver lining here is that if the federal Conservatives lean too heavily into their white supremacist bullshit, there's a tiny chance they might actually lose the 905 this time around. But even this is somewhat unlikely because if the 905 is anything like my parents, they'll just assume everyone is equally racist/useless and vote Conservative anyways.
Basically: fuck the suburbs. I have zero time for any attempt to resuscitate public opinion towards them as long as they continue to vote against my political interests time and time again.
posted by chrominance at 8:51 AM on March 29, 2019 [17 favorites]
In Toronto, suburbs consistently vote against my interests on all levels of government. In municipal elections, surburban councillors vote for public transit expansions that make no financial or planning sense because they think it'll appease their voter base, even though polls have shown that "subway or nothing" support is much more about how those proposals are sold to the communities and not about the intrinsic benefits of any given proposal. They vote to maintain crumbling road infrastructure that serves maybe 5,000 people during rush hour and pooh-pooh removing car traffic from transit-heavy streets that serve many multiples that.
In provincial elections they elect asshole conservatives who decide, among their very first acts of power, to fuck up Toronto's city council elections by arbitrarily forcing a major change in the size of council IN THE MIDDLE OF SAID ELECTION for no other reason than he's a big baby who never got his way when he was a city councillor or mayoral hopeful, and has decided now that he's Premier that Toronto is public enemy #1. Fucking up Toronto serves no purpose for anyone outside the city besides schadenfreude. They elect people who decide, hey, let's upload Toronto's subways back to the province in a way that will probably cost everyone billions of dollars and get nothing done, because maybe hopefully that will get the suburbs more subway extensions that still feed into a hopelessly overloaded system that can't even store new subway cars to support said extensions until 2030. They scream whenever anyone suggests that Toronto might try congestion charges in the city because hey we drive through your city and we don't want to pay so too bad, the provincial government overrules your request.
In federal elections, the suburbs go full-on conservative because their only requests are that they keep taxes low. The bizarre contradiction is that the suburbs are also heavily ethnic, so the one silver lining here is that if the federal Conservatives lean too heavily into their white supremacist bullshit, there's a tiny chance they might actually lose the 905 this time around. But even this is somewhat unlikely because if the 905 is anything like my parents, they'll just assume everyone is equally racist/useless and vote Conservative anyways.
Basically: fuck the suburbs. I have zero time for any attempt to resuscitate public opinion towards them as long as they continue to vote against my political interests time and time again.
posted by chrominance at 8:51 AM on March 29, 2019 [17 favorites]
Something I didn’t understand about the article is the apparent connection she’s making between a “feeling of place” and rurality. Is this usually what people mean by that phrase? In my mind it is more about a set of things in the area, whether natural or artifactual, and a mindset toward those things, that together separate home from not-home. And it has no connection to the natural world per se, though the natural world could be a part of it, depending on the attitudes of people who make it theirs. But like... does Mars have a sense of place? To me the question is absurd because what creates the sense is people.
posted by eirias at 8:54 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by eirias at 8:54 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
One should really not be allowed to write articles like this one that wish this history out of existence, as if the issues were merely aesthetic.
FTA:
“Suburbia is an English invention,” I said, as a way to catch them off guard in their righteousness—a clever strategy because I knew Englishness had cozy associations of landscape authenticity for them. But then I faltered. I knew from experience that there is no winning against suburbophobia.
Maybe it's not possible to discuss the problem of suburbia without discussing the problem of race in America, but, in the context of comprehending what this article's about, that would be our loss, I think. So yeah, I do think it stuff like this should be allowed:
The problem with transcendence for progressives is that it is conservative in a profound way. I would venture that Howards End expresses a conservativism in Forster, in the sense of valuing what has accumulated over time, and the ways in which it can amount to something more than the sum of its parts, its uses, its price; a conservativism that was at odds with his progressive values yet could be expressed through a relationship to place depicted in Howards End; but only because that world was depicted as sufficiently obsolete that issues of power and status, of exclusion and exploitation, were not at play. The actual form of suburbia, in contrast, breaks up landscape into tiny pieces, spreading out indefinitely, undoing the pastoral terrain as context—as something larger than ourselves. It balkanizes an age-old archetype of providential order—much as most progressives would resist that quasi-theistic idea. The pastoral landscape is the last resort of secular humanists in search of a quiet expression of their sense of transcendence—and the suburban formation destroys that. Long-shot speculation? Well, yes. But maybe it opens a tiny chink in the mystery of suburbophobia.
posted by philip-random at 8:56 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
FTA:
“Suburbia is an English invention,” I said, as a way to catch them off guard in their righteousness—a clever strategy because I knew Englishness had cozy associations of landscape authenticity for them. But then I faltered. I knew from experience that there is no winning against suburbophobia.
