American Focus on Suburbs Leading to Large Houses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cities have low performing public schools compared to suburbs.

Hmm, I wonder why? Could it be the racial segregation of the past, white flight once segregation was outlawed, the lack of funding as a result of that white flight? Again, it always comes back to the systemic racism this country was founded on.

Explain why PG county has great schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where in Europe have you lived? Because Europe is made of many different countries and not everyone lives in a dense walkable area. I have lots of family in Denmark and all the ones with kids live in the suburbs. Their lives are not much different than ours, to be honest. They drive to work and to do their grocery shopping. They drive their kids to activities. They might have fewer cars but that's because cars and gas are a lot more expensive there.
One of my pet peeves on this forum is when people reference Europe like it's one country. Things in Albania are going to be very different than things in Norway. There isn't one European culture.

Where in Denmark? We have family and colleagues who live there and most live in suburbs other than a couple in Copenhagen. And yes, they have cars and the suburbs are more spread out. But the rail system in Denmark (at least in the Copenhagen region) is so much better than anything we have here. My BIL commutes into central Copenhagen 4 days a week via rail from a community about as far from the city as Frederick is from DC, and it's unreal how easy and affordable it is. He bikes to the rail station, the trains are frequent, and he spends maybe one hour total commuting (door to door, includes getting to and from the station and waits for trains). When we visited last summer my DH and I were lamenting how much easier it is for them to live in a nice quiet little suburb far from the busyness (and expense) of the city, but for us that would be hours a day or rearranging work schedules to accommodate a really limited MARC schedule to take trains to the wrong part of the city and then switch to bus or metro to get across town.

Also their house for a family of four is maybe 1500-1800 sq ft, and on a densely populated street (technically SFHs but just little hedges between houses and people have small patios, not huge yards). Also people walk and bike a lot around their suburb, at least in the warmer months, though most people have a car and many have two for a family. They definitely drive a lot (and when we went with them to their rural summer house, we drove everywhere) but they are not dependent on driving the way we are her in the US.

They pay through the nose in taxes but have great healthcare and a very good retirement system so they don't worry about having to work until their 80 or being bankrupted by a health emergency.

To me, their lives looked like ours except better in almost every way except the line dry their clothes and the culture is a little homogenous and personally conservative in a way that feels cold to my American sensibilities.

You can do the same thing from Northern Jersey or Connecticut to NYC. DC is not a major employment center, try commuting by light rail from 60 miles away into a secondary Danish city and see how that goes for you

Exactly. While DC has had interurban commuter rail for over 100 years like other east coast cities, it was always infrequent. Towns like Kensington or Bowie just didn’t have the population to ever demand high frequencies way back then or now. And as previously stated, DC is a mid-size city, so a robust commuter rail network with high frequency to far off towns never developed.

Until recently people often derided DC as a “Small Southern Town,” a backwater so to speak. Only within the past 50 years has this area aspired to world-class status, and it still lags.

Philadelphia and NYC were historically much larger employment centers, and so commuting to quaint, historic commuter suburbs out in the countryside has always been the norm.

Copenhagen is also a mid-size city. But go on making excuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cities have low performing public schools compared to suburbs.

Hmm, I wonder why? Could it be the racial segregation of the past, white flight once segregation was outlawed, the lack of funding as a result of that white flight? Again, it always comes back to the systemic racism this country was founded on.

The middle class as a whole has always fled cities in the US. The pattern was always an ethnic group migrating to a city and creating a space that welcomed new migrants from that particular country and then the children of those migrants moving either west or to suburbs. Somewhere like New York was either very rich people, very poor people or very young people just starting out. Everyone else commuted in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where in Europe have you lived? Because Europe is made of many different countries and not everyone lives in a dense walkable area. I have lots of family in Denmark and all the ones with kids live in the suburbs. Their lives are not much different than ours, to be honest. They drive to work and to do their grocery shopping. They drive their kids to activities. They might have fewer cars but that's because cars and gas are a lot more expensive there.
One of my pet peeves on this forum is when people reference Europe like it's one country. Things in Albania are going to be very different than things in Norway. There isn't one European culture.

