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Good grief! First someone says I'm saying the stores aren't that close together, then another person comes along and says the opposite. Frankly, I don't think too many people ever walked to the grocery store, every time they shopped. I grew up in a streetcar suburb back in the 50s and 60s. My mom walked to the 'corner grocery store' (what we would call a convenience store today) but she drove to a supermarket for her weekly grocery shopping. If you're buying for a family, you've got a lot to bring back home.
I walk to the grocery store every time I go. I get off the train one stop early a few nights a week, run in and grab whatever I need (I actually love it, it's fun to just walk around all that food. Mmm...foood), and then pay for it and walk the 15 minutes up the street to my house, or wait for the bus that comes every 6 minutes and drops me off door to door. I think a lot of peope are just use to getting car loads of food once every week or two. If there's a place just down the street, it's really only a 15-20 minute longer commute home to stop by a couple times a week, or even once a week if you don't eat THAT much.
I know within a 20 minute walk from my apartment there are 4 different large chain grocery stores. I have it lucky though, I live on 3 bus lines that all converge in front of my apartment, and come every 5-12 minutes. In the winter it's a very easy trip. In the summer it's an awesome walk.
While it's true many (most?) suburbanites commute burb-to-burb, that doesn't necessarily help address sprawl or transportaion costs. The pre-1960 metro area made a lot of sense in terms of efficiency. Virtually all non-manufacturing jobs were located downtown or on its fringes, and most suburbs were bedroom communities only. So getting to these jobs from wherever you lived in the burbs or the city meant coming downtown. This made public transit much more viable, unlike today when it can take hours to get from one burb to the next on transit (assuming transit even exists in the 2 burbs!) Also, if you changed jobs, your new job was probably just a short idstance away from your old one, so your residential location didn't put you at a disadvantage.
Consider the case in the burbs of today: you have a job that's a 15 minute drive from your home, but then you get a better job at a different company. The problem is, the new job is located in a suburb on the far side of the metro area from your home. What do you do? Sell your home and move to a closer burb? But what if your spouse's job is in your old burb? What about having to change the kids' schools? Or do you just suck it in and spend an extra hour and a half behind the wheel every day?
I see this phenomenon here in the sprawling Twin Cities a lot. Several years ago, my downtown employer moved one of our work units out to the burbs (luckily not mine). Some of my city-dwelling co-workers were forced to buy another car, since transit to the new site was minimal, and they wound up spending more time to get to work, too. My wife's work unit was also moved out to the burbs (we live in the city), so she must drive, but would rather not.
Residential and commercial sprawl is something I can largely ignore, but when the jobs started to sprawl, it really created problems. It doesn't have to be that way. I'd like to see a reconcentration of large employment sites in the downtown areas, and maybe a few strategically located burbs. Enough of this exurb-hopping scenario! (In fact, one of our biggest employers, Best Buy, recently moved their corporate HQ out of a far-flung burb into a new site in a first-ring suburb that has excellent transit. Hope the trend continues.
The benefits would be fantastic: saving fuel, reducing pollution, reducing the demand for more roads, not having to reject job offers because of the distance, reducing commute times, having more time after work with family, friends, whatever...
My local grocery store is only a 5 minute walk away. Its not some huge place with parking for 500 like you're accustomed to out in the 'burbs. Just a local grocery store, no parking, but it has a good selection of everything I need, and the food there is actually cheaper than the larger grocery stores nearby.
I was just making a point.
When I lived in the city (Chicago) I walked to the grocery store everytime I got groceries. It was about 2 blocks up the street from my place. There were usually atleast 1 grocery store every few blocks in my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods.
I just don't think some people understand the concept of "urban" living. You don't have to depend on your car. You can walk and take public transportation to the places you need.
When I lived in the city (Chicago) I walked to the grocery store everytime I got groceries. It was about 2 blocks up the street from my place. There were usually atleast 1 grocery store every few blocks in my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods.
I just don't think some people understand the concept of "urban" living. You don't have to depend on your car. You can walk and take public transportation to the places you need.
Exactly right. The vast majority of Americans have no conception of what car free living is like. This is understandable because most Americans live within a built environment which is entirely car dependent. For them, public transit is something that only poor people use.
