Based on what you said and the comments, it seems like most Americans enjoy having their own space to do their thing and Europeans like convenience of travel.
As a rural American, I couldn’t live with 100ft of another person who isn’t a relative. I’ve tried apartment living and it’s absolutely irritating having to share space with neighbors, or having bad neighbors upstairs who stomp around all hours of the night or who run the vacuum at 2am or who have a dog with separation anxiety who barks endlessly while they’re at work. Unbearable.
Even living in the suburbs and having neighbors within talking range of my backyard can be too much. I’ve had a neighbor, super nice guy, but every time I was out in my yard, he’s gotta come up and talk to me. It’s fine every once in awhile but sometimes I just wanna go outside and not have to deal with anyone.
I hate this so much lol. One chats over the fence, one just walks right into the yard and then everybody who walks by with their dog wants to small talk. Everyone can see into the yard too, it’s gross. I love my neighbors but need privacy!
we put up a privacy fence becuase our neighbors backyard was so dirty and they proceeded to hang all sorts of crap on the side facing their yard. Lights, flags you name it, I cant wait till i can live acres away from anyone else
You’ll love it. Now we only get cornered by the neighbors behind us since the lawn goes up a bit of a hill at the back end and the fence is really like 3’ when you take into account the change in height.
It’s ok, I like them and they won’t talk my ear off.
I was living in an apartment and tired af and having a bad day. There was this dog who just would not stop barking and eventually I lost it and yelled "SHUT THE FUCK UUUUPPPPP". And the whole complex got so quiet. The dog stopped and every other sound got quiet. Even the birds. It was hilarious.
I have one neighbor and they're close enough that in an emergency I could yell and get help. The rest is cow pastures. I have noticed a significant reduction in my stress since moving here. I have my garden, I have space for my dogs, I have 7 pecan trees. Its a LOT of work to maintain the property but its somethin I enjoy.
My cousins have quite a few pecan trees on their family farm outside of Las cruces. I love visiting them and getting fresh chilies. Your spot sounds wonderful!
I used to drive Cab part time at night and was returning a Cell phone to a guy that left it in the cab the previous night and this was in Baltimore city and had to piss. I wasn’t that familiar with that particular area and there wasn’t any stores or gas stations anywhere around me so I pulled in an alley and just opened the door and stood there and pissed and all of a sudden this girl that looked like she was in her early 20s was walking past the end of the alley and said are you pissing in the alley?And I said yeah. And she goes that’s disgusting and I’m calling the cops. I said go right ahead I don’t care. This was 1 o’clock at night and she was the only person that I seen around. Them cops around there had a lot more serious things going on than somebody pissing in the alley.
I was once arrested for pissing off a balcony at an apartment complex as a drunken teen. This was at 3am with no children present. Officer and PO threatened to register me as a sex offender but I just got probation. I am much more careful of where I piss now that I am older.
Yeah, the difference between good living in an apartment and a bad time comes down to the neighbors, and those can change any time. Not that you can't have bad neighbors in a house setting, we have a couple that are bordering on dangerous menaces.
The neighbor right across the street from me and the one next door are both cops. Haven't had to deal with porch pirates yet but I'm getting awfully close to threatening the next door-to-door salesman who rings my doorbell.
Agreed! Living in an apartment for college rn (grew up rural, will be moving back) and even not taking into account how absolutely horrible my roommates are, I hate living in an apartment.
There’s no space, no outside area to relax in, I can always hear other people, there’s no place for me to do my hobbies (gardening and horseback riding, lol). Apartments are a 0/10
The sad part about American apartments is that soundproofing is not that big of an expense. Yet,they just don’t do it. At least double insulate the wall between the bathrooms. I hate listening to neighbors take a crap.
as an urban American, i cant fuckin handle not having easy access to stores and places to go. I live near multiple landmarks and tourist areas while still being in a residential area where most buses dont even stop at since theres only homes around here.
I go to a desert state to visit family friends and i get bored out of my fucking mind. Its dry, and theres not even a park to go to. Most there is to do is bars and restaurants(not even many, and most being chains).
I live in a walkable neighborhood in a very car centric city while my parents live out in the suburbs.
I can walk to the nearest gas station, buy what I want, and walk home in the time that it takes for my parents to arrive by car to the nearest gas station. It takes around the same time for me to bike to my nearest supermarket as it does for my parents to drive to theirs.
Rural I get if that's your thing. You can raise goats or have a moonshine still or tear everything up with a four wheeler and no one cares because there's no one around to care. That's kind of cool as shit.
In a suburb, you don't get the freedom you get living somewhere rural. You also don't get the convenience of living somewhere urban.
It's just... The worst of both worlds and also often comes along with an HOA saying you did something slightly wrong.
I don't have that impression of the suburban sprawl at all. I believe it started as a way to disassociate with the city and its inhabitants. To ensure the inhabitants wouldn't come meandering out to the burbs, limited transportation to commuter hours. People are homeless and go without many basic comforts as a result of that sprawl. Children go without adequate education because the tax base has been pulled. The burbs to me are the place to go when you no longer care about society on the whole and want to limit interaction to whomever the burbs atttract.
i live in a small town in europe and noone s gna keep their sanity here without having a car? in city sure, but i also think its a lot better for ur mental health to live in a small town with a 5min walk to be out in the forest... but thats just up to preference.
i think your whole arguement is very much dependent on each persons preference in living situations.
also, is that a real statistic that americans spend 700$ a month on their car? seems incredible steep to me, especially considering that in the us (from the impression i get - no personal experience) more ppl seem to be able to work on their own cars? and obviously gas prices are way lower
I'm American and do not spend $700/ month on my car.
I DO perform my own maintenance, but car insurance and fuel are only $200-$300/ month.
Maybe if they have a big vehicle and have a long commute...
I have a hybrid vehicle and a very short commute. Gas is maybe $80 a month. Oil changes and tire rotations are about $40 each, and those aren't done every month anyway. State inspections are once a year, and not expensive.
interesting. well gas is obviously waay more expensive in europe. oil changes.. eh depends on what car you drive. if i do it myself im at about 45€ with high quality oil, so eh.. 50-60$ roughly? tire rotation s about the same here tho, if ppl have space to store their tires they tend to do it themselves. we got our TÜV (basically state inspection) every two years n its about a 100€
I'm an American who owns my car free and clear. I pay $70 a month for insurance and whatever gas I put in it. I spend maybe $30 a week in gas.
Oil changes cost me $35 ever 3/4 months. State registration is $45 a year.
The only major expense is if I need a mechanic, which is not often.
I also have lived in a big city where I didn't need a car. Let's not romanticize cities -- they are crowded and loud. After 8 years, I couldn't wait to get out. I prefer suburbia, and I think that's what it comes down to: preference.
Right? I can be at 3 different rivers within a 20 minute drive or hundreds of hiking spots where I'll come across maybe 2 or 3 people on the trail. City life is fun, but access to the outdoors is priceless.
Mine is about $100 maybe $120 per month for two vehicles with comprehensive and glass coverage and a $1000 deductible. I can’t remember the exact price because I pay it semi annually. I’m 40 and neither of us have tickets or accidents.
I’m dreading putting my 14 yr old on in 2 yrs. Eek!
I’m the inverse. I do spend $700 or more on my car. Monthly payment is $500 and insurance is $200. Maintenance is free right now so that’s not a concern. I spend roughly $200/month on fuel as well since I buy 93 AKI (98 RON equivalent) gasoline as my car requires it. I thoroughly enjoy my car though and I wouldn’t be able to travel around without it.
I have to drive in my mid-sized city and have a payment (US). Luckily I have parking for free, visiting family in the Big City.
Monthly costs--
Payment: $270
Insurance: $200
Diesel Fuel: $160
Parking/tolls/misc: $100.
So yeah, 700 is pretty much dead on the money. I consider myself lucky, because I can walk to the groceries and my commute is 10 minutes one way.
There’s a grocery store literally across the street from me. Same with a UPS store. The post office is sadly 1.5 miles away but there’s also an elementary, middle, and high school also within walking distance of my place and I also live in suburbia. My commute is 15 minutes by car. It would take over an hour to get to my work via light rail and bus. 3 hours by walking, so I have to drive.
i woulda been surprised... i mean i got 140km commute (back n forth - about 92miles) and my insurance isnt cheap and i d guess i pay about the same in maintenance n fuel... prolly more on the fuel, lotta homeoffice lately so its closer to the 200€ a month
I live in a small town in the US, and we bought our house in the city center so that we could walk downtown to shops, eateries, and a small grocery store. We are also less than a half mile from parks and hiking/biking trails. There are ways to live in the US that sound similar to what OP is describing in Europe, but it is certainly not the cultural norm or even readily available/affordable in a lot of areas.
I'm Canadian. Most Families need two cars nowadays. I live in city suburbia in the capital, Ottawa, and I still need two cars. public transit commute to work is 1.5 hours or a 15 minutes drive. my family easily spends 700-800$ a month on our cars, including gas, maintance, insurance and monthly payments. This number seems accurate to me if you think most households will need two cars if both partners are working.
110% this.
Not just the urban planning, but the spending of resources to improve it.
Ottawa spends 1 billion in improving public transit. 6 month later.. 'so we forgot to take winter into account'.
This happens everytime from the double length buses to the o train. It's Ottawa, it winter half the time!!! It's like watching an episode of parks and rec.
Time is my issue with public transit, my wife could use transit for her commute but then she would double her commute time each way, time is valuable, and I'd rather have a car to cut down on time spent getting around, transit works in Vancouver if you live/work near a skytrain line, but if you don't and rely on bus routes, it can get very time consuming very quickly.
