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Why do the suburbs suck so much?

Hari Seldon said:
Well the problem you have right there is Manassas in particular is pretty shitty lol. i.e. you can't judge all suburbs based on Manassas.
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Manassas is ok. I'm only here because of a job but anywhere north is too expensive and I don't fuck with DC too often. Hate going there.
 
I prefer the subs with being a shot away from a city.

Cheaper, cleaner, nice. Typically nice bike paths and forests nearby, everything still within a few miles.

But I can hop on a train and hit up the city any time.
 
Linkura said:
Our house in the suburbs is about a mile away from a subway stop that goes directly into Boston. We have neighbors who have lived here forever and are generous and friendly. No HOA. Quiet. Schools are good, though no plans for kids. Basically no violent crime. 5-10 minutes away to tons of restaurants, stores, and a bustling little downtown area.

I'm quite satisfied with the suburbs, though not all are created equal. I remember being appalled at a boyfriend's childhood home because it was in a lifeless block of HOA McMansions. Those suburbs blow ass. But there are suburbs that have a pretty good mix of urban and rural, and those appeal to me.
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Yeah, a lot of suburbs in Boston would be considered "urban" in many parts of the country. I know it's not gonna happen but people should get away from using just "suburbs" as if they're all the same. There's a huge difference between a mcmansion suburb and a streetcar suburb. It's the form people have issues with and that can happen in a "city" as well - like Houston or Phoenix.
 
The worst part of suburban life is the paranoia. Because they are thought of as quiet places anything that's off about daily life makes people really suspicious. And it's hard to fight that. Whether it be someone you've never seen in your neighborhood or an unfamiliar car parked in front of your house. Your mind gives in too easily.

Other than that it's pretty okay. I live in Edison NJ, which is pretty well populated and diverse. I can walk to supermarkets and all kinds of places to eat. So it doesn't feel so isolated. When I drive to other places in NJ that are more spread out and require you to drive everywhere I can't imagine living there. Also getting to NYC is really easy, so when I need that city feel it's always in reach.
 
Switch Back 9 said:
If I ever have to live in a place where there's a pizza joint across the street that's open at 3am I'll kill myself.
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There's 3 around my apartment.

I'm still pretty fucking sad we're moving out of downtown, but we're still in a good location out in New Westminster where I won't feel completely isolated. Managed to buy a place that's nearly double the space we're currently renting, so it'll be worth it. Plus New West seems to be in the early phases of redevelopment.
 
I dunno. I'm the opposite. I fucking hate cities. People shoulder to shoulder crawling over each other like roaches. Gross. I'll take the boring burbs or anywhere really other that.

I like space. I like driving my car. I like quiet.
 
kaname-san said:
My suburb has a pond with ducks that are pretty charming.
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Mine does too. All of ours do.

Ponds. So many ponds. So many ducks. So many houses. So much...things.

Suburbia is a limbo that I can't escape. Someone kill me with a lawnmower that I know all of my neighbors have.
 
lunchtoast said:
Manassas is ok. I'm only here because of a job but anywhere north is too expensive and I don't fuck with DC too often. Hate going there.
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I dunno, I don't live there but I travel there quite a bit on business. It seems more like an industrial/office district of DC and not really a typical suburb. And I avoid getting gas there because every time I do there is someone begging for money. It seems that most of the people that work in the Manassas location that I visit live somewhere else.
 
Wouldn't have a problem with the suburbs if they didn't have such godawful planning. I don't particularly like going out, but I still prefer living in the city because, no matter where I move, I know there will be fucking sidewalks and parks I can run in and a grocery store and convenience store that I can walk to. Driving is fine, but I need exercise and a feeling that shit is actually happening around me or else I will get very depressed, even as a relative homebody.

Oh yeah, and, at least in the US, most suburbs (not all, but most) were founded and continue to exist as monuments to white flight and white supremacist public policy, so, even as a white person, I find them inherently politically fucked (although I definitely understand plenty of decent people live out there).
 
Eh I used to feel the same way but honestly it's about keeping yourself happy regardless where you live. I do think for a lot of people the grass is always greener though. Easy to fantasize about a place you don't currently live in.

As someone who lives next to LA and in a suburb I can say truthfully after living there for a year I never want that again. Taking 30 minutes to travel 5 miles is not my idea of a good time. For how boring people say suburbs are I think they overlook the calm and tranquility it provides, but also different strokes for different folks I guess.

I'll visit a busy city (love NYC) but living there is another thing entirely. For me at least.
 
Suburbs are poorly planned, but I think having a home near the SkyTrain is the best of both worlds. I'm max thirty minutes away from downtown Vancouver, but it's quieter and I have more space out in Surrey. If I wanna crash in Vancouver, I have plenty of friends down there I can crash with. I also like to drive.

