my RO aneurysm: Uppity middle-class society destroyers don't want sidewalks!

[Martin_Hyde]

The arguments against the sidewalk are dumb, but VCO3 is at least equally dumb. I like how he is so certain that everyone moves to the suburbs because they “hate society.” I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that to raise a family in a residence with actual breathing room you have to either live in a very run down apartment in the city or be extremely wealthy and live in a nice one. 3-4 bedroom apartments can cost more in rent in a single year than buying a home in the suburbs in many cities.

People moved to the suburbs because it’s a better place to raise kids and the development of high-volume roadways made it feasible.

People tend to drive cars in the suburbs because public transit in the burbs is usually limited, non-existent, or incredibly inconvenient.

[Ludovic]

@tdn

I’m not sure how much of a trend it is.

Right here in Melbourne a similar thing happened, which is the first time I’ve heard of it happening ever, and now this.

The city wants to put in sidewalks in a certain area, but the main opposition is from the residents of that area. To be truthful, in addition to the “not our kind” arguments, they claim they will be losing trees in the deal.

Well, I for one would like to own a house with not only trees, but sidewalks. I guess I’m a sentimental fool who likes shade and transportation options :rolleyes:

[Cartooniverse]

@Dewey Finn

You know, I’ll bet that at some point VCO3 is going to grow up and maybe even turn into one of these yuppies. And then we can show these threads to him and all have a big laugh.

You know. The location posted in his member info in each post says Chicago, Il. Our Perfect Master harkens from that fair city as well.

When an equal amount of matter and anti-matter come in contact…

I’m just sayin’, is all.

Cartooniverse, whose got ZERO sidewalks on his street and is sad about it, yet able to feel good about his lack of cerebral hemorrhage.

[Merijeek]

Oh goody, another one of these by the same guy.

Have you already got tomorrow’s Pit thread pre-typed, or are you going to whip it out spontaneously like this one?

You probably need to start working on it today so it’s not quite so weak.

-Joe

[Odesio]

The neighborhood I live in was built in the 60s and we have no sidewalks. I walk every single day on the side of the street and it hasn’t been a problem.

Marc

[thirdwarning]

Our little suburb out here has sidewalks all over town. I just wish we could get people to use them. What is the thing about walking in the street, next to the sidewalk? And it isn’t like the group just spilled over so they could walk side by side. As often as not it’s one or two, or the bunch of them are just all spraddled out anyway.

[Merijeek]

@thirdwarning

Our little suburb out here has sidewalks all over town. I just wish we could get people to use them. What is the thing about walking in the street, next to the sidewalk? And it isn’t like the group just spilled over so they could walk side by side. As often as not it’s one or two, or the bunch of them are just all spraddled out anyway.

Sidewalks are a rarity in Mississippi. I think that’s why they’re so goddamned fat.

-Joe

[fessie]

If they had sidewalks, women with strollers would be walking on them.

[Merijeek]

@fessie

If they had sidewalks, women with strollers would be walking on them.

We could have laws where those strollers had a maximum width.

-Joe

[Zulema]

Our neighborhood has sidewalks and nearly everyone walks in the street so they can walk side by side with their friends. I like sidewalks but I don’t think they have much to do with how neighborly people are.

One drawback of sidewalks is that once you have them the city makes you keep them shovelled in the winter. We live on a corner lot and our side sidewalk ends in the side of a steep hill where the neighborhood ends. We have to shovel it.

[elmwood]

I recently finished a comprehensive plan for a Cleveland suburb that didn’t want any parks. You read that right - they hated parks. Why? Because it could draw a “bad element” into the town. Ethically, I couldn’t make a recommendation against parks in the plan – it’s bad planning practice, and also borderline negligence – so it’s one part of the plan where I had to ignore the stakeholders.

[pulykamell]

@VCO3

Bomb the suburbs.

Heh. I remember actually owning a book/pamphlet called “Bomb the Suburbs” back in the 90s that sounds suspiciously like VCO3’s anti-suburb rant.

I live in the city. I’ve always lived in cities except when I went to Evanston for school (which I consider more a city than a suburb, anyway). I like the city fine. But the older I get, the more I realize the appeal of the suburbs. It’s much cheaper to buy a property there, you get better schools (in general), among other things.

I think it’s stereotypical bullshit that suburbs don’t have a sense of community–it really depends where you’re at. I live in the city, and I only know the names of the neighbors to the north of me. I’ve been here since 2004. People in the cities keep to themselves, too. It’s not like it’s one big, giant happy family in every city neighborhood. I know plenty of suburban communities that have more a sense of community than my city neighborhood.

Plus, VCO3, in case you haven’t noticed, the current (well, current in the sense that it’s been going on for at least a decade) yuppie trend is not to move to the suburbs but to repopulate the cities. Wicker Park and even Ukrainian Village are nothing like the affordable urban neighborhoods they used to be twenty years ago. And suburbs aren’t exclusively white by any stretch–ever go into Country Club Hills?

Anyhow, if people don’t want sidewalks, I see nothing wrong with that, except the asinine logic in the quote in the OP. If people don’t want to live in a community (which I vehemently disagree is a generalization that can be spread across all suburbanites) they don’t have to. There’s plenty of space in the world for those of us who want to live in close-knit communities, and those of us who just want our house, plot of land, and good school to send the kids to.

