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Comment by ChicagoDave | Hacker News Reader

I'd agree about the negative impact of suburbia for completely different reasons. The culture created by it has the nature of a bubble where its occupants don't ever interact with anyone "different". Clothes, jobs, mannerisms, jokes, religions, activities, food...are all the same.

This dulls people's sense of empathy in a considerable and damaging way. Instead of being able to think critically and with empathy, suburbia drives people to view all of their sameness as a "good thing".

We need to break these bubbles, redraw our towns and cities with integrated services, focused on walking, biking, and as little driving internally as possible. You car for should be intra-city travel. Not for going around a fence to the grocery store that's 1000ft away.

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> We need to break these bubbles, redraw our towns and cities with integrated services, focused on walking, biking, and as little driving internally as possible. You car for should be intra-city travel.

How about you live the way you want to live and let me live how I want to live?

I choose living in the suburbs because that's where I'm happiest right now. When I was younger, I loved the energy and action of the city. In my mid-40's, I love the peace and community of my suburb although I suspect once self-driving cars are within reach, I'm going to move even further away from the city.

> How about you live the way you want to live and let me live how I want to live?

If the price of living where you want to live factored in the significant externalities of it, you might have a point. But suburban and exurban areas in the United States largely don't pay their way with regards to most governmental services (and have a significantly higher ecological footprint, also not accounted for).

That's not a problem with the suburbs, that's a policy problem. I realize that it costs more per capita to supply infrastructure to us out here and I certainly don't mine paying a premium.

Plus, moving suburbanites into city centers can cause problems too. For example, Austin has been building some very nice condo towers right downtown. These buildings have attracted people that, like me, want peace and quiet. So for the past few years, there's been quite a bit of tension between these new residents and bars and nightclubs that have existed for a long time. The bars have lost some of the fights and the character of downtown is changing.

I do not believe this is true. The way they arrive at such numbers is to assume that a highway between San Francisco and Los Angeles is there for the benefit of people in the Central Valley. It's not. There are significant services built outside urban cores for the benefit of people in urban cores.

It's the single largest thing that gets lost in this whole discussion: the idea of preference.

It's well shown that diversity hurts civic life in communities. All at the same time being a great thing for businesses. http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...

Sorry but forced integration is not going to make things better. There's a reason even diverse cities like NYC are still pretty segregated by neighborhood.

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