If you're living in a suburb and working remotely, it's a pretty good deal. You're not burning gas to get to work and you get to enjoy some space.

I think the biggest evil of suburbs is the commute. I think part of the reason there's no social activity in suburbs is because, honestly, who wants to do anything after spending an hour in traffic after getting off your 8-5 job and knowing you need to be out the door by 6:30 the next day?

> I think the biggest evil of suburbs is the commute.

Commute fuel costs aren't remotely the biggest inneficiency with living in a diffuse suburb, though. Someone has to grade and pave all those extra miles of road. Someone has to pour all that concrete for sidewalks that no one walks on. Someone has to trench and lay piping and cable through all that unused space. Those large diffuse houses need more energy to heat and cool both because they're larger and because they're diffuse.

And even then, granting that you're not commuting to work, your kids are commuting to school on vehicles that need to travel much farther, your family is commuting to dinner and shopping over much larger distances, and everyone that needs to be at your home for any reason (to repair something, deliver something, etc...) needs to spend more fuel and time to get there.

Suburban sprawl is a bad trade. The worst of it, for you, may be the psychological impact of the daily commute. But that doesn't mean the rest of it isn't bad.

People write stuff like this a million times a day. The reason it has no effect on me, for one, is that at the end of the day, I think if living in a suburb was as relatively wasteful as people claim, it would as a consequence be correspondingly relatively expensive.

Usually people say something about externalities to explain why they deplore certain activity, but it seems to me that when you spend an incremental dollar (such as to live downtown), it rapidly diffuses into the economy and represents the average amount of carbon-intensity. So I think how much you spend is the key to focus on, rather than the "niceness" of what you spend on.

> there's no social activity in suburbs

There is, in fact, social activity in the suburbs. There may be less, per capita, then in big cities, but that's because what is in the suburbs is car-dependent, and once you have that a threshhold cost, the marginal cost of leaving the suburb for activity in the nearest urban center is low, so lots of social activities partaken by suburban dwellers occur in urban centers rather than suburbs.

> who wants to do anything after spending an hour in traffic after getting off your 8-5 job

Weekday social activities are often partaken in near work prior to commuting back home, avoiding this problem and often reducing commute time by avoiding traffic.

I have friends who have regular block parties in their neighborhoods with BBQ and keg beer. Probably depends a lot on your neighbors and their proclivities.

>I think the biggest evil of suburbs is the commute. I think part of the reason there's no social activity in suburbs is because, honestly, who wants to do anything after spending an hour in traffic after getting off your 8-5 job and knowing you need to be out the door by 6:30 the next day?

Takes me an hour+ to get home 6 miles outside of the city (still in the City, but not downtown) on the bus. Not a great argument you have there unless you ignore everyone that isn't privileged enough to live in the city downtown proper.

It also depends on the city. I can travel 30KM in 15 minutes on a train, or drive that distance in 2 hours if I’m lucky.

Many cities are planned well and easy to get around. But this isn’t really true for most American cities. Although if you’re working in a city and living outside of it, you’re almost certainly wasting more time than anyone in it during your commute.

I dream for an American city with public transit as good as some European countries. Hopefully some infrastructure projects will come through, but I really don't see it happening any time soon with the amount of corporate lobbying making sure everything stays exactly the same: profits for oil.

You can go 30 km on a train that travels over 120 km/hr and still be in the same city?

I just wouldn't take a job where I have to commute 2 hours. I don't think most people do that, although some may.

It's debatable whether I am in a suburb or not at the moment - I am barely technically within the city limits, about 3.5 miles from the middle. But anyway, per Google Maps, I'm about 8 minutes drive from work, 54 minutes bus ride, and 62 minutes walk! Bicycling is estimated at barely over 20 minutes.

When I lived 10 minutes walk from work, the bus took about the same time, but waiting for its schedule meant practically speaking it was more like 30 minutes. It felt a little safer than scrambling across three highways, but after a bit, I couldn't stand the wait, so I went back to walking, and then to driving.

If I lived in a popular suburb further to the north, then I wouldn't be able to ride the bus at all (although that's too far of a commute for me by car)

So, across the whole range of commute distances, I can't see any situation where riding the bus makes sense. It either takes essentially as long as walking, or isn't available at all.

Maybe the US is different but in the UK there is lots of social activity in the suburbs and plenty of people do go out mid week knowing they have to be in work the next day.

Most of the time during the last ten years, I've lived in a suburb of a roughly 1 million population area, and generally my commute is 10 minutes or less. When I've lived in the middle of a city, my commute has been (in two different cases) about a 10 minute walk. Even when I was inside the DC beltway, not exactly in the city or in the suburbs, my commute was about 10 minutes. I simply wouldn't consider anything much worse than that.

> there's no social activity in suburbs

I find that hard to believe.

You should - it’s not remotely accurate.

What is probably accurate is that there’s a lot less for a single twentysomething (though that depends on your interests). If you’re an adult with a family, there’s more than enough to do.

It's literally not zoned for it. Change the zoning laws to at least allow for a local pub or coffee shop in the middle of a residential area, that would be a positive step in the right direction IMHO.

I mean I kind of agree with your point about zoning but you realize that your chosen examples make you look like a single, childless 20something and thus somewhat out of touch with what a lot of people consider socializing?

I don't like to suburbs either but I'm currently visiting my brother who lives in one. Their socializing is kids basketball & soccer games at the park (which suburbs are zoned for), picnics at the local greenway (also zoned for), and swimming in the community pool. All of which are walking distance.

Not to mention, you know, inviting people over to their house because it isn't a tiny 400 square foot apartment. They make dinner for friends and watch football on the porch.

