Most people -- really the absolutely overwhelming majority of them -- are very decent. Regardless of whether they have the opportunity to hurt or inconvenience you, they aren't going to.
Absolutely!
it was really nice seeing your post, because it's stuff I've thought about city living, but I've always lived in cities and loved it. Knowing that it comes across to someone coming in from a different environment is a good feeling.
An urbanite is a suburbanite who's been mugged by the kids who wouldn't get off the lawn.
My parents live in the suburbs and they never lock their front doors or car doors. I don't think the lock to the front door works anymore. They never had any problems.
another of the pleasant features of urban living -- trusting people.
Is this really the case, though? It was last week, I think, that Jackmormon said she doesn't unlock the door for anybody she doesn't know. I don't bother locking the doors until I go to bed, and then only if I remember to do so.
I definitely like the walkability of cities. I wouldn't say that they're safer than suburbia, exactly; my grandmother never locked her front door, and no one was ever mugged in my town. When a burglar stole something from the community next door, the police put out a bulletin that said 'Residents are reminded that locking the door is often an effective deterrent against burglars.'
But the perception that cities are unfriendly and crawling with a) criminals b) terrorists or c) terrorists that will also steal your wallet is simply untrue. It depends on the town and the area, but city people seem to be more aware of their neighbors just because there's more of them. In suburbia people are more in each other's business but might not notice if their neighbors had gone missing because no one walks anywhere.
I hate that my sister drives a quarter mile to her job.
9: Right, I'm not claiming that cities are necessarily safer than suburbs, and it's certainly true that urbanities lock their doors. What I mean by trust is something more like how you react to seeing a stranger on the street; in a city you have to trust that they're not going to mug you (although they might) because if you think they will you're never going to get anything done because you'll be too paralyzed with fear.
That's true. I'm not sure if I'd call that trust, or just learning that the world isn't out to get you. I liked the post, and it's definitely true about the laundry.
12: Whatever you call it, learning that the world isn't out to get you is something that a lot of people never do but should. And thanks.
13: You say that like it's a bad thing.
14: Definitely. My impression is that moving from suburbia to the city is something everyone should do, if only to learn that they're not going to get mugged by terrorists. (Every time I am in NYC, my mother gets very nervous, because apparently you just can't walk what with all the murderers, muggers, and terrorists.)
Maybe I'm in an odd position. I guess you would call my neighborhood a suburb, though it's inside the city limits of a town with >200K residents. It's also the city with the largest black population (percentage-wise) in NC, so has an undeserved reputation as a dangerous place to live. I've never found it so and sometimes come off as proselytic about Durham.
However, it certainly isn't urban in the sense that the northeastern cities are. If I didn't have kids, I'd probably be living in DC right now.
Sounds a lot like where I grew up. "Urban" and "suburban" in the classic sense only really describe certain areas of the country.
This is the obligatory recommendation to read Jean Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities if you care about issues like this.
apparently you just can't walk what with all the murderers, muggers, and terrorists
My mom's exactly the same way. I moved to the city from the suburbs a little less than 2 months ago, and every time we have a conversation she manages to interject ominously vague warnings about the dangers of urban living. Meanwhile, I haven't yet felt even remotely threatened when walking around the neighborhood.
Sorry, I'm not feeling the love of this post. Just this weekend a gun was fired about a block from my person, and that sucked and made me want to run back to my country-mouse farm.
My parents have oddly become more security conscious since they moved from an urban residential area (not far from a downtown of a city that connects with other cities in the region to form a pretty clearly urban core) to a suburban residential area (where you have to drive everywhere and downtown doesn't really mean anything). I think this may be the result of vandalism/burglarly up and down the block when people took things out of cars that were either not locked or had windows just slightly open.
On the other hand, in their old urban residential area, they had a car stolen right out from in front of the house one night.
I say "oddly" because even though they do the same amount of door-locking etc as they used to, they talk as if they're more worried than before.
21: Wherever you go, crime seems to follow. Mighty suspicious...
Seriously though, that would certainly freak me out. Be careful down in that jungle of yours.
Sure, there’s a whole bunch of bad stuff they could do to you, but you could do the same stuff to them, so they generally don’t. It works surprisingly well.
Sounds like Cold War-era mutually assured destruction, not outright trust.
The result is the same, though, which is all that matters.
LA = not walkable city. It goes on and on, long after it has made its point. In NYC, I walked all over the place; LA [and most of the cities within it] are too sprawled and spread out. [OTOH, LA isn't plagued with garbage strikes, as was NYC when I lived there.] And the public transportation sucks.
I like either the city or the country; suburbs don't do it for me at all. The country usually as the added attraction of breathable air; the city has DSL lines and employment. Amazon, thank FSM, delivers everywhere.
Oh, and speaking of unfamiliar and frightening urban areas (ok, it's not even remotely on topic)--I'm going to be in Chicago this weekend for the Pitchfork Music Festival; I've lost track of who's still there (I know IDP is, not sure about any others), but if anyone's free Saturday night, some sort of meet-up could be arranged.
Since w-lfs-n is out of town, I will point out that it is Jane Jacobs. (At least I didn't punch him in the kidney.)
And this trusting people thing.... It is true, and valuable, to learn that even when people can hurt you, they more than 99 times out of a hundred won't. I notice it when I travel, which generally requires you to depend on the good will of lots of people. Which is hard to learn to do when you weren't brought up on it. And of course, every now and then, maybe more often than they should, someone will find some, usually petty, way to make your life miserable. But generally they won't.