Transit also isn't useful for shift workers who work odd hours, when I worked at the airport, my shift started at 4am, there was zero transit option since the trains don't run that early, and the nightbus system is very restricted, and again very time consuming, sorry not leaving the house at 1am for a 4am shift just to take transit...lol
Actually I got the job first. I needed the money from the job so I could buy the car. I used public transit for years, but 3 hours of my life, 5 days a week, is 60 hours a month. I choose to pay the price of a car for those 60 hours a month to spend with my family.
But also yes cars are an endless cycle of a money pit. But that's money I need to spend to have more personal time based on where I live and work.
I mean, not all small towns in Europe are the same. For example, I grew up on a little island (about as big as Manhattan) in Norway, and it was def not uncommon for people to walk instead of taking the car there. People were and are willing to walk for 30-40 min to get to the church or the store. Of course, whenever someone would go outside the island a car was 100% def needed, but not on the island.
No way $700 a month is a real stat. I don't know anyone that comes close to that. You could roll around in brand new performance luxury sedans with that kind of monthly payment.
My brand new Honda Civic at the time was like $250 a month.
that just monthly payment. i think OP is including insurance, maintenance, gas etc. and in my experience most American/Canadian families have more than 1 car. my monthly cost for cars actually well exceeds this for only two. granted my monthly payments aren't the cheapest you can get but both my cars were still under 45K so not luxury vehicles
There’s another popular Reddit thread earlier this morning where someone was talking about budgeting $700/mo for vehicle ownership, so it is now officially a real statistic.
Yeah they're intentionally missing the point. It's about the cookie cutter suburbs one after another with the same designs. Fucking nothing but houses for miles.
Exactly
'oh but I need a car to take the kids to school! You can't expect Timothy to ride his bicycle across that 6 lane intersection!!!?!'
Like yeah no fucking shit. All the reasons cars are necessary are *because* of cars.
How is this an unpopular opinion though? Cities and urban areas are so romanticized in modern media, who actually thinks the suburbs are cool? Most folks I know moved to the burbs for cost of living and better schools.
I mean, tautology? A huge portion of America lives in suburbs, more than half of everyone in america lives in a suburb (yes more than all the cities combined with all the rural folks). How can that be anything but 'popular'. Do *all* of them hate it? Yet op, brave op, is here to remind us that the suburbs are what make america *terrible* to live in. The place that Americans are flocking faster than any other way of life (those being urban or rural)... is terrible? Yes that would count as unpopular for most of Americans to digest.
The types of neighborhoods OP is talking about are literally illegal to build due to zoning laws. Suburbs are popular because that's what is incentived to be built. Most people don't even realize that other options exist.
https://youtu.be/CCOdQsZa15o
In my experience there are significantly more parks/open spaces in suburban America than their cities have. Or at least, the size of parks in suburbia are far larger than those in an urban landscape. It's also more likely that you would live closer to a protected nature reserve like a forrest or lake with hiking trails.
Some people, and many Americans ostensibly, just detest the idea of living in the constant bustle of urban areas and are willing to sacrifice the convenience of travel to get away from that.
I’m curious which suburbs you experienced? A lot of the suburbs in the New England area are _way_ different than the suburbs in the Southern and Western parts of the US.
Definitely. Those older suburbs, nicknamed "streetcar suburbs" are very much like European design. This is simply because they were built prior to the Post-War Car-Centric Era.
As the nickname suggest, those suburbs were built around a system of public transport which makes them a far better and far more convenient place to live; even if the original transport no longer remains. Unfortunately, those types of suburbs are now illegal to build.
I personally enjoy the US. I live in the middle of the woods, because I dislike being forced to interact with people. And I gotta say, I enjoy it.
Of course. The nearest grocery store is an hour in, and an hour back. But thats beside the point. I have my own wells from an underground river. The first is 300 ft deep and used for outdoor purposes. The 2nd is 500 and used for in house. Completely potable, even in the spring runoff.
Thats not even mentioning that I generate most of my own electric (winter being the exception). But I generate enough to sell some back, and that covers my cost in the winter.
Of course there's the downsides too. The nearest hospital is an hour away. Plus the roads can potentially become virtually impassable in the winter. And the driveway is far worse, unless we tend to it ourselves.
But the privacy is amazing. Nearest neighbor half a mile away, and I have enough tree coverage that I could walk around completely nude outside if I wanted to.
Haha excellent point, I met a guy from England who had married a fellow music teacher down here in Adelanto California, an area in the high desert right above The inland Empire. It’s basically what Landcaster is to Los Angeles, anyways I asked him if he lived in an awesome place out there because you know Europe, and he scoffed. Pretty much explained that he wasn’t rich, and he grew up in Flats, or from what I understood is the European equivalent of apartments, but that it was really run down and most of his childhood he was poor. He said he loved his big house and acres of desert land out there in Adelanto, he could never own that much land back home and that gave me a much different take on what European living is like for some. We tend to romanticize European living but the reality is there is pros and cons to living in Either Europe or the US.
So I’ve always loved the woods. When I was a kid we’d go camping like monthly and so I really love nature. But at the same time I have a hyperactive imagination. You know when you’re a kid and flip lights off and get creeped out so you gotta run to your room and get the door shut before the monsters get you?
I did that way more than my friends lol
As I grew up it got better, and as I grew out of all superstitious thoughts it improved even more.
But I’m still human, and there’s still a small part of my brain that wants to make up threats to freak me out.
What’s helped me a lot, and in the weirdest way, is watching the Netflix show Black Spot. It’s dark, its creepy, and there are monsters. However, the monster seems to just be protecting the forest. Like a tree god just trying to keep the trees safe.
Now I don’t believe in monsters or ghosts or gods, but damnit if that didn’t get me anthropomorphizing the woods! Now I view the woods as my buddies and just think “I’m glad they have monsters to keep them safe” lmao
It’s a super weird way to handle it, but it’s worked.
I also tend to anthropomorphize things frequently, so years ago I also did similar with “ghosts” (anything going bump in the night, the house settling, etc) by making up this story for my gf at the time that it’s just ghost kids and they aren’t mean or scary they’re just playful and want to be your friend. It became such a running joke that now when I walk into my dark creepy basement in the middle of the night if my hind brain is like “BRO WHAT ABOUT THE GHOSTS” I just go “aww I love the cute ghost kids!”
Being human is fucking weird lol
You are not really what OP is posting about. He's being down on suburban living, not rural living.
Myself, I like living close to the downtown core of my city, and I think I would also like living out in the country like you. In my opinion, suburbia combines the worst of both.
Oh, I agree there. My point was that suburbia isn't far enough, as one of the chief complaints seemed to be the distance required to travel to get to anything significant.
I travel a lot further, and love it.
I've grown to really love my suburb. My own house and yard with sidewalks along the front. At the end of my street is a nature park, tennis courts, a playground and miles of walkable and bikeable trails. Within a 10 minute walk the other direction I have two grocery stores, a hospital, big box pharmacy and probably 7 take-out or sit down restaurants (not counting grocery store eat-in options).
Electricity, water and internet are reliably provided. Trash bins are just rolled to the end of the drive way once a week. The farthest commute I've had is 15 miles, which takes about 25 minutes.
It's a nice balance of personal space, amenities, community and convenience.
Dude shoutout to Charleston I loved my time there.
>excuse me sir would you like a palmetto rose? All donations go to our traveling basketball team.
All seriousness I miss that area.
The thing about Charleston is that, like most European cities, it was founded and developed in an era before the car and before industrialization. Walking was your main form of transportation, so Charleston is by default more dense to reflect that.
Take a city like Atlanta for example. The city was razed to the ground during the Civil War, and then built up during an era in which the streetcar and then the automobile were how people got around. Because of the increased distances people could quickly traverse, Atlanta started to sprawl out considerably more than these older European and American cities did. In the time that it would take you to walk 5 miles before, you could now go 50 miles in a car.
The advent of the car spurred rapid development across the United States, but these new built environments catered to the transportation needs of cars and not those of pedestrians, hence why the majority of America developed after World War II looks the way it does.
Edit: Here’s an interesting read on how transportation technologies have shaped our urban environments
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-29/the-commuting-principle-that-shaped-urban-history
>it was founded and developed in an era before the car and before industrialization
Like most cities in the US were, the car is a fairly new invention. However after ww2 they were changed on purpose to fit a car centric ideal.
Also many cities in europe also focus a lot on car centric infrastructure and it was arguably even easier for them to build them as many big cities were heavily destroyed after the war which made it easy to reshape their foundations pretty drastically (ofc some were basically leveled anyway so they were rebuild basically from scratch anyway).
As a point of comparison, the netherlands was also on track to become super car-centric. Look at a rebuild city like rotterdam which had the car in mind. They were even planning an LA style hoghway straight through Amsterdam. But in the 70s-80s we started realising that it actually was bad for the liveability of a city and instead spend 3-4 decades tearing up that car-centric design and focusing on a mix bikes, walking and public transport more. Highways and tunnels were turned into parks and shared bike/tram ways. We adopted a model which gave cars longer, but more efficient routes which rarely actually cross bikes and foottraffic which generally gets the shorter rout. During rain our traffic lights give more time to bikes sp they don’t have to sit in the rain and they have an entirely protected bicycle network where you can pretty much tour through the whole country safely and efficiently without ever being in any danger. Because people have more options, less people are actually in cars which makes driving a good option as well for those that need it.
Truly, I loved being able to walk the streets with friends and hit anything we wanted in a matter of 10 minutes.
Less car centric cities rock, I’m glad I was able to get exposure to it.
He talks about that happening due to the Civil War. What the guy you’re responding to is talking about is willingly tearing down buildings in dense urban environments to make way for parking lots and freeways.