Where in Denmark? We have family and colleagues who live there and most live in suburbs other than a couple in Copenhagen. And yes, they have cars and the suburbs are more spread out. But the rail system in Denmark (at least in the Copenhagen region) is so much better than anything we have here. My BIL commutes into central Copenhagen 4 days a week via rail from a community about as far from the city as Frederick is from DC, and it's unreal how easy and affordable it is. He bikes to the rail station, the trains are frequent, and he spends maybe one hour total commuting (door to door, includes getting to and from the station and waits for trains). When we visited last summer my DH and I were lamenting how much easier it is for them to live in a nice quiet little suburb far from the busyness (and expense) of the city, but for us that would be hours a day or rearranging work schedules to accommodate a really limited MARC schedule to take trains to the wrong part of the city and then switch to bus or metro to get across town.

Also their house for a family of four is maybe 1500-1800 sq ft, and on a densely populated street (technically SFHs but just little hedges between houses and people have small patios, not huge yards). Also people walk and bike a lot around their suburb, at least in the warmer months, though most people have a car and many have two for a family. They definitely drive a lot (and when we went with them to their rural summer house, we drove everywhere) but they are not dependent on driving the way we are her in the US.

They pay through the nose in taxes but have great healthcare and a very good retirement system so they don't worry about having to work until their 80 or being bankrupted by a health emergency.

To me, their lives looked like ours except better in almost every way except the line dry their clothes and the culture is a little homogenous and personally conservative in a way that feels cold to my American sensibilities.

You can do the same thing from Northern Jersey or Connecticut to NYC. DC is not a major employment center, try commuting by light rail from 60 miles away into a secondary Danish city and see how that goes for you

Exactly. While DC has had interurban commuter rail for over 100 years like other east coast cities, it was always infrequent. Towns like Kensington or Bowie just didn’t have the population to ever demand high frequencies way back then or now. And as previously stated, DC is a mid-size city, so a robust commuter rail network with high frequency to far off towns never developed.

Until recently people often derided DC as a “Small Southern Town,” a backwater so to speak. Only within the past 50 years has this area aspired to world-class status, and it still lags.

Philadelphia and NYC were historically much larger employment centers, and so commuting to quaint, historic commuter suburbs out in the countryside has always been the norm.

Copenhagen is also a mid-size city. But go on making excuses.

Copenhagen is the largest city in Denmark. It makes sense that it is a hub for transit in Denmark. DC is smaller than all of its neighboring jurisdictions except for Alexandria City

[Anonymous]

Maybe it’s just different priorities. I don’t want density, the noise and traffic of the city, and I prefer walking on trails than walking to do errands. When I’m home I like the calm, quiet, comfort of my own space. I don’t want to battle for parking every time I go out. I don’t judge people who prefer the urban lifestyle and don’t know why people keep judging those of us who don’t care for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where in Europe have you lived? Because Europe is made of many different countries and not everyone lives in a dense walkable area. I have lots of family in Denmark and all the ones with kids live in the suburbs. Their lives are not much different than ours, to be honest. They drive to work and to do their grocery shopping. They drive their kids to activities. They might have fewer cars but that's because cars and gas are a lot more expensive there.
One of my pet peeves on this forum is when people reference Europe like it's one country. Things in Albania are going to be very different than things in Norway. There isn't one European culture.

Where in Denmark? We have family and colleagues who live there and most live in suburbs other than a couple in Copenhagen. And yes, they have cars and the suburbs are more spread out. But the rail system in Denmark (at least in the Copenhagen region) is so much better than anything we have here. My BIL commutes into central Copenhagen 4 days a week via rail from a community about as far from the city as Frederick is from DC, and it's unreal how easy and affordable it is. He bikes to the rail station, the trains are frequent, and he spends maybe one hour total commuting (door to door, includes getting to and from the station and waits for trains). When we visited last summer my DH and I were lamenting how much easier it is for them to live in a nice quiet little suburb far from the busyness (and expense) of the city, but for us that would be hours a day or rearranging work schedules to accommodate a really limited MARC schedule to take trains to the wrong part of the city and then switch to bus or metro to get across town.

