Why the Suburbs Are Terrible for Us (and the Planet)
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
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In this Our Changing Climate climate change video essay, I look at why the suburbs are so terrible for people and the planet. Specifically, I look at the racist history of the suburbs in the United States in order to understand how the suburbs came about. The suburbs have a dark history of white supremacy and settler colonialism that suburbanites still wrestle with today. Suburban design, a result of white flight and fear of the perceived ills of the city, locked in a way of living and a way of moving about the landscape that is incompatible with the environment. The suburban lifestyle is not sustainable, both in terms of our well-being and our planet.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:38 - Settler-Colonial Roots
5:57 - How Racism Made the Suburbs
10:06 - Suburbia's Environmental Destruction
12:28 - Building for the Planet and People
15:15 - Check Out the Nebula Companion Video
17:44 - What To Watch Next
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#suburbs #urbandesign #climatechange
How is your city (or town) designed? Do you like it or hate it?
Cincinnati has some great walkable downtown neighborhoods, but the arrival of I-71 and I-75 absolutely DECIMATED the west side of the city and made parts of the city (majority black) that were wholly cut off from the other parts of the city.
Utterly disappointing to read about. As I understand it, Cincinnati was once a major rail hub of the Midwest, and even today that's being chipped away
I used to like it but it's becoming more and more car centric.
I live in Bloomington Indiana and the university has helped design awesome things in our town.
Toronto here. One of the best designed cities in North America in regards to public transit. Which isn't really saying much.
Transit has massive opposition from nimby's and ignorant drivers. Our transit commission fights tooth and nail for what meagre cents the provincial and federal governments allow them to use.
We are building a new freeway through our city. All newly built developments meant to expand the Greater Toronto Area are all zoned R1 (single family homes and duplexes only). Definitely sliding backwards.
We spent over a decade building a single LRT though and it's actually almost done, so there's that.
Please please never give up educating people about this stuff. So many problems in our society get ignored due to being the status quo. Would be really nice if people could actually understand the effects of the policies they're voting for. Make conservatism unviable as a politicians career path in the first place so far-right conservatives can't even get on the ballot.
This was an exceptional summary of the explicitly racist origins of modern suburbia. I have literally nothing to add. This is a great video.
Hey
Your videos make me super passionate about urban design and walkable cities
@@user1gd7s6 because kids in the Netherlands are statistically the happiest in the world and they wanted their kids to grow up happy.
race denial is a crime against humanity.
@@jayandreas1131 because Europeans create the greatest societies.
Moved to Germany from California three years ago. I lived in a very typical home. Then once I lived here I was in shock at how accessible everything is. Within a 5 min walking distance I have multiple hair salons, bakery, pharmacy, doctors office, hotel, grocery store, post office and many small shops. I don’t even live in the city centre. If I go to the city centre it’s much bigger stores and lots of shops with a huge park. All my friends here also live within a walking distance to nearby stores and small shops. It’s just normal here. It’s so convenient and sometimes I will never understand as why the USA can’t replicate this. The city I live in isn’t for rich people and it’s very affordable. The crime here is low and I feel safe walking around.
The United States had that before 1950.
Good initiative to back to europe
And interestingly enough, one of the most common ethnic groups in the United States is German-Americans. I know people move to the US for a reason, but you know. It is at least beneficial to learn a little something from the country you descended from.
I never knew it was this bad in America.. like I thought there woulda still been small little shops and services in most suburbs still or good public transport?
I live in Perth, Western Australia and it is also pretty much the norm here unless you live in the country… it’s also been the same when I’ve been to most of the other states
The USA can never replicate this because there is no profit to be made by the corps in this case. The US is really just a bunch of mega corps masquerading as a country. That's why it's so capitalist.
One thing I find interesting with western capitalist culture and American suburbia is how the lifestyle demands consumption. Since you become car dependent, everything you have to do becomes a massive chore, you can't pop in for some fresh produce grocery shopping on your way back from work, instead you do it once a week, requiring enormous freezers and fridges (not to mention that many American foods would be illegal in Europe due to all conservatives and antibiotics). But other than that, with massive spaces the house demand a lot of furniture, and with no services in close proximity (gym, cinema, public baths, library etc), each house owner wants their own gym, their own home cinema, their own pool etc in this never-ending pursue of comfort (due to car dependency)... American suburbia is tailored around exploiting consumer patterns amongst its inhabitants, it systematically demands and exploits you to consume more.
Personally I live in a small apartment, 21sqm (226sqft) in Malmö, Sweden. I live close to the sea (great for swimming), I live close to parks (great for workout and we have tons of outdoor gyms as well), the cinema is only 15 minutes walk away through a park, and you can always rent movies, books, and even games for free at the library. These days I barely consume anything but groceries, and those are bought on a daily basis, which means that I never throw away food. It's such a stark contrast to American suburbia. But with this being said, there are well designed suburbs as well. My childhood home was in such a suburb. The train would take me to the city within 15 minutes. It was built around local services, gorcery stores, flower shop, library, gym, restaurants, even video games stores, youth centers etc. you name it. Houses were often two stories built in chains (reducing energy consumption), they weren't oversized and they didn't have massive lawns (no one had anything else but a manual lawn mower). instead housing areas were built around local forests, and fields, and then the municipality added benches, playgrounds in those natural environments and made them accessible as public spaces. It's weird, it was close to nature, close to the city, and still financially viable for the municipality due to the local commerce.
So really, suburbs themselves aren't terrible, but the typical American suburbia is. (With this being said, you can find similar kind of development in Sweden as well, and it pains me whenever I see it)
And btw, the problem is not the single family homes per sé, but the fact that in US they are the 70% of a city, this is insane.
@@Plan73 Exactly. The biggest issue for the US is that everything in-between skyscrapers and single family homes is basically illegal to build.
But it must be iterated that the design of the typical American large, single story, stand-alone house is actually terrible... Extremely inefficient when it comes to heating/cooling.... Take winter as an example, heat dissipates through all external walls (and roof). If houses are built in pairs, you reduce heat dissipation by one wall (25% of the wall surface), if they are built in chain, you reduce it by two walls (50%) You conserve a lot of energy doing it this way... In my childhood suburb we also built two story houses on hillsides, they were semi buried underground. the top floor was free standing, and 3 walls of the bottom floor used the natural insulation of the earth. yet they were bright and light due to having one free wall letting a lot of light in.
There are so many good ways to build housing, but none apply to American building/zoning codes. :) Which is absurd, since Sweden generally has much higher building standards yet allow for many different housing types.
It almost seems like our American lifestyles are deliberately designed to maximise energy consumption as much as possible. The whole "bigger is better" mentality gone out of control.
No wonder environmentalism has become a cult.