Unless you're 'smasher, in which case, dude, you're a crime magnet. Trust nobody.
Unless you're 'smasher, in which case, dude, you're a crime magnet.
It's the Clark Kent glasses.
We should all pitch in and buy Smasher a taser.
I liked that post too. I think part of the trust in cities is simply from mixing (in the course of daily life) with people from different social classes. If you live in a homogeneous suburb, which most suburbs are, then your natural reaction to unfamiliar types of people is nervousness, especially if you only see poor/black/Middle Eastern/Spanish-speaking people on tv portrayed as thugs or terrorists. If you live in a city, even if your own neighborhood is homogeneous, you're likely to get out and about on the street and use public transit and run into different kinds of people all the time*. Which is a good thing.
*This is, alas, not true in LA.
I didn't really go into the diversity thing in the post, but B's 33 is true as well.
[Apologies in advance for a longish, rambling post, but this is an issue that I think about constantly.]
First off, regarding trust and laundry: When I was in high school, I suffered through 3 unrewarding years of debate. I went to an inner-city high school that was the only one in town with a debate program. Hence, we had to go to the suburbs, usually the deep suburbs, for our debate meets. At one meet, all the debaters had colonized the large lunch room, piling bulky winter jackets, portfolios and other stuff on the tables. When it was time for the next round, all of us city kids grabbed our stuff to take with us, because really, can you trust suburbanites not to swipe your scarf?
Also: I've been to, and lived in, "bad" (i.e. integrated, working-class) neighborhoods in a bunch of U.S. cities -- NYC, Chi, LA, Detroit, Omaha, Frisco, Dallas, Mpls/St. Paul -- and almost never been hassled or bothered by anyone but the police. Most of the time, I've figured that if you don't look like a mark or a jerk, people won't bother you. If you furtively dart around a neighborhood you don't know, freaking out anytime you see a young man of color, people will notice you and become annoyed, sometimes to the point of challenging you. Not to say that there isn't both planned and random streetcrime that effects even the most mellow urbanites, but you're at less risk if you don't act like a jerk.
And: I think there's almost nothing more fun than walking around cities. You get to experience varied architecture, people living their lives, the busy hum of commerce, Zen-like moments of reverie, new sounds, new styles, and new ideas. People I know from work are wont to say things like "yeah, the suburbs are bland, but it's a great place to raise kids" -- sure, if you want your kids to grow up as suburbanites. There are few situations as likely to lead to big life problems as bored teenagers with too much money.
Another thing: My parents lived in urban south Minneapolis for over 25 years. I'd guesstimate that at least one door was unlocked on their various houses for about 22 years of that time. Only one break-in, during which nothing was stolen. Now, they've retired to a mid-sized eastern college town, and they lock their doors religiously.
Finally: Cities are massively, massively more efficient than any other modern living arrangement. Everything else requires huge amounts of energy input per capita, just to maintain the basic demands of life.
longish, rambling commenters are banned!!!
4 makes me crack up every time I load this thread. 35 is good too.
. People I know from work are wont to say things like "yeah, the suburbs are bland, but it's a great place to raise kids" -- sure, if you want your kids to grow up as suburbanites. There are few situations as likely to lead to big life problems as bored teenagers with too much money.
One of those situations might be growing up in a shitty school district with a lot of violence. Not everyone is choosing between Manhattan and Westchester; getting out of Detroit to raise the kids is pretty smart. "Kids grow up just fine in cities" really depends on your income, and you can buy a lot better education in the suburbs sometimes.
I'm sure race is part of the suburb thing, but I don't think it's all of it. Most people from suburbs work in cities; it's not like another planet where they have to ponder how people's faces got so dark. Plus, some suburbs are ethnically mixed.
Most of it, I think, is that in the suburbs everyone knows everyone's name, even if they wouldn't notice if the person stopped breathing for a week. When I visit my parents, I know almost everyone who takes a walk in my neighborhood by name. Here, not so much. Some familiar faces -- shopkeepers, a few neighbors I recognize, but not as much with the names.
32: You wouldn't think I'd need it, given my nom de guerre.
in the suburbs everyone knows everyone's name
This is not universally true.
Huh. Because my impression is the reverse, that people I know in the suburbs seem to know maybe their neighbors on each side, but other than that the only people they're acquainted with are those they make a deliberate effort to go see. Whereas even antisocial I can't leave my building without seeing three people I know at least by sight.
Eh, maybe it's the same everywhere.
Most of it, I think, is that in the suburbs everyone knows everyone's name, even if they wouldn't notice if the person stopped breathing for a week. When I visit my parents, I know almost everyone who takes a walk in my neighborhood by name. Here, not so much. Some familiar faces -- shopkeepers, a few neighbors I recognize, but not as much with the names.
I feel like my relationship with the liquor store clerk (the one who shows me his old boxing photos) is more intimate than my parents' relationship with any of their suburban neighbors, even though they know them all. The urban grid is knit tight, yo.
NYC is a walkable city. Many cities aren't. I love NYC, but I hate LA and London.
In fact, NYC is probably the only Platonic ideal of a real city in the entire world, with amazing diversity of populations, a big fat park, and actual culture, high and low.
What other cities can say the same for themselves here in the US? Only Chicago and Austin. The other so-called "cities" can go and fuck themselves. (OK, Minneapolis is a nice city, too.)
No, my experience is the same, LB. I think Cala's suburb may just be atypical. Or, more generally, "suburbia" isn't actually the undifferentiated mass it's usually presented as.
43: I can think of at least three other US cities that meet your specifications.