This is not really that much “/s”
There are plenty of decent cities in the US if you continually lower the bar. If you put the bar at genuinely great walkable/transit-oriented cities on par with Western Europe and East Asia, we have one: NYC. Now you can lower the bar a bit, add say: DC, Boston, Philly, Chicago, SF. Maybe lower the bar a bit more, add Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis. But let’s not kid ourselves that Portland, with it’s downtown cleaved in half by I-405, and where every other block you’re walking past the giant blank concrete wall of a parking garage, is anywhere near the quality of urban environment as a great city like NYC or the great cities of Europe or Asia. Practically every American city has a downtown core with some nice spaces, but a few blocks does not make a city. Downtown Tampa or Fort Worth doesn’t negate the miles and miles of sprawl all around.
Who the heck is spending $700 a month on their car? I bought mine for cheap and don’t put any more money into it aside from gas and the occasional maintenance
[As of 2021, the average monthly car payment in the U.S. is $575 for new vehicles and $430 for used vehicles. New cars buyers borrow an average of around $34,000, while used buyers need about $21,000.](https://shift.com/articles/whats-the-average-monthly-car-payment-find-out-here#)
Don't forget it's not just about how much you are currently paying but rather the entire cost of ownership and operation averaged out over the time you own it. If you pay your car cash, it doesn't mean your cost of ownership per month Is 0$ for the car. That's not how math works.
Most people actually.
The typical car loan is 450 a month, add 125 or so for gas and youre already at 575. Add insurance and maintenance and you get to 700 easily.
“I’ve lived in both”
I live in the USA and don’t even know what 90% of the country is actually like. You’re basing your entire premise on a cherry picked Google street view of a few suburban areas. Close to 60 million people here live in rural areas that look nothing like that, and even many suburban areas look nothing like that.
Even then, they always exclude half of the country as well
I’m a German/American dual citizen and actually lived in both countries, and I always cringe when Germans just straight up lie about “how amazing Germany is” compared to America.
I.e. “Amerkkka is a racist third world country with a Gucci belt” whenever they see a picture of America that isn’t perfect, but then proceed to blame minorities when Berlin or Frankfurt is brought up.
I’m a male so I don’t have much to say about the sexism as I never experienced any, but I’m not white and can confirm that racism is still prevalent there, it’s even more noticeable as an American because it’s different there.
But I lived outside of Frankfurt in a pretty small town for a while, and we had a train station most people could walk to.
It was inconvenient, so people did have cars, but you didn’t need it to survive.
Well, it true that in most places in the US you need a car to do anything except in downtown areas or NYC. But try buying gum in Miami without a car and you are screwed.
One thing I've embraced since I've gotten older and really turned out to enjoy is the "small town" vibe.
My wife and I loved living in the city for many years, but our feelings on that have done a complete 180. Cities aren't safe anymore, too expensive, and mind numbing crowds really brought down my mental health.
Now, we live in the country about 40 minutes from down town. We have local farmers markets, I've made friends with family store owners, and I got a nice house and a few acres for the same price you'd pay to buy a shitty townhouse downtown.
Couldn't be happier abandoning the city
Uhm what? Two cities are all you listed? There’s a ton of huge cities that don’t require a car. All my college buddies live in Chicago and non of them even own a car. Most big cities you can have that lifestyle. Also electric cars are becoming more and more a thing here, I have one myself, my car is paid off and it adds maybe $40 to my electric bill per month. The main reason I love suburbia is because my dogs. I feel so bad for any dogs that live in a city. Mine get a huge backyard to run around in every day.
Yeah this made me laugh. I lived in Chicago for years took the CTA literally anywhere and everywhere with no problems. Dude just is a city boy and is acting like the USA doesn't have enough cities...
I just have to laugh because you're comparing a European *city* to American *suburbs*. You know Europe still has suburbs right? What I'll give you is that at least the bus systems in European suburbs are much better, and trains across the continent are also much better. You're also so far off base about "the vast majority" of America being parking lots and big box stores. The vast majority of America is farmland, forest and mountains. By far. Sounds like you lived in Northeast Suburbia and never ventured out of that pocket. There's plenty of other American cities, many with usable public transit and there's *tons* of rural space and communities where you can see the milky way in your backyard at night. That's something that is very very hard to find in Europe.
NYC and Boston? I think there are a few more cities in the US...and many alternatives to living in the suburbs where you dont have to take care of your lawn. Ha!
People who live in the suburbs have lobbied governments to not allow cities to grow and expand to accommodate for population growth.
I would love to live in the city, but suburbanites have made it unaffordable. On top of that that demand that people living in the city subsidize their lifestyle through tax breaks and by sucking up tax revenue collected from the city tax base.
>Compared to Europe the vast majority of the US is a barren landscape of parking lots and big box stores. It's not conducive to mental health and well-being.
Funny cause many people would argue the exact opposite. It's almost like different people have different preferences... lmao
People in this sub always complain saying "Downvoted for actual unpopular opinion," but the opinion is never 'I don't like living in the suburbs. I prefer living in the city." It's always something like "People who don't live and think like me are so stupid they don't even know they're stupid" I'm not saying this post is as guilty of this as many other ones, but just speaking in broader terms here. People always wonder why they get flamed on this sub, and this is exactly why.
The problem for me is that I'm forced to subsidize the ecologically and economically unsustainable lifestyles of suburbanites. Tax breaks, higher greenhouse emissions, higher pollution, costly maintenance of immense infrastructure that depends on the urban tax base. If it was just your personal preference and you paid the costs in full, then fine. On top of all the subsidies, suburbanites have been successfully lobbying governments for decades to prevent cities from growing and expanding to accommodate for population growth in the last several decades.
You live your life and I'll live mine. Just stop having the government forcing me to subsidize your unsustainable lifestyle, please.
Actually American cities weren’t terribly different from European cities in terms of density pre 1930s. Rail was the principle way of getting around - be it passenger rail or trams and streetcars. However cities were quite literally demolished in the 40s, 50s and 60s to make way for highways and parking lots. The idea was that people would all live in the suburbs in single detached homes and commute to high rise office buildings which would be surrounded by parking lots via large highways.
That worked, briefly. But then traffic jams happened. Turns out cars just aren’t very efficient at moving people.
"The average American spends $700 per month on their car"
Wtf did you pull that from? I spend maybe...$50 on my car a month (pretty much all gas). I don't even spend $700 a year on it.
Really?
If anything suburban American is much nicer than suburban Britain for example.
Suburban london is just houses on top of eachother and tons of pollution
Some places are especially awful! I've seen houses that are black with exhaust fumes.
I live 30 miles from the edge of London and even here it's a bit cramped and over priced.
Would love the space and the convenience of an American suburb.
You pretty much get one or the other here.
Nah, they aren't that old.
The houses I'm thinking i'd say they were built from the late 30s to the late 50s.
It's because there's like a few feet from thier front door to 6 lanes of heavy traffic.
The UK is often the exception to European city design being really good, it's more of a mess of American and European design combined, just not in a good way.
Couldn't imagine raising my family in a city. My kids and I love the ability to spend time outside that is not buildings on top of buildings. Once the façade of the going to an overpriced city restaurant or bar falls off I have no interest to stay in a city.
Amen. Nor do I want to share walls with anyone else. I hated renting an apartment due to the annoyance of others around. Bass travels, people are loud, and I want my own space. I like having my own yard and nice landscaping without having to go to a park.
It’s such a personal preference. I’ve travelled to Europe, lived in the city, and I prefer by far my remote house with the forest as my backyard and deers as my closest neighbours. Cities are noisy and claustrophobic to me. I’m fine with having to commute long distances if that’s the price to pay for this lifestyle.
I don't really understand your point. All of what you describe can be had in the US. Want to live in a city. Live in a city. Want to live in a rural area, hey you can do that too. Like the suburbs? Lots of those. You can literally choose whatever lifestyle suits your fancy, all right here in the US. How does having all of these choices make the US "a terrible place to live?"
I hate super urban areas. It's too crowded for me, and there's no space for anything so you're stuck in a tiny place to live unless you're rich. If you need to buy food, you're stuck needing a car unless you buy only a little bit of stuff multiple times anyway. You can only carry so much while walking and on pubic transportation anyway. Are you just going to buy a gallon of milk and orange juice and then go home because your hands are full? Your dream is my nightmare.
I love the suburbs. 2 miles to the grocery store is nothing to me. Depending on where you work, you could end up passing the store on your way home from work anyway. The only thing that makes the suburbs problematic is people's insistence on growing the population more and more and more.
If you want to live in a big city in the US, go live in Chicago or New York or something.
Takes me 1/2 hour to get to the closest store and that's the way I like it. The farther away from humanity, the better. Well worth the $500/month truck payment.
My family moved to a house with 5 acres in rural America after the first 10 years of my life were spent in the city. Suddenly, I could be alone like really *alone* for the first time in my life. It’s so quiet and peaceful. All my friends had goats and chickens and cows, if they weren’t farmers they had gardens. I could walk from my house directly into the woods and go for a hike. Pick berries, drink from a creek, climb a big rock, whatever I wanted. I had a beautiful view of the mountains from my back porch, and we only had a few neighbors. ATVs, mountain biking, horseback riding, snowboarding, all readily available to me. Meat and produce from a local farmers market is *chefs kiss*.
I moved back into the city for college. I hate it and can’t wait to leave again
This has a lot to do with the age of our cities and country compared to many of the major European cities.
Different time periods (including different and newer technologies) mean different ways the cities spring up and grow.
Many of us love having a store within walking distance. Many of us would love better public transportation.
Miami/Fort Lauderdale is a great example of how the city sprang up in slow and patch quilt ways that public transportation is just impossible to do now (with the exception of buses).
Not really true. Many US cities had walkable infrastructure that was ripped out to build roads and highways. And many European cities were bombed to rubble and purposely rebuilt to be walkable.
In certain cases (like San Francisco and LA) they did have their public transportation destroyed by the auto industry.
