# 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:** 30
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/581 "2013-08-20T14:22:27Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **Shodan** if there was really any point to that **Shagnasty** post other than a silly attempt to label all with “progressive” beliefs as poseurs who all own fixies while whining about the lack of “hip” places to eat and the lack of diversity while cashing checks that they are ungrateful for, then please explain what it was. See posts 565 and 568. Then reread your own, and notice that the word “all” is something you added. > [@](#): > > The high-fiving of that post should a source or embarrassment for anyone with a well thought out conservative position. Which I think is well answered by **Debaser** > [@](#): > > I guess we can all at least take solace in the fact that such generalizations and stereotypes of conservatives would never be tolerated on this board. Because, as we all know, when someone makes a funny cheap shot at conservatives they are never given high fives, but instead are immediately told how unfair it is to do such a thing. The point is that the extreme Left wouldn’t know a well-thought out conservative position if it bit them in the nuts. Because they cannot read anything that challenges their assumptions without strawmanning it. All the while boo-hooing about how _unfairly_ they are being treated. You get back a little of what you give. The horror! The horror! Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/582 "2013-08-20T14:36:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Because they cannot read anything that challenges their assumptions without strawmanning it. All the while boo-hooing about how _unfairly_ they are being treated. I don’t care who you are - that’s funny right there. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/583 "2013-08-20T17:18:55Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > You “asked” me to back up my praise for a satirical post with facts and figures. My response was entirely appropriate: I pointed out how silly it would be to do such a thing. You might want to get acquainted with satire: > **[Satire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire)** > > Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both partic Satire professes to be _for_ what the author is _against_ by painting an absurd figure. When you paint an absurd figure of your opponent that you know is intentionally not true to annoy them, it is called something else. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/584 "2013-08-20T20:01:23Z")
Uh, yes. That’s exactly what that post was doing. It’s a textbook example of satire. Do you truly not understand this? What part don’t you get? What satire is or what **Shagnasty** was doing with his post? Honestly curious. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/585 "2013-08-20T20:33:21Z")
Shagnasty did not even pretend to promote progressivism with his ridiculous post, thus it was not satire. I’ve already spelled out the difference for you in pretty plain English and even provided a link, I’m not sure why you don’t get it. “Conservatives are stupid because they hide behind their shotguns and gated communities HYUK!” wouldn’t be satire either even though it’s ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/586 "2013-08-20T20:46:06Z")
I do hate the suburbs but only because they unnecessarily (and selfishly) increase traffic on our highways as well as lengthen travel times on public transportation. It is inconvenience to everyone else involved. Consider and imagine two train routes: Red Line and the Purple Line. The Red Line is a perfect specimen of engineering, breathlessly zooming from station-to-station carrying passengers from disparate parts of the city to Downtown. In contrast to the Red Line, the Purple Line carries passengers from the suburbs and the Purple Line slow-crawls to station-to-station. Unfortunately, by the time the Purple Line casually pulls its way into the Belmont or Fullerton stations, the Red Line passengers have been waiting _at least_ 2 minutes for the suburbanites to catch up. These are 2 additional minutes in which Red Line passengers must uncomfortably sit, stand, expose themselves to illness, and/or risk higher serum cortisol levels, all in order to wait for suburban people who don’t even live in the city to board the train to make our morning commute experience _more_ crowded and uncomfortable. I would also wager that these two minutes lead to net reduction in productivity in the long haul. A study should be commissioned. It would be nice if suburbanites could understand how they inconvenience others. Suburbanites should rally around this idea: if you’re train is not at the appropriate station within 15 seconds of the Red Line pulling in, we (the Red Line passengers) should be able to move on to our with our morning commute. We got shit to do and you’re holding us up. - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/587 "2013-08-20T21:18:03Z")
So, do I get the inheritance, the bike, the gentrified condo and the private school as some kind of perk for signing up? If so, is there some kind of waiting list, because those would actually be pretty helpful right now (well, you can keep the bike). ---
