Love this post!

Thanks.

Rec'ed.

I really don't like these kinds of posts - short on history, long on criticism. We've had suburbs for almost as long as we've had cities. Those suburbs are incorporated and swallowed up by the cities as more people move to them, people move further out and it starts all over again. Most of the neighborhoods you probably live in now were once suburbs where people moved to escape the living conditions of the cities. More and more businesses are locating outside of cities because property is cheaper out in the burbs than in the city - not all burb dwellers have to commute to cities, believe it or not, there is employment by major corporations out in the burbs, few people have a four hour commute every day. Nationally, less than 2% of workers have extreme commutes, most people in this country live within 15 minutes of their employment.

When those in the service returned after WW II, housing was in maximum demand and in minimum supply. Those suburbs provided housing for those families and it gave them a rung up the ladder too. More people could build wealth through home ownership and leave wealth to the children, people could afford to take jobs in factories that were far from cities because transportation was cheap and fuel was plentiful. School systems didn't "move out to the suburbs", the suburbs built their own school districts and funded them (and still do) with their property taxes, they run the local school boards and have worked hard to provide a better life for their children.

Not all suburbs are friendless, unwalkable, unlivable places, people enjoy living in the burbs just as much as city dwellers enjoy the cities. Kids can walk places, they can ride bikes, they can rollerblade and they can hang out just as they do in the cities. I've seen just as many city kids roaming the city gallerias and malls as I have seen burb kids wandering around the gallerias and malls. Are you telling me that parents in the city don't worry about their kids' safety, that they don't have to escort them to ball fields and hockey rinks and evening sports activities at schools?

So maybe you don't like them, but for some people it's a good life and they're happy. Not everyone who lives in the burbs is out in them because he/she is a racist and I don't think it's necessary to level one of the most serious charges you can in this day and age because you don't like the way they live. Happiness isn't about where you live, it's about how you live.

I have to disagree about the point of legalized segregation: the black middle class was happy to go to the suburbs as well -- and who wouldn't be? It gives you a manored feel.

As Kevin Phillips points out in BAD MONEY, home ownership has particularly strong roots in cultures that speak English: UK, Australia, Canada, US.

I would also suggest two books by James Kunstler:

THE LONG EMERGENCY

THE GEOGRAPHY OF NOWHERE

http://www.kunstler.com/books.html

Kunstler came to his notions of peak oil after looking at the pointlessness of modern organization of communities via the subdevelopment and strip malls.

Although it turns out to be true that "wherever you go, there you are" it is also true that some places are better -- in that they are more congenial (at least to you) -- than others. Curiously, however, this quality of congeniality seems to have little to do geographic location, or with size of population or with other factors that can be statistically-measured. Although sidewalks, for some reason, seem to be important, as are large outdoor common spaces. These features makes New York and London and San Francisco immediately village-like, as they also make tiny villages, like Victoria By The Sea on Prince Edward Island in Canada seem urbane. What all good places may have in common is a sense of diverse, but sympathetic community, which is, sadly, the Achilles heel of most suburbs, in which socio/economic congruity often breeds a surprising sense of isolation -- particularly at a mall.
What a fascinating topic. Thanks for the thought-provoking post. As a postscript, remember that there is always Charleston, where people say:"Why should I travel when I'm already here?"

My first house was in a suburb south west of Denver, my realtor kept telling me what a "good area" it was. The area is somewhat famous for a school shooting that occurred there a few years ago and that should have been my first clue that the area was not all that great.
My car was broken into twice while I lived there, and I only left it out of the garage probably three times in the year and a half I lived in the area.
Right after I moved in my dog started getting out of the back yard and I would find the gate to the back yard open, at first I thought he(my dog) was opening the gate. Later I realized that my back yard was a thoughfare for many of the local kids as they could go through my yard to get to a greenbelt behind the property. I padlocked the gate, which I thought would solve the problem about a week later I found the gate broken off at the hinges. At that point I started keeping my dog inside when I wasn't home.
My house was at the bottom of a hill on a corner, three times while I lived there drunk teenagers drove into my yard. The last one was so drunk he got out of his car and passed out on my porch. I didn't call the police on that one because I lived in a unincorporated area which means you don't have city police you only have the sheriff and the office was 20 miles away. I didn' feel like waiting all night for the sherif to arrive. Instead I went up the street to a loud party and asked if they wanted to come get their friend, a few minutes later the kid was gone.
The final straw for me came when I got back from vacation and their were used condoms around my hot tub and beer cans everywhere.
I put my house on the market that week, the one thing I will say is that it was easy to sell a house in a "good area" a family bought it and at closing the mom was very happy that they found a "nice area"
I probably should feel a little guilty for not telling them what the area is really like, but if you think an area known for school shootings is a good area maybe you need to learn on your own.

An interesting post but I don't think it's the whole picture. First, America started as a largely rural area. Much of the present-day suburbs are these formerly rural areas, the remnants of which are still apparent.

In fact, Mom and Dad consciously invested in a home in such a pedestrian-hostile habitat precisely because they were suspicious of sidewalks and people walking down them, not to mention buses and bus riders.

Also, Bev is entirely accurate in saying that many of the suburbs of cities are large employers. Looking at the largest employers in Pennsylvania, for example, I see that two are headquartered in Valley Forge, one in Lancaster, one in Paoli, another in Kennett Square...and so on. A lot of businesses headquarter in places like this, not only because real estate is cheaper than in the city, but because in places where the schools are better, there is a more reliable pool of future employees.

I don't don't think the suburbs are quite as soul-destroying as Christopher Williams thinks, but I completely agree the burbs' best days are behind them. We're looking at a high-energy cost future (not just gas), and that's a chilly environment for the suburbs.
Well, it was (sort of) nice while it lasted...

Thanks to all, both those who connected with the narrative and those of who had valid criticisms.

California, for some of us growin' up in certain sparsely-populated west-of-the-Mississippi-fly-over locales, was a place populated by the children of parents who'd decided to keep movin', rather than stop and make do.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/06/cheryl-crist.php