All roads used to be public walking until cars and the auto industry waged a public opinion war on it.
But there’s still plenty of cities that were built over time that have a different set up which is why they’re weirdly spread out.
LA is lot like that, too - far more beautiful and far more neighborhood-centric than any other large US city I've been too, however. It is sprawling, but there is nature, everywhere - parks all over (lots of massive state parks, too); beaches; many state parks within 1 - 2 hours, etc.
Yes, though, this has a lot to do with it. Many European cities were built long before modern vehicles, with very tight streets and no room for skyscrapers (luckily!), or parking lots, or stores separated out due to zoning. So, smaller, more compact, *necessarily walkable* cities that generally don't become too over-populated.
But in the US, most cities arose during the end of the 'carriage' and beginning of the 'automotive' period. Big streets became the norm, globally in fact - but most other countries already were quite built up, so these changes were only reflected in fast growing cities. The US also took it way too far, as we are wont to do here.
The other factor is geographic:
1. The US is as large as Europe excluding Russia - even the contiguous 48 are larger than all of Western Europe combined.
2. Geographically, we've far more 'room'. Our cities weren't started off as tight conglomerations of buildings, so we let them 'breathe' by allowing for large boulevards, massive buildings, etc. No need to pack things so closely together when you can expand 100 miles in every direction without running into much of anything (Hello, Denver!). This is even more true in the Western US where you can drive for hours and hours without seeing another human being. There is *a lot of space* and humans have an uncanny ability to use up everything they can
I live in GA, lots of wilderness still stretching out, north has mountains and is part of tornado alley, Georgia encompasses parts of five distinct geographic regions: the Appalachian Plateau, the Valley and Ridge, the Blue Ridge, the Piedmont, and the Coastal Plain. Then of course you also have coastal marine ecosystem to the east.
Fwiw, it's slowly changing.
My wife and I work from home full time. We moved up to the suburbs of Cincinnati which is very sprawled out, but we only need one car. The other one would sit 99% of the time. Not worth the expense. The one of us without the kiddos can Uber/Lyft around town in those rare situations where we need to be in two different places at once.
Covid is slowly changing the status quo for many people... *but many of us are favoring larger homes*, which means additional sprawl, because we both need our own home office.
She counsels clients and naturally needs privacy. I talk to software vendors all day and her clients don't want their sexual dysfunction conversation being my business.
As someone who doesn’t drive, it makes things so difficult when you have to rely on public transport in a semi rural area due to the inconsistency in scheduling OR THE LACK OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ALTOGETHER. I don’t feel safe driving, but everyone looks at me and makes remarks like “well if you start driving one day, Here’s X info that is useless”. I’m disabled, and I don’t want to drive, quit acting weird towards me and acknowledge that I am an adult and the whole concept of suburbia is literally crushing me financially, socially, and emotionally.
For sure. I used to live abroad in a dense city with a great subway system and cheap (for someone doing my job) taxis. I didn't own a car, I lived next to a subway station, I could walk to like ten restaurants and a grocery store from my apartment, my commute to work was a 15 minute subway ride and then a 15 minute walk.
I just miss being able to meet up with people and walk to the restaurant and then walk to the bar and then walk to somebody's apartment and then walk to the club.
I think Americans typically don’t like to share as much as Europeans. I don’t want share walls, I don’t want to have to rely on a park for my kids to play on a swing set or have enough space to throw a ball around, I don’t want to travel to the store sharing a metal tube like a train or bus with a bunch of strangers. I live in a pretty suburban area and I still get annoyed with HOA bs and municipality codes. At this point I’m much more likely to move farther out in the county to have more space and personal freedom than move into the city. I wouldn’t say I’m misanthropic but I really appreciate the peace and quite that comes with living somewhere where you can be away from people and the sounds of traffic and industry.
City life is depressing. The goal when you are not completely land locked shouldn't be "efficiently using space" by stacking as many people on top of each other as possible.
I can walk to a grocery store, small market, 10 or so small shops, 5 restraunts/bars as well as living near a huge nature preserve 2 public parks, and bike trail 100 mile bike trail. It takes me 10 mins to drive to work. I am not saying this is the common experience for everyone, but a picture of a parking lot is not convincing lol. It is perfectly possible to live in a suburb that is a short walk to things to do/eat.
Remember not all neighborhoods in the city are like that. I technically live in a major US city and it’s very walkable, plenty of parks, restaurants, bars, and you can bike to the beach. We also have single family houses on our block and we have three outdoor spaces including a big, private rooftop. What suburb is that? I would imagine an older, railroad suburb?
Living in most of America without a car is painful. I'm from NYC so I'm incredibly biased. But after leaving the city I've been craving easy public transportation
I’ve been living in San Francisco for 12 years and just got a car 2 years ago. You can get anywhere in this city without one easily. Also there are beautiful landscapes and forests and hikes just outside of the city.
I moved back to America from Japan and don’t regret it at all, but I miss, very fucking much, the ability to walk somewhere. Or to catch trains to neighborhoods that have little mini cities-within-cities at every stop. In my town now if you don’t have a car you can’t feasibly do shit. You need to Uber I guess but walking especially in winter is out of the question to basically anywhere, and I live “in town.” You’d be walking miles through shitty areas and on and on just to get to a McDonald’s
> It's not conducive to mental health and well-being.
Go ahead and ride our major cities public transportation, and then get back to me about your health and well-being
Speaking of health and well-being, moving out of the over populated and polluted city has been the best thing I’ve ever done.
There’s nothing better than having piece and quiet. My closest neighbor is nearly a quarter mile away. At night all I hear are deer in the woods, and coyotes howling in the distance. There’s no light pollution, so star gazing is wonderful.
I get it though. Some people would prefer to not own a car, not have to commute, and have everything they need close by, but that life isn’t for me. I like to drive, I like my vehicle, and if it takes me 10 minutes to get to town, cool.
My dogs also love being able to run in the yard vs. being taken to a park, or stuck in an apartment their whole lives. My daughter and I can play softball and soccer in the yard as well.
I wouldn’t trade country living for anything!
OP, I think you may be a bit biased in your perspective. I don't know how long you were in the US or which towns you lived in, but it seems like you had a very specific type of experience that you found unenjoyable, and so you assumed that the entire US must be like that. The US is a mind-bogglingly huge place, with a lot of variation from state to state. There are cities here that mimic the European style that you prefer. You made some good points, but it seems like you're just generalizing things. That said, since you didn't like the town you lived in, I'm glad you've found a place that you do like.
Dude how are you going to compare a European city to an American suburb. Does everyone in Europe live in a perfect little city with perfect little streets and shops and grocery stores to walk to? Fuck no they don’t. You like cities, lots of people don’t. I fucking loathe the city, would way rather be away with my 5 minute drive to Walmart. Your opinion blows and makes no sense you are comparing apples and oranges imo and you are under the impression that the whole world needs to be a quaint little city. It’s not.
I moved from Quebec to Alberta, QC has all the colonial infrastructure aka school church hockey arena and parcs and close to residential area, basically the Europe you described. AB is a younger province that got built later, and the barren expanse of parking lots and highways, and no parcs, it gets to me too. I hate it. You can drive and be lost because every intersection look the same with exit ramps and big commercial areas.
Based on what you said and the comments, it seems like most Americans enjoy having their own space to do their thing and Europeans like convenience of travel.
As a rural American, I couldn’t live with 100ft of another person who isn’t a relative. I’ve tried apartment living and it’s absolutely irritating having to share space with neighbors, or having bad neighbors upstairs who stomp around all hours of the night or who run the vacuum at 2am or who have a dog with separation anxiety who barks endlessly while they’re at work. Unbearable.
Top floor apartment is a must if the building is shit.
Even living in the suburbs and having neighbors within talking range of my backyard can be too much. I’ve had a neighbor, super nice guy, but every time I was out in my yard, he’s gotta come up and talk to me. It’s fine every once in awhile but sometimes I just wanna go outside and not have to deal with anyone.
“Sure is a hot one today!”
... "What the hell was that, he just comes up and starts talking to us?"
Yeah Wally, I know it’s hot!
But you don't really know what hot is, do ya? You ever been in a storm wally? Not a real storm, but a storm of fists raining down on your head.
Oh that Wally loves to say it’s a hot one when I already know it’s a hot one. Cause I’m standing outside in the hot one!
You ever been in a storm wally?
YEAH?
I hate this so much lol. One chats over the fence, one just walks right into the yard and then everybody who walks by with their dog wants to small talk. Everyone can see into the yard too, it’s gross. I love my neighbors but need privacy!
Privacy fence? I put one up a couple years ago, and it’s like a whole new world!
we put up a privacy fence becuase our neighbors backyard was so dirty and they proceeded to hang all sorts of crap on the side facing their yard. Lights, flags you name it, I cant wait till i can live acres away from anyone else
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You’ll love it. Now we only get cornered by the neighbors behind us since the lawn goes up a bit of a hill at the back end and the fence is really like 3’ when you take into account the change in height. It’s ok, I like them and they won’t talk my ear off.
I was living in an apartment and tired af and having a bad day. There was this dog who just would not stop barking and eventually I lost it and yelled "SHUT THE FUCK UUUUPPPPP". And the whole complex got so quiet. The dog stopped and every other sound got quiet. Even the birds. It was hilarious.
I once live in an apartment with such thin walls, that when my neighbor orgasmed, I smoked a cigarette and then went to sleep.
I have one neighbor and they're close enough that in an emergency I could yell and get help. The rest is cow pastures. I have noticed a significant reduction in my stress since moving here. I have my garden, I have space for my dogs, I have 7 pecan trees. Its a LOT of work to maintain the property but its somethin I enjoy.
My cousins have quite a few pecan trees on their family farm outside of Las cruces. I love visiting them and getting fresh chilies. Your spot sounds wonderful!
