One pet peeve of mine related to anti-suburb sentiment is the enormous pile of media portrayals from when I was younger like Weeds, Desperate Housewives, American Beauty, and Serial Mom thinking they're edgy and clever for saying "the suburbs aren't wholesome as you THINK!" when they were just recycling a trope that was already stale by then.
In the case of the Desperate Housewives I am not much sure if the tone is "the suburbs aren't wholesome as you THINK!" or "the suburbs are much more wholesome than you THINK!"
If you have kids and value privacy, space, quiet,good public schools and uncrowded green spaces, then the burbs are the way to go
Wasting money on restaurants or door dash 3-5x a week is a yuppie thing, not a family thing,
If you are rich, have “help”, can pay for private school and one partner can manage the helicopter parenting and “enrichment” activities for kids, then sure, Cities can be great (and that describes the life of some “urban experts”), but not in NYC. I’d recommend London where you can be 30 minutes from the City and have a garden and birdsong (not just pigeons).
I agree it is a period-of-life thing. Before kids I preferred big cities. With kids I prefer the high-cultural amenity, good schools environment of an American college town. I could imagine in retirement I might prefer a city again.
I wrote my own comment but when I was younger the only thing I liked about cities was that there were girls there, my hobbies were all outdoors. But once I had kids, I actually appreciate gentle density for helping my kids be more independent and having more opportunities to meet other kids. I never cared about the restaurant and bar scene that much, I care more about the swim school and karate and piano class scene. And right now I'm blessed where I walk my kids to all of those activities and hopefully (if we stay here) they will walk and bike themselves in a few years.
Agreed. Though there are a few cities where you can find some less manicured, uncrowded, fairly safe green spaces -
Hampstead Heath (and Richmond) in London, several parks in Vancouver, BC , several German and Swiss cities (Luzern is great for that). Seattle and Portland pretty close to some nice open space
I suppose a New Yorker would say they could go to the Cloisters or Harriman or NJ by bus, train, car as needed - same thing I’d say about going to see a play or get good sushi in the city from the burbs….except that is a once every couple of months thing while taking my kids to the woods was weekly at keast
In addition I would say SLC, parts of LA, and Tucson have excellent access to mountains (natural outdoor spaces) such that one could easily visit on the afternoons.
Definitely qualitatively different from somewhere like NYC, which prides itself on being close to the Hudson River Valley even though most residents would never dream of making that journey and back during the workweek.
If you value giving your kids a stimulating environment, lots of opportunity, the chance to experience the freedom of riding transit at an early age and a diverse community, cities are the way to go. Sure they will probably share a bedroom, but that's good for them too.
Having grown up in Hickory Hill, Memphis, moving to the suburbs (finally) in high school was nothing less than the gift of a childhood. I was burglarized three times before I was a teenager. You just didn’t go play on the street; that wasn’t a thing. Every night was an arms race between sleep and fear. Hearing about their putative soullessness later blew my mind - to me, it was the first time life was unreservedly on offer.
Great article Noah. I’m one of those that has long disdained suburbs, but now I live in one with a young son and another on the way.
Couple thoughts:
I think there should be a distinction among suburbs and what they offer. There is absolutely a large number of suburbs that hit all of the negative cliches. Think large soulless homes, no trees or sidewalks. Populous is largely conservative, has views much of us would disagree with and the average night out consists of bland restaurants or other “middle America” type places that are based around convenience.
However, where I live (east Grand Rapids Michigan), I’d consider much different than that even though it is still a “suburb”. Our populous is educated and largely liberal. Sidewalks are everywhere and the suburb is very walkable to restaurants, coffee and shopping. Homes are larger with yards, but not huge, so the footprint is reasonable and trees are abundant. Housing stock is older, with many having updated homes that retain character but have modern conveniences. It’s overwhelming safe and schools are great
The suburb I’m in feels less like a typical American suburb and feels more like a semi-urban area that retains the pros of suburb living. It certainly isn’t as dynamic or multi-model as urban life, but it packs a lot of those punches. Housing prices reflect that as it isn’t cheap, but for a 3,000 ft home it isn’t astronomical.
