# Why do liberals hate suburbs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965 "2013-07-31T02:31:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/261 "2013-08-03T13:49:00Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I am a liberal, and I wouldn’t live in a big city even if every apartment came with free hookers and blow. The don’t, do they…? No. Not any more. Thanks a lot Bloomberg. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/262 "2013-08-03T14:00:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Apropos of nothing, it always boggled and tickled me that Don Corleone lives in a compound – a sort of Royal Palace, with armed guards – and Tony Soprano lives in a suburban McMansion. What, oh what, has become of Their Thing?! I think there was actually an episode of the Sopranos where the son was asking why they don’t live in a Corleone-style compound. Also, Tony wasn’t a “Don”. He was just a boss. Mafia middle management so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![JBDivmstr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/263 "2013-08-03T14:02:22Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I am a liberal, and I wouldn’t live in a big city even if every apartment came with free hookers and blow. The don’t, do they…? You didn’t kn… I mean, _ **NO** _ of course they don’t! 😛 \ Hey! You ho’s better save some lines for me, dammit!\ ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/264 "2013-08-03T14:10:30Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Also, Tony wasn’t a “Don”. He was just a boss. Mafia middle management so to speak. “Mafia don” and “boss” are the same thing. In fact, Robert Loggia annoys Tony by sarcastically addressing him as “don.” Tony is not annoyed because “don” is wrong, but because of the way Feech says it. Above a don/boss was the “capo di tutti capi,” the boss of all bosses, which was eliminated when the “commission” was created. And in fact, as head of the DiMeo crime family, Tony is the top boss in northern New Jersey, or whatever his territory is considered to be. The only reason he might be considered lower than Carmine Lupertazzi is that the New York family is richer and bigger. When Johnny Sack becomes the boss in New York, you see that he’s struggling to put Tony in a subordinate position, but technically they are equals. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/265 "2013-08-03T15:06:15Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I think there was actually an episode of the Sopranos where the son was asking why they don’t live in a Corleone-style compound. > > Also, Tony wasn’t a “Don”. He was just a boss. Mafia middle management so to speak. N.B.: In the Mob, “Don” is an honorific, not a rank, and sometimes could be applied to underbosses and such. As I understand it, it simply fell into disuse from the 1970s to the present. Also, Tony Soprano is not “middle management,” he has no superiors to obey or kick up to, he is the autonomous head of an autonomous family, just like the Gambinos or the Bonnanos; his only superior is the National Commission. That doesn’t make him their **equal** necessarily. One theme that recurs on the show is that the New York Mob guys feel a certain contempt for the Jersey guys. In one episode he has some NY guys over for a backyard BBQ and one tells him, "Tony, the **Don** does not wear **shorts!"** (Not that NY guys call anybody “Don” any more either, he’s just using the word to make a point.) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/266 "2013-08-03T18:37:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So what? Doesn’t your car have a stereo? Of course it does, but with most car trips lasting five minutes or less, there usually isn’t enough time to do much listening. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/267 "2013-08-03T19:32:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Pardon my ignorance, but are there anything **but** gentle grades out there on the prairie? Scoff if you want, but I am an entire _160 feet_ further above sea level than Chicago. But yeah, grades were mostly put there so one railroad could run its tracks over those of another. I’m fat and notice the slightest grades, so I can feel when I cross the boundary between the watershed draining to the Des Plaines river and the one draining to the Fox river. You can’t always tell that if you are always going up and down. [QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Apropos of nothing, it always boggled and tickled me that Don Corleone lives in a compound – a sort of Royal Palace, with armed guards – and Tony Soprano lives in a suburban McMansion. What, oh what, has become of Their Thing?! [/QUOTE] They don’t want to call attention to themselves. Capone was flashy and it was obvious that he lived far beyond the means he listed on his tax forms. Sam Giancana, boss of the Chicago Outfit, [lived here.](http://www.wbez.org/blog/john-r-schmidt/2012-03-09/sam-giancanas-house-historic-home-oak-park-would-forget-96951) A nice bungalo on the outside, decorated in the exquisitely bad taste popular with Italian-Americans of his generation, with [insufficient security.](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eDebM2zctu8/S6cJ1yrHK1I/AAAAAAAAA3w/Po90jEJHamE/s400/Giancana_murder_plus_gun_cropped.jpg) FTR, he did have nicer places, but this was the home he returned to after cooling off in Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/268 "2013-08-03T22:32:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not the same; that only goes back to the 1950s – conservative anti-urbanism goes back to the 19th Century at least. In fact, it goes back to 18th-Century Britain at the very least and one can find antecedents in ancient Rome. You couldn’t call Thomas Jefferson conservative by the standards of his time, but he was also anti-urbanist. