Why? You all grouse about garbage trucks using oil in my suburbs. You don’t pay for that, I do with my taxes which incidentally are much higher than the taxes you city-dwellers pay. The only people who should keep the City of New York’s Transit System afloat are the citizens of the 5 boroughs (and I used to be one of them). What next? The City’s cops don’t make enough money, so we’ll put a 0.2% surcharge on my phone bill to pay them. Sure…if I live in one of the boroughs.
This whole debate has degraded into “I don’t like your life-style choice” .
Well I agree - I hate the city-dwellers life style choice. And since you’ve all decided to throw manners out the window and voice your dislike for “my” choice, I now feel free to voice my counter-opinion. I hate the smells, I hate the noise, I hate the crowds, I hate the high ozone levels that make me want to pass out during the summer. The only thing I love is the restaurants - but they’re not so much better that they merit a 70 minute train ride. Keep your city. Leave me to my suburbs.
By that logic, the only people who should subsidize the lifestyle choices of people who choose to live in the depressed, wilting upstate counties are the dwellers of these counties themselves. As anyone who has lived in NY for more than six months knows, this is not the case. The city has been subsidizing the rest of the state for years, decades even. And now that the financial sector cash cow is sick, is the rest of the state going to come to our rescue?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
I’m not some kind of hero because I dislike the burbs and like the city. I grew up a 60 minute train ride from Grand Central and I loathed it. But I readily admit it is a matter of taste, and if everyone shared my tastes, real estate would be even more expensive than it already is. But for the love of god, spare me the “I don’t want to pay for city services” canard. Metro-North runs your railroad, too.
I think it is a little counter productive to get upset with people who explain why they don’t like the suburbs in a thread entitled “Why the hatried for the suburbs?”
I prefer living with a heavy white majority. Happy now?
Actually that’s not 100% true, since my neighborhood has a large Asian (Oriental) minority and I’m pretty happy here. However, painful experience shows that when an area has a large percentage of blacks, it tends to be rather unpleasant. This is true to a lesser extent with hispanics.
Are you happy that I’m not using “code words”? Or will you tear me apart for being “racist”? If so, you can hardly blame people for using “code words.”
Got some news for you… everybody already knows the code words, so everybody already knows when you’re making a racist ass out of yourself (as you’re doing now). But at least you get some integrity points for stating it openly.
Why is it racist to report that certain personal experiences living with certain minorities
were unpleasant? Are you challenging this person’s perception? He clearly states he has had other experiences with minorities that were not unpleasant.
I like living where people take pride in their yards and houses. Are considerate of their neighbors. Get involved in their kids schools. Want their kids to go to good schools. Don’t tolerate crime or participate in it. That get on their kids asses if they misbehave. That have hobbies other than sitting on the front step with a loud ass bomb boxes and cat calling at any woman who walks by. That will report something shady looking to the cops rather than look the other way. That are responsible and hard working and have decent/good paying jobs as a result.
May you meant “living in a “acting white” majority” instead?"
Isn’t “acting white” the “code” word in the hood for folks actually take responsilibility for their lives and actions?
Because folks are moving to the burbs because there are less minorities there (which is also either greatly exagerated or in least in dispute) that IT MUST be because they are ALL racists is absurd.
Yeah, back in the day I got into physics specifically to avoid all those african americans, latinos, asians, italians…and to a lesser extent those pesky wymin. And astronomy and scuba? Gawd, I love it, what great hobbies!, I hardly ever see a person with dark skin while doing those things. Its so invigorating!
Or maybe I just like those things and for whatever reason beyond my control the minorities are not/barely there?
Heck, with your logic, all the Apollo astronauts who went to the moon were racists because there were no black people there (I guess the moonites where in hiding back then).
If “racist ass” means someone who prefers not to live in areas with a lot of blacks (and to a lesser extent, hispanics), then most Americans are racist asses. Including most of the people who enjoy demonstrating their moral superiority by accusing others of racism.
ETA: By the way, the only reason for these preferences is the track record of the people involved for causing unpleasantness.
I agree that one part of the idea of suburbia was to live away from cities which had high crime rates. But the crime will continue, and eventually get into suburbia. It doesn’t stop crime; it just avoids it for a while.
Does anyone really think that building houses far from City Hall will somehow reduce crime?
While many seem to be taking it granted that the government must spend more for the people who live in the suburbs then for those in denser places, I want some hard numbers on that. It’s probably true that the suburbs require more money per capita for roads and sewage. On the other hand, there’s going to be a lot more spending in cities for a lot of things, most notably police due to the high crime rates. Overall:
“A 1992 Duke University study, for example, analyzed data from 247 counties that contain well over half the population of the United States. The researchers found that, above a density of 250 people per square mile (which is a rural density), costs rose as densities increased. In fact, urban service costs in areas of 24,000 people per square mile–a density typical of the core of older cities such as Philadelphia and Boston–were nearly 50 percent greater than in areas of 250 people per square mile.”
So the total amount that the government spends for a condo-dweller downtown is greater than for a suburb-dweller. It is the later that subsidizes the former, assuming that both are in the same jurisdiction and paying the same tax rate.
There’s a further reason why the suburbs that are officially outside the city cost less. In a “bedroom community”, the government exists to help people live, so it will only spend money on the necessities: roads, sewers, police, fire, and schools. In a city, the government instead feels a need to attract business, attract tourists, build landmarks, and generally compete with other cities. As a result, the taxpayers have to fit the bill for all sorts of grandiose projects.
The resulting differences are not subtle. This chart shows local tax rates in Tennessee. The rate in Davidson County (which is Nashville) is almost double the rate in Williamson, Rutherford, and Sumner Countires, which are the suburbs surrounding Nashville. This is not due to “subsidies and incentives”. It is due to the simple fact that the suburbs cost less. There is nothing unfair or unreasonable about people wanting the cheapest mode of living.
I do, to an extent. For one thing, it’s usually rather inconvenient to get into the suburbs without a car and a driver license. That’s a big barrier for your typical low-life drug-addicted scumbag criminal. For another, people who wander into a suburb without any legitimate reason are more likely to stand out. Finally, the people already living in suburbs tend to be more responsible parents who produce less criminally-inclined children.
Instead of the typical, low-life scumbag criminal, it’s the kids in suburbia who use and deal, all driving around in their Lexuses. I grew up in a place like this, and the denial was pea-soup fog thick.
Maeglin raises a good point. When I was in high school, the high schools in my county that drew the most affluent students also had the heaviest drug/alcohol/party scenes. Anecdotal, of course, but take it for what it’s worth.
I moved from an urban area to a suburban area in the early 80’s. Partly to get closer to my job, and mostly to get away from the Bloods and Crips. The crime was getting ridiculous. When I started thinking about sleeping in my clothes, I knew it was time to get out.
Never did have that problem in suburbia. And I doubt kids that drive Lexuses are as likely to whack you with a golf club just for fun as the Crips’ (cripple) are.
I now live rural mountain, and crime is pretty much unheard of.
Fair enough. In my dozen years living in the city, I have never seen a Crip or a Blood. But they deface my middle class suburban high school with graffiti all the time.
How often did those kids beat the (*&^ out of somebody’s grandmother in order to rob her? How often did those kids stick up the local convenience store? Did the local stores in your town have to install metal shutters to put down at night? And what about the post office . . . . did it have a thick glass shield to discourage robberies?
Yeah, but the buyers of the local real estate and motor fuel eventually pay for that infrastructure, which by the way, is less incentive, more essential service.