Why don’t Americans embrace urban living?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused by the people who want yards. I think I'd rather live right next to or very close by some awesome parks. When I was growing up, we only played in our yard until we were 6 or 7, then it was just playdates with other kids.... which you'd have to drive to in the 'burbs. My city kids walk around the block to play with their friends. Sure you need money, but DC is amazing for having close-in neighborhoods with green space and parks and being pretty safe.

Suburbs have both great parks, great yards, friend to walk to.

Capture the flag, catching lightning bugs while parents visit on the deck.

Have you ever lived in a city? Do you think that doesn't happen here too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then why are homes in walkable urban cores so expensive still?

supply and demand.

[Anonymous]

We let the car lobby dictate urban planning, and now we all are paying the price. And also, racism.

[Anonymous]

The reason I do not embrace urban living is because, if I did, OP would not be superior to me in every way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused by the people who want yards. I think I'd rather live right next to or very close by some awesome parks. When I was growing up, we only played in our yard until we were 6 or 7, then it was just playdates with other kids.... which you'd have to drive to in the 'burbs. My city kids walk around the block to play with their friends. Sure you need money, but DC is amazing for having close-in neighborhoods with green space and parks and being pretty safe.

You must live in a very expensive part of the city, because our section had few kids because of lackluster schools, and no running to the park because it was overrun with homeless and drug paraphernalia

Cities work in other countries because they accept higher taxes for social welfare: thus funding much better transit options, less homelessness because of housing and programs, more crews to clean public parks, better city schools, and less extreme poverty in general (which impacts school populations)

Also, if you don’t own s SFH, you have to worry about decondo, power mad HOA boards, neighbors who smoke pot constantly seeping through the walls or adjacent windows… on and on. Some of this is better in Europe (I assume an investment company can’t buy out s condo building and tosss you to the curb)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused by the people who want yards. I think I'd rather live right next to or very close by some awesome parks. When I was growing up, we only played in our yard until we were 6 or 7, then it was just playdates with other kids.... which you'd have to drive to in the 'burbs. My city kids walk around the block to play with their friends. Sure you need money, but DC is amazing for having close-in neighborhoods with green space and parks and being pretty safe.

Suburbs have both great parks, great yards, friend to walk to.

Capture the flag, catching lightning bugs while parents visit on the deck.

Have you ever lived in a city? Do you think that doesn't happen here too?

So we get a yard AND friends running to park. How is that not better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For whatever reason, folks in Singapore, London, Hong Kong don’t seem to have these hang-ups about “the neighbors,” “living on top of one another” or “sharing walls”

I mean.. neither do people who live in NYC? But folks in Surrey, England and Charlotte, NC sure do. Do you think everyone who lives in England lives in London?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, more people live in cities so I'm not sure this is a fair assessment, but I see your point. I have friends who live (what to me is a nightmarish) suburban lifestyle and I think for them a lot of it is not valuing community in the same way I do and taking comfort in material things. I personally don't get it.

It’s odd you think cities have more community feel, I find the opposite

Really? Well, different experiences I guess. I grew up in Fairfax and my parents never talked to any of the neighbors. None of the neighbors seemed to talk to each other either. It was a very "each man for himself" kind of place. I played at a friend's house in the summer until I was 9 and that was it. There were no block parties, clothing swaps, school events, babysitting swaps, dinner parties, pizza parties, neighborhood holiday events like I have now living in NW DC. We are all looking out for each other. We keep each other abreast of things in the hood, at school, and fun things to do. We watch each others' kids and invite people over all the time. I know shop owners and neighbors and the librarians by name. I know many more community people by sight. Hell, I know my local politicians! I help clean up parks and flag issues for the community to deal with. I regularly see friends just walking down the street and decide to have impromptu fun. We had zero of that in Fairfax.

I live in Fairfax County and my husband and I specifically chose a neighborhood (Little Rocky Run) that is "family oriented" and tbh our lives sound a lot like yours. Life is what you make it, and you and I seem to have made very similarly awesome community-focused lives for ourselves, albeit one in the city and one in the burbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused by the people who want yards. I think I'd rather live right next to or very close by some awesome parks. When I was growing up, we only played in our yard until we were 6 or 7, then it was just playdates with other kids.... which you'd have to drive to in the 'burbs. My city kids walk around the block to play with their friends. Sure you need money, but DC is amazing for having close-in neighborhoods with green space and parks and being pretty safe.