Also their house for a family of four is maybe 1500-1800 sq ft, and on a densely populated street (technically SFHs but just little hedges between houses and people have small patios, not huge yards). Also people walk and bike a lot around their suburb, at least in the warmer months, though most people have a car and many have two for a family. They definitely drive a lot (and when we went with them to their rural summer house, we drove everywhere) but they are not dependent on driving the way we are her in the US.

They pay through the nose in taxes but have great healthcare and a very good retirement system so they don't worry about having to work until their 80 or being bankrupted by a health emergency.

To me, their lives looked like ours except better in almost every way except the line dry their clothes and the culture is a little homogenous and personally conservative in a way that feels cold to my American sensibilities.

You can do the same thing from Northern Jersey or Connecticut to NYC. DC is not a major employment center, try commuting by light rail from 60 miles away into a secondary Danish city and see how that goes for you

That's a false comparison because Denmark is a much smaller country. Copenhagen is comparable in size to DC, not NYC. And the next largest city is Aarhus, which has fewer than 300k people in it (by comparison, this is only a bit larger than Richmond). People who work in Aarhus do not have to live 60 miles away to find more space or a slower pace of life because it's just not that crowded.

Within the EU, Copenhagen is a DC-like city, but they've focused investment on public infrastructure in a way that makes it a far more livable city. The cities comparable to NYC in Europe (Paris, Madrid, London, though the last obviously not in the EU) are way more expensive and crowded but still have better public infrastructure than most US cities (LA is a massive city with atrocious public transportation).

The US just doesn't give AF about public infrastructure, and it makes our cities less pleasant to live in. So then everyone flees for the suburbs, and since neither federal nor state governments give AF about public infrastructure, these suburbs are also not connected via public infrastructure (and connected to what, anyway -- what public transit system could the suburbs of Houston link up to anyway?). So everyone is car dependent and Americans don't actually understand how nice our lives could be with a functional society where we use collective wealth to improve overall quality of life, productivity, efficiency, etc.

But yes, go on thinking the livability of European cities is some kind of mirage that can't possibly be true, and dig in on American-style capitalism which sucks for all but a few people at the top.

You are stating a bunch of your preferences as fact. We "understand" what living in a city is like and some of us do not want it, and we are not looking to live a life of "collective wealth"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also think it’s rooted in the white flight, “cities are dangerous” mentality that began in the 1950s and 60s in the US and never ended. So like most things in the US, it’s about race.

No, it's really not about race. I've done the city and suburb living and eventually valued a bigger newer house, more land, more privacy, easier access to highway more than filth, grime, noise and taxes.

PPs mentioned “loud foreigners”, “smelly food”, “foreign languages”, etc… Are you sure it’s not really about race?

Pp doesn’t speak for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where in Europe have you lived? Because Europe is made of many different countries and not everyone lives in a dense walkable area. I have lots of family in Denmark and all the ones with kids live in the suburbs. Their lives are not much different than ours, to be honest. They drive to work and to do their grocery shopping. They drive their kids to activities. They might have fewer cars but that's because cars and gas are a lot more expensive there.
One of my pet peeves on this forum is when people reference Europe like it's one country. Things in Albania are going to be very different than things in Norway. There isn't one European culture.

Where in Denmark? We have family and colleagues who live there and most live in suburbs other than a couple in Copenhagen. And yes, they have cars and the suburbs are more spread out. But the rail system in Denmark (at least in the Copenhagen region) is so much better than anything we have here. My BIL commutes into central Copenhagen 4 days a week via rail from a community about as far from the city as Frederick is from DC, and it's unreal how easy and affordable it is. He bikes to the rail station, the trains are frequent, and he spends maybe one hour total commuting (door to door, includes getting to and from the station and waits for trains). When we visited last summer my DH and I were lamenting how much easier it is for them to live in a nice quiet little suburb far from the busyness (and expense) of the city, but for us that would be hours a day or rearranging work schedules to accommodate a really limited MARC schedule to take trains to the wrong part of the city and then switch to bus or metro to get across town.