I do love the city tho. I'd ideally like a job downtown. Easy for me to get to and I love being down there. Just don't like spending the night in the city.

I just feel bad for people in the suburbs far from the train. The transit in Metro Van outside of Vancouver is terrible.

Also, it's shitty that the train stops at 1:00
 
Van Bur3n said:
Mine does too. All of ours do.

Ponds. So many ponds. So many ducks. So many houses. So much...things.

Suburbia is a limbo that I can't escape. Someone kill me with a lawnmower that I know all of my neighbors have.
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Sounds like you have anatidaephobia.
Moving to the city won't help.
 
I grew up in rural Illinois and now live in the Chicago suburbs, and spend a lot of time in the city itself. At the end of the day, I'll probably settle down somewhere much more rural.

I find that I carry a general base level of anxiety with me everywhere I am in the city or suburbs... Is traffic going to make me late? I need to get to X,Y, and Z before this time, or I'll miss the train, and so on and so forth. I'm sure a lot of that is self-imposed as I had to learn to deal with all of that after 20 something years living in a small town and not having to account for any of that.

I travel a lot for work though, and I generally feel a lot more at home in the smaller quieter towns than in the cities.
 
Eidan said:
Why don't you just move into D.C. or any of its more urbanized surrounding suburbs (Bethesda, Silver Spring, Arlington, Alexandria)?
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Because it's expensive as hell. I grew up there and I couldn't afford a house there. No one can, unless you go into government consulting or contracting or the like.

It's a shame, though, because while I absolutely loved growing up in the NoVA suburbs (inside the beltway) I see it starting to turn to shit. It's expensive, everything's turning to bland high-rises and massive houses with garages like facial tumors on too-small lots. The postwar charming houses and old establishments are all going away.

But I guess my upbringing was atypical in that you drove a fair amount but I could walk to school or the metro into the city or groceries and a bunch of amenities. Cars weren't absolutely essential, and traffic (as long as you weren't trying to go into or around the city) was never terrible enough to make it a burden. Plus it was easy to get to parkland.
 
The Llama said:
Grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, went to college in rural Pennsylvania, and now live just outside center city Philadelphia. The suburbs are definitely the worst. Rural living wasn't bad, because you really did feel isolated from the rest of the world, which could be really nice at times, but the city is definitely the best.
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The thing with this is the Philly suburbs run the whole gamut. There's parts of Bucks county that feel like the land time forgot. When you get into parts of Montgomery County it's people buying for the zip code. The Main Line has a bunch of nice areas but there's no way in hell to contend with the traffic.

Ended up just off the patco line in Jersey. Lots of decent restaurants and downtown shopping areas, still get 1700 square ft with a 700 sq ft garage on 1/4 acre (none of which are extreme by any means-- just the way I like it) but all for less than a 2 BR rental in say University City and still a shade under 15 minutes from my front door to 8th & Market.
 
My wife and I live with our young daughter and two cats in a condo a mile and a half west of downtown Chicago.

I personally wouldn't trade it for the world even though most of our friends have moved out to the burbs. We're in the district of two of the best neighborhood public schools, not just in the city but, in the entire state, we've got 5 parks within walking distance (including two dog parks), an El station across the street, a row of restaurants half a mile away including ones from Graham Elliot, Stephanie Izzard and Rick Bayliss, Greek town the other direction, the Heart of Italy restaurants the other direction, multiple concert venues, a multitude of local stores including coffee shops, a toy store, ice cream shop, etc., a view from our 8th story balcony to watch storms roll towards the lake or the fireworks on the 4th sparkling above the best skyline in the US outside of NYC.

There's stuff in the city that annoys (traffic, people not cleaning up thwir dog poop 💩...), but it works for us. Filling a a big house with stuff we don't need is something that never excited either of us. But I totally get why it works for others. Different strokes, people.
 
I tried living in the city the past year and a half and it just wasn't for me. No place to park and hearing gunshots and seeing homeless people became more common. Wonderful to be so close to all the nightlife and restaurants but you still couldn't walk to anything because of how spread out everything is - doesn't help that Kansas City has terrible infrastructure. I'm only fifteen minutes away from the city now in my suburb but I'm quite happy there.
 
Shit I have a huge plot of land for my area which I enjoy very much, big house, fun neighbors, a big pool, I can fish in my back yard, and Im 20 minutes from a big city.

Suburbia is the best IMO.
 
Hari Seldon said:
Well the problem you have right there is Manassas in particular is pretty shitty lol. i.e. you can't judge all suburbs based on Manassas.
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Dude, you're in the exurbs, not the suburbs. Seriously, move closer to DC.