These suburbs are all over the country and have an extremely high quality of life. I wouldn’t recommend for 20s or early 30s singles, but for those looking for space and especially with kids, it’s a fantastic option
The chart of commuting distance versus time for public versus car transportation is interesting But ignores the important question of *how frequently* a given resident needs to commute such distances. As a resident of a small City (Cambridge Massachusetts) I find that almost all of my transportation needs can be met by cycling because everything I need to get to is within 2 or 3 mi of my home. And at that distance, And at that distance using a car would take almost the same time, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a lot more. There are entire weeks when I don't use my car at all. Nothing like that would be true if I lived in the suburbs.
Having grown up in Cambridge, I'm probably biased, but it's hard not to think of it as the perfect city. Almost everything is within walking or biking distance, and the T is there for going into Boston. No wonder it's so expensive now!
That doesn't negate the point though, which takes into account various types of cities/densities including dense transit friendly cities. The comparison is really transit vs direct point to point (car), in which the latter is faster in all types of cities, very transit friendly or not. Just in your case, youre still comparing transit to direct point to point, except with a bike instead of a car. And I'd agree, I'm sure the bike would still be faster in most cases than the transit, so the comparison is still apt.
I see comments have already gone down the rabbit hole of arguing on City vs Burbs
The proper take-away is really Stop the Finger Wagging My Values or the Highway "Yet among my fellow urbanists and YIMBYs, I often encounter disdain or outright hostility toward the suburbs that define most of America’s present urban landscape. ... And I think that the constant ranting against the suburbs complicates the quest for denser cities. It creates the suspicion that urbanists and YIMBYs want to make the whole nation into Manhattan. Nothing like that could ever happen, of course; even Japan is mostly suburbanized. But painting the quest for denser metropolises as an attack on suburbia makes everything needlessly confrontational, polarized, and zero-sum."
Live and let live.
Stop making it Anti-Suburbia and Finger Wagging & Moralising.
(me I like my urban living and I have a family but the constant especially Lefty Proggy judgmentalism to the burbites is just unhelpful)
That article seems one of the already classical articles imagining that "autonomy" is kids going alone to shop things; for under-12, "autonomy" is mainly playing unsupervised in the street, parks, woods, etc. and I suspect this is more easy in suburbs and exurbs than in cities
I will give you the woods, but playing in the street and park is available in urban areas too. And the thing about density is it can mean there are more kids around. And they dont have to be driven to seeing each other
Great article, I think my favorite Noah article category is “Noah debunks the dumb twitter/reddit narrative with boatloads of citations and data” 🤣
I live in a mid sized city in a walkable neighborhood, 10 minutes from downtown by car or the bus line I’m on, 20-30 minute walk or bike ride, and it’s great, I enjoy the walkable amenities and variety, but also the quiet nature. We also vacation every year internationally, usually Asia like Japan and Korea, spending a lot of time in Tokyo or Seoul or similar.
And yet the thing I just cannot stand and grates me endlessly about many modern online urbanist circles (and I think does major collateral damage to the movement and pushes “normal” people away, hurting the cause) is their sheer ability to completely misunderstand or just not understand at all that a huge chunk, in fact the vast majority of the worlds population in the developed rich world as shown in all the various figures cited, prefers some sort of suburban experience, not living in the densest part of central Manhattan, Tokyo, Seoul etc. That, as well as their total inability to understand the economics and logistical requirements of building transit, especially rail, no Mr. Redditor your local municipality is not about to set billions of dollars of tax payer money on fire to build a new subway to no where that would get three riders, you absolutely need a requisite level of density and potential riders for it to make sense first (outside of select/master planned scenarios which are totally different and can provide you with a reliable forecast of riders). There are tons of examples in China of huge highways and some trains to no where, where they thought a huge population boom would happen that never ended up materializing, resulting in billions of dollars in wasted infrastructure spending. Korea too has a number of examples, and with major demographic changes Japan also has many examples of struggling or completely non-viable rail lines now.