Also their house for a family of four is maybe 1500-1800 sq ft, and on a densely populated street (technically SFHs but just little hedges between houses and people have small patios, not huge yards). Also people walk and bike a lot around their suburb, at least in the warmer months, though most people have a car and many have two for a family. They definitely drive a lot (and when we went with them to their rural summer house, we drove everywhere) but they are not dependent on driving the way we are her in the US.

They pay through the nose in taxes but have great healthcare and a very good retirement system so they don't worry about having to work until their 80 or being bankrupted by a health emergency.

To me, their lives looked like ours except better in almost every way except the line dry their clothes and the culture is a little homogenous and personally conservative in a way that feels cold to my American sensibilities.

You can do the same thing from Northern Jersey or Connecticut to NYC. DC is not a major employment center, try commuting by light rail from 60 miles away into a secondary Danish city and see how that goes for you

Exactly. While DC has had interurban commuter rail for over 100 years like other east coast cities, it was always infrequent. Towns like Kensington or Bowie just didn’t have the population to ever demand high frequencies way back then or now. And as previously stated, DC is a mid-size city, so a robust commuter rail network with high frequency to far off towns never developed.

Until recently people often derided DC as a “Small Southern Town,” a backwater so to speak. Only within the past 50 years has this area aspired to world-class status, and it still lags.

Philadelphia and NYC were historically much larger employment centers, and so commuting to quaint, historic commuter suburbs out in the countryside has always been the norm.

Copenhagen is also a mid-size city. But go on making excuses.

Copenhagen is the largest city in Denmark. It makes sense that it is a hub for transit in Denmark. DC is smaller than all of its neighboring jurisdictions except for Alexandria City

Weird goalpost shifting. DC is the capital city in a country 55x larger than Denmark. We have far more money and resources and it makes sense that the US would have multiple transit hubs (and that these hubs would be connected to one another). Also, the idea that the district of DC is smaller than it's suburbs is beside the point -- I was comparing "DC and environs" with "Copenhagen and environs" -- they are very similarly sized cities with similarly sized suburban populations. It's just that Copenhagen is designed to efficiently get those suburban populations in and out of the city via public transportation (and to efficiently move residents, commuters, and visitors around the city itself) and DC is not.

This is why DC has massive traffic and air pollution issues and Copenhagen does not. It has nothing to do with Copenhagen being the largest city in Denmark (with the EU, being the largest city in a small country is irrelevant -- like DC, Copenhagen has a huge population of transplants from elsewhere in the EU) or DC having large suburbs. It has to do with policy choices, and DC and surrounding areas making bad, short-sited policy choices that result in spiraling issues related to traffic, commute times, and affordability in the region.

I don't even like Copenhagen that much! But it's actually a good example of how much better DC could be with proper infrastructure and planning.

[Anonymous]

Density that can support walkability also has the downsides of that walkability coming to you. My braggy buddy who lives a stone throw from a metro gets incredulous when he finds trash in front of his home, bums walking around and the stream of vandalism to his stuff. Most people tout the benefits they enjoy they always gloss over the the downsides or believe if not for X, they could have their cake and eat it too.

He also hates people parking on his street and Maryland & Va drivers implying they don’t have the same right to be there. As if him whining will make it so he has the proximity he craves and the peace of the suburbs. I gave up trying to explain I too don’t like the things he doesn’t like, I was just realistic on how to avoid them. Funny part is he never uses the metro

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where in Europe have you lived? Because Europe is made of many different countries and not everyone lives in a dense walkable area. I have lots of family in Denmark and all the ones with kids live in the suburbs. Their lives are not much different than ours, to be honest. They drive to work and to do their grocery shopping. They drive their kids to activities. They might have fewer cars but that's because cars and gas are a lot more expensive there.
One of my pet peeves on this forum is when people reference Europe like it's one country. Things in Albania are going to be very different than things in Norway. There isn't one European culture.

