That’s going even further than I had thought possible. Where *are *the front doors? It’s like something out of the movie Cars! LOL
Just having the garage door in front isn’t anything new; houses from at least as far back as the 1950s have had that. Not everywhere has alleys, you know.
However, having it stick out in front of the rest of the house is kind of weird.
the cars must go in first!! Great thread…
.I just flew cross the US with some stops here and there, and its always been fascinating to me to get a window seat, and watch the layout of the land at a higher altitude…pulling into some of the cities, like Los Angeles, is a bit depressing tho…the scale of the sprawl is somewhat mind boggling. (one can count the backyard pools to see levels of affluence)
I had never been to Denver, and was sort of expecting some cute mountain town…perhaps like Vail…haha duh me. What a metropolis…out into the flatlands.
I wasn’t saying it was a brand-new thing. The blight of suburbia dates generally to the 1950s. Have you ever seen a school built in that era? Also an architectural nightmare. You say “not everywhere has alleys” as if this is out of the hands of developers and homebuyers. Same with sidewalks. What would happen if a developer decided not to include driveways? I bet that would be unlikely to catch on.
I assume you mean back alleys. They’re not all that common here, either. What we do have is driveways that go back to the yard. Most houses with garages either have a private or shared driveway that goes all the way to the back yard. There are some houses with the garage entrance in front- but most of them still don’t look like the snout houses. In my neighborhood, garage entrances in front are either garages that were built on the adjacent lot and not attached to the house ( these are usually multiple garages that are rented ) or a house that has had its front yard replaced with a sloping driveway and the basement modified into a below ground garage. The only ones that have the garage next to the front door are attached houses.
Most of the houses I've seen that have the garage next to the front door have plenty of room to put the garage behind the house or even to have the garage entrance in back and have the driveway curve around the house. The garage door doesn't have to be next to the front door- it's there because it's cheaper to build that way or because building a house that size on a lot that size doesn't leave enough room for a garage, or because zoning laws require a setback from the lot line and you have five feet on each side instead of ten feet on one side or ...
. . . or because the average American postwar homeowner driving home wants to turn off the street, straight into the garage, park, and enter the kitchen through the door inside the garage, leaving that fancy foyer-entrance never-used, and has never thought of considering alternatives.
Right. The first adult generation to build and buy these homes should take the lion’s share of the blame; once someone has grown up in a neighborhood like that, they are much more likely to see it as normal.
You park in the garage? I use mine for toys.
Land is expensive. Having land wide enough to accommodate driving to the rear of the house and maintain required setbacks is more expensive because that means you can’t build as large a house. If consumers want rear driveways, how much of a premium would they pay for it? 10% more, 20% more? Tell that to the person paying $800K for a moderate size house in the SF bay area.
Assuming that’s a serious question, it’s back to the class size thing. London has been experiecing a mini baby boom since about 2007 and, since successive governments have been utterly incompetent at planning for this, schools are now scrambling to find facilities to put the extra kids in. Temporary classrooms plopped onto playgrounds, teaching staff stretched thin, the whole nine yards. And since my daughter is at the young end of the year, she would have struggled to cope in an environment with exceptionally limited resources and lots of kids. Why put her in that school when I could put her into a class of 20 kids rather than 30, a class that already includes a couple of her friends from her pre-school?
This remains a bullshit argument. It’s a better school. The teaching is better, the facilities are better and there’s more one-on-one support available. When I visited the place I didn’t ask about her classmates, I asked about the curriculum. Why does this have to be about the other kids?
And as it happens, the way public schools are allocated locally is not automatically by school district as such; you submit a prioritized list of the schools you want and the borough allocates them (distance is a significant factor in allocation, but so are things like whether a sibling already attends). By your argument, if I try to choose the best public schools on offer in the borough I am still somehow “damaging society”. I can’t win here.
I live in the suburbs. Sort of a compromise. I can’t live in the old suburb just inside the beltline. Too expensive. I’d prefer it, bicycle friendly and old grid plan.