Regardless, even in cities like Tokyo, Seoul etc I find the mid to lower density neighborhoods the most enjoyable and the nicest balance between everything. Probably why Japan is so enjoyable to me, as the source shared there points out Tokyo and most Japanese cities are actually substantially less dense compared to other international examples, but they excel in missing middle type housing and interspersed commercial businesses/restaurants/bars you can walk to nearby. Oh and they actually harshly punish crime and other sources of urban disorder for the collective benefit of everyone. Thats why I’m so passionate about missing middle, single stair etc, along with calling out politicians, judges etc who deliberately allow urban disorder to proliferate (for some sort of mental gymnastics level progressive agenda), usually in the biggest blue cities (as discussed in many previous posts), and one of the biggest reasons democrats have lost in the past even with otherwise good platforms, and honestly rightly so. People just don’t care how good your other ideas are if you cannot meet the core, most important needs that people vote on which is safety and security.
Ultimately though I think having the ability to see other people’s perspectives and understand that what you like may not be what others like is just a very important general life skill, whether it’s for politics or urban vs suburban living preference. And that in fact what you like may actually be one of the least popular choices sometimes, but that’s okay! The world would be very boring if we all had the same exact preferences.
I live in the suburbs...but also work in the suburbs. My workplace is literally half a mile away from my residence and I chose to live where I do for less commute time. Living in the city would entail a giant commute and huge rent for a worse lifestyle. I know I'm far from alone in this sort of situation. A LOT of people don't work "downtown" in whatever city they're in. The idea of "everyone works downtown" is just so absurdly outdated.
I rode my bike to the grocery store in the exurb yesterday and realized I didn't want to park it in front of the just-out-of-jail characters lurking about the entrance. A small public park near there was completely fenced off to reduce the squalor that had turned it into a public health hazard. Right next to the police station, in fact. This is the kind of thing that wouldn't yet have influenced where I lived when I was in my 20s. Back then, I moved to SF and Berkeley and put up with having my car broken into and having rocks thrown through my closed front room window by the kids from across the street. More recently, the people from outside the grocery store yesterday have increased around town. My favorite wine bar gets fewer customers because they also loiter around there and the manager can't get the cops to do anything. Those people probably migrated from SF recently. Word on the street travels fast about where the cops don't pay attention. "Criminalizing homelessness" comes out of my daughter's mouth effortlessly. She moved to SF, naturally, like I once did. Tens of millions of Americans vote for Trump because it gives them a feeling that he will make sure they never have to live in a place like that.
That's a safe guess but my exurb is upscale, far more expensive than Vallejo. Someone once said to me and another person "I can't make it next week, I've got to go to Vallejo" and the other guy replied "Why, did you lose a bet?"
I think of myself as a public transport fan, but I just spent a week in Stockholm and found myself missing American car based infrastructure. Reason being, I was in Stockholm with my young kids and elderly parents. Trying to herd them all safely - and together - through multi-step itineraries on crowded buses and metro trains quickly had me missing the minivan I drive at home.
The suburbs aren't failed cities. They're a different operating model.
Noah gets to the useful distinction: density can increase access, while space can increase continuity, especially for families and close relationships. Meaningful policy starts when we stop treating preference as pathology and build better versions of both.
Having lived in downtowns, suburbs, an exurb, a rural and a remote community and enjoyed them all, often for different reasons, I would have expected less loneliness with less density.
I have observed that the lower the density:
- the higher the societal trust within the community
- the more general-community socializing (less siloing by interests, age, etc.)
- the easier and less formal the recruiting of volunteers
- greater social connection density. The more likely you are to know more people through multiple means (work, locale, volunteering, family, friendships, family-members' friendships).
- the greater the average connection longevity (especially life-long)
...and would expect these to reduce loneliness.
For me, less parental worrying too, due to some attractive social correlations with lower density:
- more comprehensive knowledge of people and relationships. Consequently, you have socialized with a greater share (or all) of the families of all your kids' many friends
- more assistance with raising kids when they're not with you. Your kids are recognized by more people (as yours) when they're out in the community, and know what you expect of their behaviour, or can more easily see when they're struggling or when something is wrong.
1) pro-suburbs: since increasing amounts of our lives are lived online, suburbanites get access to the digital world. That can make up for the lower density of in-person services. Also, suburbia tends to have better internet than rural areas.
2) pro-city: suburbs can have a higher carbon footprint with more car driving and less PT.
Starlink has quickly levelled the field by providing rural/remote residents with at least one high quality option. And this year, it appears to have decided to get aggressive on competitive pricing.
