Why all the hate for the suburbs?

[heyzeus]

Filmed near my old house in Austin!

[heyzeus]

btw, anyone ever seen the old movie Over the Edge? Do it.

[Gashouse]

We're in the process of moving to the suburbs. I think we made a giant mistake, and I think my wife thinks so, too. My hunch is that we'll do a few things to update our house (seriously outdated decorations) and then try to move back within a couple years. Moving is awesome.

[Freed Roger]

I do like a neighborhood that was constructed with some foresight with respect to roads greenspaces/parks and reasonable rules on how stupid a person can be with what they do to their property (zoning-wise).

In the old days -when we weren't so landlocked -I suppose it was was easier to set aside some land for community and pedestrians. Now it costs too much money and has to be planned in.

Yeah -New Town is unlike it's surrounding area. I can't stand it. In it's attempt to diversify with housing- it still ends up homogenous.

The place in Florida we went for vacation was not unlike this. For just a vacation -we enjoyed it- kicking back and riding bikes most everywhere we needed to go for the week. The kid really liked exploring around. Can't imagine living there though. I'm sure after a while the kid run into the end of the fake community's atmosphere-ala the Truman Show.

[IMADreamer]

New town seemed really hipsterish to me. I expected all the guys to have handlebar mustaches.


The other big problem I have with the suburbs is that everything is a chain, franchise, and strip mall. There's just no originality, no sense of authenticity, or organic growth. Why does someone need to open up an Apple Tuesdays or whatever to have a restaurant? What's wrong with just having a restaurant?

One thing I love about my small little community is there aren't any of those things. Yeah there's Wal Mart and the big stupid grocery store chain but there are local alternatives. I'm always a little sad when I hear people say "oh don't go to so and so's you can go to Quincy and get it cheaper." Which is maybe true but there is the hour drive there and hour back, so you have gas, your time, and then the fact that you are buying from a franchise or big corporate store so that money goes not only out of your town, but out of state, and maybe even the country. However if you go down to Bob's hardware store that money goes here and everyone benefits.

We are getting an Ace Hardware soon. Lot's of people are excited but it's only going to hurt the paint store that's been here for 100 years and the lumber yard that's been family owned for 50 years. I hear the mayor say "it will bring x number of new jobs to town." Yeah they will all be part time, minimum wage [expletive] jobs and none of the profits will stay here in town.

I guess I got a little off from the suburbs there but that's the suburbs too. A bunch of franchises with [expletive] low paying, no benefits jobs. So if you want a good job you have to commute, which takes your money, time, and quality of life. The suburbs suck.

[tlombard]

I also like the way I heard somebody put it recently and forgot about until just now. New Town was built for people who want to live in an urban environment and have locally owned business, vibrant community, etc. (like how I feel about my area in South City) but without having to deal with poor people.

[tlombard]

We are getting an Ace Hardware soon. Lot's of people are excited but it's only going to hurt the paint store that's been here for 100 years and the lumber yard that's been family owned for 50 years. I hear the mayor say "it will bring x number of new jobs to town." Yeah they will all be part time, minimum wage [expletive] jobs and none of the profits will stay here in town.

In general I shop local when I can but I have nothing against chain stores if they are more convenient and save me money. However I also hate that argument that they bring new jobs. These big box stores are just vacuums that suck the money out of a town and feed it into the pockets of shareholders and executives where it sits and earns them even more money on their investments. People don't get rich by putting money back into local economies. They get rich by paying people as little as possible and hoarding the profits.

You want to kick start the economy and create more jobs? Double the minimum wage because then the working poor just might have enough money to pay their bills and actually go out to dinner and a movie which just might create more jobs in the community. Sure they would be the lower paying type but that is all that these empty promises from the big box stores are anyway.

Admittedly I know nothing about economics and what actually works but then again, neither do the people currently making the decisions in government. Well, other than knowing that if they vote to screw the 99% with their decisions, the 1% will take care of them financially and the 99% will accept it and blame it on the other political party because the official they voted for just couldn't be shady.

[IMADreamer]

We are getting an Ace Hardware soon. Lot's of people are excited but it's only going to hurt the paint store that's been here for 100 years and the lumber yard that's been family owned for 50 years. I hear the mayor say "it will bring x number of new jobs to town." Yeah they will all be part time, minimum wage [expletive] jobs and none of the profits will stay here in town.

In general I shop local when I can but I have nothing against chain stores if they are more convenient and save me money. However I also hate that argument that they bring new jobs. These big box stores are just vacuums that suck the money out of a town and feed it into the pockets of shareholders and executives where it sits and earns them even more money on their investments. People don't get rich by putting money back into local economies. They get rich by paying people as little as possible and hoarding the profits.

You want to kick start the economy and create more jobs? Double the minimum wage because then the working poor just might have enough money to pay their bills and actually go out to dinner and a movie which just might create more jobs in the community. Sure they would be the lower paying type but that is all that these empty promises from the big box stores are anyway.

Admittedly I know nothing about economics and what actually works but then again, neither do the people currently making the decisions in government. Well, other than knowing that if they vote to screw the 99% with their decisions, the 1% will take care of them financially and the 99% will accept it and blame it on the other political party because the official they voted for just couldn't be shady.

You are not wrong. Back when I was serious business owner it because pretty obvious to me that if you put money in the hands of the people they will spend it. This in turn fuels the economy. I sold tombstones. People who had life insurance easily outspent those who didn't. Just because they could. Someone would come in and tell me they were waiting on an insurance check and I knew right then they were buying big, I could upsell, and they were buying accessories. Someone without life insurance, they were just there to get the job done as cheaply as possible.