Americans' Shift To The Suburbs Sped Up Last Year (fivethirtyeight.com) 207
Jed Kolko, writing for FiveThirtyEight: The suburbanization of America marches on. Population growth in big cities slowed for the fifth-straight year in 2016, according to new census data, while population growth accelerated in the more sprawling counties that surround them. The Census Bureau on Thursday released population estimates for every one of the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. I grouped those counties into six categories: urban centers of large metropolitan areas; their densely populated suburbs; their lightly populated suburbs; midsize metros; smaller metro areas; and rural counties, which are outside metro areas entirely. The fastest growth was in those lower-density suburbs. Those counties grew by 1.3 percent in 2016, the fastest rate since 2008, when the housing bust put an end to rapid homebuilding in these areas. In the South and West, growth in large-metro lower-density suburbs topped 2 percent in 2016, led by counties such as Kendall and Comal north of San Antonio; Hays near Austin; and Forsyth, north of Atlanta.
If self driving cars take off (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If self driving cars take off (Score:5, Interesting)
Such as:
-Tailgating in traffic jams, allowing no room for merging or changing lanes, causing everyone to have to slam on their brakes when someone does need to move lanes.
-Waiting until the absolute last second to merge when lanes are reduced.
-Essentially acting as a completely un-damped spring, speeding up and slowing down to stay exactly right behind the car in front, allowing all kinds of nasty resonances and standing waves.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Will they also be able to drive out out of the city and go off roading?
Will they be able to pick up your boat and drive it to the launch, drop it in and then park with the trailer to wait for you?
Does this do away with motorcycles? Geez, I'd be hard pressed to want to give up the freedom and fun my motorcycle affords me on my days off....
Not everyone uses a car/vehicle strictly to go to/from work or other mundane, utilitarian usage.
Re: (Score:2)
Farm equipment such as combines and tractors are already self guided via GPS, so yes - you can have an off-road vehicle with an autopilot.
I imagine for recreational uses, traditional cars, motorcycles, RVs and the like will all be around for a while with manual drive.
Holy crap though - an autopilot on an RV would be awesome. You can get up and grab a sandwich, take a leak, screw your wife, whatever - all while driving down the interstate.
Re: (Score:2)
I would expect RVs to be the first with self-drive capability considering the amount of highway miles they operate. Even some of the more advanced self-park features cars have now would be useful for RVs when parking them in complex locations.
Hell, some of that self-park functionality could be useful for the GPs questions about launching a boat. Backing up a trailer is easy once you know how to do it, but why not apply AI to it and make it easier?
Re: (Score:2)
Does this do away with motorcycles?
On the contrary, I see self driving cars as a boon to motorcycles. The main reason I am concerned about riding is other drivers, and self driving cars should be way less likely to do the didn't see the red light/need to turn right from the left lane/ various other stupid stuff that take out way too many bikes. I could even see adding a transponder or something so that you are marked unmistakably as a human controlled motorcycle, and given a wide berth.
Re: (Score:2)
The reason I ask..is that I'm foreseeing that if self driving cars become the norm, they will then be mandated and human driver vehicles will not be allowed to occupy the same roads as driverless.
IMHO, a very real possibility and I'd hate to lose that option....
Re: (Score:2)
"If you like your car/motorcycle/doctor, you can keep your car/motorcycle/doctor"
The only caveat is that you'll not be allowed to use them in the unclogged lanes, which are reserved for people who behave the way we want them to.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
-Waiting until the absolute last second to merge when lanes are reduced.
Just FYI, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/us/why-last-second-lane-mergers-are-good-for-traffic.html?_r=0
Re: (Score:3)
The programmers of the cars can do a lot to alleviate the bad behaviors people have gotten in to ...
Such as: ...
Waiting until the absolute last second to merge when lanes are reduced.
Although frustrating for the driver being cut, this behavior has actually been shown to reduce overall traffic by making more use of the road area.
Re: (Score:2)
Zipper merging has many benefits, not the least of which is it blocks the 'special people' from driving down the empty lane and doing the single car last second bull your way in thing.
self driving cars - not a solution for commute (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I actually believe if self-driving cars take off, drive times will go down. The programmers of the cars can do a lot to alleviate the bad behaviors people have gotten in to that just makes heavy traffic worse.
If you then ban human-operated vehicles from (some) roads, or maybe just some lanes (which should be separated from lanes usable by human-operated vehicles), it can get even better. Vehicles in constant radio communication with each other and with sub-millisecond reaction times should be able to significantly increase highway speeds and reduce inter-vehicle distance to inches, while simultaneously increasing safety.