You are very lucky
Malmo has repeatedly been named the most antisemitic city in Europe for years. Yes, your mayor was trying. to change that. The point is, your city is not as idealistic as you paint it to be
.
Very interesting topic. Urban sprawl like in LA is very untypical here in Europe. Thanks for shedding light on this problem!
@@reikisk8r I grew up in a small village in Germany with Forest just 5 min away by bike. Probably a very different experience
From what I hear, Europe is rapidly gaining suburbs.
What i can say about living in Paris is that the suburbs are the opposite from what’s happening in US - Paris’ suburbs demographics are like stepping into a different country
@@hidesbehindpseudonym1920 but they often have public transport in suburbs
If you like this stuff about urban planning, check out the channel Not Just Bikes. He's brilliant on this stuff.
I live in white flight suburbs that is currently exploring how to improve zoning. The fears expressed when accessable multi use neighbors are discussed is astonishing. Many residents list traffic and parking as reasons to remain primarily single family homes community. Expanding and improving public transportation is seen as the problem not as part of the solution.
Yeah it's an attack on the way of life lots of Silent, Boomers, Gen X, and even some Millennials have grown used to as well as the collective culture developed around it and perpetuated by lobbying billionaires, politicians, and large companies (aka everything said in this video and more).
My suburb here on the Westside of the Portland Metro Area has been investing heavily in neighborhoods with a high density of low-income and Hispanic families in both accessibility to nearby libraries, parks, public recreation facilities as well as prioritizing those neighborhoods for access to affordable municipal gigabit fiber internet service first before a slow buildout to wealthier neighborhoods in surrounding districts.
I do wonder it such efforts will lead to steps further in rebuilding old neighborhoods as mixed-use with affordable housing apartment buildings and multi-unit townhomes.
I hate that every time I see local news on FB mention my city wants to make an improvement to public transportation or bike paths/lanes, everyone treats it like a big joke and gets angry that the city would even think of such a thing. They just want more and more cars 🤦♀️
@@EvangeliumDiSilenti yeah, it's really odd. I honestly do not understand why measures like this cause so much anger in some people. Like, better public transport services and more people walking and riding bikes means less traffic, so even if you only care about yourself and your car, it'll be an improvement to you. Again, honestly do not understand the problem.
@@handlemonium Yeah, and do you think the older generations are going to just sit there and take it? NO! we are going to fight back.
@@handlemonium If society does not respect it's elders, it WILL fail.
I just explained American cul-de-sacs to my French bf the other day... "Cul-de-sac" is a French word, but it just means a dead end road, it doesn't really evoke the same image -- more of an alleyway than a sprawling suburb.
As a fellow french speaker, it evokes getting lost and frustrated more than anything else to me haha
@@jea7362 getting lost and frustrated pretty much sums up the US version as well.
I lived on a cul de sac and now understand how it's different than a dead end road. In that it has a turn around area that usually has houses arranged around it's perimeter. So idk if that was the reason for giving it a different name.
@@TheoriginalBMT it is literally a dead end road.
El culo del saco.
Pete Buttegieg mentionned in a recent interview that the expression "wrong side of the track" tells us a lot about why certain roads/tracks were historically created in the USA.
Do you also think of “The Outsiders”?
Do you have a link to that interview?
@@ianhomerpura8937 ruclips.net/video/CpY9kWTmdIg/видео.html
@@ianhomerpura8937 It's on Trevor Noah's channel.
And now all of that is irrelevant because segregation dosnt exist and people just want their own land and a home. Literally everyone but you vagabonds want that.
The problem is, we are not building new cites. We are just sprawling outwards from existing cities, or infilling already overly congested ones.
If we planned new cities with urban design as the main focus, we could create wonderful places to live. When that city fills to the designed population, you build another city, a few miles away. It is a lot cheaper to design a good city from the start than to try and fix cities with bad planning.
I don't understand why there aren't developers building this way, when there is such a huge demand for homes in well designed areas of existing cities where good urban design exists. Not only is this a better way of living, and better for the environment, but every aspect of these urban economies thrive. These areas are always the most desirable, and are the places people visit when they travel to the US.
Nobody has ever said i want to visit the US to see the suburbs. People come here to see national parks and cities, and this is where they spend their $$$$.
Urban design supports many small business', and contributes greatly to the overall prosperity of an area.
the us actually used to have more reasonably developed cities... but a lot of those places got bulldozed to facilitate segregation and the current car dependance
American suburbs arise precisely out of the still-hegemonic ideologies of settler colonialism and white supremacy, which is why they’re still being built. This is why developers aren’t building with good urban design; its principles are incompatible with those ideologies.
@@0xcece Not all developers are in on some grand scheme to keep people segregated. Most developers build track homes on cheap land, because that is where they think the $ is, and that is all they know, because that is all they have been taught.
Big oil is mostly responsible, because they finance campaigns of people who will keep zoning laws, just where they want them, to maximize profit. This is why the right is always against any type of mass transit bill, because it eats into the profit of big oil, the people who they actually work for.
The developers are also tied by regulations. Most areas are zoned as only single family areas so that’s is all they can build. The zoning laws have to be changed and all the ‘not in my neighborhood’ people need to be shut down!
Plenty of cities have been designed from the ground up. Many of them ended up as costly disasters, more often than not pampering the ego of the architect than those supposed to live in those places.
Watched this over on Nebula but wanted to comment here. This video is the kind of thing of why I became an eco-socialist. These issues are not separate but heavily intertwined and I hope to start making the changes pointed out in the video. Meanwhile, a small way I am helping out is refusing to conform to the suburb norms of having a lawn and such. Not only am I slowly converting my lawn to clover but I have several wildlife gardens in and around my house because whenever I go for a run in my suburb, I just always get the sense of how much these are just life deserts.
You walk the right path, brother. Thank you for your service. ✊
This is what I'm trying to do as well! I am a recent high school graduate living at my house until college in the fall and I have decided to plant as many crops as I can in my front yard, rather than hiding them in the back. That way we are establishing a new norm for our neighborhoods, and hopefully more and more of our neighbors will catch on and start using their space for food and pollinating plants. I think it looks so cool to have a full on garden in the front yard, and I can only imagine what it looks like to others when they drive by. No better way then front and center and on display!
That's awesome you're changing it to clover! I love cover because it is soft. I also love mossy lawns and think they are sweet looking, not an eyesore.
Ugh, can you please talk to our local tankies and “socialists” in sunny Berkeley, CA? Their very left wing policies seem to be no impediment at all to their actively pushing for exclusionary zoning and car-dependent sprawl. They’re even blocking UC Berkeley dorms, affordable, partially affordable housing. It’s completely insane!