That is where you are wrong. You can win as long as you understand the rules of the game. Of course you put your kids in the best schools available. Any responsible parent would. The part you missing is that you need to make vague complaints about the lack of ‘diversity’ wherever you can fit them in whether it is your kid’s school, your neighborhood or, even better, someone else’s neighborhood somewhat nearby. You don’t have to change your own behavior in any substantial way of course unless you think it will add some street cred to your claims. Just casually drop concerns about the plight of any minority group of your choice in random conversations and get some equipment like an expensive single speed bike that you take out a few times a year so that people can see that you are truly making a difference.
That extends to everything. If you get a check from a legitimate investment that a relative made and you inherited, don’t ever ever say you are thankful for it. Cash it and then bitch about the evils of capitalism and lament the fact that there isn’t more you can do to overturn this unfair regime. That is just Progressivism 101 but it is an easy game to play once you know the cheat codes.
Slacker, I live in the suburbs and sent all my kids to the local parish elementary school (recently transferred the youngest to public school) and then to competitive Catholic high schools (two to one in the city and one to a school in another suburb). The primary reason was that the test scores and teaching were overall better and, particularly at the high school level, my kids simply needed a more competitive school.
It had nothing whatever to do with keeping them away from the riff-raff–there were actually just as many minority and poor students proportionally in the parish school as in our local public schools, some on scholarships and some not. The city high school had substantial numbers of both.
I transferred the youngest to public school because the parish school no longer excelled versus the public elementary school and could not provide a gifted program for her, which she needed.
Had the same facts prevailed if we lived in the city, I would have made exactly the same decision, as I suspect most parents able to do so would do. I was careful to ensure that the kids spent time in the city and did volunteer work even when they were little. One is training to be a high school teacher and plans to work in inner city schools.
I’m sure there are many parents who choose private school to keep their kids away from poor and minority kids, but I’m not convinced they are the majority. Cite, please?
And yes, if every kid in private school transferred to the local public school those schools would likely improve–but that doesn’t make the parent wrong for choosing the best education they can provide for their kid.
You’ve written quite the life story there for a stranger,
I can’t tell whether Shagnasty’s post was meant to be meaningful social commentary or a parody of meaningful social commentary, but it didn’t work either way so I’ve no idea what the point of it was.
One more reason you’re about my favorite poster! That was awesome.
Really? What was awesome about it?
Maybe the situation is completely different in the UK than here. I really do not know. But here in the US, the average public school has a budget per student that is 50% higher than the average private school. And private schools can hire teachers that are not certified and pay them less. The parents and teachers are content with this situation for one main reason that is unspoken: the tuition cost screens out the riff raff. (Which by the way means that proponents of vouchers should be careful what they wish for.)
Cute, but here is the reality: I hate fixies and really any single speed bike. My bike has gears. It cost $250 new, the most I’ve ever paid for a bike, and it is my main source of transportation since my family has not owned a motorized vehicle for years. And this is even though we have four children ranging from 13 months to 13 years old. Our family income, even with that inherited investment, is well below the national median. (And as I mentioned in another thread, I do not have any health coverage, while my wife had to turn down her doctor’s request for her to get an MRI because our out-of-pocket costs would be unaffordable.) No trust fund hipster poseurs are we, sorry to burst your bubble.
I just find this “me and mine” attitude abhorrent. It’s all the more unconscionable in fact if the private schools do provide a better education. To me, it strikes me as I would hope it would strike most people if there were different tiers of police or fire protection. Like anyone could call 911 and wait around for the publicly funded ambulance, fire engine, or squad car to arrive; but if you paid extra for “911 plus” coverage, you could call a special number to get deluxe service. Blech.
I suppose there is already too much of this kind of thing already with private security firms and high-priced lawyers. I would rather see everyone have to use just publicly funded police to protect them, and public defenders if they were the ones to end up in court. You can bet both of those systems would improve greatly in such a case.
It’s like you read stuff white people like and then took it seriously. You’re joking right?
I’m thinking of something similar to Poe’s Law here.
Once Shagnasty answers if he was whooshing me I have a slew of questions for him, but I wouldn’t want to look a fool for taking something so silly seriously, so I’ll wait.