DrewCurtisJr: And when you have kids are you going to be dining out every night?

I don't dine out often as it is. And I'm not having kids. The point is that I want all of my amenities in walking distance. I want to walk to the grocery store. I want to walk to the BRT station. I want to walk to my friends' houses.

Rapmaster2000: Or at least it was 10 years ago when I was entertaining a job offer there.

It still is.

natas6.0: we are unaware of production of food

Vertical farming is the future.

bunner: Rapmaster2000: I thought living in the ghetto was tolerable when I was 25 and had nothing good to steal. Now, not so much.

The ghetto is how, not where you live. Pass this along to the people in the ghetto.

fark that, you do it. I ain't going back out there.

Sticky Hands: How much does an average house in that neighborhood cost?

In my neighborhood, which admittedly is one of the more expensive ones, you're looking at $200Kish. If you want an older home, but still want the quiet of residential neighborhoods like mine, you can buy a decent needs-fresh-paint-and-carpet-fixer-upper for closer to $80K.

dragonchild: Don't worry; t3knomanser is doing his best to fark that up in this thread.

Oh, please, like anybody's actually going to listen to me. I'm coming off as that kind of hipster douche you would never want as a neighbor. Trust me, I'm scaring more people out of the city.

drunk_bouncnbaloruber: If you grew up in the suburbs, you feel dead inside until you move away/go to college.

I was so convinced I loved suburban life until I went to college in Boston. It isn't the best city in the world, but pretty nice. I moved back to the burbs when I finished and wanted to kill myself. I couldn't walk anywhere, car culture dominated, and there was little to do as a 22 year old. Basically it literally and figuratively wasn't for me.

Live in a city. Then, you realize if it advertises on TV, it probably isn't a good restaurant.

HairBolus: The whole point of cities is that their concentration of people makes many things easier and more efficient while providing the widest range of options. This has been true since the beginning of history and they wouldn't exist otherwise.

If you rewind history, cities have generally been some of the worst places on Earth to live. Go back one century, and major cities were so suffused with litter and refuse that rotting waste would be piled up like snowbanks as people shoveled it off of the sidewalks. Diseases spread like wildfire. People crammed into tenements.

It doesn't get better going further back. They only existed for one reason: economies of scale. The rich generally still lived in the city, or at least maintained property there, but usually they were rich enough to push back the borders of the city around their own mansions. They didn't mix with the milieu.

With the growth of the environmental movement, that's started to change. I'd say it's largely been the past thirty years that we've seen the nature of cities really begin to change, as people get frustrated with smog, and overcrowding, and ghettoization, and so on.

The modern city is quite different from the cities of the past. It's less about cycles, and more about a fundamental change in how we relate to, and plan, our cities.

I don't live in the 'burbs' nor the city. I live in a rural housing development that is about 15 minutes away from most local commercial centers.

I GIS'd 'suburb' and was promptly horrified by what came up and, to me, living in such a massive urban sprawl that seems to go on for miles just has to me a nightmare of major proportions.

I've read pieces about folks turning their big city apartments into magical havens of wonder and efficiency but the majority I've seen apparently have the square footage of a closet. Most have about half the square footage of my home. Then, I read about their determined reconstruction of the living spaces and realize that they spend nearly as much as on a new home and average lot.

Buying a 'home' in the city usually means spending $150,000 on a 4th floor walk-up that equals the size of what we call an 'efficiency apartment' here. Meaning, often the kitchen, dining area and living room are all one unit. Sometimes the living room and bedroom are the same place.

With an aerial view of the 'burbs' it was scary to see so many folks mashed into such limited space with layouts that basically looked like planners used a plate of spaghetti to design the streets. I shudder to think of the massive HOA's that rule the areas with iron fists.
The idea of an hour or two commute to work is daunting also. I used to have to drive 35 minutes to a job in the next city and I hated that.

One of the smartest families in my area, decades ago, bought 10 acres of undeveloped land and plopped their home right in the middle. They resisted selling off any acreage during the housing boom and as a result, have communities built all around them, BUT they have a thick buffer of wild woods between them and the neighbors. They also made sure the front area of their property is thickly over grown with trees and palmettos, with just the driveway winding through, to shield them from the busy, paved road that is now there.

I envy them. Personally, if it was my land, I think I'd mine the perimeter to keep the curious out.

Valiente: Eapoe6: Logan's Run seemed so improbable when it was released.

All I remember is Jenny Agutter's perky nips from the ice cave.

I'm pretty sure that kick-started puberty.