While it's true many (most?) suburbanites commute burb-to-burb, that doesn't necessarily help address sprawl or transportaion costs. The pre-1960 metro area made a lot of sense in terms of efficiency. Virtually all non-manufacturing jobs were located downtown or on its fringes, and most suburbs were bedroom communities only. So getting to these jobs from wherever you lived in the burbs or the city meant coming downtown. This made public transit much more viable, unlike today when it can take hours to get from one burb to the next on transit (assuming transit even exists in the 2 burbs!) Also, if you changed jobs, your new job was probably just a short idstance away from your old one, so your residential location didn't put you at a disadvantage.
Consider the case in the burbs of today: you have a job that's a 15 minute drive from your home, but then you get a better job at a different company. The problem is, the new job is located in a suburb on the far side of the metro area from your home. What do you do? Sell your home and move to a closer burb? But what if your spouse's job is in your old burb? What about having to change the kids' schools? Or do you just suck it in and spend an extra hour and a half behind the wheel every day?
I see this phenomenon here in the sprawling Twin Cities a lot. Several years ago, my downtown employer moved one of our work units out to the burbs (luckily not mine). Some of my city-dwelling co-workers were forced to buy another car, since transit to the new site was minimal, and they wound up spending more time to get to work, too. My wife's work unit was also moved out to the burbs (we live in the city), so she must drive, but would rather not.
Residential and commercial sprawl is something I can largely ignore, but when the jobs started to sprawl, it really created problems. It doesn't have to be that way. I'd like to see a reconcentration of large employment sites in the downtown areas, and maybe a few strategically located burbs. Enough of this exurb-hopping scenario! (In fact, one of our biggest employers, Best Buy, recently moved their corporate HQ out of a far-flung burb into a new site in a first-ring suburb that has excellent transit. Hope the trend continues.
The benefits would be fantastic: saving fuel, reducing pollution, reducing the demand for more roads, not having to reject job offers because of the distance, reducing commute times, having more time after work with family, friends, whatever...
You nailed it, too bad I can't give you another rep point need to spread some rep around first.
Spreading corporate parks all over the suburbs is not helping but more so contributing to the sprawl and horrible traffic. The reason is that the suburban infrastructure cannot catch up with the demand of the inter-suburban commute as fast as the corporate parks are been built. Often the offices are not always located in the most easily accessible areas and there is only that much that can be done about building the appropriate road structure around.
I used to live in SF and commute to Pleasanton/Dublin (a large suburb full of corporate parks in Bay Area). My commute was about 45 min driving from SF to Pleasanton. I then moved to the suburb closer to my work (only 15 miles away) only to realize that my commute is only reduced by 5 min . It took me on avg 40 min each way to cover the distance of 15 miles and most of that time was spent on the overly congested stretch of 5-7 miles between Pleasanton and its nearest suburb in my direction. The problem with that is the canyon topography of the region, congested highway and the cul-de-sac suburban street development that provides no options of using side streets to cover the measly 5 mile distance from home to work for most people. There were two major streets running parallel to the highway that were always as congested as the highway.
There I also for the first time learned a concept of 'lunch time traffic'. Most of the restaurants and businesses we needed to access during lunch hour were located in the strip malls along the two major streets. Needless to say these 'arteries' were always congested to the max during lunch time and often you could barely even find parking in one of the strip malls. The only good thing is that you could always find someone to carpool with for lunch , otherwise lunch hour in the burbs was pure hell. I am not even going to say that there was absolutely no way to walk to places to eat. I'd trade the corporate suburban park hell for a congested city downtown any time!
One time I had to take public trasportation when my car was in the repair and it took me 2 hours (I am not kidding) to get from my home suburb to my work suburb, which are only 15 min of drive (non-rush hour) away. It's because the train would not connect the suburbs in the valley, you'd have to go back to Oakland hub in order to connect to another train. The connection would basically force you to go the opposite direction. Is this practical? Was the corporate park Pleasanton/Dublin area designed well? I don't think so. If anything it only contributed to the awful sprawl of the nearby exurbs encouraging people to move as far as Tracy and Lodi bringing the traffic along its highways to a standstill.
I have friends, a couple who have moved 3 times from one bay area burb to another in hopes of finding a place 'in the middle' between their two jobs. So far it has been impossible, the closest they can find to the 'middle' is the city of San Francisco itself. Ironically.. even though they both have been working in the burbs for years with the changing of their jobs locations they found the city to be the most convenient place to live and reverse traffic to the burbs haven't been as bad as the traffic between the burbs. When they were single and rented, moving was easy, now they have a 5 year old and they own and I doubt they are going to move, so the husband who recently changed jobs again has to put up with the 1.5 hour commute, not an unusual one by Bay Area standards.