The single regrettable thing about Austin (besides the fact that all my exes live in Texas) is its lack of high culture. In every other respect it's Never-Never-Land.
My suburb was a small town of about 35,000 that was a mile or so away from farmland and ten miles outside the city.
I also might know everyone on my street's name and quite a few the streets over because they all had kids that were babysitting age, or went to school with my sisters (we lived a block or so from the elementary school.) This may be the public school/girl scout cookie effect. But our neighborhood Christmas parties invite all the neighbors, and the older people wander over and say hi when they see I'm home.
Yeah, Boston is walkable. Cincinnatti has a walkable core (I was surprised. It's a charming little city in a beautiful setting. Who knew?) I'll bet there are dozens in the US, although I don't know which they are.
"were babysitting age when I was fourteen and making beaucoup d'argent watching every baby in the neighborhood"
There's quite a bit of diversity in a lot of California suburbs, though there are certainly plenty of homogeneous ones too. And lots of people in suburbs work in other suburbs.
50: Yeah. DC, Philadelphia and Boston. LB adds Cincinnati, which I've never been to.
Boston is walkable, but very puritan; Bostonians got hit with the self-righteous stick a century ago, and the bark still sticks in their teeth.
San Francisco, of course, is totally unwalkable, has no culture and is entirely white. Rates of public transit use are horribly low.
Cala: your suburb sounds more like a small town than the kind of cookie-cutter postwar sprawl that I'm familiar with.
Philadelphia is nice, yes. Lots of public art.
DC: too many fucking Republicans. Nice opera, but the culture there is half-assed.
Pittsburgh is charming enough, but it's barely driveable, let alone walkable.
Now you're adding all sorts of other restrictions.
It has the cookie cutter parts of town, but the town's been there long enough that they strike everybody as the cookie cutter parts of town.
Seattle is beautiful, walkable, and parts of it are among the most diverse neighborhoods in the U.S. It also has high and low culture, good food, an Olmsted-designed park, and a very good public school system.
DC: too many fucking Republicans.
Huh? This is patently untrue, unless "too many" is defined as "any."
Cala's suburb sounds a lot like the neighborhood where I grew up, which is suburban in development style (built in the early 50s) but now near the center of the city.
DC: too many fucking Republicans. Nice opera, but the culture there is half-assed.
'tf? It's one of the highest-density Democratic centers in the nation. And it the Smithsonian.
DC: too many fucking Republicans
DC is probably the most Democratic city in the country. It went for both Gore and Kerry with something like 93% of the vote.
Yeah, Pittsburgh just hasn't grown out this far yet. The road my dad grew up on had an unpaved section when he was a kid that was paved sometime in the early 60s.
DC is probably the most Democratic city in the country.
All those Greens probably throw off the numbers for SF.
It's a great post. Also: all big cities have good things to say for themselves, but the ones that grew large before the day of the automobile, they sing. They are the great things humans can lay claim to, and nothing else.
Also, Penfold's is wonderful stuff. Also, trusting your neighbor, that's good to do.
Those pinko commies don't count anyway.
My impressions and experiences are more in line with LB's in 41 than with Cala's in 38. I'm currently living in more of a suburban situation, and I grew up in one, and the primary way I contact fellow citizens who don't live on my block is that we're both in cars driving. It's easy to be annoyed at people when you're both in big machines, and even the small kindnesses drivers exhibit to each other, e.g. letting you in to a line of traffic, seem less personal because you can't really see the other person's face very well, or speak to them.
The big supermarkets, chain stores, and restaurants common to the suburban lifestyle also don't lend themselves well to establishing relationships with the people who work there; you tend to have a different cashier, waiter, etc. every time you go there, and this would be true even if staff turnover in those places wasn't as high. There are plenty of unique smaller shops and non-chain places around in non-dense cities, of course, but they tend to need to draw their clientele from a large area, not just the surrounding neighborhood.
In contrast, when I lived in NYC, and London, and Shanghai, and Brussels, the norm was walking, public transportation, and lots of smaller specialized and often family-run shops and restaurants. Interactions with fellow citizens seemed much more personal and meaningful, and it was pretty easy to get to know the full spectrum of people living and working in your community, to become a regular, to have lots of places where everybody knows your name (or at least your face). And I never saw people quicker to hold a door open for a stranger on crutches, or help a parent schlep a stroller up some stairs, as in NYC.
--> 68. Nothing but love for car-less cities and Australian wine.
nothing but love for you, Matt F. nothing but love for everyone.
let's all move to a walkable city and go to the laundromat together.
Seattle is pretty but dull and bourgeois beyond endurance. Yuppie heaven, if you're so inclined.
And then we can rob and beat the hell out of Smasher.
all big cities have good things to say for themselves, but the ones that grew large before the day of the automobile, they sing.
A very good point.
he's got a girl's name. so you know, he's asking for it.
No one has yet quoted Sherlock Holmes on the matter.
"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.
...
The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
I apologize for the long rambling comment, but it's Arthur Conan Doyle's fault.
Given what textualist has revealed in the past, I wouldn't come anywhere close to him or his clothing in a laundromat.
We should all move to New York and form or take over a housing co-op. Cala can run the onsite daycare. I'll be happy to bake for everyone. Apostropher can run the wine cellar, Becks and w-lfs-n will do the IT stuff, LB will be our lawyer. What other jobs can the Unfoggedetariat take on?
that textualist was a different sort of fellow. I've matured.
I could be LB's lazy associate. or the resident half-finished novelist.
I'm just glad I escaped banning after posting 71 (and before anyone gets all smartypants and tries it now, I'll add that the statute of limitations has now run).