With more satellite constellations now on the horizon, I expect the distinction to almost disappear.
I'm in a rural community atm with other high speed options and it appears that Starlink has taken the majority of the market in less than 4 years.
And a couple months ago, Starlink slashed prices, such that it's below the competition.
We personally don't have Starlink because some family members have ethical and/or sovereignty concerns. But if they crush the fixed wireless competition and kill it off, the only competitors will be the upcoming satellite networks.
Most of the traffic in the world passes through Virginia, and the US government claims the right by law to inspect/decrypt any foreign data on US networks and services, and even on foreign networks and services that are US-owned.
That's a risk for all non-US entities. Organizations increasingly require that even encrypted data travel over domestic networks, since encrypted data can be stored for later decryption once technically possible.
It's not easy to decouple from the US, and there's a lot of inertia to overcome. However, the Trump administration's leveraging of dependencies, disregard for commercial neutrality, and abyss of reliability has prompted a lot more organizations to pursue data, network and AI sovereignty.
The world very much runs on the Internet, and the Internet always routes around damage.
<waves hello from northern Virginia> Ah, in that sense. Yes, this is a deep problem. I remember some nations pushing to decouple after 9-11 and the PATRIOT Act. And now some European governments are taking steps to use local software and hosting.
I have StarLink in my suburban area, because it’s much better than cable,DSL or WiMax in my area. It is easier to get in rural areas, because until they launch more satellites there is a limit to home many downlinks can be in a specific location, so if you are in a city or crowded suburb you may not be able to get it if too many subscribers are near you.
That's very interesting, Buzen, about how crowded it is.
Last week we met a fellow who moved his family back to their ancestral farm in Ohio. They wouldn't have made the shift without Starlink, as the area didn't have ground-based internet and other satellite services just aren't very good.
Great post I've lived in SF & WDC w/o a car & loved every minute of it. Indeed, I miss it. Affordability drove my family & me to the WDC burbs 45 years ago, and living in them has been delightful. Fabulous schools, large veggie gardens, wonderful parks, easy commute to work, & great public transportation to DC. I'd hate to give it up.
Reading this from Munich, I think one thing that’s easy to underestimate is the value of time.
We have two young daughters. Daycare is a 4-minute bike ride away. The supermarket is another 2 minutes. The public pool, playgrounds, and the river are all within a few minutes too. When they’re 7 or 8, they’ll likely bike, walk, or take the tram to school on their own.
We definitely give up private space compared to the suburbs. But we trade it for high-quality public space and far less time spent driving.
Why would anyone choose to live in "public space," especially if that means giving up (a significant share of) one's private space?
I don't mind driving -- in fact, I Iove to drive (per Kerouac, Springsteen, Beach Boys) -- and am perfectly happy if that means far less time walking (or on a bus!).
I think it really is a preference question. Some people genuinely enjoy driving; I enjoy being able to leave the car at home.
We don’t have a big private garden, but within a 10-minute bike ride we have several fantastic playgrounds where our kids meet other children, two public pool complexes, and even a swimmable creek. I’d rather have access to all of that than maintain my own private version of it.
Public amenities also create opportunities for spontaneous social interaction that are hard to replicate in a private backyard. Different lifestyles optimize for different things.
However, I value socializing with friends far more than the opportunity to hang out in a park among strangers, even if my friends are there, too. I'm continually dumbfounded by the suggestion that to find companionship, one would avoid driving (even with friends in the car) and take a bus!
Perhaps this is an idiosyncrasy or personal peculiarity. My mind is open, but I fail to see the advantage of specifically "public" space.
One pet peeve of mine related to anti-suburb sentiment is the enormous pile of media portrayals from when I was younger like Weeds, Desperate Housewives, American Beauty, and Serial Mom thinking they're edgy and clever for saying "the suburbs aren't wholesome as you THINK!" when they were just recycling a trope that was already stale by then.
What about Milf Manor? LOL.
In the case of the Desperate Housewives I am not much sure if the tone is "the suburbs aren't wholesome as you THINK!" or "the suburbs are much more wholesome than you THINK!"
Maybe I'm misremembering it? I watched the first few episodes and was so bored I didn't continue.
