Suburban America

[GMCGeneral]

Let me preface this by my saying that I don't really care where a person lives. Having said that, here we go. In recent years, we've been seeing what I like to call "Neo-Urbanists" pushing against suburbs thinking that by forcing people back into cities, that would revitalize them. YouTubers like "Not Just Bikes" are especially known for this mindset.
In addition, we hear that there were racial elements involved in creating the 'burbs and of so-called "white flight" where there was mass migration of white families from urban to suburban communities.
However, I like to call this a natural progression. Here me out. Before WWII, there were basically two places we would find people living. Rural towns/farms and crowded cities, with little connectivity except for single lane roads and railroads.
However, that all changed after V-J day as US servicemen returned home from combat and began starting families. Hello Baby Boom. Now the question was how do we address the sudden population spike? Well, along with that, cars became more numerous as well. And thus the Suburbs and Highway systems were born.
Having said that incoherent word salad, let me pose this thought exercise to you.
How would America look if there was no Suburbs? No highway system, including the US Interstate system? Would Cities need to expand outward and upward? Would there still be a two-tiered economic system?

 

[LuckyDuck01!]

It would look like Blade Runner or some other sci-fi film, but we still would have roads because you have to have farms for produce and livestock.

 

[DGS49]

Make no mistake, the main driver pushing White people out of the cities was a desire to get away from Negros, especially with respect to public schools. You could either stay and watch your neighborhood deteriorate and schools go downhill, or move to a clean, fresh area that was virtually all-White.

But "we" forgot the advantages of living where you can walk to just about everything.

Ironically, our kids whose whole life was in suburban bliss are moving back to the city, in droves.

 

[1srelluc]

I suspect TX would say **** You.

I swear though, i don't see how people can live like that.

 

[GMCGeneral]

Make no mistake, the main driver pushing White people out of the cities was a desire to get away from Negros, especially with respect to public schools. You could either stay and watch your neighborhood deteriorate and schools go downhill, or move to a clean, fresh area that was virtually all-White.

But "we" forgot the advantages of living where you can walk to just about everything.

Ironically, our kids whose whole life was in suburban bliss are moving back to the city, in droves.

And they're fools to do so as there is zero benefit to moving into urban shitholes.

 

[whitehall]

Ike doesn't get enough credit for his administration. Under his leadership and experience as a general in WW2 he understood how the interstate system would benefit America in case the Military had to be mobilized. An unexpected (or maybe expected) benefit of the interstate system was the commerce that benefits Americans to this day.

 

[GMCGeneral]

I suspect TX would say **** You.

I swear though, i don't see how people can live like that.

Easy-Peasy. It's call being able to own your own home and not be sandwiched with neighbors above and below you. What's so difficult about that?

 

[1srelluc]

Easy-Peasy. It's call being able to own your own home and not be sandwiched with neighbors above and below you. What's so difficult about that?

LOL....All I see is a huge HOA.

 

[DGS49]

And they're fools to do so as there is zero benefit to moving into urban shitholes.

I respectfully disagree. Don't equate urban with ghetto. Pittsburgh has several City neighborhoods that are safe, friendly, and have every imaginable feature within easy walking distance. Church, library, restaurants, grocery store, Starbuck's (or equivalent), etc.

 

[GMCGeneral]

I respectfully disagree. Don't equate urban with ghetto. Pittsburgh has several City neighborhoods that are safe, friendly, and have every imaginable feature within easy walking distance. Church, library, restaurants, grocery store, Starbuck's (or equivalent), etc.

Noted and discarded. Shittsburgh is nothing but a typical ghetto just like every other urban jungle. I lived in Buffalo damned near my whole life and when I discovered the quiet, peaceful, safe and orderly Town of West Seneca, I was more than elated to haul azz out of Dodge. Plus City living =/= property ownership with large yards.

 

[LuckyDuck01!]

Make no mistake, the main driver pushing White people out of the cities was a desire to get away from Negros, especially with respect to public schools. You could either stay and watch your neighborhood deteriorate and schools go downhill, or move to a clean, fresh area that was virtually all-White.

But "we" forgot the advantages of living where you can walk to just about everything.

Ironically, our kids whose whole life was in suburban bliss are moving back to the city, in droves.

The main desire being to get away from blacks was a catalyst for Democrats in the south and some racists in the north, but most people just wanted a piece of land they could call their own, not a cramped tenement.

 

[GMCGeneral]

The main desire being to get away from blacks was a catalyst for Democrats in the south and some racists in the north, but most people just wanted a piece of land they could call their own, not a cramped tenement.

Thank you! That's something neo urbanists just cannot fathom.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

Urban living has its upside
Especially if you have white neighborhoods
Depends how you're doing it

 

[Mr Natural]

I suspect TX would say **** You.

I swear though, i don't see how people can live like that.

With all that space they have in Texas, you'd think they would spread things out.

It looks like Levittown on steroids.

 

[petro]

In my view, suburban living IS city life.
I live out in the exurbs of acreage lots, private wells and septic systems. Every house out here has a second garage or pole barn for toys.

The only shooting is local hunters blasting geese out in the farmland or local ponds.
We don't even have a police department, county Sheriff's are contracted for local law enforcement.

 

[Zebra]

I suspect TX would say **** You.

I swear though, i don't see how people can live like that.

good picture!

 

[Mushroom]

Having said that, here we go. In recent years, we've been seeing what I like to call "Neo-Urbanists" pushing against suburbs thinking that by forcing people back into cities, that would revitalize them.

Most of them suffer from a form of "Groupthink", and think everybody should be just like them. And even worse, they tend to have some form of utopian vision for how things would be if people would just listen to them.

Yes, I did once live in dense urban areas, 25+ years ago. And in the decades since I have moved more and more into the suburbs, and since largely retiring have moved almost rural. After putting up with living in and around Baghdad by the Bay and LA for decades, I had enough and put all that behind me.

And the last time I worked in downtown San Francisco, I knew I had made the right call. I saw people living inside the city paying $2,500 for a freaking loft apartment and another $600 a month for parking, and for less than that I was renting a 4 bedroom house in a very nice suburban area only an hour away.

I worked with hordes of them (was a dot com in the IT industry), and I just could not understand how somebody could love living in a city like that.

 

[GMCGeneral]

Most of them suffer from a form of "Groupthink", and think everybody should be just like them. And even worse, they tend to have some form of utopian vision for how things would be if people would just listen to them.

Yes, I did once live in dense urban areas, 25+ years ago. And in the decades since I have moved more and more into the suburbs, and since largely retiring have moved almost rural. After putting up with living in and around Baghdad by the Bay and LA for decades, I had enough and put all that behind me.

And the last time I worked in downtown San Francisco, I knew I had made the right call. I saw people living inside the city paying $2,500 for a freaking loft apartment and another $600 a month for parking, and for less than that I was renting a 4 bedroom house in a very nice suburban area only an hour away.

I worked with hordes of them (was a dot com in the IT industry), and I just could not understand how somebody could love living in a city like that.

I sure as shit don't. Spent most of my.life in South Buffalo, moved to West Seneca three years ago, just like night and day.