Currently I reside downtown, overlooking rails (the trains go quite slowly and make a noise far more agreeable than that of cars). There's a market under the rails, fruit vegtables and other foodstuffs at daytime, small quantities of drugs at night. I can buy on credit at both markets if I forget my wallet.
I will never understand the attraction of suburbs. The distances. The architecture. The boredom.
Low taxes. Lower cost of living. Privacy of a detached house. The lack of 'city' noise. Letting my kids play in the yard, on sidewalks. Letting my kids tear around the cul-de-sac.
I've lived in the country, I've lived in the city, I've lived in the 'burbs. I prefer the latter, now.
Maybe it's just me. I live in a smaller town, my commute is a five minute drive. YMMV.
On top of that, my friends who went to the expensive private schools (whether in the city or suburbs) had easy access to cocaine, which was not a feature of the public schools.
Gangs, yes. Gang violence, no.
I would have had no qualms about it, if it were otherwise.
That's a very alarmist statement that I'm afraid has no relationship with the experience of my friends who went to inner city schools with diverse populations (and yes, a number of gang members).
It's true that many inner city schools were defunded by capital flight to the suburbs. But the notion that they're all active warzones that only James Belushi or Michelle Pfeiffer can bring law and order to is a stereotype that needs to be put to rest.
Bad schools are not a high school zombie apocalypse of having to fight for your life against "black and hispanic gang members". That's the stereotype that needs to end already.
And the problem isn't unmotivated teachers. Young, idealistic teachers are made prematurely cynical by the thousands in bad urban school districts every year.
The problem is too many of the students and (more importantly) their families don't care. That's why charter schools work. That's why private schools work. And that's why suburban schools work. Because the students in those schools belong to families that consider education important and have made sacrifices to get their kids in a good school.
All the things schools used to do to maintain order are either illegal or carry a big financial penalty for the district. When I was in school our district had a reform school, and everyone knew if you acted out too much that's where you would end up. Kids got suspended and eventually expelled for too much disruptive behavior. That just doesn't happen today to any meaningful degree.
It's all well and good to rail about the unfairness of it all, but when the future of your own kids is on the line you make the sacrifices you have to make in order to keep them out of bad schools. Even the president, who is under a lot of political pressure to put his kids in DC public schools decided to send them to a private school instead.
I thought they'd be higher due to lower densities (more roads, sewer pipes, etc per capita to maintain). At least that's the case here in the Greater Toronto area ...
Property taxes in my suburb are around three quarters compared to the nearby city (Atlanta, GA - millage rate 44.435; Gwinnett, GA - millage rate 32.10). Couple that with the fact that houses are much much cheaper, and in practice I pay ~$2000/year property taxes on my house while my friend pays over $5000/year in property taxes for his condo in the city. Then my mortgage and insurance are also cheaper, and it works out to be much cheaper. But I have to drive more.
Part of the reason is more government - cities will tack on their own taxes to pay for the city government. I have no idea what benefit this extra level of government actually provides, though.
I have public infrastructure (transportation, libraries, etc) in the city of Chicago that the suburbs could only dream of.
We don't need the massive public infrastructure you have because we're not a Big City.
I live in the country now and it's even more remote, but when I lived in the 'burbs it was on a 1/2 acre lot behind a nature preserve. I could look out my living room windows and not see anything but trees -- not a neighbor in sight. My kid could climb trees, look for frogs, go "treasure hunting" all day long. The dogs could go outside without needing to be leashed, or walked. And we could have sex on the grass at night.
Much harder to do those things in the city.
If this was a typical American suburb, I'd be inclined to agree, but you have to realize that your suburb is a statistical anomaly compared to the much more urban suburb that most Americans live in.
For most Americans, a suburb still means being miles from nature, it also means being jammed into row after row of houses butting shoulders with your neighbors. The "true suburb" (i.e., a suburb as it was originally envisioned) is a rare thing.
For these "urban 'burbs" there is really no benefit to the current layout of meandering streets and cul de sacs - it just forces people to drive more, disconnects neighborhoods, and makes transit impossible to provision. There would be very little lost converting these to neighborhoods with a stronger retail presence and sanely laid out streets.
Most of what we're building today are really "exurbs".
- My kids can go to a better school. A much, much better school.
- I can't fit my family in the size apartment I could afford if we lived downtown.
- Letting my kids play in the backyard is infinitely easier than packing up and heading to the park (admit it, there's not a ton of parks downtown), especially when you have a baby.
And that's not even including the benefits of the cul-de-sac, which means they can ride their bikes safely without traffic, lack of noise (and our noise won't bother neighbors), etc.
I can't tell you how much we want to get out of the burbs, but I'll be damned if I'm going to shortchange my kids' future, or make us all miserable by going three to a room. My boys are already sharing a room as it is.
Affordable family formation. It's far cheaper to start a family in the 'burbs. Housing is cheaper, daycare is cheaper, and the housing premium on good public schools is far lower. The cost of driving doesn't scale with the size of your family, but the cost of public transportation does.
If you're not interested in a family you don't care, but having one is a much bigger sacrifice in a high-density area.
60 years of deliberate policy drove middle class people out of the cities. The forced busing is pretty emblematic of what happened.
http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleans...
The other aspect is that the jobs left the cities. The two factors here were: 1) corrupt city machine politics and high taxes and fees, union problems, etc. 2) William Whyte's discovery that companies moved headquarters out closer to CEOs' estates so the CEO would have a shorter commute.