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/269 "2013-08-03T23:43:31Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > You couldn’t call Thomas Jefferson conservative by the standards of his time, but he was also anti-urbanist. But going by his design for UVa, he would make a heck of a New Urbanist architect today! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/270 "2013-08-04T01:08:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But going by his design for UVa, he would make a heck of a New Urbanist architect today! The [New Urbanists](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_urbanism#Defining_elements), BTW, are not by definition liberal in any political sense, though probably most are. But this is what they’re concerned about: > [@](#): > > **Defining elements** > > According to husband-and-wife town planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, two of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, they observed mixed-use streetscapes with corner shops, front porches, and a diversity of well-crafted housing while living in one of New Haven’s Victorian neighborhoods. > 1.The neighborhood has a discernible center. This is often a square or a green and sometimes a busy or memorable street corner. A transit stop would be located at this center. > 2.Most of the dwellings are within a five-minute walk of the center, an average of roughly 0.25 miles (1,300 ft; 0.40 km). > 3.There are a variety of dwelling types — usually houses, rowhouses, and apartments — so that younger and older people, singles and families, the poor and the wealthy may find places to live. > 4.At the edge of the neighborhood, there are shops and offices of sufficiently varied types to supply the weekly needs of a household. > 5.A small ancillary building or garage apartment is permitted within the backyard of each house. It may be used as a rental unit or place to work (for example, an office or craft workshop). > 6.An elementary school is close enough so that most children can walk from their home. > 7.There are small playgrounds accessible to every dwelling — not more than a tenth of a mile away. > 8.Streets within the neighborhood form a connected network, which disperses traffic by providing a variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any destination. > 9.The streets are relatively narrow and shaded by rows of trees. This slows traffic, creating an environment suitable for pedestrians and bicycles. > 10.Buildings in the neighborhood center are placed close to the street, creating a well-defined outdoor room. > 11.Parking lots and garage doors rarely front the street. Parking is relegated to the rear of buildings, usually accessed by alleys. > 12.Certain prominent sites at the termination of street vistas or in the neighborhood center are reserved for civic buildings. These provide sites for community meetings, education, and religious or cultural activities. > 13.The neighborhood is organized to be self-governing. A formal association debates and decides matters of maintenance, security, and physical change. Taxation is the responsibility of the larger community. You can find all of that in a big-city neighborhood, you can find all of that in Mayberry or Bedford Falls, you can find all of that in a New Urbanist development, but you can’t find any of it but the playgrounds and the HOA in the average American post-WWII PUD pod. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/271 "2013-08-04T01:24:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It is also bad for kids to grow up where you can’t go anywhere unless Mom drives you. Young George Bailey could walk to school, walk to his job at the drugstore, walk to other stores to run errands for Mom, walk anyplace in Bedford Falls without bothering anyone for a lift. It helps a kid grow up faster and better. A suburban kid can only walk to close neighbors’ houses, and perhaps to a playground. Even walk to his Dad’s Building & Loan. From an early age, George Bailey could get a feeling of being in the scene, part of the daily life of the community, like a grownup, or at least observing it closely every day. I want you all to think again about this in particular. Suburbia was **designed** for raising kids, but they didn’t think it out too well. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/272 "2013-08-04T01:36:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I hear ya. Once when I was a reporter for the Daytona Beach _News-Journal,_ my beat included [Lake Helen,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Helen,_Florida) a century-old town, pop. ~1,000, too small to have even one traffic light. Within the town limits was some farming, some retail commerce, no industry (there had been some industry in the past, pre-WWII). It was something like you describe only less so, with a (very) small main-street retail area. The whole thing was suburban-density, but still compact enough to be walkable. All the children in town **walked** to the elementary school. (How many schools can claim that any more?) Some residents worked in town, but it was mostly a bedroom community for commuters to Orlando. BTW, Lake Helen’s children can no longer walk to school. While I worked there, there was controversy over the county school board wanting to shut down Long-Lake Helen Elementary and consolidate its student body with a new school in Deltona, to which LH children would have to be bused. An economies-of-scale thing – one School Board official I talked to called these small-town elementary schools with less than 500 enrollment “dinosaurs”. Eventually (I followed up in later years), that was done. But, it freed up the old elementary school building to be used as the new City Hall, with much more space than the old one – also, at the center of and within walking distance of the whole town, which is something – while the Police Department, previously sharing space with City Hall in the same building and rather cramped in the space, got to take over that whole building. So it all turned out nice in the end, I guess, but better still if those children – **all** American children – could walk to school. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/273 "2013-08-04T01:39:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not the same; that only goes back to the 1950s – conservative anti-urbanism goes back to the 19th Century at least. In fact, it goes back to 18th-Century Britain at the very least and one can find antecedents in ancient Rome. There’s also been a strand of anti-urbanism in leftist thinking too, with the most extreme examples being Mao’s and especially Pol Pot’s anti-urban campaigns but also in general socialist beliefs that dense industrialization were the product of capitalism and environmentalist opposition to development. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/274 "2013-08-04T04:17:41Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > There’s also been a strand of anti-urbanism in leftist thinking too, with the most extreme examples being Mao’s and especially Pol Pot’s anti-urban campaigns but also in general socialist beliefs that dense industrialization were the product of capitalism and environmentalist opposition to development. Considering they don’t take Mao’s more extreme acts seriously anymore, even in China, I don’t think they’re the best counterexamples. Obviously they had vastly different ideas from those of American conservatives on how the rural communities would be controlled. Within Western environmentalism there definitely has been a school of thought that tends to disparage big cities as centers of pollution and consumption, but there was considerably more of this thinking in the 1970s. Not too long ago I found, online, a “vision” of the future Los Angeles, drafted probably some time in the early 1970s. There would be no city as such; it was all a sort of interconnected series of hillocks with hobbitlike burrows in which we’d be living. I don’t recall what the economic foundation of this society was supposed to be. In general I think the idea was to eliminate not only pavement but also the appearance of anything made by humans. If I can find it I’ll come back with a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/275 "2013-08-04T04:29:34Z")
Well, the Kibbutz movement in Israel is both left-wing and anti-urbanist. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/276 "2013-08-04T11:23:35Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Within Western environmentalism there definitely has been a school of thought that tends to disparage big cities as centers of pollution and consumption, but there was considerably more of this thinking in the 1970s. Right. You look at a city and it looks like it is an environmental nightmare. But the fallacy is that one can only take in so much area within one’s view; so the amount of environmental destruction wrought by suburbs is too vast and spread out to comprehend in that way. Nevertheless, environmentalists have come very far since then in understanding that cities and compact development are actually, on a per capita basis, the greenest way to reside of the main choices in contemporary American life. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/277 "2013-08-04T16:08:58Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Not too long ago I found, online, a “vision” of the future Los Angeles, drafted probably some time in the early 1970s. There would be no city as such; it was all a sort of interconnected series of hillocks with hobbitlike burrows in which we’d be living. Well, that would still be a city as such. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/278 "2013-08-04T16:25:03Z")
