Seems to me a lot of people think living in a city means living in the shadow of skyscrapers in a concrete jungle. I have lived in a major cities my whole life, and I’ve never lived in any–including Newark, NJ–that didn’t have plenty of tree-lined residential neighborhoods.
I grew up in Atlanta, right outside downtown. Our house had big front and backyards, as did all the houses on our street. Yes, there was a little grocery store across the street and a laundromat too. But there were trees everywhere. Plenty of lush greenery. It was, you know, quite livable. Not at all an “urban wasteland.”
I frequently compare my childhood to that of my nieces, who have lived in suburbia their whole lives. My siblings and I began exploring our world by train, bus, foot, and bike by the time we knew our addresses by heart. Within a mile radius of our house, we had everything we needed. Need a book for school? Let’s ride our bikes to the library! Bored? Let’s walk up the street and take a train somewhere! We lived just three blocks away from a mall. It was a crappy mall, but it was still something to break adolescent monotony with. Good times, good times.
My nieces, on the other hand, do not have such freedom. Doing anything requires parental transportation and busybodism. And it’s like this despite my sister’s efforts to “urbanize” them as much as possible. Because they are more sheltered, they are also the biggest snobs I’ve ever met. She’s not as bad now, but my eldest niece–for the longest time–hated riding the bus because it was so “ghetto”. Since her mother, aunts, and uncle practically grew up on buses, we couldn’t believe our ears.
So no, I don’t like suburbia even though I know not all suburbs are the same (South Orange, NJ is a lovely place).
But why are they “ethnic” murals instead of you know, just murals? They’re only ethnic murals if you accept that white = default American. And I guess I’ve seen pictures of kids playing in a fire hydrant in Life magazine in the 70s, but it’s hardly a touchstone for my life in the 21st century.
Mostly though, I was marveling at the specificity of his hatred, he’s really thought about this and put a lot of energy into hating a stereotype that doesn’t really exist.
In what way have I displayed contempt for cities? I displayed contempt for hypocrite liberals. I feel no need to apologize for that. I also expressed empathy for the city dwelling working class who must live under corrupt authoritarian regimes that can’t provide productive places of learning.
This entire thread is full of gross generalizations.
You felt the need to inject yourself as a counterpoint to my caricatures.
Let’s just say that if the Urban Liberal chose to live by his creed in America’s cities instead of segregating himself, we wouldn’t see the huge disparities between neighborhoods in cities like we do today.
How has conservative fear of cities manifested itself in this thread?
“Ethnic” doesn’t necessarily connote different nationalities. (Ethnic: a. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage.)
Every year there are pictures of city youth playing in fire hydrants. Why you chose to fixate on my vivid imagery instead of my overall point is beyond me.
I’m not particularly hateful of the Urban Liberal, but I do enjoy lampooning his hypocrisy and his romanticisms.
I don’t see the big deal of a 25 minute commute. The days of spending your entire career with one company are over, so I’m not going to sell my house and move every time I switch jobs. As for as looking for jobs, in case anyone hadn’t noticed jobs are in short supply so I’d probably be unemployed a lot longer if I limited myself to 25 minutes.
Like the other poster, I take my SUV once a week and load it full of groceries and light bulbs. I don’t care that there’s nothing within walking distance from my house. If people want or need that there’s plenty of places that are like that. And I like being in a boring place.
Let’s not pass the buck here. You’re filling the thread with gross generalizations. The OP hasn’t posted in a while and he at least made an effort to back up some of his statements and it sounded like he learned a couple of things. Other people have posted their share of generalizations but you’ve built up a big lead.
Here’s the thing, though. Granted, most white liberals may not actually want to live in the neighborhoods that have their kids playing in the fire hydrants or with the so-called ethnic murals. (I myself have lived in such neighborhoods, but it did get a little scary at times and I was doing so more out of economic necessity than pure choice.) But we at least support those inner city dwellers’ political programmes and aspirations. And the urban neighborhoods white liberals choose are still kinder to the environment and culturally and aesthetically superiour to suburbs. Suburban and rural conservatives, on the other hand, also choose not to live in those inner-city neighborhoods and oppose the black and brown city dwellers’ agenda at every turn.
Aha, a data point in support of the conjecture upthread. And it should help answer the OP’s question: this is just antithetical to a culture-loving liberal aesthete.
For that matter the price of gasoline is typically irrelevant to suburbanite commuters in classic postwar suburban fiction, since they almost always live in the Northeast and commute by train.
I am quite liberal and I like dull. I am dull. I fit right it.
