Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't think most people have to be 'manipulated' into wanting a nice house with a nice yard in an area relatively free from crime. If people had wanted to stay in the tenements, they would have stayed there. When people talk nostalgically about the city, they forget the slums and the crime.
There are a lot more people in this country than there were 60 yrs ago when suburbanization was becoming popular. People have to live somewhere. If it weren't for the suburbs, the cities would be bigger. That may sound obvious and silly, but think about it. Hello, you are on the Colorado forums a lot, so I'll assume (dangerous, I know) that you live there. Boulder enacted "growth controls" in the late 70s. The smaller towns grew and farm towns like Lafayette became cities in their own right. If Boulder hadn't tried to articficially control growth, a lot of us would be living in Boulder now. Which is better? Who knows?
And while I agree in general with your comments on education, I also think that in general, again, well-educated people make good decisions for themseves.
maybe we're putting too much emphasis on this one part of an overall point. either way, people don't necessarily want to be or chose to be manipulated. marketing departments of companies don't spend tons of money on figuring out how to do it just because. lobbyists aren't there because lobbying doesn't work - it does work, and runs the show to some extent as you know. they wouldn't spend that kind of effort and cash if it wasn't doable and demonstrable. regardless, that's not entirely the point here. some people are affected by marketing strategy, some aren't. sometimes your environment and social circle - suburban or not - can affect mentality and the whole thing can grow from there. that's culture. that's politics. that's life. and there are some suburbs that are way more community oriented, well-conceived, or otherwise good and pleasant than others, in part due to the nature of whomever is running the show and developing the situation...or not. of course people have to live somewhere, so why not consider how to keep it good, sustainable, healthy, etc.? not so much about total control or intervention, but if we were to let things be as they may, there could be and are some pretty wild repercussions of that, too.
"well-educated": those rankings use degree as the measure, and i'd guess you know plenty of degreed people that just might be doing way more harm than good, that might be way less considerate than some others, and vice versa of course. i agree education's good...when it's educating and not JUST a hobnobbing, drunken good time, or a 4 year all expenses paid trip with maybe a few things learned about the world at large along the way and bragging rights at the end of it, which it can often be, no? and while we're on the topic of education (which is not unrelated to the thread as it turns out!), i would put this out there: do you think that "formal education" may actually be set up such that, to some degree that may be significant, people may often be learning more to go through the motions to "meet expectations" and conform towards their "compensation" - grades, later salaries - than to think independently about the world they're in and affecting?
Last edited by hello-world; 05-19-2007 at 08:18 PM..
Well, yes; marketing and lobbying work or people wouldn't get paid to do it. Maybe people have been manipulated to think that living in a city slum is cool. I know a lot of 20somethings who seem to think that. Some of them are related to me! I have lived in the city (Pittsburgh and Denver) and suburbs of both of those cities. Honestly, the urban homesteaders won't like this, but I felt more of a sense of community in the burbs. Maybe it's because the cities are so big, one person is so insignificant. In Denver, we really tried. We belonged to the neighborhood assn, blah, blah.
Urban sprawl, other than Wal-Mart, freeways and tract homes, has not been defined in this thread. There are two freeways through the heart of Denver, plus some side freeways. Wal-Mart is making inroads into the urban market. Tract houses, as I have said, are found in the city as well.
Re: education. The purpose of a bachelor's degree is supposed to be to teach, among other things, critical thinking skills.
As VegasPilgrim and I discussed through intelligent discussion in our PMs, "sprawl" can have disastrous consequences in certain areas and can have benefits in others. For example, while Scranton/Wilkes-Barre declined in population by tens of thousands between 1970-1990, it's land usage also grew by over twenty square miles! What did this indicate? We took a dwindling population and simply spread it out further and further away from our urban cores, increasing the region's traffic congestion and dependency upon fossil fuels (which also contributes to our region's marginal air quality). We robbed our older municipalities of their tax bases, at which point either taxes had to be raised so high to sustain adequate services (driving out more residents in the process), or services had to be slashed to barely-functioning levels (also driving out more of the tax base in this vicious cycle). We lost more of our precious open space to account for new tract housing, strip malls, etc. that were previously available in our core communities. Once-vibrant middle-class urban communities sit largely-vacant while people flood outward in ever-expanding concentric circles of suburbia (What I like to call the "Krispy Kreme Effect" as the city cores become empty donut hole voids and the suburbs become the gooey, calorie-laden confectionary goodness in a ring around that void). In an area like Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, which just finally showed its first year of population growth in 2006 after decades of post-Industrial decline (due to an influx of NY/NJ transplants and growth of Hispanic families), sprawl in every sense of the term is AWFUL! All it does here is cause trouble.
