Well, OK. You’re right. Some people are so burdened by poverty that they have to take the cheapest place they can find, period, end of story. Poverty exists. I fail to see how that is a conversation ender, since building more stupid sprawling suburbs is hardly going to bring about the end of social class.

I should also say that I agree with Mark, and with the part of your argument that he talks about. We should definitely be working to make suburbs less dense, and to improve transit and pedestrian access in all kinds of social landscapes.

my point is that not everyone gets to choose where they live by considering distance from work or likelihood of getting mugged. whether they are in the suburbs or in a city or in a rural town. we need suburban infrastructure that more mixed zoning in suburban areas, so suburbanites can fill their needs without travelling 6 towns away. we don’t need more people moving out of the suburbs into the cities.

Of course not! Everyone should live where they choose to live. But that doesn’t mean they should be exempt from the consequences of that.

I’m looking to move in the next 6 months or so, and right now I’m falling a little in love with the cultural offerings of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Except that Bushwick is a lot further from my work than where I live now. And it’s also less safe. I have to decide what’s more important to me – having an art gallery or gourmet restaurant up the block, or possibly getting mugged on my way home on a dark winter’s night, after an hour and a half on the subway.

Yeah, like a car note, gas, insurance, and parking in the city.

I’ve done the math on this more than once, and it turns out to be cheaper to live modestly as a single/childless person in an urban area than to live in similar means in a suburban environment, because anything you save on rent is going to be spent on car related expenses.

people in the suburb i grew up in have had family in the town for 100 years. they are supposed to move into the city now because it’s more dense? and one of the things that works in that place, is that despite being suburban, it is fairly dense. you don’t have to leave the 3 mile square town unless you want to go to the movies or bowling or to mcdonalds. there are restaurants and shops well within walking distance. and that is great. but people still use their cars!

i iterate, what is necessary is not everyone moving to city centers. what needs to happen is that -more- town centers need to pop up, and smaller public transportation lines need to be implemented. a trolley around my home town would make everything better.

No, I’m talking about the typical suburbanite, as I said. And since they’re driving, they’re not limited to buying only what they can carry. That’s another way suburbanites can save time over their urban counterparts: by not having to make as many trips.

Don’t forget that a typical suburbanite running errands via car also has to park.

I didn’t. Parking in suburbs is generally plentiful and free.

I’ll also support dporpentine by saying that what he says is true, except when it comes to square footage. You can get a 2 bedroom apartment in an ordinary not-particularly-ritzy Brooklyn or Queens neighborhood for about the same price as you could buy a 3 or 4 bedroom home in outer exurbia. But this is only an apt comparison if you actually want a 4 bedroom home in outer exurbia.

All types of housing are generally cheaper in the suburbs than in Brooklyn. If you only want a 2 bedroom apartment, you can get it for less in the suburbs and spend the money you save on something else.

Sure. But your parents will probably want you to move out of their basement someday.

Joking aside, of course we make choices about what kind of place we want to live. We may not prioritize density, or proximity to social connections and fun things to do, but that doesn’t exempt us from facing the consequences of overlooking those factors.

Not really, no. Or maybe you could if you were a particularly lazy suburbanite who drove to a store which is actually in walking distance.

Don’t forget that a typical suburbanite running errands via car also has to park.

I’ll also support dporpentine by saying that what he says is true, except when it comes to square footage. You can get a 2 bedroom apartment in an ordinary not-particularly-ritzy Brooklyn or Queens neighborhood for about the same price as you could buy a 3 or 4 bedroom home in outer exurbia. But this is only an apt comparison if you actually want a 4 bedroom home in outer exurbia.

i know other places are different, but shouldn’t suburbanites find ‘city centers’ close to their homes? isn’t that the point of living car free? i don’t even understand what this is all about. don’t we want -more- town centers to live our lives around instead of one bigger denser one?

and as for people ‘choosing’ to live in the suburbs, for the past 60 years people have been born and raised in the suburbs. they aren’t choosing to move away from the city, that’s just where they live.

It’s a question of gravity.