We can farm out Ogged on the organ black market.
83: No way. If Labs is decorating then the deals off. He'd totally make our co-op look gay.
Smasher will earn his keep on the UFC circuit.
Aside from the weather, there is literally no reason to live anywhere other than Chicago. Having grown up in Michigan, I don't have a problem with the weather at all -- in fact, on a certain level, I look forward to the extreme cold. For instance, in December/January, I had a temp job downtown and walked a mile to the train every day, both ways -- though I suspect that was to have some cranky old man type of thing to say to my grandkids someday.
gswift will be in charge of security, and Emerson will keep the neighbor kids off the lawn.
In the co-op (which happened while I was typing my previous comment), I can take care of everyone's religious needs -- I'm ordained in the Universal Life Church.
89: I could cook. Someone else can clean.
Alternately, I can just sleep with all the men and back up all the women when they argue with the men, and be the resident wanna-be writer and social leech.
There's going to be lots of competition for that role, B.
I will simply be the social leech. No writing necessary nor desired.
When did this become ConsensusBlog? I fucking hate New York, and so do lots of other people I know. Cities, but NY especially, are loud and crowded--these are qualities that are legitimately annoying to otherwise fine and lovable people. And I'm all for walkability, but places that are only walkable or walkable/public transitable to the exclusion of the usefulness of cars make life difficult in lots of ways you might not notice if you aren't used to having a car handy all the time. Finally, "suburb" means about a million things--from soulless, only drivable tracts of strips malls and walled condo hells to places that are much more like wonderful, walkable small towns.
silvana and I can tend the garden, IYKWIM.
I know, but I have sexual favors to offer. And the backing up of the women in the fights. Who else can stir more shit than me, really? And is not shit-stirring one of the primary roles of the social leech?
On September 2 and most every subsequent Saturday in the fall, I will scream at the television like a maniac.
You're just trying to get out of the organ sales job, ogged. You're not fooling anybody.
I am seeing a Massively Multi-user Role Playing Three's Company game coming out of this discussion.
Ogged is just anti-social. Plus, he's afraid of black people.
on further consideration, ogged is most fun when he is perturbed.
ogged is forcibly included!
places that are only walkable or walkable/public transitable to the exclusion of the usefulness of cars make life difficult in lots of ways you might not notice if you aren't used to having a car handy all the time.
but if you don't notice it once you've got used to it, how bad can it be?
I feel safer alone in cities than alone in the suburbs or country. Being on a quiet hiking trail always makes me think of those psychos who kidnap hikers and stab them and stab them. If I have one other person with me, I don't think about it.
Maybe Ogged can be our friend in the suburbs. We can visit him on weekends periodically, and he can come stay with us when he has something to do in the city while retaining a certain respectable distance from our loud crowdedness, bad sexual manners, and car-free anti-Americanism.
We should all move to New York and form or take over a housing co-op.
Nobody would ever do anything, we'd be too busy sitting in the hallway bs-ing.
Ogged, if I've never asked you before, let me ask you now, why do you hate America? New York is the greatest city in America. (Yet Chicago is the greatest American city. Discuss.)
while retaining a certain respectable distance from our loud crowdedness, bad sexual manners, and car-free anti-Americanism
B is my friend.
Slol, NY is loud and crowded. Do I really need more reasons? I'm the guy who totally covets a mini-van, remember?
We All Live In A Yellow Submarine: the jolliest song ever written, or merely the jolliest song written in the past thousand years?
I admit that as much as I like cities, NYC kind of intimidates me.
Our co-op will be just like the yellow submarine. I'm going to play it again.
Slol, NY is loud and crowded.
I find that I really, really miss hearing crickets and frogs at night any time I'm staying somewhere where those noises are absent.
we'll get you a recording. Or I'll just stay up late making frog noises.
And seriously, all that uninterrupted concrete just makes me want to die. Parks don't count.
we'll get ogged some stereoscopes of the countryside. It'll be great.
114: Apo, I'd be more than happy to mail you the fucking bullfrogs that have taken up residence in the stream just outside our bedroom window, if I could catch the damn things.
(Actually, they don't really bother me, but they bug the hell out of my wife, and that bothers me.)
I was going to suggest a timeshare somewhere in the west, because I for one would miss deserts and mountains (not to mention the Pacific--the Atlantic doesn't count). I'm willing to go without for good company, but I need to recharge my batteries periodically.
My parents have a timeshare somewhere in the west.
If the city gets too crowded, we can sell ogged to the Soylent Corporation.
Perfect! Let's just knock off Teo's parents!
the Pacific--the Atlantic doesn't count
Get her off that feminism stuff and B is making sense!
I'm the guy who totally covets a mini-van, remember?
I totallly own a minivan. Maybe this is why I covet New York.
Or we could just take their timeshare. They never use it anymore.
I totallly own a minivan. Maybe this is why I covet New York.
This makes a lot of sense.
123: I look forward to finding out whether me-in-person correlates in any way to your impression of me-online. Speaking of which, you haven't answered my email about August 12th.
I for one would miss deserts and mountains
Every time I go from West to East, the vegetation and the landscape freak me out. What in the holy hell are all those green things? Also, who put water in my air?
I haven't been on the east coast in 3 years.
I haven't been on the east coast in 3 years.
I just came back. It's still damp. I've no idea how long a swimsuit should, morally, have to hang up to dry, but the unit of measure should not be days.
It's not green things per se, it's that they're the wrong sort of green things. Deciduous forests are just fucked, man. And it all looks so . . . shrubby.