That brings back memories (and mammories). Which sent me on a GIS... turns out, Jenny spent a lot of time out of costume, so the pics are ample. In addition, I stumbled across the 50 sexiest outfits in sci-fi blog post, that is well worth perusing.

dragonchild: But we bought this one house while I'm in my mid-thirties and we plan to die in it. No "upgrades" or whatever.

We're actually working pretty similarly, although not nearly so aggressive on the paying down the mortgage. We're shooting for a ten year payoff, but other than that- same plan. We bought the house. We're going to pay it off and then we're going to keep it. No starter home, no upgrades, nothing like that.

But for most people, I don't think stability is necessary or even a positive thing. If your life itself isn't stable- if moving is a reasonable possibility in the next 5 years, for example- owning a home is similar to owning a boat anchor. I got a good deal on my house because the previous owner needed to move out of state for work. He had sunk $20K into the kitchen and the only time it had been used had been when the realtor baked cookies for the open house.

dragonchild: I disagree; they were all about logistics.

Distinction without difference, in this case. By clustering people, you amortize the cost and increase the relative value of infrastructure. That's really where I was getting.

I love livin' in the city

My house smells just like the zoo
It chock full of shiat and puke
Cockroaches on the walls
Crabs crawlin' on my balls
Ohh, well I'm so clean cut
I just wanna fark some sluts

Spent my whole life in the city
Where junk is king and the air smells shiatty
People pukin' everywhere
Piles of blood, scabs and hair
Bodies wasted in the street
People dyin' on the street
But the suburban scumbags, they don't care
Just get fat and dye their hair

I love livin' in the city

I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that kids who grew up during the suburban boom... who are now in their late 20s to mid 30s... hated it. I know most people who grew up with me in Naperville, IL hated the suburbs. Most of us were hell-bent on living in Chicago (or some city) when we got older.

I'm sure the suburbs worked for my parents and their generation. I mean, they still live there and all. Just not for my generation.

Personally, I need stores, bars, restaruants within walking or biking distance.

t3knomanser: In my neighborhood, which admittedly is one of the more expensive ones, you're looking at $200Kish. If you want an older home, but still want the quiet of residential neighborhoods like mine, you can buy a decent needs-fresh-paint-and-carpet-fixer-upper for closer to $80K.

Mmmm.... I'm guessing Squirrel Hill, Shadyside or Highland Park.

spentmiles: I'm going to brag about how much money I've made off the housing industry, but it's probably more than you'll make in your entire life.



I assume you've made that money thanks to your GED in Real Estate. Few of us have the initial investment nor the inclination to be real estate investors. I have no interest in spending my time or money buying and selling real estate. I have better and more interesting things to do with my time.

DrewCurtisJr: t3knomanser: That would be all of them, pretty much.

No it wouldn't. There are plenty of suburbs that are walkable if that's what you desire. And when you have kids are you going to be dining out every night?

Maybe its just my experience... since I only lived in Chicago's suburbs. But I knew my way through maybe hundreds of suburbs (Chicago has a TON) and none of them were "walkable".

At best you have a 1 out of 10 chance of being at a walkable distance to a convenience store, like I did growing up. That's about it though.

I've lived in about 4-5 suburbs over 30 years. Nothing was "walkable" by any definition I can come up with.

Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Shadyside

Bingo. I actually live within spitting distance of Bakery Square 2.0, but thankfully, they'll be putting the residential portion of the development on the side of the property facing me.

Where I'm at is extra nice compared to regular Shadyside, just because I'm right on the intersection of Shadyside, Point Breeze, Larimer and East Liberty.

I got in at a good time, too, because with all the new development, I'm expecting my property value to increase. Not that I particularly care- I'm not planning to sell- but it's nice to know that my house won't be a millstone for the foreseeable future.

Mr_Fabulous: I have lived in 18 different homes in 49 years. Big city, suburbs, country-ass country, college towns, military base... all over the country.

There have been significant pros and significant cons to every single place I've ever lived.

It all comes down to personal preferences and priorities. Period.

Yep. And I try to caveat my pro-city posts by saying its my preference.

There was a time in my life (my first house) where I'd spent my college years in a big city (Chicago). At that point I really wanted the isolation of the suburbs. I loved it for 7 years or so, then decided it was time to move to a city (New Orleans).

Some people like living in rural areas. The reasons are obvious, even though its not my preference. Quiet, lots of space between you and neighbors, lots of outdoor activities to do that you can't in the city (hunting, off-roading, whatever.)