I refuse to live anywhere that isn't well-connected/dense enough to provide a good lifestyle completely car-free (i.e. all travel is quick, ubiquitous and convenient on foot/bike/public transportation). I do not ever wish to drive and this is not possible in any suburban development.
So this is nothing new. People have always preferred one thing, and changed their minds when having kids.
I imagine I'll be going back to my previous lifestyle (Urban instead of suburban) when the kids can take care of themselves.
(1) It's nice to see food first, especially produce and to a lesser extend meat.
(2) "Buy X for me every week" is where delivery shines, but you can't adjust for deals.
Agreed. However the only reason I have to make "family-sized weekly grocery trip" is because there is nowhere within easy walking distance for quick daily grocery trips.
Also some things are far apart by definition. Going fishing, to the forest, or just the Sunday morning hockey practice etc is part of "the package" of stuff you can do with a house and car. I Wouldn't trade those for a situation where my house was much closer to work and the area more dense, but I'd have no car.
The one thing that could revolutionize this is rental car pools with self driving cars. In the urban areas where parking is a hassle and the shared cars are always parked nearby, shared cars is becoming more common. That doesn't work in the suburb though. If I could summon a shared car when I need it, I wouldn't need a car of my own. That would mean the suburbs could be denser and have less cars.
I don't think my age is salient, as I know plenty of young people who claim they'd love to live like I do. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's lots of different desires, and they encompass all age groups.
I used to live in cities. I'm so happy to be out. Then again, I do love driving.
The only reason I drove anywhere with my son was because our region wasn't easily walk-able. That, and travel sports (though if the immediate area was walkable, that would have been reduced to weekend games).
He's since moved out, and we've traded our single-family for a TH in a denser area (though still suburban). I walk to work, walk to the park, have access to many trails, and only drive on the weekends to run errands. It was more QOL-improving than I ever imagined.
Anyway, I've grown to hate suburban sprawl. I find dense suburb packed around transit to be much better from a QOL perspective.
I have lots of carless friends with kids in NYC, and they seem to get by no problem.
When we looked at places I gave an immediate veto if there wasn't a sidewalk or if there wasn't a trolley stop a within 10min - 15 min walk, or a bus within 5min. Our elementary school is an 8min walk, the middle and high schools are about 20min. We only drive when public transit would more than double the amount of time it would take or if we need to go where there isn't transit. My wife will also drive for the large grocery runs each month, but the week-to-week is put in the stroller and carried home.
We enjoy this. Cars drive us nuts, not to mention the hassle of parking.
I'm not sure what you'd call this if not a suburb. The exurban areas are the ones from the 50s on that are nothing but houses arranged in the worst way possible.
Honestly, a lot of the first and second ring suburbs are like this. The Mon Valley (suburbs and towns along one of our rivers to the south east) is set up like this, but has been decimated by the loss of industry.
(Mt Lebanon is a township so part of it does go down the super low density route, but not the older sections.)
Do kids still play outside these days? I'm only 27, but from what I've seen of the 6-18 crowd they tend to be stuck in front of a screen most of the day.