If you have kids and value privacy, space, quiet,good public schools and uncrowded green spaces, then the burbs are the way to go
Wasting money on restaurants or door dash 3-5x a week is a yuppie thing, not a family thing,
If you are rich, have “help”, can pay for private school and one partner can manage the helicopter parenting and “enrichment” activities for kids, then sure, Cities can be great (and that describes the life of some “urban experts”), but not in NYC. I’d recommend London where you can be 30 minutes from the City and have a garden and birdsong (not just pigeons).
I agree it is a period-of-life thing. Before kids I preferred big cities. With kids I prefer the high-cultural amenity, good schools environment of an American college town. I could imagine in retirement I might prefer a city again.
I wrote my own comment but when I was younger the only thing I liked about cities was that there were girls there, my hobbies were all outdoors. But once I had kids, I actually appreciate gentle density for helping my kids be more independent and having more opportunities to meet other kids. I never cared about the restaurant and bar scene that much, I care more about the swim school and karate and piano class scene. And right now I'm blessed where I walk my kids to all of those activities and hopefully (if we stay here) they will walk and bike themselves in a few years.
The uncrowded green spaces are so nice. Exploring a wilderness park with a young child is just one adventure after another.
Agreed. Though there are a few cities where you can find some less manicured, uncrowded, fairly safe green spaces -
Hampstead Heath (and Richmond) in London, several parks in Vancouver, BC , several German and Swiss cities (Luzern is great for that). Seattle and Portland pretty close to some nice open space
I suppose a New Yorker would say they could go to the Cloisters or Harriman or NJ by bus, train, car as needed - same thing I’d say about going to see a play or get good sushi in the city from the burbs….except that is a once every couple of months thing while taking my kids to the woods was weekly at keast
In addition I would say SLC, parts of LA, and Tucson have excellent access to mountains (natural outdoor spaces) such that one could easily visit on the afternoons.
Definitely qualitatively different from somewhere like NYC, which prides itself on being close to the Hudson River Valley even though most residents would never dream of making that journey and back during the workweek.
If you value giving your kids a stimulating environment, lots of opportunity, the chance to experience the freedom of riding transit at an early age and a diverse community, cities are the way to go. Sure they will probably share a bedroom, but that's good for them too.
Having grown up in Hickory Hill, Memphis, moving to the suburbs (finally) in high school was nothing less than the gift of a childhood. I was burglarized three times before I was a teenager. You just didn’t go play on the street; that wasn’t a thing. Every night was an arms race between sleep and fear. Hearing about their putative soullessness later blew my mind - to me, it was the first time life was unreservedly on offer.
Great article Noah. I’m one of those that has long disdained suburbs, but now I live in one with a young son and another on the way.
Couple thoughts:
I think there should be a distinction among suburbs and what they offer. There is absolutely a large number of suburbs that hit all of the negative cliches. Think large soulless homes, no trees or sidewalks. Populous is largely conservative, has views much of us would disagree with and the average night out consists of bland restaurants or other “middle America” type places that are based around convenience.
However, where I live (east Grand Rapids Michigan), I’d consider much different than that even though it is still a “suburb”. Our populous is educated and largely liberal. Sidewalks are everywhere and the suburb is very walkable to restaurants, coffee and shopping. Homes are larger with yards, but not huge, so the footprint is reasonable and trees are abundant. Housing stock is older, with many having updated homes that retain character but have modern conveniences. It’s overwhelming safe and schools are great
The suburb I’m in feels less like a typical American suburb and feels more like a semi-urban area that retains the pros of suburb living. It certainly isn’t as dynamic or multi-model as urban life, but it packs a lot of those punches. Housing prices reflect that as it isn’t cheap, but for a 3,000 ft home it isn’t astronomical.
These suburbs are all over the country and have an extremely high quality of life. I wouldn’t recommend for 20s or early 30s singles, but for those looking for space and especially with kids, it’s a fantastic option
I agree. There is a big difference between the older suburbs and the many “exurbs” that have been created in the last 30 years
Counter point
There's nothing wrong with conservative people or middle America
The chart of commuting distance versus time for public versus car transportation is interesting But ignores the important question of *how frequently* a given resident needs to commute such distances. As a resident of a small City (Cambridge Massachusetts) I find that almost all of my transportation needs can be met by cycling because everything I need to get to is within 2 or 3 mi of my home. And at that distance, And at that distance using a car would take almost the same time, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a lot more. There are entire weeks when I don't use my car at all. Nothing like that would be true if I lived in the suburbs.
