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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29421 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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A lot of the talk about suburbs is confused because "suburb" can refer to many forms of development that are less dense than skyscrapers. Commonly what urbanists are referring to when they hate on suburbs is the sort of low-density, single-family neighborhoods built throughout North America. Some urbanists (like Adam Something) make a distinction between American-style suburbs and European-style suburbs, and their argument is that European-style suburbs are better, because they are denser ("missing middle" housing) and can be served with transit.

If I were to be charitable to urbanists, I would say they just use "suburb" as a shorthand since many people in the States will think of a low-density, single-family neighborhood when they hear that word, and that is indeed what urbanists are talking about (and railing against). They don't need to put any more qualifiers than "suburb", because most of the time they aren't comparing between European-style and American-style suburbs, and they don't really have any qualms about abolishing even European-style suburbs as they prefer living in the urban cores anyway.

Some urbanists (like Adam Something) make a distinction between American-style suburbs and European-style suburbs, and their argument is that European-style suburbs are better, because they are denser ("missing middle" housing) and can be served with transit.

I live an European-density townhouse in an outer ring master planned suburb. We still get smeared by the weekly lefty newspaper in town, because their real beef isn't with our built environment. Their real beef is that their parents and high school classmates live here, and they want to feel superior to us.

Indeed. That's why I prefaced the next part with "if I were to be charitable". Sadly, many urbanists in real life do not behave as a charitable one would.

I've seen local Finnish urbanist/YIMBY types occasionally sneering against our suburbs and favoring basically an urban-core-only based building strategy. I saw one acquaintance just say openly that he doesn't consider anything apart from central and southern Helsinki (ie. the core areas) to be "real Helsinki".

I just moved from one suburb to another. In my old suburb, I could get to store/library/health center/gym/kindergarten etc. in 15 mins by walking. In my new one I can get to all of these (expect gym) in 5 mins if I walk briskly. I'm not sure what I'd gain by moving to the core, expect status.

Just goes to show that even in Europe, it's not enough. Europe solves many of their complaints, but they can always find something new. Even Not Just Bikes said he's ceased talking about North America to focus on advocacy in Europe, because there's apparently (or at least it seems like he thinks this) a real risk that Europe will backslide into car-dependency hell. He attributes this hypothetical backslide to the rise of right-leaning parties.

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