VegasPilgrim described Phoenix sprawl to me a bit more clearly, and it seemed to be a very rational explanation. He agreed that what is happening to Northeastern Pennsylvania is disconcerting, but the situation in the Sunbelt is much different. I've concluded that in rapidly-booming cities like Phoenix, Atlanta, and Charlotte that there are enough people moving into the entire metropolitan areas to keep the urban cores vibrant as well as the suburbs, giving people the option to choose to live in either the city or suburbs without the associated guilt and shame of "killing the city," which I gladly subject suburban newcomers to in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. It's not good at all that all three of those aforementioned cities have abysmal mass transit systems and have horrific traffic congestion as a result of the urban sprawl, but most Southern cities tend to be growing more quickly than they can plan for.
Well, that's close to what I said, but not exactly. I don't even consider Phoenix to have an "urban core." It is a giant concrete blob cut into a perfect square mile grid, with a couple of centers of "urban" activity, spread throughout the area, some of which happen to be in the City of Phoenix (downtown, Biltmore, Central Ave), some of which are in Scottsdale (Old Town), Glendale (Westgate) and Tempe (Mill Ave). Let's not forget that most of central Phoenix, other than some pockets of gentrified and redeveloping areas (Arcadia, Willo-Encanto, downtown) is declining socially, from my point of view, in that huge sections of the city, potentially several hundred square miles, are turning into an illegal immigrant ghetto. Most Phoenix homes built in the last 60 years are incredibly cheap, not built to last (with a couple of notable exceptions), and it is no wonder why upwardly mobile people continue to buy brand new homes further and further out. Certain brand new neighborhoods, especially in west Phoenix and Laveen, have a remarkably short shelf life before they turn into a dump.
Where you are right, is unlike Scranton, PA, though, the population of central Phoenix is not declining in numbers-- people are pouring into Phoenix like an avalanche-- both from other states (California and the midwest, mainly) and from south of the border. These newcomers need a place to live. In fact, the Phoenix metro area is becoming more, not less dense with each year. A lot of this is due to the checkboard pattern of land development; vacant parcels, which during the initial sprawl phase, where leapfrogged over, continue to be filled in (infill development) in addition to outward expansion. My main point though, is that the terms "urban" and "suburban" are virtually useless when discussing Phoenix, which doesn't have a solid core city; Phoenix is basically a suburb of itself. Thus, you can only compare one square mile parcel of land with another square mile, and discuss the differences in density, historicity, income levels, etc. The radial pattern of most cities just doesn't work for Phoenix.
Well, yes; marketing and lobbying work or people wouldn't get paid to do it. Maybe people have been manipulated to think that living in a city slum is cool. I know a lot of 20somethings who seem to think that. Some of them are related to me! I have lived in the city (Pittsburgh and Denver) and suburbs of both of those cities. Honestly, the urban homesteaders won't like this, but I felt more of a sense of community in the burbs. Maybe it's because the cities are so big, one person is so insignificant. In Denver, we really tried. We belonged to the neighborhood assn, blah, blah.
Urban sprawl, other than Wal-Mart, freeways and tract homes, has not been defined in this thread. There are two freeways through the heart of Denver, plus some side freeways. Wal-Mart is making inroads into the urban market. Tract houses, as I have said, are found in the city as well.
Re: education. The purpose of a bachelor's degree is supposed to be to teach, among other things, critical thinking skills.
hey pittnurse.
i think i can understand where you're coming from and i agree with much of what you have to say. the growing population has a lot to do with a lot of what's being said here, and the "insignificance" you mentioned can really be a bummer. as a nurse (right?), you're probably doing a lot for the general good and in ways that really touches individual people's lives and i think that's totally cool. i hope the rest of us can work toward that, too, and i appreciate your thinking about this stuff and sharing your thoughts.
Last edited by hello-world; 05-20-2007 at 12:03 AM..
Thanks, hello-world! I hear what SWB is saying, too. It seems that what is happening in NW PA is also what is happening in the Pittsburgh area. Pittsburgh city itself is struggling to stay above 300,000 people. It used to have almost 700,000! The metro area has stayed about the same all this time.
That is a different problem than in the sunbelt. Denver proper grew slightly in the last census. It is landlocked; the Colorado legislature made it extremely difficult for Denver to annex any more land. Its population is probably going to fluctuate around the current level. Boulder is pretty land-locked, too, thanks to its own policies. So up in Boulder Co, we have growth of smaller satellite cities, which are maily residential.