**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 20, 2013, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/588 "2013-08-20T21:20:44Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > It’s a fair summary of what you posted. It’s almost the diametric _opposite_ of what I posted. Just, wow. Please, can someone back me up on this? Feel like I’m being gaslighted, or indoctrinated in Newspeak. > [@bump](#): > > The other reason for private schools is networking, and this one was actually articulated to me by my mother when I was a teenager. > > Out of the guys I went to high school with (my class and the ones I overlapped with), we have probably 3 or 4 dozen lawyers, an office furniture magnate in Houston, a coffee magnate in Houston, a former special assistant to the Secretary of State (now a US consul in Japan), a congressional chief of staff, a Grammy award winning music producer, probably a couple dozen doctors, several career military officers, including a Marine Colonel, and a slew of college professors. > > That’s a serious network, as opposed to the local high school I was supposed to go to, where other than a few football and basketball players and the odd rapper or two, there haven’t been nearly as many per-capita successful people. This is almost the same thing as saying you were being kept away from the riffraff, except it’s basically the mirror image of that. And if this does in fact confer a powerful advantage (and the article I posted–regardless of the bizarre claims other people are making about it–does cast some doubt on that proposition), it would tend to accentuate my point about the unfairness and undemocratic nature of private school. If there is a network of successful people that becomes really almost just like a private club, with membership fees most families cannot afford, then how is that fair to the majority and how is it democratic and meritocratic? And doesn’t this expose the classic conservative premise as a lie? Namely, that everyone starts out with a level playing field, and those who make it to the top have done so purely by their own merit and hard work? You are essentially acknowledging that that is bullshit. After all, a kid is not going to be able to come up with his or her own tuition, so it really then comes down to luck of the draw as to what family they are born into. ---
**Author:** ![huck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@huck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/huck)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/589 "2013-08-20T21:25:49Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > I do hate the suburbs but only because they unnecessarily (and selfishly) increase traffic on our highways as well as lengthen travel times on public transportation. It is inconvenience to everyone else involved. Consider and imagine two train routes: Red Line and the Purple Line. The Red Line is a perfect specimen of engineering, breathlessly zooming from station-to-station carrying passengers from disparate parts of the city to Downtown. > > In contrast to the Red Line, the Purple Line carries passengers from the suburbs and the Purple Line slow-crawls to station-to-station. Unfortunately, by the time the Purple Line casually pulls its way into the Belmont or Fullerton stations, the Red Line passengers have been waiting _at least_ 2 minutes for the suburbanites to catch up. These are 2 additional minutes in which Red Line passengers must uncomfortably sit, stand, expose themselves to illness, and/or risk higher serum cortisol levels, all in order to wait for suburban people who don’t even live in the city to board the train to make our morning commute experience _more_ crowded and uncomfortable. I would also wager that these two minutes lead to net reduction in productivity in the long haul. A study should be commissioned. > > It would be nice if suburbanites could understand how they inconvenience others. Suburbanites should rally around this idea: if you’re train is not at the appropriate station within 15 seconds of the Red Line pulling in, we (the Red Line passengers) should be able to move on to our with our morning commute. We got shit to do and you’re holding us up. > > - Honesty I’m guessing this is sort of a rant, but suburbanites who take public transportation rather than driving cars to work are to be commended in my view. And it’s hardly their fault that the Purple line service is so erratic. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/590 "2013-08-20T21:41:16Z")
I’m not getting the public school/private school agument. I sent my kids to a public, in city, high school because I believe it was better for them and better for the school. I could have easily afforded private school for them. I’m a “progressive.”. Am I the exception or the rule? Am I a hypocrite or one of the good guys. This is all so confusing. ---