Maybe it's not possible to discuss the problem of suburbia without discussing the problem of race in America, but, in the context of comprehending what this article's about, that would be our loss, I think. So yeah, I do think it stuff like this should be allowed:
The problem with transcendence for progressives is that it is conservative in a profound way. I would venture that Howards End expresses a conservativism in Forster, in the sense of valuing what has accumulated over time, and the ways in which it can amount to something more than the sum of its parts, its uses, its price; a conservativism that was at odds with his progressive values yet could be expressed through a relationship to place depicted in Howards End; but only because that world was depicted as sufficiently obsolete that issues of power and status, of exclusion and exploitation, were not at play. The actual form of suburbia, in contrast, breaks up landscape into tiny pieces, spreading out indefinitely, undoing the pastoral terrain as context—as something larger than ourselves. It balkanizes an age-old archetype of providential order—much as most progressives would resist that quasi-theistic idea. The pastoral landscape is the last resort of secular humanists in search of a quiet expression of their sense of transcendence—and the suburban formation destroys that. Long-shot speculation? Well, yes. But maybe it opens a tiny chink in the mystery of suburbophobia.
posted by philip-random at 8:56 AM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I moved to a suburb of Chicago 6 years ago. It was built without sidewalks. We live on the block where the school is located. We have been trying to get a sidewalk, unsuccessfully, because the Village wants to "retain the look and feel" of the neighborhood. Lots of older folks who believe sidewalks are dangerous, bring crime and will lower their property value. Data suggests the opposite. Sadly, they are wrapped around a right-wing notion of "individual and property rights" that supersede community-need. Everyone is walking in the streets until the sun goes down and then you cannot safely walk. Those folks are fine with that. They will tell you that their kids walked to school in the streets and ended up just fine. Meh...
My suburb is car-based and the social world that has developed, I think in part because of the car-culture, is based on children's athletics and church. You drive there, talk to people and drive home. Maybe you build a relationship through travelling sports teams or 5 AM rink time. Maybe you talk after church and participate in faith based activities there. These are a couple of areas that we do not participate in.
I moved here from Chicago for the excellent public education, small class size and diversity of the school district. From uber-wealthy (found an ATM receipt showing a withdrawal from a checking account with a balance of $4 million and change) to pretty poor (my daughter buying lunch for a boy who only gets a granola bar for lunch). My kids have experienced both ends of the spectrum. I do pause in reflection about the decision to move. On the whole, it is slightly more positive than negative. I wish it were moreso however.
I appreciate the post.
posted by zerobyproxy at 9:01 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
My suburb is car-based and the social world that has developed, I think in part because of the car-culture, is based on children's athletics and church. You drive there, talk to people and drive home. Maybe you build a relationship through travelling sports teams or 5 AM rink time. Maybe you talk after church and participate in faith based activities there. These are a couple of areas that we do not participate in.
I moved here from Chicago for the excellent public education, small class size and diversity of the school district. From uber-wealthy (found an ATM receipt showing a withdrawal from a checking account with a balance of $4 million and change) to pretty poor (my daughter buying lunch for a boy who only gets a granola bar for lunch). My kids have experienced both ends of the spectrum. I do pause in reflection about the decision to move. On the whole, it is slightly more positive than negative. I wish it were moreso however.
I appreciate the post.
posted by zerobyproxy at 9:01 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
From my experience growing up in the suburbs it all seemed so one-sided, with only certain opinions provided. Almost as if the future had been pre-decided. Everything felt detached and subdivided like some kind of, for lack of a better term, mass production zone.
Is there any other place that could make a dreamer or a misfit feel so alone? My guess is no.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:39 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
Is there any other place that could make a dreamer or a misfit feel so alone? My guess is no.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:39 AM on March 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
Maybe there shouldn’t be landlords then.