But they want you to live in a dirty old city to save the environment.
I completely agree and it’s still happening. I live in St. Louis city. Born and raised and not enough has changed. Over the past 2 years I’ve learned so much about my city’s racist history after I inherited a house that was built in 1899. My grandparents bought the house in 1962 and within 4 years, all the White people in the entire neighborhood was gone and the neighborhood was moved from yellow to red on the maps. Because the neighborhood was majority Black, it was never put on the historical registry so my house, which is a decade older than the houses in the next physical neighborhood, does not qualify for any of the grants or loans to help restore it. To put that into perspective, if my house was located across the street from where it currently is, I could have gotten a $20k grant to restore my house. The only reason the other neighborhood was put on the historic registry was because it stayed majority White for longer. All of our houses are the same design with the same materials and my neighborhood is older. And the only reason these grants and loans are popping up for the other neighborhood (which is where I currently live in an apartment) is because it’s being gentrified.
But it’s deeper than that. Because the house I inherited has been devalued for so long (because the neighborhood was redlined), I couldn’t pull equity from it to renovate it. The house has been paid off since before the 1990s. According to the City of St. Louis, my house is worth the same as a burned down house at the end of the street. My house is a 2,000 sq ft, 3 story, brick house. Yes, all the big box things (plumbing, electrical, and HVAC) need to be updated but the house should not have to same property value as a completely burned down house.
I don’t want this to come off as a hate post because it’s not. I’m thankful for most of my new neighbors because they are restoring these beautiful turn of the century homes. I just hate that the Black people who own these properties will not benefit from it. I know a lot of us don’t have the money to quickly renovate these homes but the homes would have never got has bad as they did if they hadn’t been cut off from traditional means of financing. You can’t put a mortgage on the homes where my house is because the property values are too low for a bank to touch. I went through that when I found out I couldn’t pull equity so I tried to take our a mortgage. Even offered to buy it from my mom. I was told by several banks that I qualified for a mortgage but my neighborhood didn’t. It’s frustrating.
What about ecovillages as a solution to the suburb problem? One example is Ithaca: they took land slated for suburban development. Originally the land was going to be 90% houses, driveways, roads, etc and 10% greenspace. The ecovillage took the land and flipped the numbers. 10% is for mid density townhouses and 90% is for forests, farms, parks, etc. They did this while housing a similar number of people. Truly inspiring. A better way is possible and ecovillages offer interesting case studies
There are lots of designs that allow us to use suburban land more sustainably. The problem is the people who only care about sustainability when it doesn't affect _them,_ because that's a large portion of the US population. Especially in the suburbs.
But there's a trick to be had. Most people actually _prefer_ livable neighborhoods. They just don't know what a livable neighborhood looks like. Their idea of anything denser than single-family suburbia is either massively expensive high rise apartments in the deep urban core, or the projects where all the "criminals" live. Little thought as to why the projects are the way they are, and zero thought or research put into wondering whether sustainable neighborhoods could be done better. You know, when they're developed for better purposes than "lets put those black people somewhere out of sight. As cheaply as possible".
They love to look at all those "quaint" village squares when they see images of France or Italy or basically anywhere else in Europe. They don't seem to realize that those aren't "quaint" over there. They're commonplace. And could be in the US as well if the political will was generated.
On the upside, that political will _is_ starting to be generated. Its not going to be a snap your fingers everything's fixed situation by any means, but we're starting to see a larger and larger push for better city planning, and there's even been some of the more progressive cities around the US starting to take notice and initiate "test" developments, relaxing zoning restrictions, etc. Its slow-moving (probably too slow given the pace of climate change), but it _is_ moving.
That sounds like a huge improvement but these ecovillages would also need to be integrated to public transit for residents to access things beyond their own farm/parks. I imagine the residents in Ithaca all still own cars to go to work, school, stores etc.
@@xtinafusco Another case study that might be of interest to you is Dancing Rabbit, where there is like 1 car for every 30 people despite being an rural American community. They car share, plan trips carefully, grow their own food, etc
That is good, but who gets to live there?
@@rickb3650 Anyone who wants to? Ideally, they'll be designed well enough that most people _will_ want to.
There will always be a market for detached single-family homes. No question about that. But the US is currently setup so that _only_ detached single-family homes are even possible (like, legally prevented from building anything else no matter the market for it. You know, "small government" getting out of the way of the markets, right! Right?)
There are a lot of people who _don't_ want a detached single-family home, but don't have any choice. There's downtown core high rises or suburbia, and little or nothing in between.
But that in between is actually a pretty sweet spot. Townhouses and row houses aren't (or at least don't have to be) significantly smaller in terms of floor area than your average detached home. What they _do_ tend to lack is massive yards and lawns. But for a lot of people that's a _benefit._
There's a lot of folk who would prefer not to spend a couple hours a week throughout the entire summer tending to their lawn, wasting water (especially if your water is metered) to keep it healthy, etc. Not everybody wants a garden.
So we have a whole lot of people who would love to live in an "ecovillage" or something similar, a lot of builders who would like to build such a thing. And a lot of local governments who refuse to allow their construction because some NIMBY three suburbs over is worried that it might bring "crime" (which in many cases is still just a dog whistle for "non-white people", even in 2022).
And of course you have the usual lies and misinformation from the "that's how its always been done!" corner of the right wing. They don't care that that's most definitely _not_ how its always been done. They don't care that the way its currently done is terrible for almost everyone involved, not to mention the environment. They don't care that there are plenty of examples of it being done well (especially in Europe).
All they care about is preventing anything from ever changing for the better. Frequently paid for by the fossil fuel industry as they're one of the few groups that absolutely would do worse if we weren't all forced to waste so much of our lives sitting in traffic burning gas unnecessarily, and paying them for the "privilege" of doing so.
I grew up in a dense city, neighborhood and Apartment complex. Currently I live in a suburban home, personally I would pick it over the apartment any day since dense housing has no privacy, room to pursue outdoor hobbies or a functional garage where I like to fix things. It might work for people who like being part of crowd and chaos that comes with it but some people like peace and quiet that comes with a suburban home and its well worth it.
Forcing people to cram into a densely populated urban core because it has less carbon footprint giving them sleepless nights and anxiety is probably not the best idea. Yes the HOA's and
"hassle" of fitting into a ideology takes some effort but its the same as putting up with the noise, chaos and crowd of living in a packed neighborhood.
You are so right Being crammed in to a big city would be my worst nightmare. Prison like. Makes me shudder. I like having my small garden so that i can be alone and silent.
