Nothing wrong with suburbs, but many American policies have basically forced sprawl even when people might like moderate levels of density.

A good example of this is Level of Service, a policy that dictated for decades that roads be evaluated by how many cars they moved in a given amount of time. People going by other modes? Safety? Measuring how long it actually takes people to get where they need to be? Not important; always cars, always faster.

One of the dumb things about American cities is that you have big cities with large apartment complexes and sprawly suburbs and not a whole lot in between, which is entirely due to policies, not the choices of individual families or developers. See: http://missingmiddlehousing.com

Not to mention we traded the town square / main street / city center for a shopping mall in the suburbs.

I've never bought the "kid-friendly" argument. Kids grow up in cities in the US and around the world, safely and effectively. Do you have statistical evidence to the contrary? If I were to guess, it's not about being "kid-friendly", it's about being "parent-easy".

And kids, in my experience, hate suburbia, especially as they get into early teens and want some independence. It's like living in a giant protective bubble where there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, without having to have someone's parents cart you around.

Totally agree. Up to about 10-14 or so (depending on the child), the suburbs are likely great for children. Afterwards, once they grow up a bit and start to form their own identity, I'd say they're actually damaging to a lot of teenagers. Without friends, without community, without anything to do, of course teenagers turn to drugs, cutting, and other maladaptive behaviors. Most are not permanently harmed, but I have no doubt that large numbers are. Yet, it doesn't seem like parents take this into account when choosing where to live (for the ones that have a choice, that is).

I also just realized/remembered that the leading cause of death for children, particularly teenagers, is automobile accidents.

Surely whatever dangers kids are exposed to in cities absolutely pale in comparison to the increased risk of car accidents caused by living in the suburbs, where virtually every outing requires a lengthy trip by car.

Not to mention obesity. My guess is a large component is from sitting inside all day because your friends are too far away to meet up spontaneously, and there's nothing to do outside anyway — things like parks, basketball courts, etc. are all far enough away that a parent has to drive.

Look around "kid-friendly" suburbia, and there's practically no kids outside.

No kids outside, no sidewalks, no one walking around (without a dog) because there's nothing you can walk to, a bunch of unused baseball fields aka 'parks', the only place you will likely bump into your neighbor is the supermarket.

Then again, suburban dwellers aren't totally crazy because our large cities are also built for cars with space for people as a complete afterthought most of the streets in Minneapolis need a road-diet. In Minneapolis, we invented the mall (Southdale), which sucked all the retail life out the city then we added the 'Mall of America' just to finish the job, to add insult to injury we built preposterous skyways which divides what's left of our paltry street-life onto two levels.

I really should move to Europe: Paris, Milan, Utrecht, Munich, London, Budapest, Prague... heartbreaking beauty.

Early so-called streetcar suburbs are great for young people because they are scaled perfectly for bicycling.

What people are referring to on this thread is really exurbs.

Yesterday's exurbs are today's suburbs. Today's exurbs are yesterday's small towns and neighboring counties. The sprawl keeps sprawling.

I live in one of those streetcar suburbs. It WOULD be great for kids, even though my house is a short walk from those oh-so-scary high rises, because that also makes it a short walk from a lot of things a kid wants to walk to.

The one catch is the risk of my kid being squished like a bug by idiot suburban drivers.

> Some people like living in more quiet, open, kid-friendly spaces: i.e., suburban sprawl.

Good for them. If that's what they want then they should pay for it in a free and open market. I shouldn't have to subsidize their preferences via restrictive zoning.