# Why the hatred for the suburbs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488 "2009-03-31T20:09:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/201 "2009-04-03T03:24:09Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > I really don’t see what you’re protesting. Several posters in this thread have as much said that this is part of what they like about the suburbs. It seems that’s part of the appeal for you as well. Why does it seem to bother you to call it what it is? The suburb I live in is at least as diverse as any neighborhood in San Francisco. I’ve mentioned that before in this thread. Ed ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/202 "2009-04-03T03:53:17Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > They do? I thought the biggest downside of suburban living was that no one knew their neighbors. Was I mistaken? You are correct. The suburbs were always the place where you barely knew your neighbors. Retire after a long day at work, followed by a long drive home. Then no time for anything else. Separated from your family by too much time away and rarely knowing neighbors. Then a sterile existence far from the restaurants ,art museums and nightlife that was a bustling down town. But now restaurants and good nightlife are all over. Museums ,zoos ,aquariums ,symphonies and such are still downtown though. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/203 "2009-04-03T15:11:33Z")
> [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](#): > > Focusing on this small point, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say that the suburban/rural areas are paying for the city’s freeways. Technically, it’s true, but who’s going to _use_ those freeways more, people in the city or people driving in from the suburbs every morning? We agree. Once the money goes into the kitty, its’ origins blur. Of course, the people in the locations will use their own roads more, but the idea, I think is to have an infrastucture for the entire state. Too many people fail to see that. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/204 "2009-04-03T15:12:58Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > To elaborate on my last post a little bit, suburbia’s current incarnation is quite intentional because it stops crime. There’s serious research to back this up. In his book _Defensible Space_, Oscar Newman studied crimes rates in thousands of neighborhoods. His book: > > (All taken from [this article.](http://reason.com/news/show/36489.html)) Thank you very much for linking to that article. I will be sending a copy of the article along with a letter with select quotes to both my Town Planner and the Town Planning & Zoning Commission. (All my town’s P&Z Commission and Planner have talked about for the last few years is “mixed-use development” and how it’s going to save the world.) ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/205 "2009-04-03T15:15:49Z")
Come to think of, for a data point in this whole knowing-your-neighbors thing, I went to a bar the other night to meet one person. I ended up saying hi to 10 other people, in three different groups before I even saw the friend I was meeting (not to mention seeing another friend [last night](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=511645). And that’s not counting the people working at the taqueria or bars who know me. I know a lot of my neighbors. They might not be my immediate next-door neighbors, but I’ll put up the number of people I know within a half a mile up against anyone not on a commune or campus. I think people (this goes for urban- and suburbanites) need to take a little more responsibility for this whole concept. Blaming “the city” or “the suburb” for one’s own self being too lazy/crotchety to go out and actually do the work. I think an urban environment makes such a thing exponentially _easier_, in that you don’t have to _go_ to a meeting place to do it, it can just happen on the way to Safeway of the Chinese place. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/206 "2009-04-03T15:17:48Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > Of course, the people in the locations will use their own roads more My point was that this _isn’t_ necessarily true. SFcans don’t use Doyle Drive, but we bear the responsibility of maintaining it much, much more so than the commuters who do use it. > [@](#): > > but the idea, I think is to have an infrastucture for the entire state. Too many people fail to see that. But this definitely is true. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/207 "2009-04-03T15:23:48Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Let’s [test](http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_tw-study_suburban.htm) the bad parenting hypothesis, shall we? > > So the incidence of this kind of criminality is worse in the suburbs than it is in the inner cities. So we can safely conclude that inner city parents are better than their middle class or affluent suburban counterparts. > > Right? OK, first the place making the report probably shouldn’t use itself as a cite. :rolleyes: Second, yes, parents are the cause, (barring mental illness) of the actions of their children, 100%. You are a product of your environment as am I of mine. You cannot truly be arguing against the influence that parents have on their children. The parents that are too busy clubbin’ and goin on dates are just as bad as the parents who eschew time with thier children to dedicate to career advancement. Those kids whos’ parents are not involved are raised by an adult society and by the influences of media and