See, I feel weird when I'm out of the woods. Even though I could in no way be described as living in the country right now, if you ever fly into RDU airport, you'll see that this area really is just a gigantic forest.
129 more or less identifies why I've been so unhappy the last few years. Everything just looks wrong, and it's deeply unsettling.
It's not so much the quality of green things as the quantity. They're everywhere! You can't see a damn thing!
I dunno. You can see just fine in, say, northern Cali or Washington state, and those places are very green. But they're green in the right way.
And yeah, the not seeing. All this nonsense about how the prarie states, you can see forever. It's fucking claustrophobic as hell. There's no "other side," it's all just flat wrong-kinds-of-greenness.
Or worse, corn.
Also, different birds. But, just so you know, apo, we have crickets and cicadas and big frogs out West. So, you're cool to visit.
I've always sort of enjoyed crossing the prairie on trains.
In which I answer everyone at once.
Cala can run the onsite daycare.
Everyone would end up with know-it-all children with caustic sense of humor. Also, I wanna be the wine taster.
Aside from the weather, there is literally no reason to live anywhere other than Chicago.
And O'Hare. Of course, that only applies if you wish to leave Chicago.
Raleigh-Durham is such a lovely part of the country. There aren't mountains in the east, just training lumps. NYC is great fun, but it smells funny.
In my hometown, everyone drives when they have to go anywhere, but people take walks a lot. There's also an improved-surface (read: little gravel) trail that goes so far it goes past a farm where there are Arabian horses. This is totally cool.
140: Crossing it is nice. Living in it is claustrophobic.
I once did a spontaneous interpretive dance for Clementine's mother to demonstrate the superiority of the West Coast to the East. It involved crouching down and springing upward to descripte the upward thrust and roiling drama that described the Western landscape.
the superiority of the West Coast to the East
There's that whole Earth suddenly opening up and swallowing you thing, though.
They're everywhere! You can't see a damn thing!
That appeals to the hermit part of me.
old buildings are nice, which you don't get so much in your magic non-humid fairyland.
146: Um, excuse me? The west was colonized way before the East was.
I was going to suggest a timeshare somewhere in the west
Timeshares are evil. Buy a condo, rent a condo, rent a cottage, whatever, but for God's sake don't encourage the timeshare people. (Firm clients excluded, of course.)
Everyone would end up with know-it-all children with caustic sense of humor.
And this differs from the status quo how?
148: Hint: not all colonists were English or French.
Well, the Spanish were in Central America and moving up to what is now the American SW in the 15th century, whereas the New England colonies didn't really get going until the late 16th/early 17th century.
150: The Dutch had eastern colonies too, to be fair.
Yeah, but California wasn't really known to be not an island until the turn of the 18th century, and the bay was only discovered - by land - in the late 18th century. The Manila Galleon going down the coast, short of water, short of food, full of rats and scurvy sailors, isn't quite colonization.
Also: New Sweden. Those Swedes weren't always the peace-loving nonexpansionist people known to a certain apocalyptic commenter.
Alta California, yes. But there are old buildings in the west.
Although, to be fair, there aren't old cities in nearly the same way there are in the east, given that the Spanish were far less interested in establishing permanent self-sustaining agrarian colonies than the English were.
New Mexico was established in 1598.
Santa Fe was founded in 1610. Some of the older buildings date from not long after that.
Yes, thank you. I think everyone's French and English. St. Augustine, FL (Spanish) is earlier though, isn't it? If it wasn't, then I have a history teacher's ass to kick.
Huh, I did not know about New Sweden. Thanks, eb.
That's right, and L.A's downtown is just cluttered with historical spanish manses.
Although, to be fair, there aren't old cities in nearly the same way there are in the east, given that the Spanish were far less interested in establishing permanent self-sustaining agrarian colonies than the English were.
Which might be the important point when discussing infrastructure. The West seems to be, to me, mostly post-car.
Wiki:The city was founded by the Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on August 28, 1565, the feast day of Augustine of Hippo, and consequently named by him San Agustín. . This came 21 years before the English settlement at Roanoke Island, in Virginia Colony, and 42 years before the successful settlements of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Jamestown, Virginia.
The West seems to be, to me, mostly post-car.
Post-railroad.
152: Which is why I really shouldn't attempt snark around here.
What's really sad, as any Angeleno knows, is that LA had a perfectly fine street car system that was bought and destroyed by the car companies (I forget which one/s). But most of your older western cities still have identifiable pre-car centers; the main difference is that post-car, there was a lot more unsettled land in the west, which enabled sprawl in ways that eastern cities didn't allow to the same extent.
I'm no Angeleno, but I know that story from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
And people wonder why westerners don't vote for Democrats.
It's also wrong, too. Someone did the research and found the streetcars were already on the way out. I don't remember the cite. And the streetcar companies in a number of cities did just about the same thing (buying up the old stuff) with the old horsecar companies when they were on the way out.
They also totally fucked up toontown,which, by the way, was founded way before the east was settled, the toons being Ancient Ones.
The fact that toontown no longer exists has no bearing on a discussion on what cities are desirable to live in presently.
167: Huh. Thanks again.
168: It's not democrats per se. It's the east coast liberal elites, Teo.
It's not really relevant, but western cities are actually considerably denser than eastern cities on the metropolitan area level, since western sprawl consists of cramming as many houses as possible into the area where you can get water, while eastern sprawl just fades out into the countryside. This mainly shows that density isn't a useful way to look at cities from a quality-of-life perspective.
169: They just better not run text in 2016.