Drink and walk home after seeing a local band? I did that in college. I outgrew it a long damn time ago. Half of the so-called advantages of living in a modern city appeal only to young singles and DINKs. Others, like the museums and events, aren’t taken advantage of by most city dwellers, at least regularly, and those can be taken attended by suburbanites, too. And the whole idea of doing your shopping within walking distance is a laugh in many city neighborhoods, where the grocery stores are more like general stores of the Gay 90s, except with the cashier behind bullet-proof glass and where most of the things for sale are booze and smokes. The ideal neighborhood described here is Lincoln Park, not Garfield Park. And who the hell wants to face (on foot) a Chicago winter to shop for groceries for them, their partner, their kid(s), and their cats? And schlepping a (formerly) dry sack of kitty litter for a few block in a driving rainstorm is just fucked. I think that many people who play up city neighborhoods have only visited them on idyllic evenings in the summer, because they can be a pain in the ass.
Um, old folks and disabled folks often CANNOT walk all over the place. Or anywhere. They need a car, even to go downtown in your walkable suburb.
Meh. Concrete and asphalt are readily recycled and streets and roads are often wide enough that you can do something with the land, unlike railroad right-of-ways.
It’s worth noting that the working class members of gentrifying neighborhoods often aren’t super excited about making a bunch of new yuppie friends. They have their own lives and business to attend to, just like anyone else, and aren’t particularly interested in being a project for someone to “live their ideals.”
What you’re saying is that some parts of the city (or metro area) are better than others, which is true. In any city, just about everyone considers the same districts to be more desirable than others.
What are museums and libraries to non-liberals? I’m afraid to ask.
Okay, city life isn’t for you. But millions of people actually do like it. They aren’t just faking it or deluded. It obviously doesn’t appeal to you, but can you not understand that people like different things? I don’t think anyone is saying cities are objectively more enjoyable. City dwellers are well aware of the trade-offs. But a lot of people find it worthwhile.
I’ve got baby on the way, and I love that I can get groceries (or various other meals that are healthier than pizza and bad Chinese) delivered, walk her into one of several daycares, pop into the library or the zoo without having to plan it out, and go out to dinner close enough to home that if she fusses and we have to box things up, it’s no biggie. I’m super excited that the bistro down the block has Saturday kid-friendly brunches, where they show child appropriate movies while the parents can enjoy a meal out. The density of cities allows for more specialized services, and for more spontaneity (which I’m a fan of). Again, there are trade-offs (baby will have parks instead of a backyard,) but it’s ultimately about what you like.
There are different ways to be “old” or “disabled.” Blind people aren’t going to have much luck in the car. In any case, I can get groceries delivered from three different stores, and can order from about 25 different restaurants, so if my legs fall off, I think I am covered.
My main criticism of suburbs is that it contributes to urban decay by allowing those dwelling there to benefit from the advantages of the city while not paying taxes to sustain the infrastructure present there. This problem of course could be solved if we started directly annexing suburbs to cities or metropolitian regions were created for governing and revenue purposes to supersede more traditional county and municipality lines.
In addition the lack of Anglo middle-class families in cities deprives them of a leavening influence that can help the poor and/or immigrants assimilate into the mainstream of American life. While there are plenty of young professional types living in cities, many of them are far too bohemian and unsettled yet to provide a model of staid middle class family life along with attending concerns regarding local schools, parks, and similar civic affairs, which in turn largely leave inner city politics (at least until the fortuitous rise of technocratic types such as Giuliani and Bloomberg) to machine politicians using demagougery to control local government.
Where did you get that idea? Sure, anybody who doesn’t like the same things as me is certifiably insane, but I wouldn’t tell them that.
Plan it out? I have one library 3/4 mile away and another 1-1/2 mile away, both served by the same bus, and I can bike or walk to either on the Prairie Path or along a tree-lined avenue with little traffic. The libraries themselves are proper libraries, too, not the tiny storefronts Chicago uses for many of its neighborhood libraries.
How much extra do delivered groceries cost, or, for that matter the groceries alone? In my experience city groceries are expensive, and ordering food from a checklist eliminates the serendipity that comes from walking through a produce department. And with a kid on the way, can you still afford to eat as many delivered dinners?
I can see what you are saying and agree that not everyone likes the same things. And I’ll admit it sounds like fun, though I don’t much like fun. I just get annoyed with people from both sides (not you) who want to force-fit everybody into the same mold, and feel free to insult them if they disagree. It’s often not even based on the current reality. But they aren’t here so I have to rain on your parade instead.
I’m liberal, but I don’t think my being liberal is why I hated living in a suburb. I was a teenager and the bus service was freaking TERRIBLE, unreliable and took FOREVER to get anywhere, and the bus service to my house stopped at 8 freaking PM, but my mother who is from Chicago originally simply REFUSED to buy me a car or understand why I couldn’t have any sort of social life or have any desire to go anywhere. (I was working at Burger King the legal limit of 16 hours a week and couldn’t afford insurance and gas even if she had given me a car, much less how she demanded I get one without contributing a dime).
It was worse for me being from Chicago and Seattle but living in a crappy suburban place where I couldn’t go anywhere and didn’t have many friends, than someone who was used to that sort of place.
Also, I don’t like living in places that are almost all completely one race. It’s boring and makes the food suck.