their friends, which makes, generally speaking, for bad kids. It doesn’t always turn out that way, but in the cases you’re citing, it sure as hell does. Kids aren’t afraid of a damn thing these days, which is primarily why I don’t have any. I’ll be damned if some PC, fluffy-bunny-foo-foo goofball is going to tell me how I can raise my kid. My kid would be afraid of my reaction to bad acting, afraid of disappointing me, afraid of going to jail and afraid of punishment. I’m not talking violence here, but kids have more power than the adults do, that’s the real problem. Addressing your ‘criminality’ comments; again, horseshit. Kids do the things they do because their parents aren’t watching. Some things you can’t stop, no matter where the kids are, but the REAL problems, rapes, shootings, violent assaults, happen more often in the city than they do in the suburbs. You’re boxing in the data to fit your narrow argument, and you’re failing. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/208 "2009-04-03T15:27:31Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > You are being obtuse. > > Let’s try to think about this another way. Consider the probability that your house will be struck by lightning. Using some assumptions handily provided by the National Lightning Safety Institute, we will conclude that the probability is 1 / 280,000. > > One of the assumptions is the size of your house. The NLSI assumes a house of 1200 m^2. Suppose you buy a bigger house, and that probability increases to 1/250,000. > > Living in a smaller house is, by any absolute measure, safer. > > But it doesn’t take any handwaving to show that this is retarded, because really, who the hell cares about such a tiny incremental difference? > > In the case of crime, clearly people do care about an incremental difference of, say, 1%. But then they should be at least honest and say that this difference is small but important to them. What is absolutely safer here is totally irrelevant because actual decisions are made on the margin. Bad example. First, lighting knows no political, social or economic boundaries. These are things, critical things, that your example cannot have and causes it then to fail. Lighting is governed by only one rule, its’ own. People are governed by many, many rules and regulations and societal controls and expectations. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/209 "2009-04-03T15:27:58Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > \ > > \ > > \ > > … I disagree. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/210 "2009-04-03T15:59:44Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I disagree. Feel free, it doesn’t mean you’re right. Your bias shows a little more clearly with each post. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/211 "2009-04-03T17:10:04Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > Feel free, it doesn’t mean you’re right. > > Your bias shows a little more clearly with each post. Considering how many posts I have spent clearly articulating my point of view and opinion on this matter, I would hope that my bias is becoming clear to you. Everyone else seemed to get it pretty early on. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/212 "2009-04-04T05:36:52Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > For me, since I don’t care either way whether people live in less-dense or more-dense environments, I don’t see why the government should be purposefully favoring one over the other. Isn’t it because they want to build office buildings and parking garages on those “wasted” house lots? Or at the very least, apartments/condos but there are many sorts of folks that cannot live in those, such as anyone with multiple children or large pets. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/213 "2009-04-04T07:49:02Z")
> [@hobscrk777](#): > > Aside from the economic sustainability (or lack thereof) of suburbs, how about people who don’t like suburbs for other reasons? To me and a lot of my young friends, the suburbs seem like a place for middle-aged people to go when they’re married and looking to settle down. Suburbs almost seem mass-produced. (Warning: generalization follows) They all have the same sorts of neighborhoods with the same sorts of houses. They will all have a Wal-Mart, a pharmacy, a movie theater, and a grocery store. And they’re so _boring_. To be absolutely clear about my position, I think everyone should be free to live where they want. those who prefer suburbs should live in suburbs, those who prefer cities should live in cities, those who prefer exurbs should live in exurbs, those who prefer towns should live in towns, and those who prefer rural settings should live in rural settings. My problem is that not everyone respects the rights of suburb dwellers. The basic dogma of the new urbanism movement is that all construction must be based on their principles, and that’s actually being put into effect in some places. Oregon severely limited growth around every city in the state, forcing construction in high-density patterns. San Diego tried to curtail expansion and and build denser neighborhoods in the 90’s, with disasterous results. Virginia recently put restrictions on the street plans that can be built. Worst of all is how this interacts with race issues. Most white people can afford to move to the suburbs, and they do so. Blacks and Hispanics are largely stuck in the large cities, where the planners will not allow them to build safe neighborhoods. There’s a reason for the ten-fold different in crime rates between Nashville and Brentwood. If the black neighborhoods of Nashville could be rebuilt along the same patterns as Brentwood, there’s every reason to believe that crime would go down. But the city council simply won’t let that happen. ---