If you can remove human-operated vehicles from all roads, you can also get rid of stop ligh
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Reading on a train that travels at a constant speed on smooth rails is one thing. Reading in a car that drives on bumpy, poorly-maintained roads, navigating between lanes and changing speeds constantly to avoid other erratic drivers, and getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic where it's constantly stopping and going, is quite another matter. Personally, I cannot read in a car; I get motion sickness. I can read just fine on an airplane or a train, but not in a car for very long.
The fact is, cars just d
Re: (Score:2)
<Sound of two gunshots in background>
Person: Okay, I put them in the trunk.
Car: Thank you, where are we going today?
Centralisation == Coruuption (Score:3, Interesting)
Cities are hotbeds of centralization enabled corruption.
Where the pie grows so large people are willing to do anything to carve off their slice. And where you get to pay for it.
Wonder why (Score:5, Funny)
Spend $4000 a month living in a shoe box apartment or put that into a mortgage on a decent sized house. Decisions, decisions.
Re: (Score:2)
Not to worry, the trend to remove working from home as an option will soon make the decision step obsolete.
Re:Wonder why (Score:5, Interesting)
That's hardly the entirety of the decision. Aside from the pros/cons of renting vs buying, if that apartment is 30 minutes closer to work, you just saved 250 hours a year of your personal time. What's that worth?
Re:Wonder why (Score:5, Informative)
That's hardly the entirety of the decision. Aside from the pros/cons of renting vs buying, if that apartment is 30 minutes closer to work, you just saved 250 hours a year of your personal time. What's that worth?
It's not worth never getting to be loud, it's not worth never getting to have a real pet. It's not worth never having a second vehicle. It's not worth never seeing grass. Humans haven't evolved to live in hives.
Re: (Score:2)
Humans haven't evolved to live in hives.
Yet.
Re:Wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in the downtown area of a large city. We have two parking spaces, a dog, and grass for her to run around on. I am able to be as loud as I want to be (YMMV), mostly because new buildings are much better at soundproofing than was true even 20 years ago.
Our condo is smaller than our suburban house was, but plenty large enough for the two of us, and bigger than the median square footage of a house when I was a kid.
And we pay more than I did in the burbs, but we have baseball, football and basketball stadiums within walking distance, as well as theaters and easily 2 dozen restaurants. Expand my range to what I can reach for the minimum Uber fare or a bike share, and I have easy access to all of the downtown area.
It's a personal decision, but it is not nearly as bleak a life as you paint it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I live in a condo which is an easy bus hop to downtown. Here is why I wouldn't recommend it:
1: HOAs. Even with a decent HOA, you are still spending hundreds of dollars of month, with the HOA assessment being raised 10% every year for nothing. Of course, there are the neighbors with no life just looking for any small violation to call in.
2: You never know what the hell is lurking outside when going to your vehicle. Nothing like dealing with people skulking around, flipping car door handles, in hopes of
Re: (Score:2)
1: HOAs. Even with a decent HOA, you are still spending hundreds of dollars of month, with the HOA assessment being raised 10% every year for nothing. Of course, there are the neighbors with no life just looking for any small violation to call in. In the suburbs I pay much less than $100/mo for the HOA, and they maintain park space, a sand volleyball court, and all the interior roads in the development I live in.
2: You never know what the hell is lurking outside when going to your vehicle. Nothing like deal
Re: (Score:2)
8: After a while you don't even notice it. There is definitely less yard work noise etc. than suburbs
I have to agree with this one heartily. When I lived in the suburbs of Phoenix, not only did I have to listen to barking dogs day and night, there was also constant leaf-blower noise. It was a maddening, loud din. To me, suburbs are the noisiest places possible to live. In cities with high-rises, you have some sirens now and then, and train noise if you live next to a rail line, but no leaf-blowers and n
Re: (Score:2)
5: Bums.
Friend lived in apartment near downtown. He would send me pictures whenever they would poop (he called it bum dookie) in front and smear it on the fence. They would sometimes stack it on top of the fence.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>1: HOAs. Even with a decent HOA, you are still spending hundreds of dollars of month, with the HOA assessment being raised 10% every year for nothing. Of course, there are the neighbors with no life just looking for any small violation to call in.
I am the treasurer of a HOA. I am the one who proposes rate increases when necessary.