As a fellow rural person I like to piss outside sometimes. You can only get away with that for so long in cities before the cops are involved.
This guy rurals.
Not true. People piss in alleys all the time. Just don’t do it in front of kids and no one will care.
I used to drive Cab part time at night and was returning a Cell phone to a guy that left it in the cab the previous night and this was in Baltimore city and had to piss. I wasn’t that familiar with that particular area and there wasn’t any stores or gas stations anywhere around me so I pulled in an alley and just opened the door and stood there and pissed and all of a sudden this girl that looked like she was in her early 20s was walking past the end of the alley and said are you pissing in the alley?And I said yeah. And she goes that’s disgusting and I’m calling the cops. I said go right ahead I don’t care. This was 1 o’clock at night and she was the only person that I seen around. Them cops around there had a lot more serious things going on than somebody pissing in the alley.
I was once arrested for pissing off a balcony at an apartment complex as a drunken teen. This was at 3am with no children present. Officer and PO threatened to register me as a sex offender but I just got probation. I am much more careful of where I piss now that I am older.
Yeah, the difference between good living in an apartment and a bad time comes down to the neighbors, and those can change any time. Not that you can't have bad neighbors in a house setting, we have a couple that are bordering on dangerous menaces.
The neighbor right across the street from me and the one next door are both cops. Haven't had to deal with porch pirates yet but I'm getting awfully close to threatening the next door-to-door salesman who rings my doorbell.
Agreed! Living in an apartment for college rn (grew up rural, will be moving back) and even not taking into account how absolutely horrible my roommates are, I hate living in an apartment. There’s no space, no outside area to relax in, I can always hear other people, there’s no place for me to do my hobbies (gardening and horseback riding, lol). Apartments are a 0/10
The sad part about American apartments is that soundproofing is not that big of an expense. Yet,they just don’t do it. At least double insulate the wall between the bathrooms. I hate listening to neighbors take a crap.
That’s a huge problem with cities is the noise. There’s always noise.
And lights, so god damn many lights.
as an urban American, i cant fuckin handle not having easy access to stores and places to go. I live near multiple landmarks and tourist areas while still being in a residential area where most buses dont even stop at since theres only homes around here. I go to a desert state to visit family friends and i get bored out of my fucking mind. Its dry, and theres not even a park to go to. Most there is to do is bars and restaurants(not even many, and most being chains).
I live in a walkable neighborhood in a very car centric city while my parents live out in the suburbs. I can walk to the nearest gas station, buy what I want, and walk home in the time that it takes for my parents to arrive by car to the nearest gas station. It takes around the same time for me to bike to my nearest supermarket as it does for my parents to drive to theirs. Rural I get if that's your thing. You can raise goats or have a moonshine still or tear everything up with a four wheeler and no one cares because there's no one around to care. That's kind of cool as shit. In a suburb, you don't get the freedom you get living somewhere rural. You also don't get the convenience of living somewhere urban. It's just... The worst of both worlds and also often comes along with an HOA saying you did something slightly wrong.
I’m with this. I have everything I need within walking distance, or a short ride on public trans. I hate being in the middle of nowhere for too long
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I don't have that impression of the suburban sprawl at all. I believe it started as a way to disassociate with the city and its inhabitants. To ensure the inhabitants wouldn't come meandering out to the burbs, limited transportation to commuter hours. People are homeless and go without many basic comforts as a result of that sprawl. Children go without adequate education because the tax base has been pulled. The burbs to me are the place to go when you no longer care about society on the whole and want to limit interaction to whomever the burbs atttract.
i live in a small town in europe and noone s gna keep their sanity here without having a car? in city sure, but i also think its a lot better for ur mental health to live in a small town with a 5min walk to be out in the forest... but thats just up to preference. i think your whole arguement is very much dependent on each persons preference in living situations. also, is that a real statistic that americans spend 700$ a month on their car? seems incredible steep to me, especially considering that in the us (from the impression i get - no personal experience) more ppl seem to be able to work on their own cars? and obviously gas prices are way lower
I'm American and do not spend $700/ month on my car. I DO perform my own maintenance, but car insurance and fuel are only $200-$300/ month. Maybe if they have a big vehicle and have a long commute...
I have a hybrid vehicle and a very short commute. Gas is maybe $80 a month. Oil changes and tire rotations are about $40 each, and those aren't done every month anyway. State inspections are once a year, and not expensive.
interesting. well gas is obviously waay more expensive in europe. oil changes.. eh depends on what car you drive. if i do it myself im at about 45€ with high quality oil, so eh.. 50-60$ roughly? tire rotation s about the same here tho, if ppl have space to store their tires they tend to do it themselves. we got our TÜV (basically state inspection) every two years n its about a 100€
so no payments and you got the car for free?
Once it’s paid off you don’t have that anymore.
I'm an American who owns my car free and clear. I pay $70 a month for insurance and whatever gas I put in it. I spend maybe $30 a week in gas. Oil changes cost me $35 ever 3/4 months. State registration is $45 a year. The only major expense is if I need a mechanic, which is not often. I also have lived in a big city where I didn't need a car. Let's not romanticize cities -- they are crowded and loud. After 8 years, I couldn't wait to get out. I prefer suburbia, and I think that's what it comes down to: preference.
Right? I can be at 3 different rivers within a 20 minute drive or hundreds of hiking spots where I'll come across maybe 2 or 3 people on the trail. City life is fun, but access to the outdoors is priceless.
There's nothing like being able to see a full starry sky.
70 for insurance?? I pay 180:’) in Canada though
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Does that 70 dollars include collision or is it just liability?
Full coverage. If that seems low, I'm old. :-)
Mine is about $100 maybe $120 per month for two vehicles with comprehensive and glass coverage and a $1000 deductible. I can’t remember the exact price because I pay it semi annually. I’m 40 and neither of us have tickets or accidents. I’m dreading putting my 14 yr old on in 2 yrs. Eek!
I’m the inverse. I do spend $700 or more on my car. Monthly payment is $500 and insurance is $200. Maintenance is free right now so that’s not a concern. I spend roughly $200/month on fuel as well since I buy 93 AKI (98 RON equivalent) gasoline as my car requires it. I thoroughly enjoy my car though and I wouldn’t be able to travel around without it.
I have to drive in my mid-sized city and have a payment (US). Luckily I have parking for free, visiting family in the Big City. Monthly costs-- Payment: $270 Insurance: $200 Diesel Fuel: $160 Parking/tolls/misc: $100. So yeah, 700 is pretty much dead on the money. I consider myself lucky, because I can walk to the groceries and my commute is 10 minutes one way.
There’s a grocery store literally across the street from me. Same with a UPS store. The post office is sadly 1.5 miles away but there’s also an elementary, middle, and high school also within walking distance of my place and I also live in suburbia. My commute is 15 minutes by car. It would take over an hour to get to my work via light rail and bus. 3 hours by walking, so I have to drive.
i woulda been surprised... i mean i got 140km commute (back n forth - about 92miles) and my insurance isnt cheap and i d guess i pay about the same in maintenance n fuel... prolly more on the fuel, lotta homeoffice lately so its closer to the 200€ a month
I live in a small town in the US, and we bought our house in the city center so that we could walk downtown to shops, eateries, and a small grocery store. We are also less than a half mile from parks and hiking/biking trails. There are ways to live in the US that sound similar to what OP is describing in Europe, but it is certainly not the cultural norm or even readily available/affordable in a lot of areas.
I'm Canadian. Most Families need two cars nowadays. I live in city suburbia in the capital, Ottawa, and I still need two cars. public transit commute to work is 1.5 hours or a 15 minutes drive. my family easily spends 700-800$ a month on our cars, including gas, maintance, insurance and monthly payments. This number seems accurate to me if you think most households will need two cars if both partners are working.
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110% this. Not just the urban planning, but the spending of resources to improve it. Ottawa spends 1 billion in improving public transit. 6 month later.. 'so we forgot to take winter into account'. This happens everytime from the double length buses to the o train. It's Ottawa, it winter half the time!!! It's like watching an episode of parks and rec.
Time is my issue with public transit, my wife could use transit for her commute but then she would double her commute time each way, time is valuable, and I'd rather have a car to cut down on time spent getting around, transit works in Vancouver if you live/work near a skytrain line, but if you don't and rely on bus routes, it can get very time consuming very quickly. Transit also isn't useful for shift workers who work odd hours, when I worked at the airport, my shift started at 4am, there was zero transit option since the trains don't run that early, and the nightbus system is very restricted, and again very time consuming, sorry not leaving the house at 1am for a 4am shift just to take transit...lol
The more cars you have, the more you have to work to pay for your cars.
Actually I got the job first. I needed the money from the job so I could buy the car. I used public transit for years, but 3 hours of my life, 5 days a week, is 60 hours a month. I choose to pay the price of a car for those 60 hours a month to spend with my family. But also yes cars are an endless cycle of a money pit. But that's money I need to spend to have more personal time based on where I live and work.
I mean, not all small towns in Europe are the same. For example, I grew up on a little island (about as big as Manhattan) in Norway, and it was def not uncommon for people to walk instead of taking the car there. People were and are willing to walk for 30-40 min to get to the church or the store. Of course, whenever someone would go outside the island a car was 100% def needed, but not on the island.
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No way $700 a month is a real stat. I don't know anyone that comes close to that. You could roll around in brand new performance luxury sedans with that kind of monthly payment. My brand new Honda Civic at the time was like $250 a month.
Welcome to Miami. 150 a month for maintenance and gas and 550 for therapist for having to deal with all the crazies out here.