I like to poke fun at the suburbs, too. I loved the “No 708ers” teeshirts back in the 80s. (Chicago split from 312 area code into 312 for the city and 708 in the suburbs back in the late 80s, around '87 or so, before being further subdivided years later). But it’s just gentle razzing. If people prefer that way of life, why begrudge them? They’re not stepping on my toes.

[Siege]

@zamboniracer

I hate to agree with Grover Nordquist, but I’ll bet the assessment for those sizewalks cost quite a bit of money, upwards of $5,000 per lot. That’s a big hit to the pocketbook. If I was a homeowner there I’d be yelling about them too.

I’d agree with you, but there’s the slight matter of these two paragraphs from the original article:

Many who signed the petitions said it was not the cost that concerned them, but rather that sidewalks are unnecessary and could harm trees and landscaping. Some of them live on cul-de-sacs or short streets without much traffic. In addition, they said, children take buses to school.

Frank, 68, who organized a petition for Whitehall Drive, said sidewalks could also pose a safety risk by welcoming strangers into the neighborhood.

It doesn’t sound like it’s the money they’re worried about.

[Balduran]

Many who signed the petitions said it was not the cost that concerned them, but rather that sidewalks are unnecessary and could harm trees and landscaping. Some of them live on cul-de-sacs or short streets without much traffic. In addition, they said, children take buses to school.

Frank, 68, who organized a petition for Whitehall Drive, said sidewalks could also pose a safety risk by welcoming strangers into the neighborhood.

One should also note, that it was only one person who was scared of strangers. As far as we know he may just be the lone paranoid in this neighbourhood.

Within the last couple of years I have lived in both suburb and metro areas. While the suburb was not totally to my taste, it was very friendly with a strong sense of community. Every Saturday in the summer was “Family softball day” at one of the parks.

[Wile_E]

RO aneurysm? I thought this was going to be a medical thread.
*
“Class what are the rule outs for an aneurysm?”* “Ooh! I know! Outrage over sidewalk-less neighborhoods?”
If we didn’t have sidewalks where would the people ride their bicycles against the flow of traffic?

[zamboniracer]

@elmwood

I recently finished a comprehensive plan for a Cleveland suburb that didn’t want any parks. You read that right - they hated parks. Why? Because it could draw a “bad element” into the town. Ethically, I couldn’t make a recommendation against parks in the plan – it’s bad planning practice, and also borderline negligence – so it’s one part of the plan where I had to ignore the stakeholders.

Elmwood, which suburb? The stakeholders, ie the voting public, have a right to know what their elected and/or appointed officials have up their sleeves.

[BrainGlutton]

@VCO3

Fuck the “estate feel” of your suburban sprawl wasteland front yard that you don’t want interrupted. Fuck you for destroying a sense of community. Fuck you for driving everywhere and destroying the environment, and actively discouraging something that helps cut down on that and helps encourage peripatism. Fuck you for white flight and for holing up in your suburban castle with the shades pulled tight and two middle fingers to the rest of the world. Fuck nimbyism and now “nimfyism.” Bomb the suburbs.

Seconded, offering a friendly amendment to make the whole thing even more violent.
DIE, SUBURBIA, DIE!

[BrainGlutton]

@elmwood

I recently finished a comprehensive plan for a Cleveland suburb that didn’t want any parks. You read that right - they hated parks. Why? Because it could draw a “bad element” into the town. Ethically, I couldn’t make a recommendation against parks in the plan – it’s bad planning practice, and also borderline negligence – so it’s one part of the plan where I had to ignore the stakeholders.

You’re a city planner? What do you think of the “New Urbanism”?

Specifically, is there any way to apply its principles to retrofit existing communities to make them more high-density, mixed-use, walkable, transit-friendly, etc.? Or is it only good for new PUD’s?

[VinylTurnip]

@Merijeek

Sidewalks are a rarity in Mississippi. I think that’s why they’re so goddamned fat.

Makes sense. You either need a whole bunch of narrow sidewalks or a small number of really fat ones.

[elmwood]

@BrainGlutton

You’re a city planner? What do you think of the “New Urbanism”?

Specifically, is there any way to apply its principles to retrofit existing communities to make them more high-density, mixed-use, walkable, transit-friendly, etc.? Or is it only good for new PUD’s?

I could go on for hours about it, bith good and bad. I think it’s a better way to build a community, but the ideals of New Urbanism – mixed use, mixed income communities, based on a reinterpretation of pre-WWII planning models – hasn’t been realized . Most NU communities are high-end developments where even middle-income families would have a hard time affording a home, and for various reasons, they’re quite scarce in parts of the country where sprawl is the worst, and they can do the most good - the Rust Belt, with growing suburbs that have some of the lowest densities in the country (thanks to cheap real estate, and NIMBY residents that aren’t too far removed from the days when they were crowded in cramped, working-class urban neighborhoods).

Retrofitting: easier to apply TND models of redevelopment in existing commercial districts, where much of the land is occupied by underused parking lots, parcel sizes are large, and commercial buildings are designed with a short functional lifespan, than residential areas.

As for that plan, it includes parks. If a community approached an engineer, and asked them to design a bridge, but not include guardrails, the engineer is going to say “no way!” - it would be gross negligence, eve mn if it’s what the client wanted. It’s no different in planning. The problem is that few municipal leaders are going to ignore an engineer’s road or bridge designs, while those same leaders could take the best written comp plan and ignore it to their heart’s content.