Where in Denmark? We have family and colleagues who live there and most live in suburbs other than a couple in Copenhagen. And yes, they have cars and the suburbs are more spread out. But the rail system in Denmark (at least in the Copenhagen region) is so much better than anything we have here. My BIL commutes into central Copenhagen 4 days a week via rail from a community about as far from the city as Frederick is from DC, and it's unreal how easy and affordable it is. He bikes to the rail station, the trains are frequent, and he spends maybe one hour total commuting (door to door, includes getting to and from the station and waits for trains). When we visited last summer my DH and I were lamenting how much easier it is for them to live in a nice quiet little suburb far from the busyness (and expense) of the city, but for us that would be hours a day or rearranging work schedules to accommodate a really limited MARC schedule to take trains to the wrong part of the city and then switch to bus or metro to get across town.

Also their house for a family of four is maybe 1500-1800 sq ft, and on a densely populated street (technically SFHs but just little hedges between houses and people have small patios, not huge yards). Also people walk and bike a lot around their suburb, at least in the warmer months, though most people have a car and many have two for a family. They definitely drive a lot (and when we went with them to their rural summer house, we drove everywhere) but they are not dependent on driving the way we are her in the US.

They pay through the nose in taxes but have great healthcare and a very good retirement system so they don't worry about having to work until their 80 or being bankrupted by a health emergency.

To me, their lives looked like ours except better in almost every way except the line dry their clothes and the culture is a little homogenous and personally conservative in a way that feels cold to my American sensibilities.

You can do the same thing from Northern Jersey or Connecticut to NYC. DC is not a major employment center, try commuting by light rail from 60 miles away into a secondary Danish city and see how that goes for you

Exactly. While DC has had interurban commuter rail for over 100 years like other east coast cities, it was always infrequent. Towns like Kensington or Bowie just didn’t have the population to ever demand high frequencies way back then or now. And as previously stated, DC is a mid-size city, so a robust commuter rail network with high frequency to far off towns never developed.

Until recently people often derided DC as a “Small Southern Town,” a backwater so to speak. Only within the past 50 years has this area aspired to world-class status, and it still lags.

Philadelphia and NYC were historically much larger employment centers, and so commuting to quaint, historic commuter suburbs out in the countryside has always been the norm.

Copenhagen is also a mid-size city. But go on making excuses.

Copenhagen is the largest city in Denmark. It makes sense that it is a hub for transit in Denmark. DC is smaller than all of its neighboring jurisdictions except for Alexandria City

Weird goalpost shifting. DC is the capital city in a country 55x larger than Denmark. We have far more money and resources and it makes sense that the US would have multiple transit hubs (and that these hubs would be connected to one another). Also, the idea that the district of DC is smaller than it's suburbs is beside the point -- I was comparing "DC and environs" with "Copenhagen and environs" -- they are very similarly sized cities with similarly sized suburban populations. It's just that Copenhagen is designed to efficiently get those suburban populations in and out of the city via public transportation (and to efficiently move residents, commuters, and visitors around the city itself) and DC is not.

This is why DC has massive traffic and air pollution issues and Copenhagen does not. It has nothing to do with Copenhagen being the largest city in Denmark (with the EU, being the largest city in a small country is irrelevant -- like DC, Copenhagen has a huge population of transplants from elsewhere in the EU) or DC having large suburbs. It has to do with policy choices, and DC and surrounding areas making bad, short-sited policy choices that result in spiraling issues related to traffic, commute times, and affordability in the region.

I don't even like Copenhagen that much! But it's actually a good example of how much better DC could be with proper infrastructure and planning.

People forget the cultural idiosyncrasies that shaped DC. It was a “Southern backwater” surrounded by farmland until fairly recently, despite being the seat of government. There really weren’t any substantial suburban commuter towns and the ones that did exist on the few commuter train lines were tiny villages like Garrett Park, Takoma Park, Clarendon.