**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 20, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/591 "2013-08-20T21:42:38Z")
One of the good guys IMO! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/592 "2013-08-20T21:50:47Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s almost the diametric _opposite_ of what I posted. Just, wow. Please, can someone back me up on this? . . . Backup. You’re right, and your post was grotesquely distorted. Happens a hell of a lot around here. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/593 "2013-08-20T21:56:55Z")
Funny thing. I am not on the extreme left. I also have not participated in any high fiving stupid insults of conservatives. I am maybe slightly left of center if that. (Depends on the issue and what arguments are being advanced.) Silly stereotypes are silly whether they are aimed at liberals or conservatives and and justifying it with “but they do it too” is even more childish. And FWIW as someone slightly left of center some of the extreme left on these fora _do_ embarrass me, both with their posts and with their version of the high-fiving. Given the numbers of liberals and conservatives that we seem to have here though I think (no hard numbers) the Left does that less on a per poster basis than does the Right and maybe even on an absolute basis as well. But we’ve had that thread before. The post plays to certain stereotypes that some conservatives\* want\* to believe about those who hold progressive and liberal beliefs. If you want to claim that such stereotypes are not baseless then you do actually need to provide some justification for believing that a majority “progressives” hold those beliefs and attitudes. Saying that “I must hear at least a few dozen times a year someone” (of no mentioned political leaning) make statements complaining about the lack of good ethnic restaurants or of diversity in their neighborhood as justification for a belief that some stereotype is “widespread” is funny. Not satire. If only. Funny in the sad sort of way. So far what we’ve got is very much akin to this - I know of people who are cheap. Therefore the stereotype that Jews are cheap is valid. We haven’t even got to the point of “I know a few dozen Jews who are cheap” (which I do) so therefore the stereotype that Jews are cheap is valid. And of course I still cannot understand what is the problem with bemoaning the lack of good ethnic restaurants and why wanting good eats nearby is something that is either a bad thing and/or something a conservative does not desire. Or why it is not reasonable to complain that there is not a neighborhood available to live in that is both diverse and meeting the other criteria desired in a place to live. I do seriously ask why either of those are something that somehow are hypocritical. I like ethnic food and am glad I have a variety of good restaurants near me. My wife and I chose to live in a community that would provide our children with an excellent education within a public school system and that is also very diverse. To me that diversity is a major plus but there is no question in my head that the educational quality is of higher importance to me than the diversity. My kids are not gifted. I am not sure they would excel without a good system around them, one not with teachers overwhelmed by dealing with issues associated with social issues related to poverty. If getting that education required a private school I’d have found some way to pay for it if I could. It did not. Our community happens to be a suburb. Some suburbs offer this combination and some do not; some city neighborhoods do and some do not. If I had not been able to find a diverse community that provided for excellent education for my children then I would indeed bemoan that even as I chose to live in a less diverse community. The conservatives here seem to believe that such an attitude would make me a poseur and/or a hypocrite. That such would be using a cheat code. I know a lot of progressives and not one owns a fixie; I think y’all are confusing progressives with hipsters. Maybe you’d mock me for driving a plug-in hybrid and riding my road bike to work a fair amount of the time, not sure. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/594 "2013-08-20T22:07:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Nobody’s arguing that the best students would do well anywhere, although they’d probably still do better at the private schools, if only because of name recognition. You seem to be assuming that all private schools are top notch, like yours was. Actually Miss Lucille’s Jesus is Lord Evangelical Middle School is just as much a private school as yours was. Not all private schools are selective, and not all selective schools are private. People who went to the Bronx High School of Science in NY (public) probably got the same reaction as you did. My high school wasn’t selective in admissions, but was selective in who got to be in the top classes. The admission rate to Ivies and MIT wasn’t super high for the school as a whole, but it was quite high for those in the top classes. Nothing special about the school - it was more the neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/595 "2013-08-20T22:10:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s almost the diametric _opposite_ of what I posted. Just, wow. Please, can someone back me up on this? Feel like I’m being gaslighted, or indoctrinated in Newspeak. More backup. From what I read, Admissions Officers want diversity in their schools, and do not want 20% of their class from the top 3 private schools, even if those students are qualified. It is the same reason that it might be easier for someone from Idaho to get into MIT than someone from Boston… ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/596 "2013-08-20T22:16:53Z")
