Why do liberals hate suburbs?

I assume that is directed at me. I am a moderate libertarian so I would not ever truly support a limit on the number of children people can have in a political sense. From a scientific standpoint however, I truly believe that overpopulation is exactly the core problem and fixing that is the only thing that would work if it was possible at all. Everything else is just a child’s Band-Aid on a chainsaw injury. That is why I don’t support most Progressive type urban measures when it comes to the environment. I like the environment too even more than most in a realistic way but the proposed measure are just like bailing out Titanic with a spoon only so people can pat themselves on the back and control others while India and China spew fossil fuels in a more globally polluting way than we ever would in the U.S. if we burned them ourselves.

I think I have already been doing just that, as well as endorsing other plans posted by Brain Glutton and what’s being done in the Twin Cities. I also have long had an admiration for Portland Oregon’s anti-sprawl urban growth boundary (UGB).

I wonder if the people saying all sorts of nasty things about City Folk even recognize that it’s coming off as a code word, even if that’s not the intent.

Is public education a thing that only exists in cities? How are less-well-off suburbanites’ children educated?

M3 T00, I’m not sure what actual cities (as opposed to allegedly utopian dreams by futurists) that is in reference to.

Well according to some of the suburbanites, the appeal is to live with people “like them” and to get away from “gangs”, I wouldn’t call it a dog whistle so much as a dog bullhorn.

…and here comes the accusations of racism. How predictable.

:rolleyes:

And?

Technically the problem may be broader than racism, inasmuch as racism is the belief that there are innate and immutable biological differences between different “races” of people, that produce a hierarchy. Even so, do you think the accusations are unfounded?

That wouldn’t help much. NG is just another fossil fuel, also of limited and nonrenewable supply, also adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere when burnt. And, unlike petroleum, good for nothing but burning, so far as I know.

How? There is no world government with the power to impose a Chinese-style “one child” policy, and not likely to be.

Oh, the Earth will still be here. The question is what happens to the people.

You can’t seriously believe that irrelevant to this discussion.

So the family that moves from the city to the suburb because they are willing to commute further in order to get more house and more space for less money are racists. Got it.

The inability to recognize that certain people want and value different things without being racist is absurd. I don’t know if it’s liberals, conservatives, or whatever group as a whole, but it is clearly obvious that some folks prefer to live in the suburbs. I would say the majority of parents would prefer to raise their kids not in the city (no cite) so much that’s moving out of the city after you have kids is the stereotype. But I guess parents as a group are just racist.

Bone, in another thread you recently identified yourself as a white male Texan, married with kids, who is considering fleeing the city of Dallas and its schools with “90 percent reduced school lunches” and made the following complaint:

So let me ask you: are those poor people in Fair Park white? I have never been to Texas, and I can’t seem to find demographic information online, but I do notice there’s an African American museum there. What about “south Dallas”? A little Googling seems to indicate that it is historically where the black population was segregated, and where the “Negro schools” used to be. I’m guessing it’s still mostly African American. What about those “Section 8 jerks”? Are they white? And the kids on reduced school lunch? They mostly white, or black?

Like with so many other things, you are wrong. Check your facts.

Is the slang term “urban” to mean black person or black culture still in use?

I last heard it from, er, suburban teenagers, which generally means that a pop phrase is in its death throes. But it was as I recall used as a code word in marketing for a while–and the fact that it worked as such demonstrates that there are still very real racial factors in the city/suburban divide.

I first heard it when the kids’ marching in a St. Patrick’s Day parade was under discussion at my daughter’s dance class. The debate was whether to take part in the South Side parade in Chicago or a large one held in a nearby suburb and I could not understand why some of the moms were objecting to having the kids around “urban” people. One finally took pity upon me and explained they meant “black.”

I don’t of course maintain that the desire to live in the suburbs is always or mostly rooted in racism, but it’s silly to pretend that a substantial number of suburbanites (many of whom belong to families that became suburban during the white flight years) don’t think that way.

Sorry, Bone. I do sincerely apologise, although I will say in my defense that the person I confused you with is not only arguing on your same general side but also has a four letter screen name starting with B.

So are you implicitly acknowledging that his posts seem to have a racist bent, while denying that yours do?

Again, no.

I find it funny how the same individuals constantly defend themselves from various people calling them racist so often that it actually becomes their defense. “I can’t be racist, I was just CALLED racist!” I never thought I’d find a worse excuse than “but I have a black friend!”, but there we have it.

Then Bone, what was the real problem with my conflating his POV with yours? And how can you deny the obvious racial connotations of what I quoted?

ETA: Well said, Rogerbox!

For me to deny something, you’ll first have to demonstrate what it is I’m supposed to deny - the obvious racial connotations. You haven’t met the first hurdle.

Here’s the fact pattern that a lot of parents face:

[ul]
[li]They want a school environment where learning and curriculum is the primary focus[/li][li]They want a cheaper and larger house for a growing family[/li][li]They want more space in the form of a yard for their kids to play while easily supervised[/li][li]They want less traffic so playing in the streets is safer[/li][li]They want areas with lower crime for the safety of their family[/li][/ul]
Which of those are racist? Hint: none.

Why do liberals hate suburbs?

Rows of houses that are all the same. And no one seems to care!

If they are not true, one can avoid them by not saying things that sound racist.

If they are true, I don’t care what one thinks of them.

No, but the family that moves from the city to the suburb because they don’t want their children around the sort of people you find in the city, you know, Those People, you know who I mean, certainly sound racist.

Now let’s see if a similar notion occurs to people who claim that only a totalitarian impulse could motivate people to claim to want to live in the city

ETA

Still not seeing why you need to go to the suburbs for that

Are you willing to concede that some portion of white flight is motivated by race?