I mean, sure, but removing the things that allow people to escape from problems without removing the problems themselves is just accelerationism, which harms far more people than it helps. Crabs pulling each other back into the bucket is not a sustainable model for change. If you’re going to achieve the kind of movement it would take to remove landlords as a malign force that affects probably 1/3 of the US, you need more broad based solidarity than “everyone who deals with this crushing misery in the specific way that I prefer to deal with mine.” And that means focusing your aim at the creators of the problems rather than people who live in suburbs that may or may not be considered boring by some.
posted by corb at 9:48 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
I mean, sure, but removing the things that allow people to escape from problems without removing the problems themselves is just accelerationism, which harms far more people than it helps. Crabs pulling each other back into the bucket is not a sustainable model for change. If you’re going to achieve the kind of movement it would take to remove landlords as a malign force that affects probably 1/3 of the US, you need more broad based solidarity than “everyone who deals with this crushing misery in the specific way that I prefer to deal with mine.” And that means focusing your aim at the creators of the problems rather than people who live in suburbs that may or may not be considered boring by some.
posted by corb at 9:48 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
the same people who have contempt for the suburbs also have contempt for the kind of city where middle-income families can afford to live.
The suburbs are not affordable. At least 50% of households in Vancouver rent. Vancouver is pretty much like any other metropolitan area in North America.
Even if you said that Vancouver RE is an outlier based on its price, the median income of renters (50% of households) is still far too low to buy a single-detached home in the suburbs and finance to automobiles to get around.
Suburbs are expensive. Density is inexpensive.
posted by JamesBay at 10:19 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
The suburbs are not affordable. At least 50% of households in Vancouver rent. Vancouver is pretty much like any other metropolitan area in North America.
Even if you said that Vancouver RE is an outlier based on its price, the median income of renters (50% of households) is still far too low to buy a single-detached home in the suburbs and finance to automobiles to get around.
Suburbs are expensive. Density is inexpensive.
posted by JamesBay at 10:19 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Suburb vs City: Suburban Areas Are Gaining Renters Faster Than Urban Areas in 19 out of 20 Largest Metros
Key highlights:posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:28 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
- The number of renters grows faster in the suburbs than in cities in 19 out of 20 U.S. metros
- The suburbs of St. Louis, Atlanta, Riverside, and Boston gained 3 times more renters than their urban areas
- Rents are cheaper in the suburbs than in cities in 18 out of 20 metros
- Apartment construction much slower in the suburbs than in cities
My goodness, the median renter household has about half the income of the median owner household. It ought to be obviously true that ownership is more inaccessible to the poor but people argue just about anything with a straight face these days.
posted by Kwine at 10:29 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by Kwine at 10:29 AM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
Suburbs are expensive. Density is inexpensive.
I feel like a lot of people in this thread are conflating "big-picture" vs "individual." Is density inexpensive and sustainable on a grand scale? Sure. Is San Francisco a place regular people can afford to live long-term? No, it is fucking not.
Suburbs are expensive AND cities are expensive; your cheap living is in the small towns that have nothing except Dollar Generals left as both destination and employer.
Whole damn thing's fucked, top to bottom, everywhere.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:33 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
I feel like a lot of people in this thread are conflating "big-picture" vs "individual." Is density inexpensive and sustainable on a grand scale? Sure. Is San Francisco a place regular people can afford to live long-term? No, it is fucking not.
Suburbs are expensive AND cities are expensive; your cheap living is in the small towns that have nothing except Dollar Generals left as both destination and employer.
Whole damn thing's fucked, top to bottom, everywhere.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:33 AM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
about how the suburbs were "democratizing" the country - I think the upshot was that they made the natural world more accessible to everyone
I think it was home ownership that they were making accessible, as opposing to renting rooms in the city or being a tenant of an estate.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:41 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think it was home ownership that they were making accessible, as opposing to renting rooms in the city or being a tenant of an estate.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:41 AM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
In Toronto, suburbs consistently vote against my interests on all levels of government. In municipal elections, surburban councillors vote for public transit expansions that make no financial or planning sense because they think it'll appease their voter base, even though polls have shown that "subway or nothing" support is much more about how those proposals are sold to the communities and not about the intrinsic benefits of any given proposal. They vote to maintain crumbling road infrastructure that serves maybe 5,000 people during rush hour and pooh-pooh removing car traffic from transit-heavy streets that serve many multiples that.
Some of the people in Scarborough with me definitely vote that way, and in fact some of my closest neighbours are Ford supporters, but a lot are also like me (displaced liberal downtowners with families) or new immigrants. Your black and white view does not reflect my reality. My MPP is Mitzie Hunter.
Also, I live a few blocks from the Danzig shooting of a few years ago and it is really frustrating to be in a former city of 800,000, now represented by four city councillors, with crumbling schools (provincial), lack of transit (agreed on the subway but had City Council done its fucking job under Hall, Lastman, and Miller, it wouldn't take me 52 minutes to get to Kennedy)), etc. And the attitude of downtown people that there's nothing in Scarborough is in part what creates that gap.