**Author:** ![Quorum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ad7895/32.png) [@Quorum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quorum)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/214 "2009-04-04T10:06:36Z")
Let’s test the bad parenting hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/215 "2009-04-04T14:16:27Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > My problem is that not everyone respects the rights of suburb dwellers. The basic dogma of the new urbanism movement is that all construction must be based on their principles, and that’s actually being put into effect in some places. Urban dwellers don’t seem to understand that they depend on rural dwellers. Much more than the other way around. There is no maginot line between city and rural. So some suburban must exist. I have my own well and septic. No one is taxed for that. Suburbs are broken into tax areas that pay for the systems that they use. People that drive more pay more tax to upkeep the roads. The same roads that bring products into the city. Yet every dollar I spend is used to fund a free bus system that I can’t use. It’s silly that urban dwellers have such attitude when a vacation is to ‘Get OUT of the city’. Yet City folks look down their nose at suburban and rural living. This is very telling. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/216 "2009-04-04T19:51:23Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > My problem is that not everyone respects the rights of suburb dwellers. The basic dogma of the new urbanism movement is that all construction must be based on their principles, and that’s actually being put into effect in some places. Oregon severely limited growth around every city in the state, forcing construction in high-density patterns. San Diego tried to curtail expansion and and build denser neighborhoods in the 90’s, with disasterous results. Virginia recently put restrictions on the street plans that can be built. > > Worst of all is how this interacts with race issues. Most white people can afford to move to the suburbs, and they do so. Blacks and Hispanics are largely stuck in the large cities, where the planners will not allow them to build safe neighborhoods. There’s a reason for the ten-fold different in crime rates between Nashville and Brentwood. If the black neighborhoods of Nashville could be rebuilt along the same patterns as Brentwood, there’s every reason to believe that crime would go down. But the city council simply won’t let that happen. People always say “they should build” but who is “they”? New construction is built by private developers and they don’t tend to build for poor people. They build for middle class and wealthy tenants when they see an increase in local demand. The poor then tend to get displaced as prices increase and have to live in less desirable locations. In other words, if you rebuilt the black neighborhoods of Nashville to be like Brentwood, you would probably have a lot fewer poor blacks living there. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/217 "2009-04-04T19:54:57Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Considering how many posts I have spent clearly articulating my point of view and opinion on this matter, I would hope that my bias is becoming clear to you. Everyone else seemed to get it pretty early on. I understood it several years ago. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/218 "2009-04-05T17:51:37Z")
So what do you say **Maeglin**? Should those of us that live in a suburban or rural community support your ‘city’ lifestyle? (you have it backwards. For pretty much this whole thread). ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/219 "2009-04-06T02:43:12Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > The data do not support the _perception_ of the safety of suburbs exhibited here and even in the other thread. Violent crimes are only _incrementally_ less likely to be committed in the suburbs than they are in the cities on average. If a suburb apologist here were to argue that a 1% decrease in the likelihood of being the victim of a violent crime justifies his flight from the city, I would accept that completely. That 1% decrease would simply be worth more to him than it is to me. We all have different thresholds about which we make life decisions. > > But at least the apologist would be honest. He would not deny that there is nontrivial criminality and social ill in the suburbs, or that any evidence of such just represent isolated instances of “bad parenting”. And how do you define “suburb”? Many suburbs, like [Cudahy](http://www.city-data.com/forum/los-angeles/117963-cudahy-corruption-street-punks-city-thugs.html), are pretty impoverished, and crime is more serious there. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488/220 "2009-04-06T08:39:02Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > And how do you define “suburb”? I’m not sure if this question is just for **Maeglin** , but for purposes of this discussion, I would define a “suburb” as a town or other area which is (1) near a city; (2) usually politically separate from that city; (3) has a significant percentage of residents who work in or around that city; (4) has mostly single family detached housing; and (5) has residents which are mostly middle class or above. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-for-the-suburbs/491488.md?page=12)