I guess the answer to this question is: it depends. Sprawl is a very negative term. Noone wants it. A lot of people don't want growth, but the alternative is usually population loss, not stability.
yeah, denver's issues seem to have much to do with the "gimme more" and population growth - the "de-agging" of the midwest, the escape from the cost of CA. it can be a relatively material world here. only so much water to go around, and ask some folks on the western slope that now don't have some of the water that's been grabbed by the Front Range communities and their lawns and long hot post-ski-trip showers how great suburban sprawl is! the brown cloud that'll only get browner as the Front Range grows and the sun continues to shine through it's emmisions. the cookie cutter assembly line of home building around the outskirts that in it's own right can add to the "insignificance" you mentioned. boulder, i agree too - nice that place hasn't been overrun by "everywhere, america" and the infusion of Walmart/tracthousing that's made even parts of inner denver pretty suburban-ish, but the same policies that have kept it beautiful have made it very exclusive...and contributed to the boom of those "satellite" commuter spots you refer to. and i wonder, how long before the balance tips and all that suburbia makes for another LA or Pittsburgh right here? can't the alternative have more to do with more sustainable habits, more sustainable growth, re-invention of the city itself before immediate outward sprawl (there are some communities that resist or avoid it and do rather well - ithaca, ny, on one scale, portland, or on another, some of the rejuvenation of manhattan, some international examples such as zurich, etc)? can we continue to just grow and grow, consuming as much as we can find?
Last edited by hello-world; 05-20-2007 at 08:59 AM..
Well, Boulder has sort of done what you suggest, hello, and it has made for a more attractive city, IMO. It also contributed to Longmont, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield and now Erie becoming decent sized cities in their own right; it also helped grow the town of Superior, which was basically nothing in 1982, when we moved here. I'm happy with the decentralization; I would hate it if we all lived in Boulder instead (a Boulder that would be much bigger both geographically and in population). It's too bad for those who really want to live in Boulder that growth limits make it so expensive.
As for sustainable, I work 4 1/2 miles from my home; DH works 8 miles away. You can't get too much better than that. With the growth of Louisville, we have shopping for most needs, making it fairly unecessary to go out of town. That is not what is was like when we first moved here; you had to go to Boulder to buy practically everything except food.
Well, Boulder has sort of done what you suggest, hello, and it has made for a more attractive city, IMO. It also contributed to Longmont, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield and now Erie becoming decent sized cities in their own right; it also helped grow the town of Superior, which was basically nothing in 1982, when we moved here. I'm happy with the decentralization; I would hate it if we all lived in Boulder instead (a Boulder that would be much bigger both geographically and in population). It's too bad for those who really want to live in Boulder that growth limits make it so expensive.
As for sustainable, I work 4 1/2 miles from my home; DH works 8 miles away. You can't get too much better than that. With the growth of Louisville, we have shopping for most needs, making it fairly unecessary to go out of town. That is not what is was like when we first moved here; you had to go to Boulder to buy practically everything except food.
from my vantage, it's not so much about suburbia being inherently bad, just as boulder is not really the model that comes to my mind for how it might better be done. to me, this all seems more about the nature of a lot of suburbia and what it fosters and where it comes from. like many things, it can and is well-conceived or ill-conceived, and seems often to be more of the latter. i think there are plenty of good points made throughout this thread, by yourself, and by others. from where i sit, it looks like we, as a society, may want to keep a critical eye on sprawl and what can come of it, just as we might want to keep an eye on population growth, inner city decay and crime, our consumption and waste, political corruption, etc.. not personal, but societal.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
What did this indicate? We took a dwindling population and simply spread it out further and further away from our urban cores, increasing the region's traffic congestion and dependency upon fossil fuels (which also contributes to our region's marginal air quality). We robbed our older municipalities of their tax bases, at which point either taxes had to be raised so high to sustain adequate services (driving out more residents in the process), or services had to be slashed to barely-functioning levels (also driving out more of the tax base in this vicious cycle). We lost more of our precious open space to account for new tract housing, strip malls, etc. that were previously available in our core communities. Once-vibrant middle-class urban communities sit largely-vacant while people flood outward in ever-expanding concentric circles of suburbia (What I like to call the "Krispy Kreme Effect" as the city cores become empty donut hole voids and the suburbs become the gooey, calorie-laden confectionary goodness in a ring around that void). In an area like Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, which just finally showed its first year of population growth in 2006 after decades of post-Industrial decline (due to an influx of NY/NJ transplants and growth of Hispanic families), sprawl in every sense of the term is AWFUL! All it does here is cause trouble.
It's not good at all that all three of those aforementioned cities have abysmal mass transit systems and have horrific traffic congestion as a result of the urban sprawl, but most Southern cities tend to be growing more quickly than they can plan for.
Thus, you can only compare one square mile parcel of land with another square mile, and discuss the differences in density, historicity, income levels, etc. The radial pattern of most cities just doesn't work for Phoenix.