“Engaging with the suburbs” is pointless. Better to ignore them and let them come to the city when their own cost/benefit ratio tells them it’s worthwhile.

Please tell us where it is you live in Brooklyn, such that you get the same benefits that suburbanites get in terms of price, selection and accessibility of retail outlets, plus the advantage of “dozens” of non-chain restaurants within 5 minutes.

You seem to be seriously misinformed about housing prices. The bubble started deflating more than 2 years ago, and housing prices have fallen dramatically. But even at the height of the bubble, suburban housing was cheaper than urban housing. The bubble affected urban areas too. Central cities are full of condos that are worth far less than their owners paid for them a few years ago.

By the way, what kind of housing do you have there in Brooklyn (apartment, condo, row house, detached house, etc.), how many square feet is it, and how much do you pay for it?

I live in Brooklyn, where we have all the standard stupid big-box stores (with the exception of Walmart, thank goodness) and they have the same stupid big-box prices and they’re all as close to me as they are to anyone I know who lives in a suburb. (Much closer and easier to get to by bike, actually.) But those stores aren’t cheap! A few loss leaders and then slam after slam.

There’s also this thing called the internet, which features several vendors of low-cost merchandise and which you might be surprised to discover urbanites also have access to. (In Brooklyn there’s also the Park Slope Food Coop–which sells seriously inexpensive, ultra-high-quality food and has a pretty amazing selection too.)

By the way, I also live in not at all fancy neighborhood (with a median income well below the national level) and there are dozens of non-chain restaurants (and a few chain ones) within a five-minute bike ride of me. Email me (dporpentine a t gmail dot you know what goes here) and I’ll give you my block and cross streets.

If you think anything is remarkable about there being this many non-chain restaurants that close to any given spot in New York, you know nothing about the city.

As for housing, last I checked, suburban housing seemed ridiculously expensive–with famously inflated prices thanks to the bubble. Rural housing, outside a few areas, can also be pricey, but the suburbs . . . they’re for rich people . . . who don’t understand real estate.

By contrast, I have dozens of non-chain restaurants just 5 minutes away from my house.

“Dozens?” Within 5 minutes? Where is your house? I want to look up the neighborhood on Google Maps.

Obviously, there is significant variation in travel times to stores and restaurants both among suburban residents and urban ones. That’s why I wrote “typical” and “generally.” If you seriously think that in general travel times, price and selection are more favorable to an urban, transit-oriented lifestyle than a suburban car-based one, I’d love to see your evidence for that proposition. A suburban Lowe’s or Home Depot is likely to have lower prices and a much bigger selection of merchandise than a small neighborhood hardware store in the city. A suburban Safeway or Walmart is likely to have lower prices and a much bigger selection of food than a small neighborhood grocery store.

And that cheaper housing – so what?

So, people can afford bigger and better housing in the suburbs than in the city.

And that cheaper housing – so what? I go into the suburbs and all I see are mile upon mile of gigantic, shoddily-constructed homes. So people can buy gigantic houses they don’t need in the suburbs and sit in traffic, polluting the environment for the rest of us so they can shop at their Walmart and buy their unnecessary quantities of Chinese-made goods. And they can get no exercise naturally, instead relying on new year’s resolutions to drive to the gym, resolutions they keep for all of three weeks before returning to their inexorable increase in weight and morbidity, the health care costs of which we all get to shoulder.

Yeah, you sure do describe utopian living, there. Fabulous!

Great selection: you can drive to the nearest strip mall and choose to eat at McDonald’s, Burger King, or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Or you can drive to the next strip mall, where you can also choose to eat at McDonald’s, Burger King, or Kentucky Fried Chicken. By contrast, I have dozens of non-chain restaurants just 5 minutes away from my house.

How do the lower prices of those suburban stores compare with the $7,000 per year you spend on the car that gets you there.

I’ll bet the typical suburban resident can run those errands faster in his car than you can on foot or by mass transit. And suburban stores are generally larger, with a greater selection of goods and lower prices. And housing costs are lower in the suburbs, too.