I mean...I agree with you politically and I have gone door to door in my area in the last three elections. "Fuck you, get off my downtown lawn" is...not helping your cause.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:49 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Some of the people in Scarborough with me definitely vote that way, and in fact some of my closest neighbours are Ford supporters, but a lot are also like me (displaced liberal downtowners with families) or new immigrants. Your black and white view does not reflect my reality. My MPP is Mitzie Hunter.
Also, I live a few blocks from the Danzig shooting of a few years ago and it is really frustrating to be in a former city of 800,000, now represented by four city councillors, with crumbling schools (provincial), lack of transit (agreed on the subway but had City Council done its fucking job under Hall, Lastman, and Miller, it wouldn't take me 52 minutes to get to Kennedy)), etc. And the attitude of downtown people that there's nothing in Scarborough is in part what creates that gap.
I mean...I agree with you politically and I have gone door to door in my area in the last three elections. "Fuck you, get off my downtown lawn" is...not helping your cause.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:49 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Is density inexpensive and sustainable on a grand scale? Sure. Is San Francisco a place regular people can afford to live long-term? No, it is fucking not.
The problem is that San Francisco isn't even that dense. It's the 21th most dense city in America, a country not exactly famous for urban density. Now, to be fair, most of the cities on that list are relatively small places around New York, so let's take most populous American cities--San Francisco fares better, and comes in second in density, after New York.
However--Paris has a population density 3 times that of San Francisco.
So, basically, the problem with affordability in San Francisco is that the city needs to be a lot more dense. No one ever complains that Paris isn't a lovely place to live. Well, Parisians do, but they still live there.
posted by Automocar at 11:04 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
The problem is that San Francisco isn't even that dense. It's the 21th most dense city in America, a country not exactly famous for urban density. Now, to be fair, most of the cities on that list are relatively small places around New York, so let's take most populous American cities--San Francisco fares better, and comes in second in density, after New York.
However--Paris has a population density 3 times that of San Francisco.
So, basically, the problem with affordability in San Francisco is that the city needs to be a lot more dense. No one ever complains that Paris isn't a lovely place to live. Well, Parisians do, but they still live there.
posted by Automocar at 11:04 AM on March 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
Paris is a weird example, because aren't the suburbs where the poor people live?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:12 AM on March 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:12 AM on March 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
I'd echo the comment that the suburbs here in Seattle are far more diverse than the actual city, at least up until about 10-15 miles out when you hit serious Trump-land.
I grew up in the country and suburbs in California in the 70s and 80s and for a kid Rush nailed the ugly conformity and lack of stimulation:
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
When it came to having my own kids, there was no way I was going to make them experience the rage I grew up with, even if meant exposing them to crime, worse schools, smaller homes, etc. I wouldn't say there isn't ethnic or social diversity in central Seattle here but it's not substantially different than in Bellevue or Shoreline. What we do have, and we pay a huge premium for it, is walkability, we live in a home that looks completely different from all of the other homes in the neighborhood, we live close enough to all of our neighbors and walk past their homes often enough that we know all of their names and there's no anonymity, and we have super easy public transit that my 9 year old is just now starting to be able to use on his own. In a couple years, he'll be able to take himself to museums, concerts, Mariners games, and other cultural events to which I never had access. My wife and I have never had more than a 15 minute commute, so we have more time to spend on the things we choose. We also have huge homeless encampments a stone's throw away which is I guess bad that they exist, but good that the kids are aware that they exist. We have zero republicans or religious nut-jobs which is good that they don't exist but is bad that the kids are not aware that they exist elsewhere. I don't know if city living is better objectively for kids at this point. I mean, I'd like to have better schools, less money tied up in the mortgage to spend on the kids, a bigger yard to play in.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:14 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I grew up in the country and suburbs in California in the 70s and 80s and for a kid Rush nailed the ugly conformity and lack of stimulation:
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
When it came to having my own kids, there was no way I was going to make them experience the rage I grew up with, even if meant exposing them to crime, worse schools, smaller homes, etc. I wouldn't say there isn't ethnic or social diversity in central Seattle here but it's not substantially different than in Bellevue or Shoreline. What we do have, and we pay a huge premium for it, is walkability, we live in a home that looks completely different from all of the other homes in the neighborhood, we live close enough to all of our neighbors and walk past their homes often enough that we know all of their names and there's no anonymity, and we have super easy public transit that my 9 year old is just now starting to be able to use on his own. In a couple years, he'll be able to take himself to museums, concerts, Mariners games, and other cultural events to which I never had access. My wife and I have never had more than a 15 minute commute, so we have more time to spend on the things we choose. We also have huge homeless encampments a stone's throw away which is I guess bad that they exist, but good that the kids are aware that they exist. We have zero republicans or religious nut-jobs which is good that they don't exist but is bad that the kids are not aware that they exist elsewhere. I don't know if city living is better objectively for kids at this point. I mean, I'd like to have better schools, less money tied up in the mortgage to spend on the kids, a bigger yard to play in.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:14 AM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Paris is a weird example, because aren't the suburbs where the poor people live?