170: I think this depends on which part of the west you're talking about, n'est-ce pas?
I don't think so. What do you mean?
Well, again, Californian sprawl pretty much eats up a lot of farmland and goes out into the countryside. It's a lot less dependent on water availability.
I think this is the book but I only know the story second-hand. So it might not be a convincing case.
And to add to Teo's 170: the west is the most urbanized part of the country in the sense that in no other region does a higher proportion of the population live in urban areas (because not many live in the deserts or mountains).
I really liked this book but can't remember a damn thing about it specifically now. I need to learn to take notes regularly.
Teo--Washington and Oregon aren't exactly hurting for water. If you just mean the southwest, sure.
I lose the nomination just for saying that western cities have fewer old buildings than eastern cities?! That's worse treatment than Gary Hart got.
176: Oregon, though, isn't very densely populated. And surprisingly, Washington isn't as populated as you might think either. I think Seattle's population is like only half a million.
don't let my being an ass get in the way, I like the west coast and I like all big cities (see above). The prominent buildings out west tend to be newer, is all.
And I'm all for lower humidty! I can totally take Bush III or whoever.
Washington and Oregon probably don't reflect this phenomenon; I don't know enough to say. As for California, maybe, but development there is still dense, is it not? Kevin Drum had a post about this a while ago, linking to an LAT op-ed by one of those awful guys in the USC Urban Planning department arguing that LA is actually the densest city in the country (which is true but irrelevant).
Don't worry, text, I'll vote for you.
180: I don't really know re. density, just that the valley is sprawl central.
sweet! you can be my campaign manager.
Eastern Washington and Oregon are pretty dry. Pretty, too. And there's a Stonehenge.
Sprawl like this or sprawl like this? See the difference?
Really? Huh, I didn't realize Seattle was that small.
As for the forests out here on the east coast, I actually like all the green. But the west certainly has some impressive land for hiking and camping.
Yeah, but again, that's Vegas, not (say) Lodi.
I also think Seattle gets less precipitation (total volume) than New York, but has more days during which there is rain.
Yeah, I was surprised too. But that's the city proper, I think, and doesn't include the suburbs or Belelvue or whatever. I think.
I think 188 is true. But it's a secret. Shh. The locals like people to think the weather is miserable; it's an anti-growth thing.
My point is that the two pictures show areas of very different density.
No, I get the point, I'm just saying, I don't know if Cali sprawl is more the latter or the former. You're probably right, though.
That Vegas picture doesn't look that different than some of the areas around Sacramento, if memory serves me right.
One November twilight I remember seeing a flock of black birds like crows or ravens or something take off from a park in the center of Madera against the backdrop of a darkening overcast sky. This has nothing to do with the post or any other comment.
I concede the point. Western sprawl is denser and therefore better. Or something.
I love the crows.
The valley is also rather dry, right? I've never been there.
Yeah, but if you're going to have sprawl, denser would be better, yes? Although I think it should be denser still, and the cities just need to get taller.
The valley is dry, ish. I mean, it doesn't get much rain, but there's the Delta and the groundwater (which is being depleted rather rapidly). In environmental terms, dryness is a problem. In terms of where people choose to live, much less so than in Nevada or New Mexico, I'm sure.
Actually, I guess I have been to the valley, since I've been to Big Sur, and I've been to Reno, and I went to both on the same trip, so I must have crossed it in some fasion. But I don't remember it.
Yeah, but if you're going to have sprawl, denser would be better, yes?
No, because those developments are horrible soulless cookie-cutter subdivisions with no public spaces where nobody knows anybody's name. The polar opposite of friendly calasuburbs.
Hm. I've seen plenty of soulless cookie cutter subdivisions in the midwest and east. I think the distinction you're maybe making is between older suburbs and newer ones?
And on the dryness: the reason for the density is the piping in of water. It doesn't matter where it comes from; what's important is that there's a limited amount and it can only go so far, unlike in places with lots of water, where you can just build wherever you want and still get all the water you need.
201: All sprawl is soulless, and it's everywhere. The density issue is separate, and essentially meaningless.
While dense living makes sense, I don't really like being all up on my neighbors, for the reasons expressed in 145.
Well, I hate those subdivisions as much as the next good urban-type lefty, but a lot of people live in them so obviously they're serving some kind of need. Probably (she says, being in the process of looking at soCali housing) it's a question of cost.
Anyway. This has been a neat conversation, I love talking about this stuff, especially with other western folks. But since I don't actually live in the west quite yet, I have got to go to sleep.
I don't think space determines social relations so completely that all sprawl is alwheres and always soullesss.
Sprawl is indeed cheap, which is why it's everywhere. It's still soulless, though. If you can point to an example of non-soulless sprawl, eb, I'd be interested to see it.
178, 188: The half-million would have to be within Seattle city limits, not the metro area. I think the population of Washington is pushing 6 million, and probably somewhere between 50 and 75% of that is between Olympia and Everett.
The best book I've read on this subject (to add to the various recommendations above) is Crabgrass Frontier. (And not just 'cause it mentions my hometown of Blue Island as one of the first railroad suburbs of Chicago.)
There are surveys, or so I've heard, that show higher rates of participation in associations like the PTA in suburbs. Maybe those aren't the sprawling suburbs. But a lot of what now looks like urban residential was streetcar sprawl - a lot of early Victorians were cookie-cutter homes - and lots of what's now soulless is likely to individualize as history gets a hold of it. Unless they keep those damn homogeneity regulations forever and always zone out in-fill nonresidential development. At the same time, there are similar restrictions on "historical zones" of old cities that can end up edging toward soulless for preservation and tourism purposes.