I’m from the City with the biggest bike parking garage in the world :) So I guess that says it all (I love it!) I just spend a month traveling the US and I miss Utrecht so much! Using public transport or quickly going to the store is barely existent in the US… and so so so many homeless people, breaks my heart :(
Utrecht is amazing. That is how proper biking city is designed, everyone should be inspired by it.
visit any other non-central eu country, and you will find that. I come from Argentina, unfortunately poverty is much worse there.
The worst thing in US isn't the homeless people, it's empty houses + homeless people.
HOAs allowing trees to be planted in yards that have space will be a plus but won't happen because it'll obstruct the views from their breakfast nook
Have you also noticed suburbs lack people in their 20s? It seems to mostly be older people because even people who grew up in suburbs hate it and tend to move to major cities and I think that is the solution for the burbs, to depopulate them and to move to dense major cities.
I think that's normal. I grew up in the suburbs, but moved to a major city when I left my parents house at 22, because I wanted the excitement of a major city, and like most 20 somethings I loved going out and partying with friends. At 33 I was bored with going out and parting with friends and decided to settle down, and got married and had kids. I didn't want my kids to grow up in a big city where there is lots of crime. Plus since I was no longer interested in going out and parting at that stage in my life I no longer wanted to be living in a 2 bedroom condo in the city, when I could could sell it and get a 4 bedroom house with a yard in the suburbs for the same amount of money.
@@breebartkowiakova I currently live in the Suburban part of Los Angeles but technically I'm not a suburbanite because I still live within city limits. However I hate this place because of how car centric it is and other more personal reasons too. I'm currently a college student and I don't have much of a future here so I do intend on moving to a dense major city, however I don't intend on ever moving to the suburbs since I can just raise my future kids in a major city, even in a small space since I calculated that the minimum space needed for a family of 3 is about 200 square feet. And while in the burbs you get larger homes to raise kids, you'll also pay more in heating and cooling and ofc transportation since you'll have to drive yourself and the kids around a lot. Another con of suburban living is that kids who grow up in the suburbs tend to be very sheltered compared to kids in the city, and I want my kids to be independent and not rely on me for transportation. Tbh the biggest obstacle is housing costs but I'd argue that in a way it's more economical in the long run to live in a city than in a suburb because you don't need a car, don't spend more on heating and cooling a 200+ square foot apartment and there's also the option of buying from thrift stores for kids clothing.
@@Dave-dl6ql Not really
Not sure how it works in the US, but how many people in their 20s have enough money and financial stability to be able to afford a suburban home? In my country (Netherlands) you typically see young people move to the big cities to study and because there's lots to do there, and then move back to our version of suburbia to raise their kids.
unless you've served in the US military you have to save up 20% for a down payment. There are loan programs for as low as 5% but there are rules around those. how many kids out of college have the $100,000 or more plus the closing costs to buy a house unless a parent just died.
Another great video, there is a huge contrast between the way Europe developed compared to America and even Canada.
That is so true I visited Paris a few years back it just feels a lot more welcoming.
I’m black and have been to several European countries on like 5 different trips, sometimes living there for months at a time. Europe has segregation too. The suburbs there are also largely white. Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands. Doesn’t matter. It’s happening there too
@@wawhite6019Because its a european country, why would u expect europe to have a lot og black people or any other race
@@wawhite6019 Europe doesn't have >20% non-white population. if a country has only 5% or so non_white population, and most of those people are either immigrants or children of immigrants, you expect them mostly to be concentrated in large cities. If you looked up where, say, Eastern European ppl in UK or Germany live, they would also be concentrated in few large cities, just like Indian, black, East Asian and Middle Eastern ppl
@@wawhite6019 there's a total of 1,78 million Afro-Europeans combined in the three countries you mentioned, and only the Netherlands has a higher than average percentage of Afro-Europeans, at approximately 4% of the population (the EU average being 2% which both Denmark and Germany is well beneath), so there are simply less people of color to be seen in general.
Anyway, I wanted to ask if you had talk to local Afro-European how to what degree they feel discriminated against, and if they feel like they're living segregated from the rest of the population.
I'm so glad that at least in my hometown in Austria, officials recently made an ordinance that all newly built houses must have at least 2 units or must be built with use by 2 families in mind. I don't mean apartment buildings here, but what, in America, would be a single-family house.
I also live in a suburban town with 6,000 people, but I live in an apartment building, while my parents live in a single-family home in the same town. I can walk, bike or take the e-scooter to the store, and there's a bus going to the next bigger city with 250,000 inhabitants. Only reason I still have a car now is because while going to the city with public transit is easy, going home later in the evening or at night is very hard.
But yeah, suburbs really don't need to be these car-centric, soul crushing food deserts that they are in America, if houses and infrastructure are built with a bit of brains.
In the US, those wouldn't be called single-family. Single-family house, in the US, only refers to a home in which there is one unit. The houses you are talking about are called duplexes (if they have 4 units they're called fourplexes). Then of course there are apartment buildings and condominiums with many units (the difference between an apartment and condo here is that you rent an apartment, but own a condo).
EDIT: I just realized you might also be referring to what is called a townhouse here.
@@eklectiktoni I think he mentions a semi detached (usually with a garage and little drive way).
Town house would be used for a 4-row set up .
That sounds nice, I always hated living in an apartment here in America but that’s because my neighbors below me would complain about noise whenever I’d just be walking around, and the wifi connection was completely terrible. I think our country needs better infrastructure to support these multi unit housing
Not all suburbs are food deserts nor soul crushing
You know eating out is more expensive than preparing your own meals. Most single family homes come equipped with kitchens for preparing your own meals. If you go to a hot dog stand or a fast food restaurant, the food is more expensive and often not as good!
For those of us who live in the suburbs now (as our parents did before us), what is the real solution here? I imagine if we sold our house and moved to some block housing or something, someone else would just be living there instead of us. I deeply care about the earth and hate what humans are doing to it, but I don't know how I can help even though I'm part of the problem.
Standing up to HOA at meetings or town halls, turning your house lawn into a useful garden, or finding ways to be energy efficient could help. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is be the contrary voice to the comforted masses stone walling of change and be an example. Selling the house will not help.
Nobody is asking you to sell your home and move to the city. But allowing old white people to be the sole voice in town hall meetings, city laws and ordinances, local politics, allows these problems to persist. You have to fight to make your suburbs denser. You have to fight either extend public transit into the suburbs or build one that is sustainable. Staying quiet and allowing old white people to dominate the laws is essentially the root of the problem.