So, with all the 'real life examples' the point I am trying to bring is that city may still be the best place to live even if you work in the suburb, because at least it's still some area 'in the middle' and it is still better connected in most metro areas (public trans and highways) than any two distant suburbs would be.
The link appears to be broken, but nevertheless I would take any article that predicts the demise of the suburbs with a grain of salt. This may be wishful thinking on the part of urbanists who would like this to become a self fullfilling prophecy for whatever their reasons are.
I've lived in the Chicago suburbs for 30 years throughout my entire IT career and every position I've held has been in the suburbs. Not once did I have to commute to a job in the city. I would bet that in a large metropolitan area like Chicago, that half the professional jobs are located in the suburbs. Moving to the city would put many people further from their jobs.
well said....totally agree. This is the main error in most of these scenarios. Right now I see a lot of people moving to the city because it is "cool" not because it is sustainable.
When I lived in the city (Chicago) I walked to the grocery store everytime I got groceries. It was about 2 blocks up the street from my place. There were usually atleast 1 grocery store every few blocks in my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods.
I just don't think some people understand the concept of "urban" living. You don't have to depend on your car. You can walk and take public transportation to the places you need.
Two points:
Since you mentioned Chicago, take a look at most of the suburbs and you are blocks and not miles from a grocery store, bar, restaurant, etc. Itasca, Wood Dale, Elmhurst, and on and on, are all examples. The fact is that people are close enough to walk - they just do not. There is public transportation. A lot of people take public transportation - but only during rush hours.
Second, can you even imagine what a gridlock it would be if all of the business within 30 miles of Chicago were located downtown. There is not enough public transportation to move the people to a centralized situation like that.
While it's true many (most?) suburbanites commute burb-to-burb, that doesn't necessarily help address sprawl or transportaion costs. The pre-1960 metro area made a lot of sense in terms of efficiency. Virtually all non-manufacturing jobs were located downtown or on its fringes, and most suburbs were bedroom communities only. So getting to these jobs from wherever you lived in the burbs or the city meant coming downtown. This made public transit much more viable, unlike today when it can take hours to get from one burb to the next on transit (assuming transit even exists in the 2 burbs!) Also, if you changed jobs, your new job was probably just a short idstance away from your old one, so your residential location didn't put you at a disadvantage.
Consider the case in the burbs of today: you have a job that's a 15 minute drive from your home, but then you get a better job at a different company. The problem is, the new job is located in a suburb on the far side of the metro area from your home. What do you do? Sell your home and move to a closer burb? But what if your spouse's job is in your old burb? What about having to change the kids' schools? Or do you just suck it in and spend an extra hour and a half behind the wheel every day?
I see this phenomenon here in the sprawling Twin Cities a lot. Several years ago, my downtown employer moved one of our work units out to the burbs (luckily not mine). Some of my city-dwelling co-workers were forced to buy another car, since transit to the new site was minimal, and they wound up spending more time to get to work, too. My wife's work unit was also moved out to the burbs (we live in the city), so she must drive, but would rather not.
Residential and commercial sprawl is something I can largely ignore, but when the jobs started to sprawl, it really created problems. It doesn't have to be that way. I'd like to see a reconcentration of large employment sites in the downtown areas, and maybe a few strategically located burbs. Enough of this exurb-hopping scenario! (In fact, one of our biggest employers, Best Buy, recently moved their corporate HQ out of a far-flung burb into a new site in a first-ring suburb that has excellent transit. Hope the trend continues.
The benefits would be fantastic: saving fuel, reducing pollution, reducing the demand for more roads, not having to reject job offers because of the distance, reducing commute times, having more time after work with family, friends, whatever...
I agree to a point....I think that since in general, the population has expanded so much, cities have too. You can only build "up" for so long until you have to build out. Plus, we require open space both emotionally and in our ecosystems. Open space is available where it is protected in the suburbs, we need this in places where we are dependent on things such as groundwater -- we need to protect our recharge areas and our ecosystems, and our clean air.
I do not think a major upheaval, moving every coporation to the city will work. And traffic would only be worse with everyone going to the same place.
I believe what we need is very simple. Better and expanded public transportation. Suburban train networks.
You nailed it, too bad I can't give you another rep point need to spread some rep around first.