EDIT: sorry, I'm addressing whoever lives in Manassas.
 
ezrarh said:
Yeah, a lot of suburbs in Boston would be considered "urban" in many parts of the country. I know it's not gonna happen but people should get away from using just "suburbs" as if they're all the same. There's a huge difference between a mcmansion suburb and a streetcar suburb. It's the form people have issues with and that can happen in a "city" as well - like Houston or Phoenix.
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I'm from Phoenix.....its amazing how poorly planned Phoenix can be. Its so big and almost everything is located away from the downtown core....with suburban homes and strip mall after strip mall. Most of the neighborhoods are unimpressive.
 
I worked in Manassas a lifetime ago and it was pretty shitty. I'm sure it's built up in the 10+ years since I was there though.

I grew up in the suburbs, which was fine as a kid when my friends were in walk/bike distance. Eventually moved to Baltimore and hated it. Sirens all the time, my neighbors were horrible people. Now I'm in a rural area. Sure my commute into DC to work takes 90 minutes each way, but that's average for DC and at least my 90 minutes is because of distance instead of just traffic. Plus I go home and it's completely quiet, no noise or light pollution, just beautiful. I could move into a city if I had to, since I'm a night owl and cities support that fairly well. Could never move back to the burbs though.
 
I fucking hate the suburbs. Those lifeless, copy pasted houses, the alck of any semblance of life or activity, the fact that you need a car to do anything. Cities are so much better. I don't care how nice my house is, if its in a lifeless suburb I don't fucking want it.

(Grew up in a suburb)
 
Grew up in suburbs/rural (Pine Barrens, NJ). Lived in Winsted, CT for years. Never again. I live in Bangkok now, and I love the city life. Popping out of my place on to the train to do something cool is irreplaceable.
 
I love the city but my wife is itching to own a home. I will die a silent death inside when we finally move out of NYC. I am still hoping we win the lotto so I can buy the building from our landlord.
 
Ron Mexico said:
The thing with this is the Philly suburbs run the whole gamut. There's parts of Bucks county that feel like the land time forgot. When you get into parts of Montgomery County it's people buying for the zip code. The Main Line has a bunch of nice areas but there's no way in hell to contend with the traffic.

Ended up just off the patco line in Jersey. Lots of decent restaurants and downtown shopping areas, still get 1700 square ft with a 700 sq ft garage on 1/4 acre (none of which are extreme by any means-- just the way I like it) but all for less than a 2 BR rental in say University City and still a shade under 15 minutes from my front door to 8th & Market.
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Biggest difference between South and North Jersey. Hard to find good value in burbs that are 15 min from the city. The commute really starts to wear you down. Same for commuting in from Westechester. Outside of that the burbs are fantastic.
 
The Greek Freak said:
People always say this but the suburbs seem like a horrible place to raise kids. You need to drive them everywhere, and there's nothing for kids to do besides sports and experiment with drugs.
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Kids outgrow a yard by the time they can ride bikes. The only good thing about raising kids in suburbs is that's where wealthy white people live so the schools are top notch.
 
PSW is kinda nice. There's disney land and its in the suburbs of Anaheim. Then again, SoCal suburbs are probably way larger than other suburbs in the world.
 
Switch Back 9 said:
Toronto is dirty as fuck hahaha. Smells awful too.

No argument on the crime thing though, unless I'm in like one of three sketchy neighbourhoods I never feel unsafe.
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Lol, only notice how clean it is when I travel. But yeah, Toronto crime is essentially limited to 3-5 neighborhoods. It's pretty nice when the other 130 are decent. Though I'll never understand why some media outlets report crime in generalities like "Etobicoke" or "Scarborough" or "North York" like they're describing some tiny far off place. These burbs are geographically big! How hard is it to report the actual intersection, like they do for downtown?

Then again, even those are inaccurate sometimes, lol.

Inner suburbs OP are the best. Outer suburbs, yeah, boring.
 
I've lived in cities, rural, and suburbs... they all sorta have their pros and cons. I currently live in Queens. I think I prefer rural the most.
 
Suburbs are great when you don't like noise and other people but still want good internet. Big backyard with a 12 foot privacy fence. Nothing better.
 
Complaining about suburbs really? Shit that stuff I'd dream about as a child. I'd take that over living with rats and roaches, broken glass in the parking lot and gunshots all the time.
 
It's weird seeing people describe some of these MEGACITY ONE never ending monoliths of housing as "suburbs."

Come out to KC. I'll show you wonderful suburbs with great, affordable housing with amazing public schools, zero crime, and access to everything the country and a city has to offer within 20 minutes in any direction.

As for me, I love the city too and would live there if I was younger. But I'm married and have kids and love to garden, BBQ, need good schools and a safe neighborhood. I basically live in a fucking mansion compared to what I would pay in the city. So nice in fact that I've priced myself out of a lot of jobs because moving anywhere -- even with a massive raise -- would mean a gigantic loss or giving up one of the non-negotiables above.
 
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