Convincing local governments to allow mixed use and for them to change their zoning laws. Convincing local governments and HOA to fill in vacant blocks of land with medium-density housing. You don't have to leave the suburbs--we just need to make them more livable for more people.
go to zoning meetings! contact city and county council members! read up on city plans! if ur in Georgia then the state requires certain development plans to be made to make sure communities can be at least financially resilient and debt free. provide your input where you can. talk to your neighbors and build community. discuss and make plans with local govt officials for things like public and community gardens, local publicly owned broadband ISPs, corner stores, live work units, and missing middle housing! advocate for more park and green space. talk to your local/state DOT to get public transit going. all democracy is a local team sport at the end of the day and is centered on community. use that to your advantage and don't lose hope! hope and community are the two strongest weapons you have against classism and bigotry!
"sold our house and moved...someone else would just be living there"
As the others have said, you have far more power than you seem to think. No suburbs are not some eternal truth that we just have to live with or work around. You can make your community less destructive. There's no silver bullet besides maybe organized activism.
wait… US suburbs don’t have shops/supermarkets? I get needing to go a bit further for things like cinemas because those will be in the centres of towns, but basic things like supermarkets? Why try to isolate yourself from all the ‘scary and dangerous’ things in the city and then design your place in a way that you STILL have to go into the city for basic needs? That doesn’t make sense at all 😅
It is the us of a afterall
No, us suburbs don’t have anything…. You get in your car not bc ur lazy but there aren’t sidewalks in newer subdivisions, they aren’t built on a grid so it could be 3 miles winding just in your neighborhood before u get to a store, and lastly there are massive 6 lane highways you would have to cross. I hate it
@@jasminewilliams1673 That’s absolutely wild to me 😱 In my Dutch city there are basic supermarkets in every single neighbourhood, no more than 10 minutes cycling from anywhere to reach them.
Yeah, it's a pretty crazy system in the US and Canada. It's partly because we were developed largely after the automobile came to be and auto-makers pushed suburbs as a way to produce more profit as people would have to buy cars to live there. Then big box malls/supermarkets have their own profit-motives to exist, rather than smaller, more frequent shops and services.
If you live in a suburb in Canada or the US you are lucky if you have a nearby park, a nearby school, and a nearby grocery store. You are even MORE lucky if you have nearby restaurants, hair salon, pharmacy, doctor's office or library of some kind.
@@jasminewilliams1673 Three miles are five kilometres. Five kilometres is how far the average person can walk in an hour. So you'd need to walk for an hour to get to the nearest store? This reminds me of when a relative went on a week-long school trip in a remote area where they needed to walk two hours to get to the nearest "Kaff" (that's a German word), which is basically a place like a small village where there are only the most important things like, for example, a store or two and nothing more. It's horrible what people do to each other purposefully. Like building suburbs where you're hardly less isolated than even outside a small Swiss mountain village.
The American dream of spending 400k in an absurdly oversized single family house in the middle of nowhere, without a single small corner shop nearby so you will need to spend 30 minutes in a car to buy a box of cereal.
It was a lie the moment the country was founded. Because of heavily incentivized and controlled the industries are including our foods. And again the american suburbs were the product of gov't legislation, zoning laws etc. etc. And dont get me started on HOA(Home Owners Association). Oh and housing prices going up. You can blame the manipulated interest rates from the federal reserve.
Do you remember the 9/11 attack? So many people seem to have forgotten it, the point is cities are big targets for terrorism because so many people live and work there!
Sometimes i wonder what wouldve happened with the native americans if there wasnt colonialism
Ey, I found a wild gigachad!
Jokes aside: same. I wonder if they would have created a state today.
they would form many different countries, who would have as many problems with each other as European countries had with each other for most of history
@@KateeAngel They might’ve looked like China.
Wouldn't they live like the uncontacted tribes? Still in harmony with nature. Unfortunately colonialism haven't ended, neither in USA nor the rest of the americas where indigenous people are genocided.
@@DarkDeepGreen native Americans had cities, pretty extensive ones. They jsut didn't have access to workable metal meaning their innovations were limited to natural materials and selectively bred crops. Which they excelled at.
Remodeling cities,especially those in America, to have little impact on the environment will be no easy feat. But it's necessary.
Thank you so much for this video. You have no idea how thrilled I am that someone is finally addressing this topic.
I live in a mainline suburb bordering Philadelphia. I am in high school and last year I did a research project for school about why we should get rid of single-family zoning. I focused specifically on how it maintains racial segregation, is an extension of whitelining in the suburbs, and stemmed from racist intentions to price out POC and zone areas to separate manufacturing jobs (which were largely held by immigrants) from wealthy neighborhoods. It was so eye opening to look into the history of the suburbs, one that I had never been told about. It was also such an awakening to look into the zoning code of my township, which zones some areas as only for single family houses , and mandates a minimum two-acre lot (I am dead serious).This summer I decided to become an intern on the Board of Commissioners of the Township in which I reside to try to make change. I also began working with 2 development-focused working groups as a part of the township's sustainability plan.
I was shocked to see people's attitudes about suburban development. I attend many public meetings and find it absolutely disgusting to hear people refusing to give up expensive ordinances like single-family zoning, minimum parking requirements, etc. and also constantly complaining whenever a multi-family development gets built. I was equally as disturbed when I brought up the idea of eliminating parking requirements from the zoning code and was met with opposition because "we don't want the car owners to feel left out." I wish I knew how to speak out to them without being seen as naive to real life.
The people who live in places like where I live should see this video and have it constantly in the front of their minds. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for making this video.
I live in Hatboro Pa a suburb about 40 minutes from Philadelphia.
In Hatboro we have a diverse types of housing from large homes , apartment s and townhouses to even government housing .
This does not seem to be the norm with suburban towns .
The parking requirements sometimes hurt the small business here because we do not have the space for large parking spaces .And people often complain that there is not enough parking .
I want to thank you for your hard work in trying to improve your town and for attending town meetings and speaking up.
I know it is not easy .
insanely great video linking so many subjects
This is a great video, I'm glad to be informed on this subject.
Possibly the most comprehensive breakdown on the subject I've seen so far. Another environmental thing I would mention is that the demand for more SFH results in a much higher loss of habitat, ecosystems, and natural carbon sinks such as soil.
Thanks for the video :)
As someone who was born and bred in Turkey and had been living in both Western Europe (the Netherlands and UK) and the US (San Diego) for 6 years, I first noticed that the difference between the US and European ones was huge. When I was living in Turkey and Europe, the streets were crowded, live and people living there tend to be more socialized and also happier compared to the US. The second thing that I noticed is that many Americans did not have any thoughts on how the US suburban lifestyle has caused such problems on themselves since it was created after WW2. However, for example, a lot of Brits that I've encountered in the countryside said that they'd complained how the UK has become like an American state throughout years in terms of car centric cities created across the island. In short, I wish this issue explained in the video would be understood by people who have responsibilities to take something.
Keep in mind the US is massive country. That describes western US cities pretty well, but northeastern cities are much more dense and walkable since they were built far earlier.