Rate increases for nothing might happen in some HOAs but my assertions is that for most HOAs, nobody is paying any attention to the finances.
The major costs are:
1) Reserves. By
Re: (Score:3)
What's housing in the city like for people in the 50th percentile income bracket? For the typical 50th percentile person. Not the one who got lucky and snagged a rent-controlled apartment whose previous 90 year old tenant died of a heart attack and they happened to know her grand-niece so heard about the apartment being available before it was advertised. Comparisons should be made based on avera
Re: (Score:2)
I live in the downtown area of a large city. We have two parking spaces, a dog, and grass for her to run around on. . . . .
I take it that you have no kids. Living downtown as an adult is awesome. As an adult with kids, well, . . . not so much.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not worth never getting to be loud, it's not worth never getting to have a real pet.
Sounds good to me, because the other side of the coin is that your neighbors have to put up with your noise and your stupid dog barking its head off at all hours of the day and night. I've lived in suburbs and this is exactly how it was.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, of course there are trade-offs for everything.
I personally cannot STAND sharing walls with people.
I have a pretty high end sound system, and I like to crank it up from time to time for music or maybe just watching the Flintstones at concert volume....without having to worry about people com
Re: (Score:3)
Sure there are trade-offs between living in the greater metropolitan/urban areas, you have to decide about your lifestyle and what suits it best.
This is precisely the point. It's a decision made up of various factors and the answers depend upon the circumstances and desires of the individuals involved.
I've lived both styles (urban and suburban). They both have advantages and disadvantages. Right now, as a retiree, urban suits me because we don't need or want a large footprint and we don't want to be driving into town for most of the things that we need and want to do. When we had a houseful of kids, it was a different equation with different variabl
Re: (Score:2)
I can see your point on this for sure.
However, with SO many things now being able to be delivered at a reasonable price to your home door....even living out more suburban, you don't have to drive quite as much for shopping, etc....and with things like Uber, you can cheaply let someone else drive.
So, things like that might make
Re: (Score:3)
Oh yeah (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh man, I envy you there.
I'm wanting to try my hand at some astral photography, but I dunno when I'll get a chance to find somewhere to go that isn't trashed with urban light pollution.....
It was just before Katrina, when I went with a girlfriend to a little beach house type thing in Mexico, well away from the large cities, that I last saw a nice, unpolluted nighttime sky.
I'd forgo
When I get bored I go to one of several museums (Score:2)
or to the movies, the ballet, the opera, plays, musicals, clubs, concerts, parks, dog parks, botanic gardens, thousands of different restaurants, or just take a nice walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, or ride the ferry to Governor's island.
But yeah, blowing up a tree with a stick of dynamite sounds cool, too. To each his own.
Re: (Score:2)
What's that worth?
20 hours a month is worth less than $1000 a month to most people.
Not surprisingly, the value people put on time closely follows the (reduced) price they pay for houses that require traveling that amount of time.
The change (more people moving outward) is probably a reflection of the unequal rise in the price of housing.
Re: (Score:2)
What's that worth?
250 hours of playing Gran Turismo while listening to Ghetto Boys at full volume on my stereo
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the locale. ie, most high tech jobs in the SF Bay Area are in the medium density suburbs, not in the high density urban centers. The commute from low density suburban to medium density suburban can be a lot better than from urban to suburg. Although in the Bay Area most traffic is due to not enough roads in too cramped an area so that traffic jams are inevitable. Compare to a lot of other urban areas that are more open geographically, a lot of major corporate and industrial work areas are out
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Spend $4000 a month living in a shoe box apartment or put that into a mortgage on a decent sized house. Decisions, decisions.
Okay so you have identified one criteria, now:
Spend $4000 to live in an apartment, or spend $4000 on having to spend saturday mowing the lawn, watering the grass, washing up outside.
Spend $4000 to live in walking distance from all the action or 5min away with the metro or spend $4000 on being stuck out in the burbs battling traffic to get to work, having to drive somewhere to do something basic like get a meal.
Spend $4000 for a nice comfortable sized living space, or spend $4000 for a massive multi bedroom
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Not everyone likes urban life. I've been to plenty of cities all over the world, but I'm always glad to be back home in a place where you can see the stars at night and the only noise to complain about when you're trying to sleep is the howling of coyotes (though they can get quite annoying). I like being able to go for a walk in the woods just by stepping outside or just watch the trees swaying in a storm. It's relaxing and peaceful in a way you just can't get in a city. So what if I have to drive 5-10 min
Re: (Score:2)
Not everyone likes urban life.