Having grown up in Cambridge, I'm probably biased, but it's hard not to think of it as the perfect city. Almost everything is within walking or biking distance, and the T is there for going into Boston. No wonder it's so expensive now!
That doesn't negate the point though, which takes into account various types of cities/densities including dense transit friendly cities. The comparison is really transit vs direct point to point (car), in which the latter is faster in all types of cities, very transit friendly or not. Just in your case, youre still comparing transit to direct point to point, except with a bike instead of a car. And I'd agree, I'm sure the bike would still be faster in most cases than the transit, so the comparison is still apt.
I see comments have already gone down the rabbit hole of arguing on City vs Burbs
The proper take-away is really Stop the Finger Wagging My Values or the Highway "Yet among my fellow urbanists and YIMBYs, I often encounter disdain or outright hostility toward the suburbs that define most of America’s present urban landscape. ... And I think that the constant ranting against the suburbs complicates the quest for denser cities. It creates the suspicion that urbanists and YIMBYs want to make the whole nation into Manhattan. Nothing like that could ever happen, of course; even Japan is mostly suburbanized. But painting the quest for denser metropolises as an attack on suburbia makes everything needlessly confrontational, polarized, and zero-sum."
Live and let live.
Stop making it Anti-Suburbia and Finger Wagging & Moralising.
(me I like my urban living and I have a family but the constant especially Lefty Proggy judgmentalism to the burbites is just unhelpful)
As a gentle push-back on the kids point, urban neighborhoods can actually be great places to raise kids:
https://ifstudies.org/blog/heres-to-urban-parenthood
That article seems one of the already classical articles imagining that "autonomy" is kids going alone to shop things; for under-12, "autonomy" is mainly playing unsupervised in the street, parks, woods, etc. and I suspect this is more easy in suburbs and exurbs than in cities
If you can't walk to any of the parks and woods it's not.
I will give you the woods, but playing in the street and park is available in urban areas too. And the thing about density is it can mean there are more kids around. And they dont have to be driven to seeing each other
I think it's both! You make a good point, though.
Great article, I think my favorite Noah article category is “Noah debunks the dumb twitter/reddit narrative with boatloads of citations and data” 🤣
I live in a mid sized city in a walkable neighborhood, 10 minutes from downtown by car or the bus line I’m on, 20-30 minute walk or bike ride, and it’s great, I enjoy the walkable amenities and variety, but also the quiet nature. We also vacation every year internationally, usually Asia like Japan and Korea, spending a lot of time in Tokyo or Seoul or similar.
And yet the thing I just cannot stand and grates me endlessly about many modern online urbanist circles (and I think does major collateral damage to the movement and pushes “normal” people away, hurting the cause) is their sheer ability to completely misunderstand or just not understand at all that a huge chunk, in fact the vast majority of the worlds population in the developed rich world as shown in all the various figures cited, prefers some sort of suburban experience, not living in the densest part of central Manhattan, Tokyo, Seoul etc. That, as well as their total inability to understand the economics and logistical requirements of building transit, especially rail, no Mr. Redditor your local municipality is not about to set billions of dollars of tax payer money on fire to build a new subway to no where that would get three riders, you absolutely need a requisite level of density and potential riders for it to make sense first (outside of select/master planned scenarios which are totally different and can provide you with a reliable forecast of riders). There are tons of examples in China of huge highways and some trains to no where, where they thought a huge population boom would happen that never ended up materializing, resulting in billions of dollars in wasted infrastructure spending. Korea too has a number of examples, and with major demographic changes Japan also has many examples of struggling or completely non-viable rail lines now.