Superb, crisp analysis. It’s fascinating how incorrect, destructive ideologies like settler colonialism and white supremacy are reified in the car-suburban form, and how that (perhaps inevitably) results in worse outcomes for essentially everyone.
Incredibly tight summary. Thank you for putting such a fine point on it all. So often, these issues are seen as trade-offs or zero-sum games - but people fail to realize that we can turn these win-lose situations into win-wins. And that's our way out of this. We don't have to wait for people to be selfless. We can just show them how they stand to benefit from the new paradigm in basically every way. Oh, you don't like the high gas prices? Try living somewhere beautiful, where you don't need a car 80% of the time! You don't have to give up convenience - you just gain the savings on gas and the personal benefits of good urban planning. 🙂
derp
Sounds like a Jewish conspiracy theory
I love all of the videos you put out!! I’m currently enrolled in a 2 year community college program and hopefully in the future I will get a degree in political science and/or urban planning and development. So much of your content is like singing to my ears since I hate being car dependent and love transit systems
Wonder how you would feel once you have a couple of kids and an elderly parent you need to get from A to B and do the weekly shop in the wind and rain on a bus Cant help thinking you would be very grateful for that car then.
Great video, thank you!
Great video. Keep it up
I find your videos very well done. I would say enjoyable, but the topics are usually upsetting. Thank you for getting the information out there though. It’s a tough job being the bearer of bad news, but it’s an important one.
I live in a poor country in South America. My family was very poor, but we gradually improved over the years. Which means we move neighborhoods a few times. We lived in a poor neighborhood until I was 15 years old. Then we moved closer to the center, still poor but in a better place in the city. Then I moved with my partner to a more privileged downtown neighborhood. Now I live in a house in a less central, quieter, more beautiful neighborhood. In every neighborhood I've ever lived in, I always had access to a grocery store within walking distance. I always had a park or a beach nearby. I even had a movie theater less than 6 blocks away, even as a child, and even now. Not all parts of the city are like this, there are new neighborhoods, rich and poor, that are more isolated from services, but never to the level of needing a car just to buy milk. Still, things have changed in the last 20 years. Governments have made efforts to reduce the number of cars, they have improved bicycle infrastructure, but still the culture has moved in the other direction: more cars, and more consumption, and more isolation. I think we are still better than you in this respect, but sadly we are getting worse and worse very fast.
Very interesting and well articulated.
Valuable information. Thanks.
In Europe typically single family residential zones exist, but they are very small and usually not so far from shops, urban transit and services. Often they are in hilly areas, where building small condos or other higher buildings is more difficult, or in village or small town, or, in some cases, in the suburbs of cities, but still small zones. More often the residential zone are a mix between small condos and small houses built for one or more family or terraced houses or townhouses not so far from small shop and services. Usually large european city suburb are made of middle density residential areas mixed with mix development zone, at walkable distance from shops and services and not so far from public transport, single family zone are no more than 20% (often less) of the city area
It's nice to see here my home city - Kraków with comment "Expand public transport" . I immediatelly recodnised 'Dominikańska' street (13:27). I wish tram line will be constructed in my neighbourhood as well.
Great video!!
This was an amazing video. I would say the pinnacle of what I've seen from you.
The practice of redlining seems to also inform the immense homelessness problems we have. NIMBY and the rejection of anything but suburbia, even though the latter is economically unviable and is a pyramid scheme.
Then perhaps those in the suburbs would simply move out to nearby farms.
@@aycc-nbh7289 Suburbia is built on the corpse of thousands of farms. It is the most common land sold to developers as farmers retire.
Let suburbia get privatized wait for the collapse
@@qjtvaddict Even with subsidy, many municipalities are in financial distress . Most subsidy goes to construction(eg roads and sewers), but 25 years on the maintenance costs to support the infrastructure bite. This is when cities struggle in their budgets and the howls of waste fraud and abuse begin.
I agree with your fundamental assessment that the burbs are terrible for the planet. I think you missed something specific to the problem. Here in Germany, the burbs are not evident, but people still want that extra control of their environment. A German who could afford it would love a house in the fields. The problem is, that people do not want to change their habits. Here in Germany they do not have the history of the US but will not individually change for the sake of global warming. They want what everyone has come to want based on TV-generated norms. The problem is no one accepts that it takes the individual to accept some responsibility, change their habits and demand the local and national leadership to place a higher value on the environment and not on businesses. The past is important, but what are we doing now?
That is a very good point, and I think you've hit on something beyond the scope of this video. Here in the U.S. the main motivation for so much that is wrong, is race, but everywhere we look around the world we see the same phenomenon with a slightly different motivation. It can be nationalism, religion, ethnic origin, class, or something I've left out, but the common thread is community, or anti-communism. Not in the political sense, but in tribalism.
My community is different and better than your community, so the members of your community are not welcome here and we are going to do things to make it difficult, if not impossible, for any of you to come here.
@@rickb3650 it can also be that people don’t want neighbors just 1 think wall or floor/ceiling apart from them, I remember getting noise complaints just walking around the apartment I lived in 10 years ago, and I can only imagine how bad it would be now when I play video games, it’s also not fun to hear the people next to you banging when you’re trying to sleep, infrastructure sucks here too so internet was always super bad at the multilevel housing complexes
Channels and videos like this (mostly NJB) played a large part in me applying to study geography to work as a city planner.
Fantasic video, thank you for bring this to your audience!
I currently live in a commuter city of Boston due to financial limitations. It annoys be every day that there's not a feasible transit option for me despite the T being one of the better networks in the US.
Ok so I follow you on nebula and I am very happy to pay for your content and the content of other amazing creators. But nebula is not the equivalent of RUclips. There are other differences, but the biggest difference is sound. Your videos just sound so much better on youtube. I think it's down to EQ and compression. Whatever youtube is doing to the sound on your videos, it's working.
Do they even have different videos there?
I did a essay on this topic in my ela class before I watch this video, everything I said in that essay you perfectly said here.
I live in a small provincial capital in the northwest of Spain, two decades ago a process of pedestrianization of the entire urban area began, at first there were many protests, now it is an absolute success, where before there were cars, noise and pollution, now there are terraces, pedestrians and children playing in the street. Vehicles can only access the pedestrian zone at certain times for loading and unloading, and the streets with traffic have their speed limited to 10 km/h and the pedestrian always has priority, public transport circles the urban area and is almost free for the residents. My car gets bored in the garage. I don't know of any Spanish city where you have to use the car to go shopping, to the bank, post office, school, bars and restaurants, parks, there are always these services within a 10 or 15 minute walk at most, although the usual thing is to have them closer, so you can easily walk along sidewalks...and of course if you live in a neighborhood and want to go downtown, there is always public transportation.