That was precisely my point, there's a lot more to consider than $ per square meter.
Re: (Score:2)
I suggest you move to a less shit city.
Re: (Score:2)
Around me (DC) people seem to be voting for the shoebox, or at least rental. I live near a Metro stop, and in the last 10 years there have been at least 5000 rental units added around me, with more in the pipeline. DC itself (no suburbs) added more than 50,000 residents between 2012 & 2015, and that seems to be continuing. A lot of younger people around here are not interested in long commutes, they want city life.
Re: (Score:2)
Well sure, but you lose that 5 minute walk to the hipster cupcake bakery in the morning.
Re: (Score:2)
But many people are looking for a house that is about a maybe two or three square foot for every dollar of their monthly mortgage. That can be hard to find in the city. While one can find a very desirable house at very reasonable costs in the city, it is often in locatio
Re:Wonder why (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Cities are best for people who pay for their entertainment. Rural is best for people who make their own entertainment.
And suburbs, where people are busily moving, are a happy medium, with enough room to make some of your own entertainment and still be able to go into the city in an hour or so, rather than 3 hours.
Oh noes!!!! (Score:2)
Unremarkable development (Score:2)
High Speed Rail (Score:5, Insightful)
Suburbanization isn't a problem. If we planned cities properly we could serve city centers with high speed rail to secondary cities (suburbs, exurbs) and ease the urban housing crunch. Of course this would require taxation, debt, eminent domain, and operating at a loss for decades, which is not popular with short term thinkers, despite the fact that rail infrastructure has a lifespan measured in centuries.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If we planned cities properly...
When has there EVER been a metropolitan hub that was properly planned?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm afraid I must disagree strenuously, even though I am an urban-fleer myself (though I drove to the suburbs and kept going).
One of my favorite Twitters is urbanist Twitter. They are obsessed with urban living and think everyone would live in a city if it were car-less and properly zoned, etc. They are batshit insane, BUT they do have one very good point, which is we actually subsidize sprawl by building highways and interstates. This hides the true cost of moving to the suburbs or rural areas.
Now, I happe
Re: (Score:2)
Suburbanization isn't a problem. If we planned cities properly we could serve city centers with high speed rail to secondary cities (suburbs, exurbs) and ease the urban housing crunch. Of course this would require taxation, debt, eminent domain, and operating at a loss for decades, which is not popular with short term thinkers, despite the fact that rail infrastructure has a lifespan measured in centuries.
What you're describing is England... In fact most of Europe.
From where I live in Hampshire, I could take a job in central London (preferably on the South Bank) and have a commute time of under an hour thanks to living on a main line. The yearly train ticket is along the lines of 3,000 quid but jobs in London tend to pay well enough that I'd be making money over working outside of London. That being said, it would still be 10 hours a week and there are some pretty good jobs along the M4 corridor, but it's
Re: (Score:2)
High speed rail is designed for service BETWEEN urban areas, not WITHIN an urban area.
For example, there are high speed rail routes between London and Paris, between Madrid and Barcelona, and between Moscow and St Petersburg.
In suburbs/exurbs, you want to stop every couple miles to pick up more passengers. It's impossible to go "high speed" (generally defined as over 120 or 160 mph), because before you finish accelerating to that speed, you already have to decelerate for the next stop.
However, you could bui
Avoid the Crazy (Score:2)
Millennials (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
White flight never really left. They just call it something different now, like "I just want a good school". Public schools get dumped on, those new "gentrification" people still go and send the kids to private schools if they can, or home school if they can't, while those in more affluent neighborhoods already have good public schools with tons of funding and iron clad resistance to bussing. And then to top if off they blame the whole thing on teachers.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the biggest problem in education is actually the teachers unions. That used to be only something we right wing nutjobs would say, but then the left figured out this was mostly screwing over their voters and there is s growing consensus (DFER, KidsFirst, etc)
There is actually less of a correlation between well performing schools and well funded schools than you appear to believe. It's pretty weak in the raw data, and it gets a lot weaker when you pull out confounds like the education level of the stude
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Totally worth it (Score:5, Interesting)
Adding an extra 40min round trip to an existing 30min round trip dropped our mortgage principle over 33%. This is incredibly important when you look at interest rates. 5% was standard when bought, and probably will be again soon if it isn't. Right now it's apparently 4%. Let's say you finance $360k. Over the life time of a 30 year mortgage, that is $208k of interest and you only get a fraction of that back in deductions. So really, spending a lot more to be close to a city is sending trashbags full of cash to the banks.
