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Why would anybody ever move to the suburbs?

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Gustav

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It's like a horror version of life. No access to shops, people, activities, bars, restaurants, hobbies, sports, etc. unless you have a car. This is particularly bad for kids. I remember getting my allowance and heading over to the deli for sweets or a comic, or whatever.. It was easy. I could walk to 2 soccer fields, one basketball court, a track and field court and 3 playgrounds. Also, parks and woods.

If I'd lived in the burbs I could never do that, my parents would need to drive me around all the time. Which, of course, they wouldn't have done either way, since they were both working full time.

Suburbs are quiet, lifeless and just plain creepy. Nothing around, just infinite boredom. It's like you've already given up on life.

Please, NeoGAF, explain the appeal!
 
Because it can be quiet and cheaper. It also offers more land as well as a little peace of mind.
It's easier to have a family there.
 
Gustav said:
It's like a horror version of life. No access to shops, people, activities, bars, restaurants, hobbies, sports, etc. unless you have a car. This is particularly bad for kids. I remember getting my allowance and heading over to the deli for sweets or a comic, or whatever.. It was easy. I could walk to 2 soccer fields, one basketball court, a track and field court and 3 playgrounds. Also, parks and woods.

If I'd lived in the burbs I could never do that, my parents would need to drive me around all the time. Which, of course, they wouldn't have done either way, since they were both working full time.

Suburbs are quiet, lifeless and just plain creepy. Nothing around, just infinite boredom. It's like you've already given up on life.

Please, NeoGAF, explain the appeal!
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a big yard, your own personal space, huge house sq footage compared to the city, and many amenities within driving distance.

Big box shopping is amazing in the burbs too.
 
The general argument is that it's a better place to raise children/safer. But the real reason is that it's cheaper. One of the indicators of this trend in recent history is that there is now more poverty in the American suburbs than in American cities.
 
I grew up in the suburbs and I liked it well enough. I lived within walking distance of most of the things you mentioned, though. It would have sucked if we didn't have playgrounds, wooded areas, streams, or hell, even conveniently located shops in strip malls nearby. There's something like four playgrounds within easy walking distance of my house and several sports fields (some of which are attached to schools, but that people use all the time on evenings and weekends). There's also a large park and several streams winding through, all of which include decently-sized wooded areas that could be explored.

All in all I think that my neighborhood had a good mix of development and space/nature.
 
SirButterstick said:
Suburbs are where people go when they have kids, or to die. Basically the same thing.
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But it's bad for the kids. They have n infrastructure to take advantage of. They need their parents chauffeuring them around, otherwise they are just cut off from civilization. I mean where and how would you even spend your allowance? You don't learn how to interact and accept other people. You can always retreat. You have no access to culture, museums, etc. Al you can do is wait for your parents to come home and drive you to soccer practice.
 
Never really had a problem as a kid, with my bike I was within a 20min ride to almost anything I needed/wanted. Mainly friends houses, the mall, food. My parents never really had to drive me around, middle school/high school's were both about a mile away.

EDIT: Having a yard and a drive way is amazing as a kid. Football in the yard, basketball in the driveway. We had a super large backyard when I was a kid so me and my friends would always be fucking around there doing something.
 
for people without fat children, there is also bicycles. Also, bicycles are amusingly enough, the cure for fat children.

prices are lower, you get a decent piece of land for your money, your focus shifts, going to restaurants and bars doesn't matter much once you're married with kids.

Tons of reasons. You're obviously quite young or kidding yourself that you're still young, either one.

But it's bad for the kids. They have n infrastructure to take advantage of. They need their parents chauffeuring them around, otherwise they are just cut off from civilization. I mean where and how would you even spend your allowance? You don't learn how to interact and accept other people. You can always retreat. You have no access to culture, museums, etc. Al you can do is wait for your parents to come home and drive you to soccer practice.
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this whole post is fucked. wtf. Suburbs are bad for kids? I remember going with friends to the fucking river and swimming in it. the mall can suck it.
 
Gustav said:
But it's bad for the kids. They have n infrastructure to take advantage of. They need their parents chauffeuring them around, otherwise they are just cut off from civilization. I mean where and how would you even spend your allowance? You don't learn how to interact and accept other people. You can always retreat. You have no access to culture, museums, etc. Al you can do is wait for your parents to come home and drive you to soccer practice.
Click to expand...

Again, that's only true if you live in a city without mass transit. Where I grew up, those things were pretty easily accessible.
 
Gustav said:
But it's bad for the kids. They have n infrastructure to take advantage of. They need their parents chauffeuring them around, otherwise they are just cut off from civilization. I mean where and how would you even spend your allowance? You don't learn how to interact and accept other people. You can always retreat. You have no access to culture, museums, etc. Al you can do is wait for your parents to come home and drive you to soccer practice.
Click to expand...

you do realize many suburbs have buses ...
 