I wonder if there are any suburbs that chose to become more dense and mixed use that we can hold up as examples of how to fix this problem
Yes but they're older inner suburbs next to the urban core.
Most "inner ring" suburbs in the U.S. are denser because they border the principle city. But also lots of inner ring suburbs are just an extension of the city. When gentrification takes place and working class people are priced out, they tend to move out into the inner suburbs because those tend to be the most "affordable" suburbs.
Duluth, GA is moving in that direction!
Although I don't really know of any, I know of a fun way to search for this: if you go to Google Maps and turn on satellite view, you can check out all the suburbs on the US (albeit one by one).
All suburbs look alike, so if you see a place with a "suburbian look", yet oddly dense and walkable, you might have struck jackpot, and can afterwards search up what plans/projects their respective city had.
Warning: if you haven't done this before, it may be very depressing/infuriating how obvious all problems mentioned by these types of videos are.
Edit: a quick way to check for "walkability" is to set the scale to 1km (~0.5 miles) and see how many people have all daily necessities covered by shops at around said distance away. I didn't find any suburbs with this criteria fulfilled, but maybe you will!
Both Kenmore NY (Buffalo) and Oak Park IL (Chicago) are dense older inner ring suburbs that are just an extension of the nearby central city. They are the old streetcar suburbs.
I honestly kind of feel like I wouldn't mind the idea of an urban area I've kind of want to live in one but they're so far between and from what I hear they're expensive to live in it's like they're actively still trying to convince people suburbs are still the real deal even though it's shown to be not a very good idea or at least we're not doing it correctly
Quality information.
Problem + History + Current obstacles + Possible Solution = Good video! And for the sequel/companion video we’ll show you “what you could be!” WICKED SMART!!!
As an adult, I have lived in suburban style housing (except for a few years I lived in a mobile home on a piece of property), but this is because my husband and I could never afford to live in the city, not the other way around. We used to live in Southern California and enjoyed visiting the city, but you had to be a millionaire to live there. Even studio apartments are outrageous. I would love to see the suburbs transform into something like you are describing. I have often felt very isolated and would love to be surrounded by more community.
I’m my town in Australia we have little suburbs and every one has its own grocery store, doctors, parks, coffee shop, post office etc. Over the years however I’ve noticed so much land being cleared away for my houses and it’s surprising to me that they’re very small, like, every house is on its own mini property. They could just make appartments if they’re going to be that small🤷🏾♀️ I’m not sure how the bigger cities are layed out. I live in a more regional place.
Why would you live in a country with so much land per person and then live in an apartment building, you might as well go to Austria and live there?
It looks like there's not a lot of joined up thinking in the USA, certainly so far as urban planning is concerned. I would say that suburbs are a good compromise between the frenetic city and relatively quiet countryside, certainly in the UK they are. For the most part these are well designed, well integrated into local services and transport although sadly this isn't so the further out of the cities you go. Small towns and villages only enjoy sporadic public transport and amenities.
I would say that a mix of dwellings (apartments, town houses, semi-detached as well as detached) arranged in streets with joined up bike lanes, close to shops and amenities is definitely the way forward and the Netherlands shows how to do it. These places are thriving communities where people actively engage with each other. I'm sure there's less chance of feeling isolated in such places. They're good for your mental, physical & emotional health, your wealth and even flora, fauna and insects benefit as they also have their spaces in the nearby parks, scrubland and so on.
This is a powerful upload!
This is one of the best videos I've ever seen !!
this is why i think a complete restructure if the way we live, and a new resource based economy to enable it.
we cant not survive on earth with these suburbia problems. they are just the tip of the iceberg of problem we have
Finally, somebody telling the truth about US history. Underviewed, underrated, unsung.
I dont know why but I thought this was a "Second Thought" video, lol! Loved this, thanks OCC!
This is an excellent video
Once again you present facts that are spot on.
I would rather live in a midsized city or the Country.
Having lived in a new Urbanism community the contrived urban feel masks the banality of a narrow lane of living.
You must have an epoxy garage floor. You bought a cargo e-bike to put your kids in but never use it for chores. You have a 350 Ram you take to work each day to sit in front of computer screens.
Most everyone looks and acts the same....boring.
You could use the St. Louis area as an example through this entire video. We even have a monument for colonialism.
Another exceptional video.
Fantastic video
This is so important, I wish you all the luck in transforming the north American mindset...
This was very interesting.
i like the vid, its the first i have seen and have subed .. im Australian and we have no one live in the InterCitys so much and almost all of us have back yards .. much of this was had to link to our way of life and the environmental bit was good but not very long
I would love the "how do we build the anti-suburb" video on RUclips. I know it's on Nebula for the consistent income that RUclips doesn't provide, but I hope you can consider releasing this video on RUclips at a later date, even if it's a year later.
this channel is amazing !!!
Are all of this guy's videos *this* well-written and well-thought out? If so, I've got a fantastic night ahead of me.
How was your night?
Great video
Lesson learned: Running from your problems does not work. It only makes brand new ones. Sometimes even worse.
How to fix the suburbs: increase density of people and density of destinations.
Illegal. You'd need political reform first to change zoning laws.
Thank u for a definition of red lining that actually makes sense
Thanks for giving us a reality check!
16:08 So THAT'S why my dad hasn't come back from his trip to buy milk yet! He doesn't have a car!
Danke!
Very interesting 😊😊😊
I find it interesting living in a Mexican suburb that we have relatively small homes (as compared to other homes ive both lived in and visited), lawns are rare, there is a local mom and pop 2 streets over where i can buy most of what i need, a mall 1 bus ride away and local stores 1 bike ride away, and other suburbs close by are similar with even mini supermarkets within walking distances, it seems to me the best of both worlds with the inconvenience being that to get to the center of town where many jobs are takes about 45min to a full hour to reach by bus making many readily inaccessible to some
About time you covered this!
it's been a long time coming :)
@@OurChangingClimate I've been living in the suburban hellscape for just about my whole life, which REALLY isn't good for developing social skills, especially for the autistic like myself.
Excellent video, however i find it ironic that the solutions to the problem you talk about are locked behind a paywall.
Meaning people who can't afford to spend money on the other platform (for instance.. the low income households that are being kept out of surburban neighborhoods) can't access to them.
I understand the need for the platform, but when it comes to this topic, the justification just falls flat, sorry!