You must live in a very expensive part of the city, because our section had few kids because of lackluster schools, and no running to the park because it was overrun with homeless and drug paraphernalia

Cities work in other countries because they accept higher taxes for social welfare: thus funding much better transit options, less homelessness because of housing and programs, more crews to clean public parks, better city schools, and less extreme poverty in general (which impacts school populations)

Also, if you don’t own s SFH, you have to worry about decondo, power mad HOA boards, neighbors who smoke pot constantly seeping through the walls or adjacent windows… on and on. Some of this is better in Europe (I assume an investment company can’t buy out s condo building and tosss you to the curb)

Where did you live?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We let the car lobby dictate urban planning, and now we all are paying the price. And also, racism.

This is it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For whatever reason, folks in Singapore, London, Hong Kong don’t seem to have these hang-ups about “the neighbors,” “living on top of one another” or “sharing walls”

I mean.. neither do people who live in NYC? But folks in Surrey, England and Charlotte, NC sure do. Do you think everyone who lives in England lives in London?

Villages/suburbs in Europe are generally much, much, much nicer places to live than our strip mall hells here in the US.

[Anonymous]

I don't get why people can't understand that people are allowed to have preferences. I live in NYC. There used to be a board like this called UrbanBaby for NYC moms and every day there'd be a post titled "city or suburbs, which is better?' and people would get into crazy fights calling each other bad parents or boring or stupid for what they chose to do. I never got why people can't just agree that some people prefer the amenities and walkability of cities while others prefer the quietness and slower pace of suburbs. One is not better or worse.

[Anonymous]

Because the safe areas of US cities with good public schools (if there are any) are incredibly expensive (and you may have to also pay for private school), and the affordable areas are crime-ridden with bad public schools.

[Anonymous]

I have a 3 minute drive to work, live in a 6k square foot house and have access to bike trails, coffee shops, decent shopping basically right outside my door.
I would never live in a city. I need my space.

That's why i don't embrace urban living. I can't see any benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, more people live in cities so I'm not sure this is a fair assessment, but I see your point. I have friends who live (what to me is a nightmarish) suburban lifestyle and I think for them a lot of it is not valuing community in the same way I do and taking comfort in material things. I personally don't get it.

It’s odd you think cities have more community feel, I find the opposite

Really? Well, different experiences I guess. I grew up in Fairfax and my parents never talked to any of the neighbors. None of the neighbors seemed to talk to each other either. It was a very "each man for himself" kind of place. I played at a friend's house in the summer until I was 9 and that was it. There were no block parties, clothing swaps, school events, babysitting swaps, dinner parties, pizza parties, neighborhood holiday events like I have now living in NW DC. We are all looking out for each other. We keep each other abreast of things in the hood, at school, and fun things to do. We watch each others' kids and invite people over all the time. I know shop owners and neighbors and the librarians by name. I know many more community people by sight. Hell, I know my local politicians! I help clean up parks and flag issues for the community to deal with. I regularly see friends just walking down the street and decide to have impromptu fun. We had zero of that in Fairfax.

I spent part of my life in DC and later in Rockville.

We had all of that on our street growing up and we have that now where I live in Darnestown. I can’t speak for every street and neighborhood in the suburbs.

We had a neighbor who is a multimillion (he just donated upon death $20M to his hometown to build a community center) who never moved because of the community feel on our street. We were not rich it was not Potomac.

My mom is 94 and lives in an over 55 community and our neighbors still do lunch monthly. My brothers still do golf/fishing trips with neighbors.

My h sometimes is like can we not eat on the deck because it might turn into a party.

We have block parties on Halloween and the 4th. We have other events during the year, we use to do Easter egg hunt for example.

My brothers neighbor does a haunted forest in the fall.

I’m sure there are good and bad neighbors/ neighborhoods everywhere. My friend moved from our type of neighborhood to one with tons of land and moved back because they missed capture the flag night, and the neighborhood feel.