See also the [New Pedestrianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Pedestrianism): > [@](#): > > **New Pedestrianism (NP)** is a more idealistic variation of New Urbanism in urban planning theory, founded in 1999 by Michael E. Arth, an American artist, urban/home/landscape designer, futurist, and author. NP addresses the problems associated with New Urbanism and is an attempt to solve various social, health, energy, economic, aesthetic, and environmental problems, with special focus on reducing the role of the automobile. A neighborhood or new town utilizing NP is called a Pedestrian Village. Pedestrian Villages can range from being nearly car-free to having automobile access behind nearly every house and business, but pedestrian lanes are always in front.[1][2][3] > > To a large extent New Urbanism is a revival of traditional street patterns and urban design. New Pedestrianism also respects traditional town design, but seeks to further reduce the negative impact of the automobile, the use of which has increased dramatically since WWII. By eliminating the front street and replacing it with a tree-lined pedestrian lane, emphasis is placed on low-impact alternative travel such as walking and cycling. Pedestrian lanes are usually 12 to 15 feet (5 m) wide, with one smooth side for rolling conveyances such as bicycles, Segways, and skates and the other, narrower, textured side for pedestrians and wheelchairs. Eliminating the automobile street from the front allows for intimate scale plazas, fountains, pocket parks, as well as an unspoiled connection to natural features such as lakes, streams, and forests that may border or be included in a Pedestrian Village. A vast public realm is created that is free from the sight, smell, and sound of automobiles, yet automobiles are still served on a separate network.[4][5][6] ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/279 "2013-08-04T17:11:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > See also the [New Pedestrianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Pedestrianism): Something like this excites me, since I am so pedestrian in my lifestyle (hehe). If I were queen of the world, I’d build tree-lined walkways and bike paths everywhere, including interstate highways! But urban planning theories like this one just scream “commie-pinko liberal!” They are antithetical to the consumerism-based framework we’ve been operating in for generations. Why should people buy big-ass cars if everything is designed with the pedestrian in mind? And if people buy smaller and fewer cars, then will they continue to load up at CostCo or BJs every two weeks? No. And if people don’t drive as much, then convenience stores, fast food restaurants, Targets, Walmarts, etc also lose their power. Bye-bye gas stations. Houses won’t need to be as big since there will be less junk to find rooms for. The idea of a “starter” home will fall by the wayside. The conservative looks at this and thinks “ECONOMIC COLLAPSE!!” The liberal looks at it and thinks, “YES! BUT WE’LL LOVE IT ANYWAY!!” Not to mention…a pedestrian-dominated design encourages neighbors to interact with one another. Which not only breaks down the mistrust people have for one another now, but it also empowers communities. The Powers That Be hate empowered communities. Empowered communities petition against big boxes stores, nuisance landfills, corruption, polluted air and water, and other blights. Empowered communities can also be hysterical and self-centered, too. But the status quo thrives on an apathetic populace. Conservatives, by definition, favor the status quo. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/280 "2013-08-04T17:26:49Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Something like this excites me, since I am so pedestrian in my lifestyle (hehe). If I were queen of the world, I’d build tree-lined walkways and bike paths everywhere, including interstate highways! > > But urban planning theories like this one just scream “commie-pinko liberal!” They are antithetical to the consumerism-based framework we’ve been operating in for generations. Why should people buy big-ass cars if everything is designed with the pedestrian in mind? And if people buy smaller and fewer cars, then will they continue to load up at CostCo or BJs every two weeks? No. And if people don’t drive as much, then convenience stores, fast food restaurants, Targets, Walmarts, etc also lose their power. Bye-bye gas stations. Houses won’t need to be as big since there will be less junk to find rooms for. The idea of a “starter” home will fall by the wayside. The conservative looks at this and thinks “ECONOMIC COLLAPSE!!” Well, no, it just means new pedestrian-oriented business (in which anyone with the money can invest) will emerge and take **some** of the market-share away from existing auto-oriented businesses. We’ll still be consumerists, we’ll just walk more. But there will still be plenty of gas-stations and drive-thrus and big-box stores in America. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=15)