It's cheaper for bigger space.

Growing up in the suburbs was pretty shitty. No car or being too young to drive meant I had to rely on my parents to do absolutely anything.

Then again, suburbs are different depending on the area. For example, I wouldn't mind having grown up or living in a suburb of NYC since there is good public transportation and areas aren't so separated by commercial/residential.
 
I was a kid in the suburbs. It wasn't bad. But these were suburbs of the '80s, before Walmart Supercentres cannibalized all retail.
 
I grew up in the suburbs and walking to the downtown area took about 20 minutes max and it was alright. Riding my bike to a friend's house on the other side of town took about 10 minutes, could have been worse. It was also nice having a driveway to play basketball in, and a backyard. But to each his own I guess.
 
PsychoWARD23 said:
I grew up in the suburbs and walking to the downtown area took about 20 minutes max and it was alright. Riding my bike to a friend's house on the other side of town took about 10 minutes, could have been worse. It was also nice having a driveway to play basketball in, and a backyard. But to each his own I guess.
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This is definitely a big part of why I liked my house in the suburbs. My brother and I had a (shitty, but good enough) basketball hoop and a yard big enough to play football in, at least when we were little. That was great.
 
Gustav said:
It's like a horror version of life. No access to shops, people, activities, bars, restaurants, hobbies, sports, etc. unless you have a car.
Click to expand...
What city do you live in? There's a bunch of places where you need to have a car even if you live in the city.
 
I like living in the city center where all the action is, but at the same time I'd like to own a home one day. In the city center there are very few houses, and they are all astronomically expensive.

The public transportation is excellent here and the population is quite dense so the suburbs are at most a 15-minute bus ride from the main city station. Plenty of people who live in the 'burbs here don't even own cars.
 
What? I live in the suburbs 15 minutes out of Boston. I'm a 4 min. walk to the train if I wanted to get in the city like I just did two weeks ago. Next town over has a beautiful lake to walk around, sit and read a book with some beverages or meet the guys for some ladder ball. Plenty of bars in fact another is going in by the end of the summer and I'm not talking about a Chilis or Applebee's. =) Nearly zero crime here, I'll take that kind of boring. Great place to raise your kids as there are fields everywhere. Both artificial and the real deal.
Now maybe suburb means something different to you.
As a drinker the only downfall is 12 o'clock for last call. I'm a day drinker so it's not a huge deal.
 
Suburbs aren't that bad. I've lived in one my whole life so far and still do. You get soon good restaurants and there are still a lot of good shopping centers. I never had to go to the city for anything and actively avoid it. Long live the burbs!
 
My recent apartment was a choice between one on main street in my town, or one out in the country side.

I chose the country side. I'd rather have peace and quiet than stuff that has almost no importance to me.
 
Cities are like an armpit. Stinky, unkempt, full of assholes, no greenery, no property, no place to spread out, too loud, more crime. Not one good thing in a city.
 
Gustav said:
But it's bad for the kids. They have n infrastructure to take advantage of. They need their parents chauffeuring them around, otherwise they are just cut off from civilization. I mean where and how would you even spend your allowance? You don't learn how to interact and accept other people. You can always retreat. You have no access to culture, museums, etc. Al you can do is wait for your parents to come home and drive you to soccer practice.
Click to expand...

What? The burbs I grew up with had other family's with kids on my street and adjacent areas. We went bike riding, played in the woods, set up miles long slip and slides in your own your friends back yards, jumped fences, built tree houses.

What is there to do in the city other than get shot, look at hookers, and play kick the dirty needles?

I live in the burbs now, and enjoy it I have a massive garage with my work shop in it. Good luck having that in the city.
 
Cheap, people can't handle city life or the people, people want to drive.

Pretty much what my friend complains about all the time (we live in NYC). It kinda annoys me sometimes cause I know she'd regret it if she ever moved (hell, she lives in Staten Island and hates it there, which pretty much feels like a suburb), but I'd want her to have the chance to get out and see if it'd really work for her.
 
If you want to start a family and have your own house and your own back yard, the suburbs is ht way to go.

I can't see myself living in the suburbs though, especially those shitty sprawling suburbs you see by the highway out in the middle of no where. Having to spend an hour of driving or using public transit just to do any real shopping or go anywhere with any culture or things to do really is a shit existence. I like being able to step outside my home and be within walking distance of stuff to do.

Also, years from now when gas prices are likely through the roof, have fun paying to get anywhere.


That said, "the suburbs" can mean different things. There are those hell-on-earth suburban sprawl neighborhoods by highway with rows and rows of copy&paste cheap ugly houses, and there's the kind of suburb I grew up in (Oak Park, west of Chicago) with century old beautiful houses, a real downtown area sort of within walking distance and a train that gets you to downtown Chicago within 25 minutes. It's expensive though.
 
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