Posted on 03/13/2009 8:07:51 PM PDT by Disambiguator
The downturn has accomplished what a generation of designers and planners could not: it has turned back the tide of suburban sprawl. In the wake of the foreclosure crisis many new subdivisions are left half built and more established suburbs face abandonment. Cul-de-sac neighborhoods once filled with the sound of backyard barbecues and playing children are falling silent. Communities like Elk Grove, Calif., and Windy Ridge, N.C., are slowly turning into ghost towns with overgrown lawns, vacant strip malls and squatters camping in empty homes.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
That fact is the Internet (really data communications) allows people to leave the cities and continue doing their architecture design, fashion design, software writing anywhere they damn well please.
I did it more than 20 years ago and I’m not going back. I know others that have done the same.
People move to suburbia for many reasons, but around where I live they also do it because you can get so much more house for the money. It more than makes up the extra cost in gas. And if what they say is true, the burbs will become cheaper still.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. In the oil bust of 1982 whole neighborhoods in Houston went empty for a while. And, though I hate to say it, many of them didn’t really recover. They turned into urban sh!tholes of squatters and section 8 losers.
Sure, people are moving back in — sometimes it’s because the crime and criminals have followed them out. But it’s fun to live inside where there’s so much more going on... nightlife, culture.
Suburb haters ought to consider that the dimensions of the average suburban lot are similar to those set for millenia by families settled in small villages in rural Africa. Granted, few American suburban families keep goats, chickens, and a vegetable patch next to the house, but suburban yards give a deeply appealing sense of privacy and outdoor leisure.
I got sidetracked, but the reason I posted that quote was to make the point that fashion designers and architects are pretty much useless when it comes to the real work of making a city go.
“Cul-de-sac neighborhoods once filled with the sound of backyard barbecues and playing children are falling silent. Communities like Elk Grove, Calif., and Windy Ridge, N.C., are slowly turning into ghost towns with overgrown lawns, vacant strip malls and squatters camping in empty homes.”
Yeah, everywhere you go, this is what you see. Bread lines, tent cities, dead bodies in the streets. /s
I’ve often daydreamed about 10 or 20 families, Christians in my dream world, purchasing every other house on a blighted city block or two, and moving in. It would be an instant good neighborhood. All those families could help each other out, plant a church, and get a house for $5,000. They could minister together in the city. If it were up to me, I’d do it.
Hmmm...there’s probably places in Detroit, Chicago, Arizona, or Florida, where you might be able to do that...to a certain extent at least....just don’t TELL anyone your Christians....that’ll put you in a fishbowl!!!
I live in an inner city neighborhood now, and I love it.
Yeah, you know, we could do it as a mission work. I’m not recruiting, because Mr. Marie would never go for it. But I still think it’s a good idea.
“Refrigerators and stoves were just plain nasty.”
Mirrors the tenants.
I once lived next door to the city planner in Apache Junction, AZ (a nice town since gone to seed). Put a couple drinks in the guy and the jerk really came out.
Besides, it costs more to live in city limits than it does outside of the city, unless I move to the slums in Ypsi.
I’ve lived in a suburb and two different major urban centers. The suburb was pleasant, but yeah, boring as heck. If you need anything, it’s like a 20 minute drive to get there, no night life, etc. The first urban place was a complete ghetto (I was in college), my neighbors stole my mail, I was renting from a slumlord, not fun. Now a live in a pretty cool city though, and I can walk around the corner to the grocery, I live near a big park, there are probably 15 each of clubs, bars (no need to drive!) and churches within easy walking distance, depending on your mood =)
I bet i’ll want to move out to the suburbs when I’m older and have kids, but being young and in a city rocks.
That's all I needed to see. He's the major founder of the "new urbanism" and "creative class" junk that is all the rage these days.
Rabbit hutches are for liberals and idiots!
Is this true?
No.
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