That's a commonly-held belief and it's kind of true, but it's more complicated than that, because it has racial connotations that are kind of the reverse of the United States. Plenty of poor people live within Paris itself.
posted by Automocar at 11:31 AM on March 29, 2019
That's a commonly-held belief and it's kind of true, but it's more complicated than that, because it has racial connotations that are kind of the reverse of the United States. Plenty of poor people live within Paris itself.
posted by Automocar at 11:31 AM on March 29, 2019
But my larger point stands--San Francisco isn't really that dense. Hell, a density on the level of Manhattan would make the population of San Francisco about 3.2 million people.
posted by Automocar at 11:34 AM on March 29, 2019
posted by Automocar at 11:34 AM on March 29, 2019
I grew up in the outer fringe of suburbs of Atlanta during the 1980s and 1990s. My home was on 1.5 acres of land in a big pine and hardwood forest. The environment was truly beautiful, but I hated it as a teenager because it was so isolated. There was exactly one commercial enterprise I could reach by bike, a gas station, and my friends all lived beyond that distance.
During the summers it was dangerously hot and almost impossible to travel the few miles on foot or bike that it would take to see a friend. The roads had no sidewalks and the speed limits didn't permit safe biking either. So, when my parents left for work each day I was essentially marooned in my own home. I made the most of it and read books, watched terrible TV and spent time in nature. But it was impossible to get a job or hang out with friends without a driver's license and an operating car. A big part of my adolescence was the rage at the social isolation for days at a time, broken only by weekends or a ride from someone's mom.
I live in a city today. My house has just enough yard for a small vegetable garden and a raspberry bush. I told my daughter that the choice of location was a gift to her. She can walk to a coffee shop, cafe, library, natural history museum, movie theater and bowling alley. Many of her friends live within blocks. For those destinations further away, there is a bus stop on our front stoop.
This house is smaller than the one I grew up in, but I'm trading that for more options and less of a dependency on a functioning vehicle.
posted by Alison at 12:22 PM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
During the summers it was dangerously hot and almost impossible to travel the few miles on foot or bike that it would take to see a friend. The roads had no sidewalks and the speed limits didn't permit safe biking either. So, when my parents left for work each day I was essentially marooned in my own home. I made the most of it and read books, watched terrible TV and spent time in nature. But it was impossible to get a job or hang out with friends without a driver's license and an operating car. A big part of my adolescence was the rage at the social isolation for days at a time, broken only by weekends or a ride from someone's mom.
I live in a city today. My house has just enough yard for a small vegetable garden and a raspberry bush. I told my daughter that the choice of location was a gift to her. She can walk to a coffee shop, cafe, library, natural history museum, movie theater and bowling alley. Many of her friends live within blocks. For those destinations further away, there is a bus stop on our front stoop.
This house is smaller than the one I grew up in, but I'm trading that for more options and less of a dependency on a functioning vehicle.
posted by Alison at 12:22 PM on March 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
I mean, I'd like to have better schools, less money tied up in the mortgage to spend on the kids, a bigger yard to play in.
Whelp, good for you. I don't know if you're loaded or just bought enough time ago to afford it. I didn't see anything in the city limits I could buy with my partner last summer but holes in the ground and a few houses that were farther from down town than where I live now in Not Seattle.
posted by wotsac at 2:33 PM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
Whelp, good for you. I don't know if you're loaded or just bought enough time ago to afford it. I didn't see anything in the city limits I could buy with my partner last summer but holes in the ground and a few houses that were farther from down town than where I live now in Not Seattle.
posted by wotsac at 2:33 PM on March 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
The author's piece concludes:
for all my earnest efforts to unmask old structures of feeling and to reimagine the contemporary landscape in a forward-looking way, it remains that if I were to climb the beautifully refurbished steeple of the village church and, looking down the valley, see McMansions there, I would suffer.