This ethnic food stuff reminds me or George Wallace, who used to talk about “limousine liberals” trying to make people think that real paper weren’t. Same as implying that progressives all live in white enclaves and care about effete trendy food. BTW I live in the suburbs, and there are easily 15 different types of ethnic food within walking distance of my house. And we don’t have a downtown in my city. Of course we all know that conservatives spend all their time bemoaning the lack of good sources of roadkill for their tables - something Montana appears to be addressing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/597 "2013-08-20T22:36:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Of course we all know that conservatives spend all their time bemoaning the lack of good sources of roadkill for their tables . . . :dubious: C’mon! They’re conservatives! They’re go-getters! They don’t whine or moan! They just head for a school zone and speed! ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/598 "2013-08-20T22:51:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s almost the diametric _opposite_ of what I posted. Just, wow. Please, can someone back me up on this? Feel like I’m being gaslighted, or indoctrinated in Newspeak. I think your specific post was misinterpreted by use of a single word. > [@](#): > > This is almost the same thing as saying you were being kept away from the riffraff, except it’s basically the mirror image of that. This thread took a weird turn about food and ugly houses. As I said earlier, and what you took exception to, is that \*\*self selection in the suburbs is a feature, not a bug. \*\* You are saying that “being kept away from the riffraff” as some kind of ‘ah-hah!’ whereas I say, of course. There are people I don’t want to be around. There are people I don’t want my kids to be around. I can take limited action on this by placing them and myself in environments that self select for the people I want/don’t want. This is the way the world works. I understand you somehow think this is a crime against democracy or fairness. I don’t care. You try to shame people who first think of theirs and their families interests before all others as something to be avoided. I celebrate and expect nothing less. The problem is not that you are not being understood - your ideas are coming through very clearly. I think those ideas are shit, but there you go. The only way around people self selecting is to force people to live in places they don’t want to live so you can impose your world view on them. That solution is orders of magnitude worse than the alleged problem you are trying to address. Or you could convince people that your worldview is superior - good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/599 "2013-08-20T22:52:28Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > So, do I get the inheritance, the bike, the gentrified condo and the private school as some kind of perk for signing up? If so, is there some kind of waiting list, because those would actually be pretty helpful right now (well, you can keep the bike). I’m also wondering how my progressive white guilt works out, being half white and half descendant of slaves. Don’t ask me why any full minority would be a progressive, they have no outlet for their white guilt AT ALL! ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965/600 "2013-08-20T22:56:59Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > This ethnic food stuff reminds me or George Wallace, who used to talk about “limousine liberals” trying to make people think that real paper weren’t. Same as implying that progressives all live in white enclaves and care about effete trendy food. > BTW I live in the suburbs, and there are easily 15 different types of ethnic food within walking distance of my house. And we don’t have a downtown in my city. > > Of course we all know that conservatives spend all their time bemoaning the lack of good sources of roadkill for their tables - something Montana appears to be addressing. Wallace talked about Limousine Liberals? I have seen the term for years used in much the way this wiki article states: > **[Limousine liberal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousine_liberal)** > > Limousine liberal and latte liberal are pejorative U.S. political terms used to illustrate perceived hypocritical behavior by affluent political liberals and other left-leaning people of upper class or upper middle class status. Related terms are Champagne socialist, silver-spoon socialist, Mercedes Marxist, and Red Nobility. > Democratic New York City mayoral hopeful Mario Procaccino coined the term "limousine liberal" to describe incumbent Mayor John Lindsay and his wealthy Manhattan backers d... ETA - never mind - found some of his quotes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-hate-suburbs/664965.md?page=31)