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What ever happened to the suburbs? I use to think of the suburbs as a relief from the problems of the City. One would move out to the suburbs to have:
Low density housing with big yards, lots of trees and park land
Crime free neighborhoods with mostly middle to upper class people
Good schools with people who shared a suburban mindset
Limited space devoted to commercial development ( people would go downtown to shop)
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Today's suburbs are more like the big City we left to get away from all the problems. Who decided to make the suburbs into Big Cities?
Do you really want high density housing in your suburb?
I like it,because Im a city person,and when the suburbs are more like the city,than I don't have to live in the city limits,because I'll still feel like Im in the city in the burbs.Alot of people from the city now are moving into the suburbs now.
Yes, suburban areas should be high density with houses spaced close together. That way, less land is wasted and more is available for greenbelts. Chicago is a city that has many greenbelts in the suburban areas.
Alot of older suburbs like the one Im from Euclid have thier houses closer together justlike the city.Especially the part Im from cause its right by Cleveland.Now the newer suburbs seem to be spreading the houses out by 10-15 feet,or they build really big houses that aren't even nice,thier not good arhcitecturely,thier basically the same as the houses right next to them,thier cookie cutters in a sub-division.There is a difference between older and newer suburbs.In fact alot of the older suburbs seem alot more urban and dense than alot of the newer cities(newer areas in cities).
Here in Northern Va, they have developed many of those high density developments and I do not see how they have saved any trees or created a green belt.
The development I live in was built in the 1960s and they kept about half of the trees. There are large common area with fields and woods. Basically there are 2 houses per acre.
Today's developments do not have the large common areas, are treeless and the people are right next to each other. There is no where to park the car and you hear the conversations of the neighbors because you live so close. The traffic leaving all the new neighborhoods is terrible because so many people live so close to each other packed in like sardines in a small super urban area. This is the suburbs?
What ever happened to the suburbs? I use to think of the suburbs as a relief from the problems of the City. One would move out to the suburbs to have:
Low density housing with big yards, lots of trees and park land
Crime free neighborhoods with mostly middle to upper class people
Good schools with people who shared a suburban mindset
Limited space devoted to commercial development ( people would go downtown to shop)
============================
Today's suburbs are more like the big City we left to get away from all the problems. Who decided to make the suburbs into Big Cities?
Do you really want high density housing in your suburb?
What's happened? The crows have come home to roost, that's what happened. 1950s-19702 suburban development was just not sustainable.
So you dictate market demand now? What's built is what people want. Deal with it.
Well, that is not exactly true. Many factors influence infrastructure and demand is only a part (although granted a significant part).
I think a big part of the reason the Northern VA burbs are becoming more and more dense is because of the anti-sprawl policies that many of the counties instituted years ago. They did it to save green space and to try and attempt to control the horrible traffic. Those policies BTW were a good thing and I wish all metro areas would institute such changes.
Me thinks it's the OP's expectations that are off actually. Northern VA is part of one of the largest metro areas in the country. If you want small town charms and a lot of space I suggest you move to SW VA or some place like that. Plenty of open space down there. If you are going to live in or around a major city you can't expect to live in your typical suburban bland development. It's simply not sustainable.
Okay, people complain about how the newer suburbs are chewing up too much land, but they also complain about how houses in the newer suburbs are placed too close together. Well, which way do they want it? Do we want the houses to be placed farther apart, resulting in even more land being developed or do we want the houses closer together, resulting in higher density?
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