<p>“Have you see the traffic?”</p>
<p>Yup, in NJ I see the traffic on the Parkway and it is filled with people fleeing the city on a summer weekend.</p>
<p>EK4–there are lots of cities besides Seattle. In the big eastern and midwestern cities the traffic OUT on weekends is HEAVY. Chicago people go to Wisconsin and Michigan, NYers go to everywhere from the hamptons to the poconos. Even in LA lots of people go up 101 to Santa Barbara, etc. The sunday night backup on the 101 into LA has to be seen to be believed–hours of bumper to bumper.
Even in Seattle you should see the traffic Friday night at I90 and SR 18, campers and boats all heading east. Inbound traffic is light.</p>
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<p>The issue isn’t gated communities per se; they are just one example of the many types of communities that lock people into car dependence and into using more energy than they actually need to support a comfortable, upper-middle-class American lifestyle. Most of the neighborhoods around New Trier (for example) are actually pretty good in this respect; they have functioning downtowns, there’s mass transit into the city, and the lot sizes are reasonable enough that you can walk or bike to a lot of workplaces and services if you choose to. And where’d you get the idea that I want to commit genocide against people from Iowa and shut down the U.S. economy? I’d just like us to ride our bikes more, and the way we build houses means we can’t.</p>
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<p>If more consumers wanted inexpensive suburbs with sidewalks, walkable shopping, smaller lawns vs. larger natural spaces, etc., developers would build them. But that’s a niche market. Most people don’t care about efficiency in land and energy use, so the developers give them what they want.</p>
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<p>You’re right; for one thing, I removed a mention of the multitrillion price tag of the Iraq war as a cost of our oil dependence. We need to factor that in, too.</p>
<p>“You’re right; for one thing, I removed a mention of the multitrillion price tag of the Iraq war as a cost of our oil dependence. We need to factor that in, too.”</p>
<p>I guess when silly responses like that come out it is the equivalence of a white flag conceding the debate.</p>
<p>The way we build houses is a direct function of what people want built. It’s that simple. You can have your little downtown doorman Breakfast at Tiffany’s lifestyle and that’s fine by me. I did that in the 80’s and it was fun. But your lifestyle desires might change over time when you have 2 or 3 little ones and two dogs. That’s when Wilmette or even Lake Forest will start looking very good. Happens to the best of them.</p>
<p>Do you have a substantive contradiction of what I said? If cars ran on olive oil, we’d still have gone into Iraq…right?</p>
<p>Try to stay a little on topic. I don’t think we were getting much oil from Iraq anyway.</p>
<p>From fundingfather:
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<p>I know it’s hard to believe - but MOST cities have residential areas within them that have lawns, gardens, and birds and are not bleak and dirty. There are other cities in the country besides NYC for cryin’ out loud. </p>
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<p>Since I started the conversation about elderly living in cities versus suburbs, I would like to clarify that I was not really talking about people who move to the city when they are older. I am talking about people who have always lived in the city. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my city has many perfectly respectable neighborhoods that are filled with people of moderate means, and/or working-class families (we also have some appalling neighborhoods - no denying that - but that’s not what I’m talking about).</p>
<p>Having said that, there are also many retirees and empty-nesters who up and move to urban areas. They tend to be quite wealthy and looking for culture, restaurants, and low maintenance. My point was that they might be making a smart move in more ways than one.</p>
<p>My understanding from the conference I was talking about before, is that studies show (WHEN you control for income and health) that urbanites can stay in their homes independently longer than suburbanites or rural livers. Wealthy suburbanites tend to move to those new, fancy assisted living centers cropping up all over (with rather poor happiness quotients, but that’s a seperate issue) and moderate or poor elderly tend to move into the HUD/Section 8 apartment buildings. That wasn’t really the study though, the study was who could stay in their own homes and who was forced out by factors beyond their control.</p>
<p>I do admit that my daughter reports that the summer she went to NYC, the city seemed empty- apparently everyone takes off?
( Except for Kevin Bacon poor thing, they saw him walking his dog in Central Park)
I feel for the people in outlying areas that want to come into the city, but don’t want to drive.
Greyhound slashed their bus service, and Amtrak doesn’t run that often or reach many towns.
We will be heading across I-90 next weekend ( going to the Gorge- while my D takes the train up from POrtland to stay with her sister), but I am hoping to leave early Friday, for a Saturday show.
I realize that traffic in many areas is much worse, I just cant imagine it.
Ugh.
we moved to the city, not only so I can be smug “about escaping the antiseptic suburbs”, but so that we would be closer to work- close enough so that even if the viaduct or the bridges are shut down, it still takes less than 30 min.