To which I can only think, it's too bad she can't appreciate the view from an airplane. I flew to San Franciso from Seattle yesterday. We banked over the suburban enclave of San Ramon and there was a moment when I looked out the window at the tight clusters of samey-same houses clinging to the side of a wild green hill and marveled at the optimistic incongruity of a meticulously-planned development existing in a world that persists in showing us, again and again, how plans are useless against the forces of change and nature.
posted by sobell at 2:58 PM on March 29, 2019
for all my earnest efforts to unmask old structures of feeling and to reimagine the contemporary landscape in a forward-looking way, it remains that if I were to climb the beautifully refurbished steeple of the village church and, looking down the valley, see McMansions there, I would suffer.
To which I can only think, it's too bad she can't appreciate the view from an airplane. I flew to San Franciso from Seattle yesterday. We banked over the suburban enclave of San Ramon and there was a moment when I looked out the window at the tight clusters of samey-same houses clinging to the side of a wild green hill and marveled at the optimistic incongruity of a meticulously-planned development existing in a world that persists in showing us, again and again, how plans are useless against the forces of change and nature.
posted by sobell at 2:58 PM on March 29, 2019
Suburbs are expensive AND cities are expensive; your cheap living is in the small towns that have nothing except Dollar Generals left as both destination and employer.
This is a drastic misconception of what the US really looks like. It's accurate if you only consider the top 10-20 metropolitan areas and the small towns of less than 10,000 people, I guess. However, that's ignoring the very large number of middle population cities and metropolitan areas where housing costs are still low and a significant employment base of some sort or another remains. More people live in those places than all the hollowed out Dollar General once-were-towns in the entire US. Some of them are a bit bleak, some are quite nice, if you ask me, which nobody did.
posted by wierdo at 6:59 PM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
This is a drastic misconception of what the US really looks like. It's accurate if you only consider the top 10-20 metropolitan areas and the small towns of less than 10,000 people, I guess. However, that's ignoring the very large number of middle population cities and metropolitan areas where housing costs are still low and a significant employment base of some sort or another remains. More people live in those places than all the hollowed out Dollar General once-were-towns in the entire US. Some of them are a bit bleak, some are quite nice, if you ask me, which nobody did.
posted by wierdo at 6:59 PM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I do think it stuff like this should be allowed:
No, discussions of "conservatism" in this particular context that never once make any direct reference to race like the paragraph you quote should not be allowed (in the broader sense, i.e., allowed without social or intellectual opprobrium attaching), because they are intellectually infantile in a genuinely shameful way. (In England, while the race issues are somewhat different, and sufficiently complex that I wouldn't want to try to speak to them casually, they're still there.)
the same people who have contempt for the suburbs also have contempt for the kind of city where middle-income families can afford to live
Look, I mean, I get the anti-contempt stance generally, it's a useful corrective for me on Mefi often enough, but look at Detroit. Fucking look at it. Thirty-five years of chaos, decay, 911 calls that went unanswered, whole streets plunged into darkness because the lights weren't maintained and/or the city didn't want to pay to keep them on, schoolchildren educated to a pathetic level if they even managed to graduate, gunshot deaths, teenage pregnancy, old ladies with barely-managed diabetes and blood pressure, neighborhoods where the sidewalks literally crumbled away into the grass. This was the result of the big middle finger suburban America gave to the cities because they were full of blacks. These were deliberate choices. The suburbs are not the ones that need to be tenderly sheltered from disapproval.
posted by praemunire at 7:37 PM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
No, discussions of "conservatism" in this particular context that never once make any direct reference to race like the paragraph you quote should not be allowed (in the broader sense, i.e., allowed without social or intellectual opprobrium attaching), because they are intellectually infantile in a genuinely shameful way. (In England, while the race issues are somewhat different, and sufficiently complex that I wouldn't want to try to speak to them casually, they're still there.)
the same people who have contempt for the suburbs also have contempt for the kind of city where middle-income families can afford to live
Look, I mean, I get the anti-contempt stance generally, it's a useful corrective for me on Mefi often enough, but look at Detroit. Fucking look at it. Thirty-five years of chaos, decay, 911 calls that went unanswered, whole streets plunged into darkness because the lights weren't maintained and/or the city didn't want to pay to keep them on, schoolchildren educated to a pathetic level if they even managed to graduate, gunshot deaths, teenage pregnancy, old ladies with barely-managed diabetes and blood pressure, neighborhoods where the sidewalks literally crumbled away into the grass. This was the result of the big middle finger suburban America gave to the cities because they were full of blacks. These were deliberate choices. The suburbs are not the ones that need to be tenderly sheltered from disapproval.
posted by praemunire at 7:37 PM on March 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
My view of the US is likely biased by my unsuccessful 5-year attempt to find somewhere I can afford to live while not owning a car. Even the "modestly priced" cities have failed me so far. (I forget sometimes how very far below "middle income" I am).