Re:Totally worth it (Score:4, Interesting)
I really don't understand posters who can understand an amortization schedule, even understand how rates change over time, and then just add dollar numbers (e.g. a dollar today plus and a dollar payable in 30 years) to make a big, bad number that is supposed to make sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention the further along in your career the more work at home is an option.
So, you clearly know what numbers are, but... (Score:2)
1. Did you factor in that your home is a heavily leveraged investment? Yes you are paying more interest in the city, but you also have a more valuable asset; an asset that appreciates. You get to keep the appreciation and can pay the bank interest in inflated dollars.
2. Did you calculate the cost of owning a car (maintenance, insurance, speeding tickets, registration, gas)? because not needing to own a car (or cars) in the city helps to offset some of the increased living expense.
3. What about the cost of c
Re: (Score:2)
Adding an extra 40min round trip to an existing 30min round trip dropped our mortgage principle over 33%.
I own a house in the burbs and an apartment in a city (I rent out the former and live in the latter).
The house in the burbs cost me $10k more than the apartment in the city, and I could have probably worked them down to $450k as well and it would all have cost identical. Not every apartment in the city is a 30th floor wonder with a seaside view and a concierge, and not every house in the burbs is a shack with a patch of grass in front of it.
No jobs, sit in traffic all day (Score:2)
Only fools move to the suburbs.
My walk to work is around 40 minutes, or I get there in 20 on transit. Or I can bike it in 15 minutes.
In the suburbs around Seattle it's 1.5 to 3 hours. Sometimes it's 4 hours.
Choose wisely.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
my drive is only 20 min each way, and I dont have to be saturated by other asshole's every waking moment in a sphere of human misery
Re: (Score:2)
dunno what the radio has to do with it, my "hood" has less people in a square mile than a small apartment complex
I dont have to step outside and deal with a ton of road traffic, I dont have to spend my life surrounded by 4 sides of other people bing assholes
its a simple fact, people in cities are saturated by the annoyances of other people, and its stacked in 3D, just cause your town sucks nuts on traffic and you want to walk an hour to work, is your deal not mine
I dont like to be corralled and herded like
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, well, that's just one data point. I lived in downtown Austin and it took me 50+ minutes to get from my office in West Austin to my downtown apartment (9.8mi away) in rush hour. I moved to the northeast boonies just off the toll road system here, and it's a consistent 35 minute commute @ 85 mph to the office, bypassing all the traffic. More gas guzzling, but the point is it's not quite as black and white from a commute perspective.
Ask Slashdot - Why are Cities more Expense? (Score:2)
Now, I understand WHY a city is more expensive. Because stuff costs more, because there is more tax, more demand for less space, etc etc etc. But WHY are these underlying services more expensive?
Taxes:
Sure, there are more people to service and a few more services (pedestrian crossing signals) but there are a lot more people who pay for them. And many don't even live in the city but spend money there!
Space:
So the land has more demand. But why can't we go vertical as needed? Most cities have less than 10
Re: (Score:2)
Now, I understand WHY a city is more expensive. Because stuff costs more, because there is more tax, more demand for less space, etc etc etc. But WHY are these underlying services more expensive?
Taxes: Sure, there are more people to service and a few more services (pedestrian crossing signals) but there are a lot more people who pay for them. And many don't even live in the city but spend money there!
Space: So the land has more demand. But why can't we go vertical as needed? Most cities have less than 10 buildings over 20 floors.
Restaurants/Movies/Clubs/etc There are a lot more customers to provide for revenues. More economies of scale, should be cheaper.
Infrastructure How is it that cabling/piping/ducting a building is more expensive than across 25 acres of a suburban neighborhood? Cities may have public transit, but less roads to maintain, less area to cleanup, less trash pickup points, etc.
What am I missing?
Pension.
Cities have to pay pension and healthcare for retired city employees. For newer suburbs, there is no such requirement.
Re: (Score:2)
You're not missing a thing. Providing services to suburbs is way more expensive. However developers are often forced to pick up the cost of providing them during construction, so it's attractive for cities to approve sprawling subdivisions.
Re: (Score:2)
This is not a sign of demand for suburban life (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a sign of a shortage of higher density living in the urban core. There are multiple reasons for that, the power of the NIMBY lobby being one of them. But for the demographic of young single professionals at the early stages of their careers, vibrant and compact walkable neighborhoods are so much in demand that rents are being driven sky high and lower income people are being displaced to the suburbs where they are either saddled with longer commutes of forced to find jobs on the periphery.