Thinking back to all the suburbs I've lived in. In Morristown, NJ we lived on a hill in a fairly new subdivision. They couldn't put our street through across the side of the "mountain" because of septic issues, so I had a huge wood to walk in which I loved to explore. It went on for miles into Jockey Hollow National Park. Behind the houses across the street was a National Guard Armory. The tank ruts filled up with water in the spring and soon were filled with tadpoles. At the end of the street, which the HOA my dad started eventually got turned into a park, was a field. The gang of neighborhood kids played spies and secret agents and ran around to our hearts' content. We had the best rope swing in the neighborhood. I could bike to elementary school, although not safely. Getting into town and shopping required a car. But I loved being close to nature. So that part of being in the suburbs was good.
In Simsbury, CT where I went to high school we lived on a new street. It was within biking distance to town and I did ride my bike to the aquatic center, again, not on the safest roads. But you really needed a car to get around.
Now I live in Overland Park, KS. For forty years, it has been developed more and more with more subdivisions with lots of cul-de-sacs, and wider through streets, and though they've put in bike lanes, and there are some bike paths, you still need a car to survive. We do live near the Indian Creek trail and a park. We have raccoons and opposums in our small backyard, and deer, turkeys, and sometimes coyotes nearby. I have walked a little under a mile to get to the grocery store, but it's a hike, and my knees have arthritis. As an older person, I would much prefer community transit, and walkably close stores. They've put in a big development next to my subdivision of duplexes, but it's offices and luxury apartments. The only retail is a very over-priced liquor store, and a day spa. Even when they put in developments for 55 and older, you still need a car to get anyplace.
A few years ago, the city of Lenexa moved their city center, essentially building a whole new town. It still feels way too spread out for walking, imo. The grocery stores are all on the other side of a major highway.
How do we correct this? Tear down perfectly good single family homes? Add additional units to large lots? Developers put in a lot of apartments, often luxury, but there still is no concept of town and no transit. I want to be close to nature as well as being able to walk to shopping and restaurants, and it'd be great to be able to catch light rail to go into Kansas City.
a great video.
That’s why when father left to buy milk, he didn’t come back home because he might be stuck in traffic or might have died while crossing the 4 lane road
Yah know what’s actually racist? Generalizing that all poor people are of color without any other context about it. It’s like you truly believe all black people are poor and don’t live in suburbs. As a black man I find that very disturbing and off putting that someone claims to call out racism is actually committing the racism
this is such a good video, and i always wonder how LA fits into the suburb/urban codification. the city of LA is still considered a few small cities, and the county of LA is just a large number of 'cities' that have mixed elements of urban and suburban areas. it's almost like our neighborhoods are their own cities inside a larger city; for example west hollywood is considered part of LA and uses resources like law enforcement but is still an individual municipality outside of LA proper. and considering very little of LA has reliable public transportation, it's hard to gage. and since our suburbs (like the beach cities) have become small cities themselves due to tourism and gentrification, it's a really strange situation.
although i guess we've been in a drought for as long as i've been alive so environmentally it's still a disaster.
Ey yo! If you are using 3d trackers to overlay text, please make sure that the composition framerate is the same as the footage you are using. Stops that weird laggy jitter
They're also bad for the economy, I think Britmonkey made a video on this
I live in an extremely densely populated city, in a public high rise residential neighborhood with government mandated racial & social integration. I cannot imagine myself living in an American style suburb.
Not everyone needs or wants to live in a high rise
/my grandpa was chinese and there was a saying that "the best house is near a market, second best near a river", (by river because it used to be that its easier to buy stuff from vendors travelling) and thats' how housing is made around here. A lot of advertising usually have "Near markets!!" or "Easy access to stores" put on
I want to try dense living in a greener city if possible, a diverse community with all the shops and things beneath
Those green condos in Asia and Europe look pretty dope
The way I see it the underlying problem is this whole "american lifestyle" concept, huge cities made for cars, not for people, enormous residential zones where commercial infraestructire is practically prohibited, enormous plains of sad grass with monotonous flimsy built houses and a society where you are defined by the car you drive and where public transportation is viewed as something terrible, so much progress yet so much ignorance towards well being of the human being
Perhaps one solution could be to get the car and public transport to coexist, then? And perhaps San Diego’s example of mixed-zone usage could be followed throughout the country one day?
I live in the suburbs of Illinois, I originally lived in Chicago, do to circumstances I had to move. It's lonely out here, most of my family still lives in the city, I hate driving, people out here are dangerous and aggressive behind the wheel as well as distracted. In the city I would ride my bike or take the train, I didn't need a car. On average I think I spend $6,000/yr on car maintenance.
I really like the design of lots of cities, the problem is that cities are extremely expensive, have WAY more regulations than most suburbs, are extremely hostile to anyone with ANY conservative/religious beliefs whatsoever, have lots of crime, give you a lot less living space even with higher budgets, and just overall can feel oppressive in their own right when there's little to no nature in sight in most cases. For all the problems I have with suburbia, I could absolutely never see myself living in a city.
We Europeans like to walk ! Being with friends in Mesa Verde we a mixed European couple decided to walk back to their house from the mall not too far away.
Boy, was that interesting ! No pedestrian walkway, suspicious looks, one house looked like the other one - conformity at its worst !
There's a weird giant colourful egg in front of either a private home or business (or both) in my immediate neighbourhood. Things like that help people not lose orientation. I am sure a lot of children here learn to find their way to school with the help of that egg or similar things. I know from experience how easy it is to get lost in a trailer park (one where people don't live permanently) where everything looks the same. I am sure there'd be a lot of cases where that weird egg would be successfully fought against if we had something like a homeowner's association around here.
This is a great video and one I definitely agree with. The "single family detached home with a yard" is probably the style of residence most preferred by most Americans, at least it's been sold to us that way, so I doubt it'll ever go away completely, and therefore to an extent the suburbs are here to stay. However, let me hasten to add, that I 100% agree with what you suggesting that we need to find an alternative model which provides a great quality of life and livability without mandating the 2000 ft² home on a half acre lot for every household, and it's going to come from what you stated, the mixed-use zoning laws. I'd like to call these areas the quasi-burbs. They're not fully urban but they're not fully suburban. They're a great combination of the two and they're what we need a lot more of if we are going to solve our housing crisis and make our neighborhoods more sustainable. More high density housing, smaller units and lots, etc. I like the suburbs and the ex-urbs as an option, but it shouldn't be the only default option for the middle-class lifestyle. We need to have denser housing options and living plans, while still being able to access pleasant natural surroundings, with reasonable travel times to stores, entertainment and services.
Some people want to be away from it all and live in a quiet neighborhood. And that's fine. But if we're going to house a growing world population sustainably you're absolutely right OCC; denser, smarter housing plans is the only way forward for the majority of the world's population.
Is there an updated link for the resources? Very curious and would be grateful for a paper I'm writing!
Excellent video my guy
This is the first time I've seen colonialism, conservatism and racism linked to the suburbs. I'm shocked to learn all of this. And absolutely disgusted.