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:00 PM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:00 PM on March 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Look, I mean, I get the anti-contempt stance generally, it's a useful corrective for me on Mefi often enough, but look at Detroit. Fucking look at it.I mean, I am aware of that history. But the current reality is that a majority of black Americans live in suburbs. Most big American cities are seeing declining black population, much of which reflects middle-income black people moving to suburbs. (And some of that, particularly in New York, reflects middle-income people being driven out by gentrification.) A majority of Asian-American and Latinx people live in suburbs, as well. When you insult suburban people, you aren't just insulting white suburbanites. And by focusing on the history of suburbs, and not on current trends, I think well-off big-city people might be conveniently sidestepping some uncomfortable questions about their own role in gentrification.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:10 AM on March 30, 2019 [13 favorites]
There are few parts of Indianapolis proper that are as dense as my little commuter suburb.
Indianapolis is a tiny urban core that has annexed a bunch of suburbs and called them a city. It's only the lack of reasons to live here that doesn't send the suburban hellsprawl any further out into the countryside than it already is.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:53 AM on March 30, 2019
Indianapolis is a tiny urban core that has annexed a bunch of suburbs and called them a city. It's only the lack of reasons to live here that doesn't send the suburban hellsprawl any further out into the countryside than it already is.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:53 AM on March 30, 2019
by focusing on the history of suburbs, and not on current trends, I think well-off big-city people might be conveniently sidestepping some uncomfortable questions about their own role in gentrification
Yes. YES.
There's another aspect to affluent urbanites talking down to suburbanites that bears mention, though I will be careful to note I haven't seen it in this thread. So please note I'm discussing the larger city vs. suburbs conversation, not the specific iteration of it in this thread. Anyway...
Many affluent urbanites like to ignore decades of socioeconomic and demographic change in urban and suburban living because it lets them obscure old-fashioned snobbery. Many times arguments that begin with, "Living in the suburbs, you miss out on all the diversity and activity in the city..." are only two or three sentences away from "I live near a Whole Foods and you live near a Kroger." It's often a quick transition from touting the exciting and diverse local character of the city to just listing the expensive things they like there and noting with a sniff that the bedroom community thirty minutes down the highway just doesn't offer that kind of luxury consumerism.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:56 AM on March 30, 2019 [8 favorites]
Yes. YES.
There's another aspect to affluent urbanites talking down to suburbanites that bears mention, though I will be careful to note I haven't seen it in this thread. So please note I'm discussing the larger city vs. suburbs conversation, not the specific iteration of it in this thread. Anyway...
Many affluent urbanites like to ignore decades of socioeconomic and demographic change in urban and suburban living because it lets them obscure old-fashioned snobbery. Many times arguments that begin with, "Living in the suburbs, you miss out on all the diversity and activity in the city..." are only two or three sentences away from "I live near a Whole Foods and you live near a Kroger." It's often a quick transition from touting the exciting and diverse local character of the city to just listing the expensive things they like there and noting with a sniff that the bedroom community thirty minutes down the highway just doesn't offer that kind of luxury consumerism.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:56 AM on March 30, 2019 [8 favorites]
by focusing on the history of suburbs, and not on current trends, I think well-off big-city people might be conveniently sidestepping some uncomfortable questions about their own role in gentrification
I would think this was a lot more of an actual phenomenon if someone essentially writing for well-off big-city people didn't feel entirely comfortable not alluding to this history once.
Urban counties remain the only ones (out of the three major, that is: suburban, urban, and rural) where nonwhite populations are the majority, and the white percentage of the population has continued to decline over recent years. It sounds as if much of that change is driven by the Hispanic rather than the black population, but, oh look, another despised group (as are immigrants, which are substantially concentrated in the major urban areas). Sure, that's going to capture some inner-ring suburbs in some places, but that's not the driver.
posted by praemunire at 9:12 AM on March 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
I would think this was a lot more of an actual phenomenon if someone essentially writing for well-off big-city people didn't feel entirely comfortable not alluding to this history once.