Spreading corporate parks all over the suburbs is not helping but more so contributing to the sprawl and horrible traffic. The reason is that the suburban infrastructure cannot catch up with the demand of the inter-suburban commute as fast as the corporate parks are been built. Often the offices are not always located in the most easily accessible areas and there is only that much that can be done about building the appropriate road structure around.
I used to live in SF and commute to Pleasanton/Dublin (a large suburb full of corporate parks in Bay Area). My commute was about 45 min driving from SF to Pleasanton. I then moved to the suburb closer to my work (only 15 miles away) only to realize that my commute is only reduced by 5 min . It took me on avg 40 min each way to cover the distance of 15 miles and most of that time was spent on the overly congested stretch of 5-7 miles between Pleasanton and its nearest suburb in my direction. The problem with that is the canyon topography of the region, congested highway and the cul-de-sac suburban street development that provides no options of using side streets to cover the measly 5 mile distance from home to work for most people. There were two major streets running parallel to the highway that were always as congested as the highway.
There I also for the first time learned a concept of 'lunch time traffic'. Most of the restaurants and businesses we needed to access during lunch hour were located in the strip malls along the two major streets. Needless to say these 'arteries' were always congested to the max during lunch time and often you could barely even find parking in one of the strip malls. The only good thing is that you could always find someone to carpool with for lunch , otherwise lunch hour in the burbs was pure hell. I am not even going to say that there was absolutely no way to walk to places to eat. I'd trade the corporate suburban park hell for a congested city downtown any time!
One time I had to take public trasportation when my car was in the repair and it took me 2 hours (I am not kidding) to get from my home suburb to my work suburb, which are only 15 min of drive (non-rush hour) away. It's because the train would not connect the suburbs in the valley, you'd have to go back to Oakland hub in order to connect to another train. The connection would basically force you to go the opposite direction. Is this practical? Was the corporate park Pleasanton/Dublin area designed well? I don't think so. If anything it only contributed to the awful sprawl of the nearby exurbs encouraging people to move as far as Tracy and Lodi bringing the traffic along its highways to a standstill.
I have friends, a couple who have moved 3 times from one bay area burb to another in hopes of finding a place 'in the middle' between their two jobs. So far it has been impossible, the closest they can find to the 'middle' is the city of San Francisco itself. Ironically.. even though they both have been working in the burbs for years with the changing of their jobs locations they found the city to be the most convenient place to live and reverse traffic to the burbs haven't been as bad as the traffic between the burbs. When they were single and rented, moving was easy, now they have a 5 year old and they own and I doubt they are going to move, so the husband who recently changed jobs again has to put up with the 1.5 hour commute, not an unusual one by Bay Area standards.
So, with all the 'real life examples' the point I am trying to bring is that city may still be the best place to live even if you work in the suburb, because at least it's still some area 'in the middle' and it is still better connected in most metro areas (public trans and highways) than any two distant suburbs would be.
I lived in Northern California for awhille. Loved it....but was dismally depressed by the lack of public transportation. California is still pretty new in that regard, and still has a long way to go. I don't know that you can really compare west coast cities with midwest or east coast ones when it comes to public transportation and the suburbs.
Though, one thing we can really learn from Amsterdam and Holland -- excellent train network. Yes they do have very dense cities, neighborhoods, and suburbs. But they are all wonderfully connected!!
We need the American version of the Holland train system. We keep our open space, learn from their trains and bike paths.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,489,236 times
Reputation: 12187
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beetlez
there isn't enough room for all of them, anyway. Huge infrastructural changes and public transportation improvements need to be made across metro areas before there's going to be a real shift in overall lifestyles.
A lot of cities have had HUGE population losses within their current boundaries and have plenty of room for more people.
Population loss in city limits:
Detroit -931,000
St Louis -508,000
Cleveland -436,000
Cincinnati -172,000
Louisville -134,000
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need to spread some rep around first.
. It took me on avg 40 min each way to cover the distance of 15 miles and most of that time was spent on the overly congested stretch of 5-7 miles between Pleasanton and its nearest suburb in my direction. The problem with that is the canyon topography of the region, congested highway and the cul-de-sac suburban street development that provides no options of using side streets to cover the measly 5 mile distance from home to work for most people. There were two major streets running parallel to the highway that were always as congested as the highway.
, otherwise lunch hour in the burbs was pure hell. I am not even going to say that there was absolutely no way to walk to places to eat. I'd trade the corporate suburban park hell for a congested city downtown any time! 