Honestly, that’s sounding pretty close to just being a town.

I’ve lived in a few suburbs. One of them was blessed to have a dollar store within walking distance (you’d need to cross a busy highway, but you could walk). None of them so much as had sidewalks, though. Grocery stores were from 15-25 minutes by car. Entertainment (theaters, pools) were around that distance if not more.

Suburbs vary from place to place, just as towns and cities do. Some offer conveniences that make it hard to imagine living anywhere else. Some make it impossible to do absolutely anything without a car and a few gallons of gas.

You seem to think that social activities depend on access by walking. Suburbs are very car dependent, sure, but that doesn't mean that social activities don't happen, it just means that people drive to them.

Late 30s, father, just not "urban". The best layout I've seen was in Amsterdam - every neighborhood had it's own local pub, local coffeehouse, and small grocery, all eminently walkable/bikeable. Neighbors knew each other and socialized regularly. The "small town feel" was nailed pretty well, IMHO, while still being in a bustling urban center.

This is the case in many, if not most, major (and some not so major) European cities. I've lived in Berlin & Vienna for the past ~decade and a half & it's certainly true here (worse cycling infrastructure than Amsterdam tho).

I'll bet this is also the case for cities in developed east Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan & South Korea as well.

OK, here's a question - you say "tiny apartment", but is that really all that exists in the US? In the UK, there's a rather large amount of 2 and 3 bed flats - the one I'm living in is nearly 800 square feet, not unreasonably priced, and we can fit more people than we can reasonably organise to be available at one time.

There's also three parks within 10 minutes' walk, more a short bus ride away, and multiple shops and cafes surrounding us. And we're about 15 minutes by bus from the city centre.

Just saying... the issues the US seems to have with cities seem to mostly be a result of lack of caring about them, not inherent properties of cities.

Typical apartments in the US seem to be around 700-800 square feet, with one or two bedrooms, so not "tiny". These may or may not be located in walkable neighborhoods or with easy access to city center, it depends on the city. As an anecdote in Seattle, which is better at this than most cities, I have a one bedroom flat that is almost 1200 square feet and can walk to everything except the airport, for which there is public transit. Not unreasonably priced, though not inexpensive either. There are dozens of bars, restaurants, cafes, etc within a few blocks as well as several shops of all types.

Of course "tiny apartments" are not all that exists in the US. Many apartments are 1000 square feet or larger where I live, especially ones with more than 1 bedroom. Travis Kalanick just bought an apartment in NYC that is around 6700 square feet.

Americans also have parks, buses, shops, and cafes. All the suburbs I have lived in are about 10 minutes from a "city center".

The assumption here seems to be that all the yard and home space everyone is complaining about is left unused. You may need pubs and coffee shops for socializing in the cities. In the suburbs, people host each other in their homes or yards on a pretty regular basis, at least in my experience.

I hear Houston doesn't have zoning!

in my residential area most of the social activity is dog walking and neighborhood meetings where people discuss whose car or place of living was broken into and how to get the police to actually show up

There is a difference between suburbs and living in the core of mid-sized cities.

Besides, HN is more than one person, with different views.

Let's not confuse a suburb with a smaller city. I live in a 500k hab city, that's the hard limit for me. But it is a fully functional city, not an island of houses; I don't have to drive 16km to buy groceries.

There's a big difference between moving to the suburbs and moving to a small town.

> There's a big difference between moving to the suburbs and moving to a small town.

“Small town” and “suburb” are overlapping categories, and if it's in the former category but also lets you work in a big city (so that what you can afford on the same salary is relevant), it's almost certainly also in the latter category.

I think people need a way to differentiate between the concrete 5 lane highway and parking lot requirements that make it impossible to walk anywhere, versus towns with small roads and businesses spread out that one can walk around easily. I would interpret the word suburb to describe an area where you must use a car to get around and walking is not an option, versus a small town where you don't need a car and can walk around to do most routine activities.

> I would interpret the word suburb to describe an area where you must use a car to get around and walking is not an option, versus a small town where you don't need a car and can walk around to do most routine activities.

The problem with this binary division is that plenty of real communities outside of metropolitan coresñ.ñ would be a blend of “small town” and “suburb” by this description, varying on a continuum between being nearly purely “small town” in their local core (which might or might not be styled as a “downtown”) to pure “suburb” as you get further from that core.

Suburbs of a big city != small city

This. I moved from Downtown Seattle to Downtown Raleigh with a remote job, and cut my rent in half without changing driving or living patterns significantly. My husband and I still share 1 car which gets used 2-3 times a month for trips to nearby cities/beaches/mountains (Charlotte, Wilmington, Asheville), and then otherwise we walk to cafes, bars, restaurants and corner stores, even my doctor and dentist are only a short walk away.

There are not many parts of Raleigh where you can do this, and it's still more expensive than suburb living out here. But I find that I have equal or better access to the stuff I actually want and use, so I don't feel like I sacrificed much.

Suburbs ARE evil, but our land use policies keep us from building enough housing in cities, which makes them too expensive to be considered a good option for most people.

Can someone who downvoted this please explain their reasoning?

I didn't downvote it, but it's likely due to the unsubstantiated claim that suburbs are evil or the sweeping generalization that all cities have poor zoning and land use planning. Or perhaps the biased implication that large cities are good for everyone.

Yesterday, or at least when I remember the craze of moving from suburbs to the city, city real estate cost around 50% of what it does today. Property costs have inflated a lot alongside the popularity of living more concentrated.

So it stands to reason that the pendulum now swings the other way. People are very good at sussing out the economics of a trend that used to be profitable but no longer is.

Not everyone wants to live in a dystopian nightmare crush of cars and people.