Suburbs are great for when you get a little older and want to raise a family, but in the meantime the city is where it's at.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes! We have an urbanist here! Love trolling you guys, but in this case I will just point out that only a subset of the population is interested in living in dense housing. Yes of course build more dense housing and get the govt out of the business of protecting NIMBY homeowners through absurd zoning. But stop pretending that this is the primary reason that 30%+ of the population doesn't live in an urban area.
We're just bacteria (Score:2)
It's almost as if cities acted like petri dishes.. so weird..
When the costs associated with tearing down the old and putting up something new is comparable to just buying up new land and building on that.. then urban decay will stop.
Since that isn't something that business would do on it's own as it isn't as profitable, it's up to government to regulate it.
High-density suburbs (Score:2)
Privacy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Except that it is far easier to be left alone in a big city. in a village everyone knows you and bothers you. in a city even the next door neighbour doesn't give a shit whether you are still amongst the living. I have been renting this flat for 8 years, but I have spoken with other people living in the same house maybe twice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
it is far easier to be invisible in a crowd.
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, in general, you do see less violence in the suburbs than the densely populated urban areas, and the school systems are often much better away from the inner cities.
You can't blame people for wanting to try to raise their families in a much healthier environment.
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Did you know that your children are more likely to die violently [time.com] in a rural area than in the city? And people in rural areas are also more likely to die from heart disease and cancer [cdc.gov], among other diseases and injuries.
A suburb is a cross between an urban and a rural area, so it isn't clear at all that a suburb is a "much healthier environment" than a city.
Re: (Score:2)
Violent Crime and murder should not be conflated with car wrecks, which is what they do.
Two entirely different things.
Re: (Score:2)
And people in rural areas are also more likely to die from heart disease and cancer [cdc.gov], among other diseases and injuries.
Come now, it's hardly that difficult: obviously this is a case of causation vs. correlation; moving to the country clearly doesn't have to turn you into a country-ass hick who dips his snickers bars in TBHQ-saturated pork fat...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you know that your children are more likely to die violently [time.com] in a rural area than in the city? And people in rural areas are also more likely to die from heart disease and cancer [cdc.gov], among other diseases and injuries.
A suburb is a cross between an urban and a rural area, so it isn't clear at all that a suburb is a "much healthier environment" than a city.
What people mean by a "healthier environment" is the fact they can have a large house, big car, pet and other things that are difficult to own in high density areas. Basically they want some idealised 1950's white picket fence fantasy whilst forgetting that they're working 80 hours a week and commuting for another 20 to have enough money just to make the payments on their fantasy whilst trying to avoid the inevitable divorce of their loveless marriage which would make their already unbalanced crotchspawns e
Re: (Score:2)
Well, in general, you do see less violence in the suburbs than the densely populated urban areas, and the school systems are often much better away from the inner cities.
You can't blame people for wanting to try to raise their families in a much healthier environment.
Of course you can. They will call you racist, xenophobic, and probably a few other things for simply wanting decent conditions to raise your family. White flight is blaming white people for making a very rational move to exit violence where they will be blamed and not protected.
Re: (Score:2)
". They will call you racist, xenophobic, and probably a few other things for simply wanting decent conditions to raise your family. White flight is blaming white people for making a very rational move to exit violence where they will be blamed and not protected."
And now, while there is still an ongoing shift of population going to the burbs, young people moving back to inner-city neighborhoods and fixing them up is also held to be racist and xenophobic for some reason. That's why nobody listens to academic
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmmm. That's kinda interesting. For anyone paying attention, three people (or at least one person and two cowards who may be people) all said essentially the same thing but in different ways with different tones and highlighting different details. -1 Troll, -1, +4 informative. Salesmanship, diplomatic tact, and a dose of political correctness makes all the world of a difference.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm moving out to the sticks. Where my doublewide is on 34 acres you can't see the fucking neighbors.
Re: (Score:2)
How's the downsizing going in Detroit? I hear it's hard to provide services to such a sprawled out city where so much of it is derelict and not producing tax revenue.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't necessarily want a big hour or a big lot. I dont have kids though. Families however have a greater need those things.
For me I don't want the oppressive inner city full of trash, noise, crime, smog, etc. Give me a small condo in the suburbs and I'm ok being far from the madding crowd.