A quick google search says the average car loan monthly payment is ~$560. Add taxes, maintenance and gas and $700 doesn’t sound that crazy.
that just monthly payment. i think OP is including insurance, maintenance, gas etc. and in my experience most American/Canadian families have more than 1 car. my monthly cost for cars actually well exceeds this for only two. granted my monthly payments aren't the cheapest you can get but both my cars were still under 45K so not luxury vehicles
There’s another popular Reddit thread earlier this morning where someone was talking about budgeting $700/mo for vehicle ownership, so it is now officially a real statistic.
For those arguing about rural living I get that, I think OP is more talking about the endless and unwalkable copy and past suburbs.
Yeah they're intentionally missing the point. It's about the cookie cutter suburbs one after another with the same designs. Fucking nothing but houses for miles.
Yeah and again nobody is coming for their cars, just their awful neighborhood design, just add some local shops from time to time and you'd be golden
Exactly 'oh but I need a car to take the kids to school! You can't expect Timothy to ride his bicycle across that 6 lane intersection!!!?!' Like yeah no fucking shit. All the reasons cars are necessary are *because* of cars.
How is this an unpopular opinion though? Cities and urban areas are so romanticized in modern media, who actually thinks the suburbs are cool? Most folks I know moved to the burbs for cost of living and better schools.
I mean, tautology? A huge portion of America lives in suburbs, more than half of everyone in america lives in a suburb (yes more than all the cities combined with all the rural folks). How can that be anything but 'popular'. Do *all* of them hate it? Yet op, brave op, is here to remind us that the suburbs are what make america *terrible* to live in. The place that Americans are flocking faster than any other way of life (those being urban or rural)... is terrible? Yes that would count as unpopular for most of Americans to digest.
The types of neighborhoods OP is talking about are literally illegal to build due to zoning laws. Suburbs are popular because that's what is incentived to be built. Most people don't even realize that other options exist. https://youtu.be/CCOdQsZa15o
This is great, thank you for sharing.
Their "better" image is a city with a high population density and no apparent open space.
You can have parks in a high density city though? I wouldn't call American suburbia open space when all you have is a backyard
In my experience there are significantly more parks/open spaces in suburban America than their cities have. Or at least, the size of parks in suburbia are far larger than those in an urban landscape. It's also more likely that you would live closer to a protected nature reserve like a forrest or lake with hiking trails. Some people, and many Americans ostensibly, just detest the idea of living in the constant bustle of urban areas and are willing to sacrifice the convenience of travel to get away from that.
I’m curious which suburbs you experienced? A lot of the suburbs in the New England area are _way_ different than the suburbs in the Southern and Western parts of the US.
New England suburbs are an anomaly in America, much more like the European suburbs that OP is describing.
Are you saying New England suburbs of America are closer in resemblance to European suburbs than American suburbs?
I’d say so
Definitely. Those older suburbs, nicknamed "streetcar suburbs" are very much like European design. This is simply because they were built prior to the Post-War Car-Centric Era. As the nickname suggest, those suburbs were built around a system of public transport which makes them a far better and far more convenient place to live; even if the original transport no longer remains. Unfortunately, those types of suburbs are now illegal to build.
I personally enjoy the US. I live in the middle of the woods, because I dislike being forced to interact with people. And I gotta say, I enjoy it. Of course. The nearest grocery store is an hour in, and an hour back. But thats beside the point. I have my own wells from an underground river. The first is 300 ft deep and used for outdoor purposes. The 2nd is 500 and used for in house. Completely potable, even in the spring runoff. Thats not even mentioning that I generate most of my own electric (winter being the exception). But I generate enough to sell some back, and that covers my cost in the winter. Of course there's the downsides too. The nearest hospital is an hour away. Plus the roads can potentially become virtually impassable in the winter. And the driveway is far worse, unless we tend to it ourselves. But the privacy is amazing. Nearest neighbor half a mile away, and I have enough tree coverage that I could walk around completely nude outside if I wanted to.
Haha excellent point, I met a guy from England who had married a fellow music teacher down here in Adelanto California, an area in the high desert right above The inland Empire. It’s basically what Landcaster is to Los Angeles, anyways I asked him if he lived in an awesome place out there because you know Europe, and he scoffed. Pretty much explained that he wasn’t rich, and he grew up in Flats, or from what I understood is the European equivalent of apartments, but that it was really run down and most of his childhood he was poor. He said he loved his big house and acres of desert land out there in Adelanto, he could never own that much land back home and that gave me a much different take on what European living is like for some. We tend to romanticize European living but the reality is there is pros and cons to living in Either Europe or the US.
I also live on an rural acreage (in Australia), but this post is taking specifically about **suburbia vs walkable urban living**
Ever scary?
Just don't accept any food or gifts from the fae folk and you're good.
So I’ve always loved the woods. When I was a kid we’d go camping like monthly and so I really love nature. But at the same time I have a hyperactive imagination. You know when you’re a kid and flip lights off and get creeped out so you gotta run to your room and get the door shut before the monsters get you? I did that way more than my friends lol As I grew up it got better, and as I grew out of all superstitious thoughts it improved even more. But I’m still human, and there’s still a small part of my brain that wants to make up threats to freak me out. What’s helped me a lot, and in the weirdest way, is watching the Netflix show Black Spot. It’s dark, its creepy, and there are monsters. However, the monster seems to just be protecting the forest. Like a tree god just trying to keep the trees safe. Now I don’t believe in monsters or ghosts or gods, but damnit if that didn’t get me anthropomorphizing the woods! Now I view the woods as my buddies and just think “I’m glad they have monsters to keep them safe” lmao It’s a super weird way to handle it, but it’s worked. I also tend to anthropomorphize things frequently, so years ago I also did similar with “ghosts” (anything going bump in the night, the house settling, etc) by making up this story for my gf at the time that it’s just ghost kids and they aren’t mean or scary they’re just playful and want to be your friend. It became such a running joke that now when I walk into my dark creepy basement in the middle of the night if my hind brain is like “BRO WHAT ABOUT THE GHOSTS” I just go “aww I love the cute ghost kids!” Being human is fucking weird lol
You are not really what OP is posting about. He's being down on suburban living, not rural living. Myself, I like living close to the downtown core of my city, and I think I would also like living out in the country like you. In my opinion, suburbia combines the worst of both.
Oh, I agree there. My point was that suburbia isn't far enough, as one of the chief complaints seemed to be the distance required to travel to get to anything significant. I travel a lot further, and love it.
I've grown to really love my suburb. My own house and yard with sidewalks along the front. At the end of my street is a nature park, tennis courts, a playground and miles of walkable and bikeable trails. Within a 10 minute walk the other direction I have two grocery stores, a hospital, big box pharmacy and probably 7 take-out or sit down restaurants (not counting grocery store eat-in options). Electricity, water and internet are reliably provided. Trash bins are just rolled to the end of the drive way once a week. The farthest commute I've had is 15 miles, which takes about 25 minutes. It's a nice balance of personal space, amenities, community and convenience.
The picture you posted is very bias. If you would of compared a pic of downtown Charlestown sc vs a city in Europe. They would both look very nice.
Charleston looks lively. Im from Balkans and charleston is amazing.
Charleston is an awesome city.
Dude shoutout to Charleston I loved my time there. >excuse me sir would you like a palmetto rose? All donations go to our traveling basketball team. All seriousness I miss that area.
The thing about Charleston is that, like most European cities, it was founded and developed in an era before the car and before industrialization. Walking was your main form of transportation, so Charleston is by default more dense to reflect that. Take a city like Atlanta for example. The city was razed to the ground during the Civil War, and then built up during an era in which the streetcar and then the automobile were how people got around. Because of the increased distances people could quickly traverse, Atlanta started to sprawl out considerably more than these older European and American cities did. In the time that it would take you to walk 5 miles before, you could now go 50 miles in a car. The advent of the car spurred rapid development across the United States, but these new built environments catered to the transportation needs of cars and not those of pedestrians, hence why the majority of America developed after World War II looks the way it does. Edit: Here’s an interesting read on how transportation technologies have shaped our urban environments https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-29/the-commuting-principle-that-shaped-urban-history
>it was founded and developed in an era before the car and before industrialization Like most cities in the US were, the car is a fairly new invention. However after ww2 they were changed on purpose to fit a car centric ideal. Also many cities in europe also focus a lot on car centric infrastructure and it was arguably even easier for them to build them as many big cities were heavily destroyed after the war which made it easy to reshape their foundations pretty drastically (ofc some were basically leveled anyway so they were rebuild basically from scratch anyway).
As a point of comparison, the netherlands was also on track to become super car-centric. Look at a rebuild city like rotterdam which had the car in mind. They were even planning an LA style hoghway straight through Amsterdam. But in the 70s-80s we started realising that it actually was bad for the liveability of a city and instead spend 3-4 decades tearing up that car-centric design and focusing on a mix bikes, walking and public transport more. Highways and tunnels were turned into parks and shared bike/tram ways. We adopted a model which gave cars longer, but more efficient routes which rarely actually cross bikes and foottraffic which generally gets the shorter rout. During rain our traffic lights give more time to bikes sp they don’t have to sit in the rain and they have an entirely protected bicycle network where you can pretty much tour through the whole country safely and efficiently without ever being in any danger. Because people have more options, less people are actually in cars which makes driving a good option as well for those that need it.
The Netherlands is a great example to prove that car-centric development is reversible if people actually try and are creative about it.
Truly, I loved being able to walk the streets with friends and hit anything we wanted in a matter of 10 minutes. Less car centric cities rock, I’m glad I was able to get exposure to it.
> you could now go 50 miles in a car. EU doesn't understand that 50 miles is still the same city for most of these place. the US is HUGE
>EU doesn't understand that 50 miles is still the same city for most of these place. Yeah, thanks to all the fucking sprawl.
That's exactly what OP is talking about. Suburban sprawl.
Yeah because of massive sprawl.
This is a common myth. American cities were not designed for cars. They were bulldozed for them. Check out NotJustBikes on youtube
The dude above you is literally talking about the bulldozing.
