I live in a 99% car-dependent suburb in the Phoenix metro. As a child I didn't go outside much but during the lockdowns I began to explore my neighborhood for the first time through daily walks.

As the years went by and more people went outside, I began to interact with my neighbors much more than I ever had before. Some of them are really nice, down-to-earth people who I enjoy seeing, but I'm finding that most of my interactions with my neighbors or strangers coming through my neighborhood have been negative.

I used to greet everyone I walked past, but most of them don't return the greeting. My own neighbors simply stare at me like I have three heads, if they even acknowledge my existence at all! I've given up by now, but even as I have completely minded my own business I've had some of them insult my appearance as I walked by. This has happened multiple times.

I have been attacked four times by unleashed dogs. Multiple of my neighbors ride motorcycles around the neighborhood for hours, like it's a race course. Cars rage around every corner like they're trying to run someone over, and they have, because I keep seeing dead stray cats that were very obviously run over.

I see nothing idyllic about the suburbs. I would trust the "rougher" (another word for someone who isn't robotic) characters of Washington DC much more than my asshole suburban neighbors. I can't help but think that the car dependency of Phoenix that isolates us from each other turns use into antisocial assholes. I'm tempted to flip off every neighbor I see (minus the cool ones) and that's not a good feeling.

Why don't kids go outside anymore?

Toll Brothers markets themselves as a luxury homebuilder and they've built projects all across the east coast and the Midwest (These pictures are from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania)

From what I've seen, they do not specialize in building massive subdivisions, they build at a smaller scale of 100-200 units at most to try to simulate a community feel (or really just to profit off the smallest lot of land that they can find)

They sell single family homes and attached condos/condominiums at marked up list prices, (but you'll find way more condos being built simply because they are cheaper to build and to cram more units) Any SFH option is listed as a premium, top of the line option.

All in all, these kind of communities are the textbook definition of density with zero of the benefits

The sidewalks merely serve as a decoration, because there's nowhere you can actually go outside of the community since they always abruptly end at the entrance, disconnected from anything beyond the development lines.

They often plan their developments to be built right next to an interstate and/or state highway in remote areas outside of a town center, so that they can always advertise the home location's proximity to the highway to make it easy for commuting to work and also to get to literally anywhere else, because there's nothing that's walkable from your home.

Toll brothers; and probably any other builder in its class, is betting that every future homeowner who even comes to tour a property in their middle of nowhere location and eventually sign a mortgage already owns a car, and 99% of the time, they’re right. Because driving is so easy and deeply ingrained in American life, car dependency is rarely seen as something that would concern a potential resident. The idea of having to drive for every single little thing, only to return to the same unit at the end of each day for as long as you live there, is considered perfectly normal and barely given a second thought.

If something happens in the future where car ownership becomes exceedingly difficult, then all of a sudden, the entire concept of building a dense housing scheme right next to a highway becomes economically stupid and disastrous.

So now the question is, why the fk would I want to pay $750k for a condo to have to share walls, pay a high HOA, sacrifice a front yard and backyard to have zero sense of privacy, and no walkability at all?

The absence of any kind of private outside space for yourself is actually insane when you're already paying so much, I don't ask for a massive lot of additional land, but merely an area to just exist in peace and for kids to be able to roam and play. Driving to a park even if its 2 miles away is not ideal, adds mental workload if you simply just wanted to go for a walk, and just sounds in poor taste to even suggest that as the only alternative.

I understand the debate against single family homes entirely, but these kind of developments make the case for dense housing look really bad. And to be completely honest, these condos make any single family home with your own land, privacy, and vegetation look like a luxury enclave that will always be worth so much more in $ on paper.

It's a missed opportunity where these exact units would be amazing when built inside of an actual city, but it's just a reality that homebuilders even at the luxury level will always chase profits over practical urban design.

I grew up in the suburbs and bought my first suburban house in my 20s, had my kids relatively young, and have lived in the suburbs my entire life. No regrets and there were lots of good times in the neighborhood with other families with kids while raising a family.

Now, I as a divorced empty-nester with a partner, I am seriously contemplating selling my house and getting a downtown 2-bedroom apartment in a mid-sized city, walkable to work, places to eat, etc.

I'm tired of taking care of a house and yard and having *too much stuff*. I also feel like I'm somewhat isolated where I live as the demographic has shifted and changed to newer families and I'm an empty nester. I'm someone that would probably frequent things like downtown events and happy hours after work but since I work downtown after work I just want to go home and once I'm home I'm too tired/lazy to leave again to schlep all the way back downtown.

But I've internalized this idea that home ownership is THE best way to go and that it's stupid to rent if you don't have to. And when I look at the demographics downtown it seems to be mostly folks in their 30s.

It's something I want to try but also wondering if I'm overly romanticizing what this life will be like. Curious if anyone else here our age has pivoted from long time suburbs to urban at this life phase and how it's worked out for them.

I departed New Orleans this morning and arrived by evening in Joplin, Missouri, a city so far outside the digital-nomad imagination that no German has yet described it as “still authentic.” My extended-stay hotel has functional Wi-Fi, a kitchenette, and a desk, but no rooftop plunge pool, ceremonial matcha, or community manager arranging ethically noncommittal intimacy between guests. I asked where people cowork. The woman from reception pointed toward the desk in my room.

Joplin is dangerously unoptimized. Housing remains inexpensive, yet nobody calls this geoarbitrage. The coffee shops seems designed for people who merely want to drink coffee. I saw a man working on a laptop without photographing it. Even the long-haul truckers, America’s original location-independent professionals, say they are “hauling freight” instead of building borderless logistics brands.