I do miss living on Cottage Lake sometimes, but that used to be rural- not any more.</p>
<p>My parents raised four children in the city, in a townhouse that was much cheaper than a comparable house on the North Shore. (My sisters and I actually had to share bedrooms when we were little. Oh, the humanity!) They’re in their 60’s and still waiting for this mysterious drive to move to the suburbs. My sister is raising my niece in Bernal Heights in San Francisco. I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for any of us to move to Lake Forest.</p>
<p>At any rate, Wilmette and Lake Forest are extremely atypical suburbs, as I’ve already pointed out. They’re quite dense, have sidewalks and bike paths, they’re mostly on a grid, and they’re well served with commuter trains. If all suburbs were like that, a lot more people would be able to cut their energy use. But as we know, people don’t care, so they aren’t building more like that.</p>
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Not entirely. It’s more relevant to view it as a transfer from the “have” states to the “have not” states. The largest beneficiaries of federal tax monies are red states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia but are also blue or quasi-blue states like New Mexico, West Virginia, and South Dakota. The net losers of federal funds are indeed blue states like New Jersey, New York and California but also include red states or quasi-red states such as New Hampshire, Colorado and Nevada. Let’s not forget Washington DC, the bluest of “states” and by far an overwhelming recipient of federal monies - for every $1.00 paid by DC residents in federal tax dollars, $6.64 is paid to DC.</p>
<p>According to taxfoundation.org, the state-by-state disparity in federal tax collection and expenditures is due to the fact that urban dwellers generally have higher incomes than rural residents and to the progressive nature of our income tax system:</p>
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The most recent statistics I found were for 2004. With increasing and appropriate homeland security expenditures in urban areas, these trends may be changing.</p>
<p>My last point here - I think it is a myth that raising kids is somehow better in the 'burbs (although we did). I don’t know about you all, but most of my town is devoid of people - kids included - 99% of the time. Yes, there are huge lawns, elaborate play structures, and pools, but I don’t see any kids or families using any of them in any significant way. The kids are all in the car being driven somewhere by their mom. We don’t even have sidewalks, so our kids are really prisoners. That wasn’t how my childhood was - and I am 100% certain that my childhood was not only a lot more fun and healthier, but better preparation for real life than the childhood my kids have had. Unfortunate…probably unavoidable…but true.</p>
<p>It wants its theme back.</p>
<p>In the late 90s, when gas was less than a buck a gallon for regular, we were told that Americans didn’t want fuel-efficient cars; we wanted big, strong, mahnly cars. </p>
<p>Fast-forward to 2006: waiting lists for hybrids; Daimler debuting the SmartCar; manufacturers scrambling to make cars that get 35, 40, or 50 mpg. </p>
<p>Cars are hard enough to replace, but we’ve seen where that attitude has gotten us. What are we supposed to do when our entire infrastructure needs to be re-done because of poor planning? “Oops, that’s what people wanted before gas hit $7/gallon?” </p>
<p>I don’t think that many people would protest “main street” communities with mixed development, bikeable/walkable sidewalks, and places right around the corner for ice cream or a quart of milk, all the while having a yard and a park nearby. In fact, there’s a reason why people pay a million bucks for a small place in Brookline, Massachusetts. You get your privacy and you don’t need a car.</p>
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As you know, the US does not have a planned economy in the socialist or communist sense but when changes need to be made, we change. Some industries and people change more easily than others and, while it may not happen as efficiently as we might wish, I think capitalism does work. The fact that manufacturers make fuel efficient cars when the public wants them is evidence of that fact.</p>
<p>hmmm, i live in a gated community in a very safe area and i find the gates to be more of a hassle than anything. i mean, whenever my friends pick me up they have to log in the security access code for guests. and whenever i am in a hurry i have to sit and wait for the stupid gate to open…</p>
<p>I think that alot of the gated community thing is marketing shtick. Some people buy into it. (so and so rock star or sports star lives there so others want to live there, too. The celebrity thinks he needs the gate for privacy so he’s goes for it.) Then others, like me, just like the house that’s in there so we buy it. Not an actively opting for the gate, just kind of landing there.</p>
<p>Many of the new planned developments use very small lots–as in 4000 sf for a 3,000 sf house. Land has gotten too expensive to waste on 10,000 sf lots unless you are in Kansas somewhere.
My community has an average density of about 8/acre excluding parks etc… It also has sidewalks and parks everywhere–that get lots of use. We just got a grocery store–now all we need is a gas station. We are 25 miles from the CBD. We also have a broad housing price range from under $300k to over $1,000,000 and some apartments.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.srmpc.com/community/[/url]”>http://www.srmpc.com/community/</a></p>
<p>“I have nothing against suburbs per se, although find the environmental waste of exurbs, planned with too large homes and too far commutes, to be problematic for me personally, from a pure consumption level.”</p>
<p>How do you decide what’s too big and what’s too far? I live in a borough of NYC in a pretty big home with a large fence around the property (we have a pool, that’s why). We pay NYC taxes and have the highest tolls and longest average commute in the entire US. We used to live in a condo development and I can tell you that it had some nice features. We paid maintenance fees and the management company did all the landscaping and outdoor maintenance. Which is great when neither hubby nor I had the time or inclination to do those things. We had a fence, but only because the community did not receive public services like plowing, garbage pickup and street paving and the City required the fence at the time the community was built. We now live in a beautiful Victorian that requires a huge amount of maintenance and is in a neighborhood about three blocks from the projects. But that’s NYC for you. Gorgeous neighborhoods next to horrible ones and people do manage.</p>
<p>What about these houses the hedge fund guys in Conn. are building that are 30,000 sq ft? I’m no socialist but I can’t help thinking that that’s the American Dream gone a bit too far! Even with a huge staff I wouldn’t want the headaches that a house that size would bring on, let alone the fuel bills.</p>
<p>Hanna are you sure about that? I just read in the NY Times that the property taxes in NYC, for instance, are way lower than they should be considering all of the services that the residents in all of those coops and condos consume. Something doesn’t sound right to me.</p>
<p>The property taxes are low in NYC, but only because we pay both state AND city income taxes along with our property taxes, where the neighboring suburbs pay only state taxes with their property taxes. Six of one and half a dozen of the other.</p>