Regardless, even in cities like Tokyo, Seoul etc I find the mid to lower density neighborhoods the most enjoyable and the nicest balance between everything. Probably why Japan is so enjoyable to me, as the source shared there points out Tokyo and most Japanese cities are actually substantially less dense compared to other international examples, but they excel in missing middle type housing and interspersed commercial businesses/restaurants/bars you can walk to nearby. Oh and they actually harshly punish crime and other sources of urban disorder for the collective benefit of everyone. Thats why I’m so passionate about missing middle, single stair etc, along with calling out politicians, judges etc who deliberately allow urban disorder to proliferate (for some sort of mental gymnastics level progressive agenda), usually in the biggest blue cities (as discussed in many previous posts), and one of the biggest reasons democrats have lost in the past even with otherwise good platforms, and honestly rightly so. People just don’t care how good your other ideas are if you cannot meet the core, most important needs that people vote on which is safety and security.
Ultimately though I think having the ability to see other people’s perspectives and understand that what you like may not be what others like is just a very important general life skill, whether it’s for politics or urban vs suburban living preference. And that in fact what you like may actually be one of the least popular choices sometimes, but that’s okay! The world would be very boring if we all had the same exact preferences.
I live in the suburbs...but also work in the suburbs. My workplace is literally half a mile away from my residence and I chose to live where I do for less commute time. Living in the city would entail a giant commute and huge rent for a worse lifestyle. I know I'm far from alone in this sort of situation. A LOT of people don't work "downtown" in whatever city they're in. The idea of "everyone works downtown" is just so absurdly outdated.
I rode my bike to the grocery store in the exurb yesterday and realized I didn't want to park it in front of the just-out-of-jail characters lurking about the entrance. A small public park near there was completely fenced off to reduce the squalor that had turned it into a public health hazard. Right next to the police station, in fact. This is the kind of thing that wouldn't yet have influenced where I lived when I was in my 20s. Back then, I moved to SF and Berkeley and put up with having my car broken into and having rocks thrown through my closed front room window by the kids from across the street. More recently, the people from outside the grocery store yesterday have increased around town. My favorite wine bar gets fewer customers because they also loiter around there and the manager can't get the cops to do anything. Those people probably migrated from SF recently. Word on the street travels fast about where the cops don't pay attention. "Criminalizing homelessness" comes out of my daughter's mouth effortlessly. She moved to SF, naturally, like I once did. Tens of millions of Americans vote for Trump because it gives them a feeling that he will make sure they never have to live in a place like that.
Let me guess which exurb you’re describing: Vallejo, CA.
That's a safe guess but my exurb is upscale, far more expensive than Vallejo. Someone once said to me and another person "I can't make it next week, I've got to go to Vallejo" and the other guy replied "Why, did you lose a bet?"
Upscale and close to Vallejo? How about the neighboring “city” which also is a former capital of California, Benicia?
And now, another big loss for Solano county as Saronic moves their upcoming drone shipyard to Texas because of California regulatory slop.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/california-forever-shipyard-texas-22347278.php
I think of myself as a public transport fan, but I just spent a week in Stockholm and found myself missing American car based infrastructure. Reason being, I was in Stockholm with my young kids and elderly parents. Trying to herd them all safely - and together - through multi-step itineraries on crowded buses and metro trains quickly had me missing the minivan I drive at home.
The suburbs aren't failed cities. They're a different operating model.
Noah gets to the useful distinction: density can increase access, while space can increase continuity, especially for families and close relationships. Meaningful policy starts when we stop treating preference as pathology and build better versions of both.
Having lived in downtowns, suburbs, an exurb, a rural and a remote community and enjoyed them all, often for different reasons, I would have expected less loneliness with less density.
I have observed that the lower the density:
- the higher the societal trust within the community
- the more general-community socializing (less siloing by interests, age, etc.)
- the easier and less formal the recruiting of volunteers
- greater social connection density. The more likely you are to know more people through multiple means (work, locale, volunteering, family, friendships, family-members' friendships).
- the greater the average connection longevity (especially life-long)
...and would expect these to reduce loneliness.
For me, less parental worrying too, due to some attractive social correlations with lower density:
- more comprehensive knowledge of people and relationships. Consequently, you have socialized with a greater share (or all) of the families of all your kids' many friends
- more assistance with raising kids when they're not with you. Your kids are recognized by more people (as yours) when they're out in the community, and know what you expect of their behaviour, or can more easily see when they're struggling or when something is wrong.
Among urbanists touting "vibrant" city streets, the missing word is... "strangers."
A good, thoughtful argument.
I'd add two details.