There are some really irritating parts of Crabgrass Frontier but overall it's pretty good.
What irritated you, eb? It's been about 2.5 years since I read it.
lots of what's now soulless is likely to individualize as history gets a hold of it
Perhaps. I don't think it's all that likely, but it would be great if it did. You're right about all the other stuff, of course.
I haven't read it in a few years either, but:
Jackson takes the idyllic garden or pastoral residential suburb as the standard suburb starting with the 19th century, which is fine, except he says almost nothing about manufacturing suburbs. Lots of areas we think of as typically suburban - like Orange County - have a lot of local manufacturing. Silicon Valley/San Jose doesn't fit easily into his framework at all. He seems to assume that suburban residents commute to cities only - which many do - and not to other suburban locations - which many also do.
He takes the suburbs of northeastern and midwestern cities to be close to a stand-in for all suburbs in the US. Every now and then there's LA, but again he sticks to residential suburbs and that's about it for the rest of the country. But it's pretty much a book about the Northeast and Midwest presented as a book about America.
He's also got some rant against air-conditioners and tvs that makes it seem like they exist only in suburban homes.
But he's very good on talking about market and government incentives for suburbanization. The stuff on tax breaks and land policies is very good. So is the stuff on the FHA, loans, insurance, racial covenants/continued discrimination, and conflicts over resources between urban cores and their suburbs.
As I said, overall it's pretty good.
FHA, loans, insurance, racial covenants/continued discrimination, and conflicts over resources between urban cores and their suburbs
These examples I liked, and the bits about the Eisenhower highway system, which is perhaps not even worth mentioning, as it's so obvious. But thanks for your response. I'll try to be more aware of my regional biases in the future. I didn't pick up on the AC/TV stuff (ATM).
Right, I meant to include the highway stuff, that's good too.
The AC/TV stuff wasn't a big deal, but it fit into a bit of an if not for technology controlling lives people would choose streetcar-like cities theme; he seems to have a problem believing people would freely choose to live in suburbs.
I moved from a village on the edge of a large town (100,000+ approx) to Glasgow when I was 20 and it was one of the greatest things I ever did in my life.
Small towns and villages are great only because of the proximity to nature, in my experience. My experience, and Scotland may not be like the US in this respect, is that small towns are way more violent than cities.
It's certainly true that like Cala, I knew the names of pretty much everyone in my neighbourhood growing up but I can't say I particularly missed that when moving to a city.
I'm definitely a committed city dweller -- ironic since I now live in a small village on the edge of Oxford -- and cities organised on tennement/brownstone lines like Glasgow, NYC or even Prague seem the perfect density for living.
When I lived in Glasgow, for example, one year there was a big freeze and all the water and electricty went off. Our local liquor store guys were providing free water and candles to all the people in the neighbourhood. Nearly 10 years after I used to live in that neighbourhood, if I went in that store the guys remembered me and asked how I am doing, talked shit about football, etc.* It's quite possible for urban dwellers to interact more and more intimately with many of the people they encounter every day -- because they encounter them every day -- than suburbanites who only know their immediate neighbours.
When you get enough people living in that sort of density a small area can support a bunch of nice bars, liquor stores, cafés, bookshops, delicatessens, etc. I could find pretty much everything I wanted -- including all of the above, plus a wierd little Marxist bookshop, a bookshop proseltyzing for the Gaelic language, half a dozen places doing Chinese or Indian food, music venues and theatres, etc. -- within 500 metres of my door.
* The shop used to be run by two brothers of Pakistani descent. One of whom was a fanatical Rangers fan and the other a fanatical Celtic fan. Highly amusing sectarian insults would get flung back and forth.
217: I agree that Jackson is wrong to assume that people would choose a walking-city or streetcar-city lifestlye over any other lifestyle. But I think the argument of the book (upon brief revisiting) is that the suburban lifestyle (the kind linked to in Teo's 185) is a product of a certain set of policies and economic interests, and that these policies and interests have hurt inner-city communities.
He's passing judgment, yes, but he's also telling a story that I find hard to refute.
All of this west coast better than east nonsense reminds me: I'll be in San Francisco August 8th and 9th.
219: His argument is a bit circular. Support for the policies that promote suburbanization are the result of policies that promote surbanization. The assumption is that without those policies people would choose more centralized cities. He understates the extent to which people may be choosing the policies, if only indirectly by making other choices.
Policies that give an incentive to use cars are not the only reason people choose to use cars heavily. I may be remembering incorrectly, but Jackson leans towards an argument that cars were introduced into cities like LA through mismanagement of streetcar lines and concerted efforts by automakers to force public transit out that downplays the decisions made by many people to start using cars more heavily for other reasons - such as convenience in a city already spread out by sprawling streetcar and railroad-based development.
Of course he's right about the results for inner cities. And he's right about policies that promote single-family home ownership. But do people aspire to single-family home ownership mainly because policies promote that aspiration? Or is that aspiration part of the reason there are policies that promote it?
I just think his book is better in places as an account of why people should have chosen differently than of why they chose the way they did.
210 and others: I can make a qualified exception for Chi railroad suburbs -- Elmhurst seems like a decent enough place in many ways.
I should probably distinguish more between different types of suburbs in comments and casual conversation. Obviously, living in a suburb that was once a town (rather than a farming village) and has since been sucked into a major urban area is much different from living in some recently-built, entirely developer-planned bit of sprawl. Also, there's the example of Omaha, which, due to Nebraska's fairly liberal annexation law, winds up gobbling every new subdivision, so that the only true suburbs are Bellevue and a few outlying exurb post-farm communities. In Omaha, you've got vast tracts of cul-de-sacy, cookie-cutter development, occupied by people who can still honestly report that they are from a real city (albeit a boring one).