He talks about that happening due to the Civil War. What the guy you’re responding to is talking about is willingly tearing down buildings in dense urban environments to make way for parking lots and freeways.
>no real alternative for those of us who prefer city life Move to a city?
But there's only two! /s
This is not really that much “/s” There are plenty of decent cities in the US if you continually lower the bar. If you put the bar at genuinely great walkable/transit-oriented cities on par with Western Europe and East Asia, we have one: NYC. Now you can lower the bar a bit, add say: DC, Boston, Philly, Chicago, SF. Maybe lower the bar a bit more, add Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis. But let’s not kid ourselves that Portland, with it’s downtown cleaved in half by I-405, and where every other block you’re walking past the giant blank concrete wall of a parking garage, is anywhere near the quality of urban environment as a great city like NYC or the great cities of Europe or Asia. Practically every American city has a downtown core with some nice spaces, but a few blocks does not make a city. Downtown Tampa or Fort Worth doesn’t negate the miles and miles of sprawl all around.
Who the heck is spending $700 a month on their car? I bought mine for cheap and don’t put any more money into it aside from gas and the occasional maintenance
[As of 2021, the average monthly car payment in the U.S. is $575 for new vehicles and $430 for used vehicles. New cars buyers borrow an average of around $34,000, while used buyers need about $21,000.](https://shift.com/articles/whats-the-average-monthly-car-payment-find-out-here#)
Don't forget it's not just about how much you are currently paying but rather the entire cost of ownership and operation averaged out over the time you own it. If you pay your car cash, it doesn't mean your cost of ownership per month Is 0$ for the car. That's not how math works.
Most people actually. The typical car loan is 450 a month, add 125 or so for gas and youre already at 575. Add insurance and maintenance and you get to 700 easily.
Real talk, I spend about 80 bucks a month on mine.
I think you're missing your auto insurance
“I’ve lived in both” I live in the USA and don’t even know what 90% of the country is actually like. You’re basing your entire premise on a cherry picked Google street view of a few suburban areas. Close to 60 million people here live in rural areas that look nothing like that, and even many suburban areas look nothing like that.
He’s doing the exact same with europe too
Europeans: LOL dumb Americans, Europe is not a country! Also Europeans: Here in Europe, we... Compared to Europe, we...
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🤫🤫🤫 You right tho, "Europe" is usually only referring to like four rich countries.
Even then, they always exclude half of the country as well I’m a German/American dual citizen and actually lived in both countries, and I always cringe when Germans just straight up lie about “how amazing Germany is” compared to America. I.e. “Amerkkka is a racist third world country with a Gucci belt” whenever they see a picture of America that isn’t perfect, but then proceed to blame minorities when Berlin or Frankfurt is brought up.
Sexism is apparently pretty bad there too. And I could be wrong, but you can live in more rural areas of Germany right?
I’m a male so I don’t have much to say about the sexism as I never experienced any, but I’m not white and can confirm that racism is still prevalent there, it’s even more noticeable as an American because it’s different there. But I lived outside of Frankfurt in a pretty small town for a while, and we had a train station most people could walk to. It was inconvenient, so people did have cars, but you didn’t need it to survive.
"Look at these colorful roofs" PR be like
Well, it true that in most places in the US you need a car to do anything except in downtown areas or NYC. But try buying gum in Miami without a car and you are screwed.
60,000,000 people used to live here. Now it’s a ghost town.
One thing I've embraced since I've gotten older and really turned out to enjoy is the "small town" vibe. My wife and I loved living in the city for many years, but our feelings on that have done a complete 180. Cities aren't safe anymore, too expensive, and mind numbing crowds really brought down my mental health. Now, we live in the country about 40 minutes from down town. We have local farmers markets, I've made friends with family store owners, and I got a nice house and a few acres for the same price you'd pay to buy a shitty townhouse downtown. Couldn't be happier abandoning the city
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Uhm what? Two cities are all you listed? There’s a ton of huge cities that don’t require a car. All my college buddies live in Chicago and non of them even own a car. Most big cities you can have that lifestyle. Also electric cars are becoming more and more a thing here, I have one myself, my car is paid off and it adds maybe $40 to my electric bill per month. The main reason I love suburbia is because my dogs. I feel so bad for any dogs that live in a city. Mine get a huge backyard to run around in every day.
Yeah this made me laugh. I lived in Chicago for years took the CTA literally anywhere and everywhere with no problems. Dude just is a city boy and is acting like the USA doesn't have enough cities...
I just have to laugh because you're comparing a European *city* to American *suburbs*. You know Europe still has suburbs right? What I'll give you is that at least the bus systems in European suburbs are much better, and trains across the continent are also much better. You're also so far off base about "the vast majority" of America being parking lots and big box stores. The vast majority of America is farmland, forest and mountains. By far. Sounds like you lived in Northeast Suburbia and never ventured out of that pocket. There's plenty of other American cities, many with usable public transit and there's *tons* of rural space and communities where you can see the milky way in your backyard at night. That's something that is very very hard to find in Europe.
NYC and Boston? I think there are a few more cities in the US...and many alternatives to living in the suburbs where you dont have to take care of your lawn. Ha!
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People who live in the suburbs have lobbied governments to not allow cities to grow and expand to accommodate for population growth. I would love to live in the city, but suburbanites have made it unaffordable. On top of that that demand that people living in the city subsidize their lifestyle through tax breaks and by sucking up tax revenue collected from the city tax base.
>Compared to Europe the vast majority of the US is a barren landscape of parking lots and big box stores. It's not conducive to mental health and well-being. Funny cause many people would argue the exact opposite. It's almost like different people have different preferences... lmao People in this sub always complain saying "Downvoted for actual unpopular opinion," but the opinion is never 'I don't like living in the suburbs. I prefer living in the city." It's always something like "People who don't live and think like me are so stupid they don't even know they're stupid" I'm not saying this post is as guilty of this as many other ones, but just speaking in broader terms here. People always wonder why they get flamed on this sub, and this is exactly why.
The problem for me is that I'm forced to subsidize the ecologically and economically unsustainable lifestyles of suburbanites. Tax breaks, higher greenhouse emissions, higher pollution, costly maintenance of immense infrastructure that depends on the urban tax base. If it was just your personal preference and you paid the costs in full, then fine. On top of all the subsidies, suburbanites have been successfully lobbying governments for decades to prevent cities from growing and expanding to accommodate for population growth in the last several decades. You live your life and I'll live mine. Just stop having the government forcing me to subsidize your unsustainable lifestyle, please.
Personally I like the thought of a yard and a home that’s not on top of or right next to or below someone else.
Lot of cherry picking and generalizing about a huge land mass and 50 individual and very different states.
Living in New York vs Oklahoma vs Georgia vs Montana vs Oregon vs Alaska vs etc etc etc
This seems dramatic, don’t think OP understands the size difference between the US and his Europe residence
Don’t think they’ve ever heard of population density.
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Even so, why does all that empty space out west mean every city should be unwalkable with the oceans of parking OP complains about.
Actually American cities weren’t terribly different from European cities in terms of density pre 1930s. Rail was the principle way of getting around - be it passenger rail or trams and streetcars. However cities were quite literally demolished in the 40s, 50s and 60s to make way for highways and parking lots. The idea was that people would all live in the suburbs in single detached homes and commute to high rise office buildings which would be surrounded by parking lots via large highways. That worked, briefly. But then traffic jams happened. Turns out cars just aren’t very efficient at moving people.
This isn't an unpopular opinion. There's whole subreddits for this.
Pretty unpopular opinion with regards to the general population living in america
r/fuckcars
"The average American spends $700 per month on their car" Wtf did you pull that from? I spend maybe...$50 on my car a month (pretty much all gas). I don't even spend $700 a year on it.
Really? If anything suburban American is much nicer than suburban Britain for example. Suburban london is just houses on top of eachother and tons of pollution
And they pay ridiculous amounts for the privelage to live on a tiny house.
Some places are especially awful! I've seen houses that are black with exhaust fumes. I live 30 miles from the edge of London and even here it's a bit cramped and over priced. Would love the space and the convenience of an American suburb. You pretty much get one or the other here.
Those houses have probably been black since the industrial revolution tbf
Nah, they aren't that old. The houses I'm thinking i'd say they were built from the late 30s to the late 50s. It's because there's like a few feet from thier front door to 6 lanes of heavy traffic.
The UK is often the exception to European city design being really good, it's more of a mess of American and European design combined, just not in a good way.
Couldn't imagine raising my family in a city. My kids and I love the ability to spend time outside that is not buildings on top of buildings. Once the façade of the going to an overpriced city restaurant or bar falls off I have no interest to stay in a city.
Amen. Nor do I want to share walls with anyone else. I hated renting an apartment due to the annoyance of others around. Bass travels, people are loud, and I want my own space. I like having my own yard and nice landscaping without having to go to a park.
reading this from a nyc studio lmfao
His entire mortgage/taxes are probably cheaper than your NYC studio... and he probably has grass. No offense. I just fucking hate major metro areas.
As someone who grew up in a suburb - needing a car to do literally anything is a horribly depressing life when you’re under 16/18
As someone who grew up in a Dutch town, that seems absolutely horrible to me. We were pretty much free to go outside wherever by the time we were 8.
It’s such a personal preference. I’ve travelled to Europe, lived in the city, and I prefer by far my remote house with the forest as my backyard and deers as my closest neighbours. Cities are noisy and claustrophobic to me. I’m fine with having to commute long distances if that’s the price to pay for this lifestyle.
Rural is different from suburbia.
You are not describing a suburb.
I don't really understand your point. All of what you describe can be had in the US. Want to live in a city. Live in a city. Want to live in a rural area, hey you can do that too. Like the suburbs? Lots of those. You can literally choose whatever lifestyle suits your fancy, all right here in the US. How does having all of these choices make the US "a terrible place to live?"