When the DC region did finally develop, the tobacco and dairy farms became tract suburban subdivisions, except for the agricultural enclaves in Loudon and Montgomery Counties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where in Europe have you lived? Because Europe is made of many different countries and not everyone lives in a dense walkable area. I have lots of family in Denmark and all the ones with kids live in the suburbs. Their lives are not much different than ours, to be honest. They drive to work and to do their grocery shopping. They drive their kids to activities. They might have fewer cars but that's because cars and gas are a lot more expensive there.
One of my pet peeves on this forum is when people reference Europe like it's one country. Things in Albania are going to be very different than things in Norway. There isn't one European culture.

Where in Denmark? We have family and colleagues who live there and most live in suburbs other than a couple in Copenhagen. And yes, they have cars and the suburbs are more spread out. But the rail system in Denmark (at least in the Copenhagen region) is so much better than anything we have here. My BIL commutes into central Copenhagen 4 days a week via rail from a community about as far from the city as Frederick is from DC, and it's unreal how easy and affordable it is. He bikes to the rail station, the trains are frequent, and he spends maybe one hour total commuting (door to door, includes getting to and from the station and waits for trains). When we visited last summer my DH and I were lamenting how much easier it is for them to live in a nice quiet little suburb far from the busyness (and expense) of the city, but for us that would be hours a day or rearranging work schedules to accommodate a really limited MARC schedule to take trains to the wrong part of the city and then switch to bus or metro to get across town.

Also their house for a family of four is maybe 1500-1800 sq ft, and on a densely populated street (technically SFHs but just little hedges between houses and people have small patios, not huge yards). Also people walk and bike a lot around their suburb, at least in the warmer months, though most people have a car and many have two for a family. They definitely drive a lot (and when we went with them to their rural summer house, we drove everywhere) but they are not dependent on driving the way we are her in the US.

They pay through the nose in taxes but have great healthcare and a very good retirement system so they don't worry about having to work until their 80 or being bankrupted by a health emergency.

To me, their lives looked like ours except better in almost every way except the line dry their clothes and the culture is a little homogenous and personally conservative in a way that feels cold to my American sensibilities.

They don't live near Copenhagen, they live in Jutland, so things are a little different than in Copenhagen. There is a lot more driving. Also, even though daycare is subsidized, it isn't always set up for working parents as a lot of daycares close at 430. I have a family member who stopped working because they couldn't make daycare pickup work, even though it was affordable. I agree with you about the conservative and homogeneous culture there. I also agree the rail system is better and healthy care is more equitable as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where in Europe have you lived? Because Europe is made of many different countries and not everyone lives in a dense walkable area. I have lots of family in Denmark and all the ones with kids live in the suburbs. Their lives are not much different than ours, to be honest. They drive to work and to do their grocery shopping. They drive their kids to activities. They might have fewer cars but that's because cars and gas are a lot more expensive there.
One of my pet peeves on this forum is when people reference Europe like it's one country. Things in Albania are going to be very different than things in Norway. There isn't one European culture.

Where in Denmark? We have family and colleagues who live there and most live in suburbs other than a couple in Copenhagen. And yes, they have cars and the suburbs are more spread out. But the rail system in Denmark (at least in the Copenhagen region) is so much better than anything we have here. My BIL commutes into central Copenhagen 4 days a week via rail from a community about as far from the city as Frederick is from DC, and it's unreal how easy and affordable it is. He bikes to the rail station, the trains are frequent, and he spends maybe one hour total commuting (door to door, includes getting to and from the station and waits for trains). When we visited last summer my DH and I were lamenting how much easier it is for them to live in a nice quiet little suburb far from the busyness (and expense) of the city, but for us that would be hours a day or rearranging work schedules to accommodate a really limited MARC schedule to take trains to the wrong part of the city and then switch to bus or metro to get across town.

Also their house for a family of four is maybe 1500-1800 sq ft, and on a densely populated street (technically SFHs but just little hedges between houses and people have small patios, not huge yards). Also people walk and bike a lot around their suburb, at least in the warmer months, though most people have a car and many have two for a family. They definitely drive a lot (and when we went with them to their rural summer house, we drove everywhere) but they are not dependent on driving the way we are her in the US.

They pay through the nose in taxes but have great healthcare and a very good retirement system so they don't worry about having to work until their 80 or being bankrupted by a health emergency.