1) pro-suburbs: since increasing amounts of our lives are lived online, suburbanites get access to the digital world. That can make up for the lower density of in-person services. Also, suburbia tends to have better internet than rural areas.
2) pro-city: suburbs can have a higher carbon footprint with more car driving and less PT.
Starlink has quickly levelled the field by providing rural/remote residents with at least one high quality option. And this year, it appears to have decided to get aggressive on competitive pricing.
With more satellite constellations now on the horizon, I expect the distinction to almost disappear.
Good point, and one I applaud, setting aside my dislike of some of Musk's behavior.
Do we have good data about how widespread Starlink is in rural districts?
I haven't looked.
I'm in a rural community atm with other high speed options and it appears that Starlink has taken the majority of the market in less than 4 years.
And a couple months ago, Starlink slashed prices, such that it's below the competition.
We personally don't have Starlink because some family members have ethical and/or sovereignty concerns. But if they crush the fixed wireless competition and kill it off, the only competitors will be the upcoming satellite networks.
I hear that about the ethical issues. Can you say more about sovereignty?
Most of the traffic in the world passes through Virginia, and the US government claims the right by law to inspect/decrypt any foreign data on US networks and services, and even on foreign networks and services that are US-owned.
That's a risk for all non-US entities. Organizations increasingly require that even encrypted data travel over domestic networks, since encrypted data can be stored for later decryption once technically possible.
It's not easy to decouple from the US, and there's a lot of inertia to overcome. However, the Trump administration's leveraging of dependencies, disregard for commercial neutrality, and abyss of reliability has prompted a lot more organizations to pursue data, network and AI sovereignty.
The world very much runs on the Internet, and the Internet always routes around damage.
<waves hello from northern Virginia> Ah, in that sense. Yes, this is a deep problem. I remember some nations pushing to decouple after 9-11 and the PATRIOT Act. And now some European governments are taking steps to use local software and hosting.
I have StarLink in my suburban area, because it’s much better than cable,DSL or WiMax in my area. It is easier to get in rural areas, because until they launch more satellites there is a limit to home many downlinks can be in a specific location, so if you are in a city or crowded suburb you may not be able to get it if too many subscribers are near you.
That's very interesting, Buzen, about how crowded it is.
Last week we met a fellow who moved his family back to their ancestral farm in Ohio. They wouldn't have made the shift without Starlink, as the area didn't have ground-based internet and other satellite services just aren't very good.
Great post I've lived in SF & WDC w/o a car & loved every minute of it. Indeed, I miss it. Affordability drove my family & me to the WDC burbs 45 years ago, and living in them has been delightful. Fabulous schools, large veggie gardens, wonderful parks, easy commute to work, & great public transportation to DC. I'd hate to give it up.
Reading this from Munich, I think one thing that’s easy to underestimate is the value of time.
We have two young daughters. Daycare is a 4-minute bike ride away. The supermarket is another 2 minutes. The public pool, playgrounds, and the river are all within a few minutes too. When they’re 7 or 8, they’ll likely bike, walk, or take the tram to school on their own.
We definitely give up private space compared to the suburbs. But we trade it for high-quality public space and far less time spent driving.
Why would anyone choose to live in "public space," especially if that means giving up (a significant share of) one's private space?
I don't mind driving -- in fact, I Iove to drive (per Kerouac, Springsteen, Beach Boys) -- and am perfectly happy if that means far less time walking (or on a bus!).
There ain't no accountin' for taste!
I think it really is a preference question. Some people genuinely enjoy driving; I enjoy being able to leave the car at home.
We don’t have a big private garden, but within a 10-minute bike ride we have several fantastic playgrounds where our kids meet other children, two public pool complexes, and even a swimmable creek. I’d rather have access to all of that than maintain my own private version of it.
Public amenities also create opportunities for spontaneous social interaction that are hard to replicate in a private backyard. Different lifestyles optimize for different things.
All true!
However, I value socializing with friends far more than the opportunity to hang out in a park among strangers, even if my friends are there, too. I'm continually dumbfounded by the suggestion that to find companionship, one would avoid driving (even with friends in the car) and take a bus!
Perhaps this is an idiosyncrasy or personal peculiarity. My mind is open, but I fail to see the advantage of specifically "public" space.