Urban counties remain the only ones (out of the three major, that is: suburban, urban, and rural) where nonwhite populations are the majority, and the white percentage of the population has continued to decline over recent years. It sounds as if much of that change is driven by the Hispanic rather than the black population, but, oh look, another despised group (as are immigrants, which are substantially concentrated in the major urban areas). Sure, that's going to capture some inner-ring suburbs in some places, but that's not the driver.
posted by praemunire at 9:12 AM on March 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
Gah, I have a head full of pollen and can't concentrate. I'm curious what cities have gentrification, with people other than well-off white being pushed out, and what cities don't, and what makes the difference. Gentrification is more than race, of course. Can people with disabilities afford to live in the city? Can poor people, of any race? Can families that are more than one generation?
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:13 AM on March 31, 2019
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:13 AM on March 31, 2019
Can we all just agree that Chesterfield Valley, home of the longest uninterrupted strip mall in the country, is the fucking worst?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:28 AM on March 31, 2019
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:28 AM on March 31, 2019
Isn't a city block with storefronts on all sides just an infinite strip mall
posted by XMLicious at 2:31 PM on March 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 2:31 PM on March 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
Isn't a city block with storefronts on all sides just an infinite strip mall
No.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:46 PM on March 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
No.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:46 PM on March 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
I was actually just joking but that article is illustrated with a photo that looks like a series of storefronts with a single row of parking in front of it and residential towers behind in the distance, identified as a strip mall in Malaysia. If I zoom in I think I can also see someone eating something made from a piece of meat between some breading, but I can't decide whether it's a sandwich.
(But of course I realize you can probably come up with a 50 page PDF defining a strip mall, aspersioncast, that probably would rule out any sort of circular one and any Möbius strip mall. Although... what if you had a single retail strip with parking that encircled the entire planet, without turning at all?)
posted by XMLicious at 4:18 PM on March 31, 2019
(But of course I realize you can probably come up with a 50 page PDF defining a strip mall, aspersioncast, that probably would rule out any sort of circular one and any Möbius strip mall. Although... what if you had a single retail strip with parking that encircled the entire planet, without turning at all?)
posted by XMLicious at 4:18 PM on March 31, 2019
My view of the US is likely biased by my unsuccessful 5-year attempt to find somewhere I can afford to live
I initially mis-read that as "5-year-old attempt" and had images of a toddler studying the real estate ads.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:29 AM on April 1, 2019
I initially mis-read that as "5-year-old attempt" and had images of a toddler studying the real estate ads.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:29 AM on April 1, 2019
I totally assumed you were joking but then I had to look up the actual entry for strip mall and thought I might as well post it.
what if you had a single retail strip with parking that encircled the entire planet, without turning at all?
I had a book with an illustration like this, or maybe it was a seventies Mad magazine?
posted by aspersioncast at 4:57 PM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
what if you had a single retail strip with parking that encircled the entire planet, without turning at all?
I had a book with an illustration like this, or maybe it was a seventies Mad magazine?
posted by aspersioncast at 4:57 PM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
The Secret History of the Suburbs - The following is an excerpt adapted from the new book Radical Suburbs, by Amanada Kolson Hurley
Clichés and misconceptions still define suburbia in the popular imagination, and it drives me crazy. I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C. I’m a suburbanite, but my life doesn’t revolve around manicured lawns, status anxiety, or a craving for homogeneity. My suburban experience is riding the bus as people chat around me in Spanish and French Creole. It’s having neighbors who hail from Tibet, Brazil, and Kenya as well as Cincinnati. It’s my son attending a school that reflects the diversity—and stubborn inequality—of America today.posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:58 AM on April 9, 2019
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...i guess?
...but i would argue that suburbs are more hostile to me than i have ever been to them. i can't afford to live in one. i can't imagine being able to afford living in one. i have rented rooms in divided-up houses located in them, at times. but i couldn't (still can't) afford the car you need to drive to live in one. i have tried navigating them via public transit -- which is often nonexistent in them, or so poor as to turn a distance-wise short commute into a three-hours-each-way affair. i have tried navigating them on foot or on bike and have been glowered at by patrolling cops and passing drivers who consider anyone not in a car to be a ne'er do well at the least, and probably some sort of Problem. i have had this glowering escalate into verbal harassment, threats, and objects thrown at my head from the windows of moving vehicles (usually along with a shouted slur).
i kind of feel like Raymond Williams would have liked the author to point out some of the ways these factors contribute to "suburbophobia," instead of just the namecheck, given his lifelong commitment to issues of race and class?
posted by halation at 8:22 PM on March 28, 2019 [77 favorites]