Worst of all, the hotel toilet is not integrated with DNo. 2™, so I cannot upload a Proof of Stool™ or monitor my time-zone-adjusted regularity. Joplin offers everything neccessary for ordinary human life and almost nothing required to make that life appear aspirational online. For residents, this may be paradise. For the borderless founder, it is a humanitarian crisis.

*From the perspective of urban design, quality of life, housing diversity, and architecture, there's simply no other place in the country like it

Non big box brand groceries? At least 45 minutes away in every direction.
New local restaurant? The food is from the same grocery store I am forced to shop at and prepared by someone with no more culinary training than anyone else. Served on a real plate if you’re lucky and overpriced anyways.
Commute to work? 30 minutes one way with only unhealthy fast food on the way there.
Young educated population? There are no universities within 65 miles and nowhere for those people to gather in the burbs.
Want to travel? Airport is 1.5 hrs away and you will have to save money for overnight parking because uber is not the norm and too far away. Of course someone can drop you off, but self sufficiency is much easier with public transportation.
Want to get off your ass? You will need to drive to walk or bike.
Living like this is a premature death, there is nothing to do here but wait to die!

I’m the News & Observer reporter who wrote this story about a WakeMed project in Rolesville, North Carolina.

WakeMed originally proposed a 24-hour standalone ER/Healthplex on Burlington Mills Road. It has since confirmed that the facility could become part of a proposed 45-bed acute-care hospital on the same property.

I spoke with Toni Kenion, a former WakeMed ER nurse and Barrington HOA director, who supports bringing more health care to Rolesville but opposes putting the project next to her neighborhood.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article317092142.html

"Hey everyone, I wrote these lyrics to vent about my neighborhood in West Melbourne, Florida. The houses are so packed together that privacy doesn't exist, and our HOA fees basically go toward mowing a tiny patch of grass on Durham Drive while letting everything else go to hell.

I generated the country track using AI and put the video together in Clipchamp. Hope you enjoy the roast—and yes, Lurch is 100% real."

I live in upstate South Carolina. SC has been the fastest growing state (per capita) in the nation for several years now, and the growth is almost entirely suburban in nature. Yeah, you have some urban infill, but most of the growth is greenfield development on the fringe.

The funny thing is, the more suburbanites move to a popular suburb, the more they all hate that suburb. You know what I mean?

How many times do you crack open Facebook and see people complaining that they moved to the area BECAUSE it was less dense, but then all the other suburbanites had the same idea, and now it's more dense? People say variations of this ALL THE TIME.

So it seems like suburbia is inherently unsustainable, because people move there for reasons that will not remain the same assuming other people also move there. It's like it's all based on exclusivity, and the more people move there, the less exclusive it is.

Cities on the other hand are the opposite. As an urbanist, all I want is for people to build dense, mixed-use housing on every empty surface parking lot in town. Because the more people you have in the core city, the more people you have walking, biking, and riding the bus. The more people you have living IN downtown, the less you have to cater to the suburbanites who just drive through and demand wider roads and more free parking. You can actually improve your city if more people actually live in it.

I'm a Japanese and I have a dream of live in the US in

the future.but do most american people live in the Surburbs surrounding the cities??

I’m the News & Observer reporter who wrote this story.

I spent the week talking with Scott, students and parents, Apex officials and WCPSS. It’s a parking dispute, but it also raises questions about growth, school capacity, property rights and local zoning.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article316992156.html

Has anyone noticed that nearly all the houses built in the last 20 or so yrs in/around Dallas/Ft.Worth? pretty much look the same. Why is that?

The once lush green farms of Austral and now becoming shitty car centric suburbs with no walkable streets anywhere to be found

I couldn't agree more with the name of this group! That being said, I'm tired of being miserable. We're in a small house in a suburb of Jacksonville. 1200sqft because may as well not be broke on top of miserable. We are here for husband's job, so I work from home in a small corner with a window that looks at our neighbors. yay. Oh and we have to be here for 4 more years.

Is there any way to enjoy living in the suburbs? I feel like we've tried everything. We really were meant to be in a little coastal European village, friends with our community members, growing gardens, biking everywhere, etc. I've tried growing a garden in my yard 3x now but our neighborhood has been built on "filler sand" so NOTHING grows (even with topsoil and fertilizer), we maintain a yard that we never use because its too hot, and we can bike to the local dunkin donuts, but can't really take the young kids because of the way people drive. So I'm stuck inside really. I hate going out to chain coffee spots that are all just drive thru or you can sit outside next to the busy street (so gorgeous). But I'm tired of being miserable. All I want is to get some fresh air, find a good routine that includes getting out without being exhausted by how rude everyone is...does anyone have any tips?

I guess we could rent out our house and move to an apartment at the beach for the charm of local businesses and the beach, but then its beach traffic.

"Honey, Joe from accounts invited us over for a BBQ on Saturday."

"That's great! He lives real close, doesn't he?"

"He's just over the back fence!"

"Shall we walk over?"

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/29.3995172,-95.0446555/29.4011906,-95.0452174/@29.4131415,-95.0730481,5878m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!4m1!3e2!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgyNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for soft copies (PDF/e-book) of the following books for academic/research purposes:

• Town Planning for the Third World — A.K. Bhatti
• Megacity Management in the Asian and Pacific Region, Vol. 2 — Stubbs, Jeffrey & Giles Clarke
• Dying Cities: Surviving the Urban Jungle — N. Somaiya
• Handbook on Urban Sustainability — Springer

If anyone can share the PDF/e-book , I’d really appreciate it.

Please comment or DM me if you can help. Thank you!