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Comment by wanorris | Hacker News Reader

> I think the key is to get the hell out of the suburban hell holes that riddle North America like cancerous spots on an otherwise healthy lung, and find cities in which you can live

I don't think suburbs are the end of the world, especially for people with kids.

You also left out college towns, which can be very nice. While the college town I'm living in now (Laramie, WY) doesn't have the sheer diversity of a major cosmopolitan city, it attracts a healthy selection of smart, interesting people. I can also walk to work in 10 minutes, housing is way cheaper than places like Seattle and SF, and there are mountains less than half an hour away. If you don't need the networking resources of a major city, a college town can be a sweet deal.

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Bare with me as I really dislike suburbia:-) Suburbs (of which I would exclude most college towns I am aware of -- that's not too many) are hell holes. They are not good for raising children unless you think spending an hour or two per day of quality time while feverishly preparing/ordering dinner and/or getting them ready for bed is quality time. Most suburbanites waste upwards of 3 hours per day commuting to and from work in the cities where all the jobs are. The exhaustion of parents is apparent in just how often suburban families have their meals prepared for them by fast food outlets or restaurants. Those suburban parents are simply so exhausted when they get home that they often give up and order a pizza for dinner. This unhealthy lifestyle bleeds down to their children. I can't remember the last time I saw children actually running around outside and playing in the suburbs. And if they were, they'd probably get yelled at as these days adults don't want other people's children ruining their immaculately kept lawns or blocking their cars on the road while they play sports. Suburbs rarely have community focal points and destinations are only reachable by driving. Not that those destinations are particularly noteworthy as they're big box plazas and faceless corporations whose contribution to local community culture is comprised of sponsoring the local soccer team.

We've had a few decades now to observe that the promises of suburbia simply don't hold up. What's sad is that broken families stressed from both parents having to work jobs to hold down a mortgage for the perfect suburban home, consequently eating into the time they would normally enjoy being a family, and epidemics like obesity which are more rampant in suburbia than in many major cities in North America, have done little to get people to wake up to the reality that suburbs suck. But you know what probably will wake people up? High gas prices and an imploding real estate market will.

This TED talk sums up my thoughts on suburbia quite well: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/121

I used to agree with a lot of what you say. Then I had kids ;-)

Actually, I still don't disagree entirely, but you did leave out one very important consideration: schools. In many American urban centers the schools are poor, and housing in urban school districts that are good is prohibitively expensive.

So you start looking at suburbs, and the commute is a trade-off you make for the better schools.

Oh, and I wish we could order pizza here -- too far out in the sticks.

I'm not planning to have kids in the near future, but sincerely hope that this trend shifts (as more people move out of the suburbs and into cities) when the time comes.

I walked to school as a kid, and could walk/bike to my friends' houses until I was 12. Then we moved to the suburbs, and visiting friends had to be worked into my busy parents' schedule -- hence, life got less social.

Live in Pittsburgh, two kids. They go to a Catholic school a couple blocks away that we're happy with.

So, the choice becomes move to the suburbs, home school, or pay up for private schooling of some kind.

Pittsburgh has become a "college town" in some ways. There are several good to very good universities here, and the Oakland neighborhood with Pitt and Carnegie Mellon, has become the economic center of the city in my opinion.

If you live in a metropolitan area (not a given -- like I said, college towns are a nice alternative) -- you generally have the option of living inside the city proper, or living in a suburb. If you want your kids to have a yard to play in, you'll probably end up in a suburb. But that still doesn't mean you have to be a typical suburbanite.

Some suburbs are snotty, overpriced McMansion nightmares. Pass. Others are more affordable. And if you find a suburb you can actually afford to live in, you may not have to have both parents working like crazy to make the house payment. One problem solved. Second, you may have the option of taking control of where you work. If you start your own business, you can often find cheap space in the 'burbs. Or you can work out of some kind of "third space," if you don't need an office.

Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not defending the cookie-cutter keeping-up-with-the-Joneses traditional idea of the suburbs. Just the idea that you can make a suburb work as a decent place to live on your own terms if you want to.

>>> I'm definitely not defending the cookie-cutter keeping-up-with-the-Joneses traditional idea of the suburbs.

I grew up in the suburbs and never met anyone who met that stereotype. Suburban homes are cheaper than their urban counter part in terms of floorspace and acreage which is important if you are raising children. I've never met a family where both parents worked in order to afford their home and I'm not speaking of very wealthy people either.

What suburbs offer is a quiet, out of the way place, with lots of room, which makes family life much easier.

Then again, I live in Virginia so I might be confused. There's no distinction between city/suburb/rural county around here, and one never really existed.

> I grew up in the suburbs and never met anyone who met that stereotype.

I've definitely met those people in Texas.

> makes family life much easier.

In the suburbs 15 year olds are still tethered to their parents for transportation. It's ridiculous. Realistically kids are tethered even longer than that as a third or fourth car is not an option for many families. How does it make life easier to be stuck chauffeuring teenagers around for years? Move somewhere they can walk and take public transit from around age 10.

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