Has anyone seen the documentary Wonderland (John O'Hagan, 1997) about Levittown? It's a bit iffy as to class, but it certainly captures a lot of the reasons behind the post-war appeal of the suburbs for many working-class white people.
Of course, there are lots of anomalies in urban design in the US, given the bizarre history of development in a lot of places. I'm thinking of Hamtramck, Salem, Mass. and similar exurb/suburb/previously autonomous places, many parts of LA, and the way that development seems to skip around in the vicinity of NYC, even though you'd think there would be a sort of constant population pressure to expand in all directions.
However, I still don't like suburbs very much.
97: When did this become ConsensusBlog?
As a counterpoint to the original post's thesis, I live in the city and I would gouge out any of youse guys eyes with a rusty spoon for a two dollar metro card.
Discuss.
If you can point to an example of non-soulless sprawl
I grew up in a New Urbanist community in the suburbs and didn't find it particularly soulless. It was designed with pedestrians in mind, and has a whole commercial section that's easily walkable. There are also a lot of mixed-use commercial/residential buildings. It isn't perfect--not everyone wants to terraform the country into replicas of colonial Williamsburg. Also, there were like 2 black families in the neighborhood, but that's a broader issue.
Of course, the whole point of new urbanism is to have non-sprawl development in the suburbs, so maybe this doesn't count.
Yes. There's nothing at all wrong (from my point of view) with towns, or walkable suburbs. What I like about cities isn't contingent on getting a couple of million people in the same place, it's about being in a dense enough place that you do your daily errands on foot, and so you see and interact with the people who live near you. The breakline, for me, of insufficient density, is living in a place where it's impractical to do food-shopping on foot.
(My ideal pattern of development is big cities and railroad suburban towns, with undeveloped country between dense towns.)
223: Ah, you're that guy. My well-organized and tightly knit community will be on your doorstep with torches and pitchforks (try to find enough pitchforks to go around in NYC!) shortly.
try to find enough pitchforks to go around in NYC
We can pillage the bizarrely-located 23rd St. Home Depot on our way over to Felix's.
(Or wait, should we bring him fruit baskets instead? I was so caught up in the beauty of his clown-fucking efforts that I forgot to note I didn't remember seeing him around here before. Apologies if you are a longtime poster whom I have overlooked, otherwise: Welcome!)
No, Felix is new, and he seems to be preparing to challenge Standpipe for the role of witty/endearing commenter who says things he doesn't mean.
The thing that seems bad about modern sprawl is (cue Jane Jacobs again) the lack of mixed-use. Density proper is neither here nor there; if you can walk to 100 other buildings but they're all identical houses, that's not very helpful.
I'm currently somewhere that's a sort of old-small-town-suburb, and while it's cute, I'm very happy that I'm about to move back into Cambridge. The saving grace out here has been living across the street from an excellent bar.
the bizarrely-located 23rd St. Home Depot
Yeah, what's that about? Fucking Republicans.
NYC RULZ OK
226, 227, 228, 229:
How about you people just shut up and gimme your wallets? That way nobody gotta get spooned, nobody gotta spoon nobody.
Also: Since people are recommending books, I'll ask whether there is a consensus view here on James Howard's Kunstler's views on the sustainability of suburbs. ( The Long Emergency, etc). I've never been able to decide whether or to what degree I think he's basically mad, or whether everyone else is.
232: I wish.
I think Kunstler's basically mad, but also basically worth paying attention to.
234: Yeah, I was afraid the world worked that way.
w/d: I won't be in SF then, most likely, as I'm not in that area anymore. This continues the theme of commenters going to places I'm not.
The confluence of commenters in New York makes things much easier here.
I just discovered the suburbs/new towns discussion upthread, that you had at bedtime last night. Excellent work, and I think eb's evaluation of Crabgrass Frontier very intelligent and mature.
My thinking about these issues took a quantum leap about twenty years ago when I started reading Colin Ward's column in The New Statesman. Ward, the leading writer of his generation from the anarcho-syndicalist tradition, had devoted a lot of his prolific writing career to these issues. Paradoxically from the standpoint of a naive idea we might have of Anachism, he was fascinated by the possibilities and history of planning.
From him I learned what a long and articulate history these ideas, of the possibility of planning satellite towns and suburbs to foster better human living, have in Britain. From "new towns" of a hundred years ago, like Litchfield, to the issues and compromises of Milton Keynes today, a whole new world, with fascinating characters, such as the Edinburgh sage, Patrick Geddes.
But the most important thing I got from him was to look at this continent's settlement patterns with an open mind and human sympathy. He introduced me to Steen Eiler Rasmussen and, more important for these puposes, Reynor Banham, whose Los Angeles, The Archetecture of Four Ecologies changed completely my idea, not only of Los Angeles, but of what's going on in this country.
233-236: Really hard to tell. It seems likely that car travel will become much more expensive in the fairly near future. Expensive enough to actually change settlement patterns, and move people out of suburbs and back into dense cities, though, seems not all that likely.
I think eb's evaluation of Crabgrass Frontier very intelligent and mature
I just caught up to this thread again (went to bed before eb's last comment). But I entirely agree with idp.
eb: thanks. You brought up a lot of interesting points that my sophomoric (quite literally) reading of this book missed.