To me, their lives looked like ours except better in almost every way except the line dry their clothes and the culture is a little homogenous and personally conservative in a way that feels cold to my American sensibilities.

You can do the same thing from Northern Jersey or Connecticut to NYC. DC is not a major employment center, try commuting by light rail from 60 miles away into a secondary Danish city and see how that goes for you

Exactly. While DC has had interurban commuter rail for over 100 years like other east coast cities, it was always infrequent. Towns like Kensington or Bowie just didn’t have the population to ever demand high frequencies way back then or now. And as previously stated, DC is a mid-size city, so a robust commuter rail network with high frequency to far off towns never developed.

Until recently people often derided DC as a “Small Southern Town,” a backwater so to speak. Only within the past 50 years has this area aspired to world-class status, and it still lags.

Philadelphia and NYC were historically much larger employment centers, and so commuting to quaint, historic commuter suburbs out in the countryside has always been the norm.

Copenhagen is also a mid-size city. But go on making excuses.

Copenhagen is the largest city in Denmark. It makes sense that it is a hub for transit in Denmark. DC is smaller than all of its neighboring jurisdictions except for Alexandria City

Weird goalpost shifting. DC is the capital city in a country 55x larger than Denmark. We have far more money and resources and it makes sense that the US would have multiple transit hubs (and that these hubs would be connected to one another). Also, the idea that the district of DC is smaller than it's suburbs is beside the point -- I was comparing "DC and environs" with "Copenhagen and environs" -- they are very similarly sized cities with similarly sized suburban populations. It's just that Copenhagen is designed to efficiently get those suburban populations in and out of the city via public transportation (and to efficiently move residents, commuters, and visitors around the city itself) and DC is not.

This is why DC has massive traffic and air pollution issues and Copenhagen does not. It has nothing to do with Copenhagen being the largest city in Denmark (with the EU, being the largest city in a small country is irrelevant -- like DC, Copenhagen has a huge population of transplants from elsewhere in the EU) or DC having large suburbs. It has to do with policy choices, and DC and surrounding areas making bad, short-sited policy choices that result in spiraling issues related to traffic, commute times, and affordability in the region.

I don't even like Copenhagen that much! But it's actually a good example of how much better DC could be with proper infrastructure and planning.

Copenhagen's suburbs revolve around Copenhagen. Downtown DC competes with Arlington, Tysons, and Bethesda as an employment center. Intersting that you mention affordability given that Copenhagen is on of the highest cost of living cities in the world

[Anonymous]

I love that this thread about American suburbs has turned into a discussion of Denmark!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Culture is a big factor. I am a mom of 2 and I've NEVER wanted to be in the burbs. I'm a city girl and was raised in a big MW city. I love dining out aka not having to make meals constantly as a busy mom. But I'm an outlier. I have trouble clicking with most people in my now suburban neighborhood because I pretty much hate the boring burb lifestyle. I don't want to play with my kids in the yard and prefer to go to a museum but we're all different. So I can't answer your question but know that an ask the same questions! For us it's financial and to do with school for kids.

Wow. I hope you find peace someday with your living situation. BTW, I live in the burbs and I have a giant museum that I can take a local bus to as well as dining options from at least a dozen countries within a ten minute drive. Or I can take a bus or Metro to get where I want to, even the city. Maybe you need to find the right burb for you.

[Anonymous]

Lots of reasons we are quite excited to move out of the city soon.

-Tired of hearing gunshots from our house and occasionally seeing getaway cars peal through the alley. Tired of worrying my kids could be caught by a stray bullet.
-Tired of alley rats eating herbs and vegetables off my deck, literally in broad daylight.
-Tired of cockroaches from sharing walls with neighbors who hoard/don't clean/don't maintain yard (also contributes to rat issue)
-Don't want my kids going to school where over 80% of kids are below grade level.
-Can't afford private school, can't afford to move to urban walkable neighborhood with good school district
-Really love gardening and wish for a yard that's bigger than a postage stamp.
-Now two of us work from home a few times a week when neither did 3 years ago and gets complicated when no desk/office space (both at kitchen counter, sore backs).