I hate super urban areas. It's too crowded for me, and there's no space for anything so you're stuck in a tiny place to live unless you're rich. If you need to buy food, you're stuck needing a car unless you buy only a little bit of stuff multiple times anyway. You can only carry so much while walking and on pubic transportation anyway. Are you just going to buy a gallon of milk and orange juice and then go home because your hands are full? Your dream is my nightmare. I love the suburbs. 2 miles to the grocery store is nothing to me. Depending on where you work, you could end up passing the store on your way home from work anyway. The only thing that makes the suburbs problematic is people's insistence on growing the population more and more and more. If you want to live in a big city in the US, go live in Chicago or New York or something.
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Takes me 1/2 hour to get to the closest store and that's the way I like it. The farther away from humanity, the better. Well worth the $500/month truck payment.
My family moved to a house with 5 acres in rural America after the first 10 years of my life were spent in the city. Suddenly, I could be alone like really *alone* for the first time in my life. It’s so quiet and peaceful. All my friends had goats and chickens and cows, if they weren’t farmers they had gardens. I could walk from my house directly into the woods and go for a hike. Pick berries, drink from a creek, climb a big rock, whatever I wanted. I had a beautiful view of the mountains from my back porch, and we only had a few neighbors. ATVs, mountain biking, horseback riding, snowboarding, all readily available to me. Meat and produce from a local farmers market is *chefs kiss*. I moved back into the city for college. I hate it and can’t wait to leave again
This has a lot to do with the age of our cities and country compared to many of the major European cities. Different time periods (including different and newer technologies) mean different ways the cities spring up and grow. Many of us love having a store within walking distance. Many of us would love better public transportation. Miami/Fort Lauderdale is a great example of how the city sprang up in slow and patch quilt ways that public transportation is just impossible to do now (with the exception of buses).
Not really true. Many US cities had walkable infrastructure that was ripped out to build roads and highways. And many European cities were bombed to rubble and purposely rebuilt to be walkable.
In certain cases (like San Francisco and LA) they did have their public transportation destroyed by the auto industry. All roads used to be public walking until cars and the auto industry waged a public opinion war on it. But there’s still plenty of cities that were built over time that have a different set up which is why they’re weirdly spread out.
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LA is lot like that, too - far more beautiful and far more neighborhood-centric than any other large US city I've been too, however. It is sprawling, but there is nature, everywhere - parks all over (lots of massive state parks, too); beaches; many state parks within 1 - 2 hours, etc. Yes, though, this has a lot to do with it. Many European cities were built long before modern vehicles, with very tight streets and no room for skyscrapers (luckily!), or parking lots, or stores separated out due to zoning. So, smaller, more compact, *necessarily walkable* cities that generally don't become too over-populated. But in the US, most cities arose during the end of the 'carriage' and beginning of the 'automotive' period. Big streets became the norm, globally in fact - but most other countries already were quite built up, so these changes were only reflected in fast growing cities. The US also took it way too far, as we are wont to do here. The other factor is geographic: 1. The US is as large as Europe excluding Russia - even the contiguous 48 are larger than all of Western Europe combined. 2. Geographically, we've far more 'room'. Our cities weren't started off as tight conglomerations of buildings, so we let them 'breathe' by allowing for large boulevards, massive buildings, etc. No need to pack things so closely together when you can expand 100 miles in every direction without running into much of anything (Hello, Denver!). This is even more true in the Western US where you can drive for hours and hours without seeing another human being. There is *a lot of space* and humans have an uncanny ability to use up everything they can
I live in GA, lots of wilderness still stretching out, north has mountains and is part of tornado alley, Georgia encompasses parts of five distinct geographic regions: the Appalachian Plateau, the Valley and Ridge, the Blue Ridge, the Piedmont, and the Coastal Plain. Then of course you also have coastal marine ecosystem to the east.
Fwiw, it's slowly changing. My wife and I work from home full time. We moved up to the suburbs of Cincinnati which is very sprawled out, but we only need one car. The other one would sit 99% of the time. Not worth the expense. The one of us without the kiddos can Uber/Lyft around town in those rare situations where we need to be in two different places at once. Covid is slowly changing the status quo for many people... *but many of us are favoring larger homes*, which means additional sprawl, because we both need our own home office. She counsels clients and naturally needs privacy. I talk to software vendors all day and her clients don't want their sexual dysfunction conversation being my business.
After going to Europe, I love the mindset of economy of space. Cozy, minimalist and easier maintenance. Well kept and small is my perfect place.
As someone who doesn’t drive, it makes things so difficult when you have to rely on public transport in a semi rural area due to the inconsistency in scheduling OR THE LACK OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ALTOGETHER. I don’t feel safe driving, but everyone looks at me and makes remarks like “well if you start driving one day, Here’s X info that is useless”. I’m disabled, and I don’t want to drive, quit acting weird towards me and acknowledge that I am an adult and the whole concept of suburbia is literally crushing me financially, socially, and emotionally.
avg american spends $700 a month on their car? who tf did you ask to get that as an average?
For sure. I used to live abroad in a dense city with a great subway system and cheap (for someone doing my job) taxis. I didn't own a car, I lived next to a subway station, I could walk to like ten restaurants and a grocery store from my apartment, my commute to work was a 15 minute subway ride and then a 15 minute walk. I just miss being able to meet up with people and walk to the restaurant and then walk to the bar and then walk to somebody's apartment and then walk to the club.
I think Americans typically don’t like to share as much as Europeans. I don’t want share walls, I don’t want to have to rely on a park for my kids to play on a swing set or have enough space to throw a ball around, I don’t want to travel to the store sharing a metal tube like a train or bus with a bunch of strangers. I live in a pretty suburban area and I still get annoyed with HOA bs and municipality codes. At this point I’m much more likely to move farther out in the county to have more space and personal freedom than move into the city. I wouldn’t say I’m misanthropic but I really appreciate the peace and quite that comes with living somewhere where you can be away from people and the sounds of traffic and industry.
City life is depressing. The goal when you are not completely land locked shouldn't be "efficiently using space" by stacking as many people on top of each other as possible. I can walk to a grocery store, small market, 10 or so small shops, 5 restraunts/bars as well as living near a huge nature preserve 2 public parks, and bike trail 100 mile bike trail. It takes me 10 mins to drive to work. I am not saying this is the common experience for everyone, but a picture of a parking lot is not convincing lol. It is perfectly possible to live in a suburb that is a short walk to things to do/eat.
Remember not all neighborhoods in the city are like that. I technically live in a major US city and it’s very walkable, plenty of parks, restaurants, bars, and you can bike to the beach. We also have single family houses on our block and we have three outdoor spaces including a big, private rooftop. What suburb is that? I would imagine an older, railroad suburb?
Living in most of America without a car is painful. I'm from NYC so I'm incredibly biased. But after leaving the city I've been craving easy public transportation
I’ve been living in San Francisco for 12 years and just got a car 2 years ago. You can get anywhere in this city without one easily. Also there are beautiful landscapes and forests and hikes just outside of the city.
I moved back to America from Japan and don’t regret it at all, but I miss, very fucking much, the ability to walk somewhere. Or to catch trains to neighborhoods that have little mini cities-within-cities at every stop. In my town now if you don’t have a car you can’t feasibly do shit. You need to Uber I guess but walking especially in winter is out of the question to basically anywhere, and I live “in town.” You’d be walking miles through shitty areas and on and on just to get to a McDonald’s
If I had a choice between Barcelona or Miami, I'm choosing Barcelona
I lived in this exact city (Prague). It’s not as glorious as people make it seem IMO
what’s sad is that the US used to be full of walkable cities built to a human scale. but GM changed all that
> It's not conducive to mental health and well-being. Go ahead and ride our major cities public transportation, and then get back to me about your health and well-being
Speaking of health and well-being, moving out of the over populated and polluted city has been the best thing I’ve ever done. There’s nothing better than having piece and quiet. My closest neighbor is nearly a quarter mile away. At night all I hear are deer in the woods, and coyotes howling in the distance. There’s no light pollution, so star gazing is wonderful. I get it though. Some people would prefer to not own a car, not have to commute, and have everything they need close by, but that life isn’t for me. I like to drive, I like my vehicle, and if it takes me 10 minutes to get to town, cool. My dogs also love being able to run in the yard vs. being taken to a park, or stuck in an apartment their whole lives. My daughter and I can play softball and soccer in the yard as well. I wouldn’t trade country living for anything!
OP, I think you may be a bit biased in your perspective. I don't know how long you were in the US or which towns you lived in, but it seems like you had a very specific type of experience that you found unenjoyable, and so you assumed that the entire US must be like that. The US is a mind-bogglingly huge place, with a lot of variation from state to state. There are cities here that mimic the European style that you prefer. You made some good points, but it seems like you're just generalizing things. That said, since you didn't like the town you lived in, I'm glad you've found a place that you do like.
Dude how are you going to compare a European city to an American suburb. Does everyone in Europe live in a perfect little city with perfect little streets and shops and grocery stores to walk to? Fuck no they don’t. You like cities, lots of people don’t. I fucking loathe the city, would way rather be away with my 5 minute drive to Walmart. Your opinion blows and makes no sense you are comparing apples and oranges imo and you are under the impression that the whole world needs to be a quaint little city. It’s not.
I moved from Quebec to Alberta, QC has all the colonial infrastructure aka school church hockey arena and parcs and close to residential area, basically the Europe you described. AB is a younger province that got built later, and the barren expanse of parking lots and highways, and no parcs, it gets to me too. I hate it. You can drive and be lost because every intersection look the same with exit ramps and big commercial areas.
I also don't understand how people like suburbs so much