I think the biggest evil of suburbs is the commute. I think part of the reason there's no social activity in suburbs is because, honestly, who wants to do anything after spending an hour in traffic after getting off your 8-5 job and knowing you need to be out the door by 6:30 the next day?
Commute fuel costs aren't remotely the biggest inneficiency with living in a diffuse suburb, though. Someone has to grade and pave all those extra miles of road. Someone has to pour all that concrete for sidewalks that no one walks on. Someone has to trench and lay piping and cable through all that unused space. Those large diffuse houses need more energy to heat and cool both because they're larger and because they're diffuse.
And even then, granting that you're not commuting to work, your kids are commuting to school on vehicles that need to travel much farther, your family is commuting to dinner and shopping over much larger distances, and everyone that needs to be at your home for any reason (to repair something, deliver something, etc...) needs to spend more fuel and time to get there.
Suburban sprawl is a bad trade. The worst of it, for you, may be the psychological impact of the daily commute. But that doesn't mean the rest of it isn't bad.
Usually people say something about externalities to explain why they deplore certain activity, but it seems to me that when you spend an incremental dollar (such as to live downtown), it rapidly diffuses into the economy and represents the average amount of carbon-intensity. So I think how much you spend is the key to focus on, rather than the "niceness" of what you spend on.
There is, in fact, social activity in the suburbs. There may be less, per capita, then in big cities, but that's because what is in the suburbs is car-dependent, and once you have that a threshhold cost, the marginal cost of leaving the suburb for activity in the nearest urban center is low, so lots of social activities partaken by suburban dwellers occur in urban centers rather than suburbs.
> who wants to do anything after spending an hour in traffic after getting off your 8-5 job
Weekday social activities are often partaken in near work prior to commuting back home, avoiding this problem and often reducing commute time by avoiding traffic.
Takes me an hour+ to get home 6 miles outside of the city (still in the City, but not downtown) on the bus. Not a great argument you have there unless you ignore everyone that isn't privileged enough to live in the city downtown proper.
Many cities are planned well and easy to get around. But this isn’t really true for most American cities. Although if you’re working in a city and living outside of it, you’re almost certainly wasting more time than anyone in it during your commute.
I just wouldn't take a job where I have to commute 2 hours. I don't think most people do that, although some may.
When I lived 10 minutes walk from work, the bus took about the same time, but waiting for its schedule meant practically speaking it was more like 30 minutes. It felt a little safer than scrambling across three highways, but after a bit, I couldn't stand the wait, so I went back to walking, and then to driving.
If I lived in a popular suburb further to the north, then I wouldn't be able to ride the bus at all (although that's too far of a commute for me by car)
So, across the whole range of commute distances, I can't see any situation where riding the bus makes sense. It either takes essentially as long as walking, or isn't available at all.
I find that hard to believe.
What is probably accurate is that there’s a lot less for a single twentysomething (though that depends on your interests). If you’re an adult with a family, there’s more than enough to do.
I don't like to suburbs either but I'm currently visiting my brother who lives in one. Their socializing is kids basketball & soccer games at the park (which suburbs are zoned for), picnics at the local greenway (also zoned for), and swimming in the community pool. All of which are walking distance.
Not to mention, you know, inviting people over to their house because it isn't a tiny 400 square foot apartment. They make dinner for friends and watch football on the porch.
I’ve lived in a few suburbs. One of them was blessed to have a dollar store within walking distance (you’d need to cross a busy highway, but you could walk). None of them so much as had sidewalks, though. Grocery stores were from 15-25 minutes by car. Entertainment (theaters, pools) were around that distance if not more.
Suburbs vary from place to place, just as towns and cities do. Some offer conveniences that make it hard to imagine living anywhere else. Some make it impossible to do absolutely anything without a car and a few gallons of gas.
I'll bet this is also the case for cities in developed east Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan & South Korea as well.
There's also three parks within 10 minutes' walk, more a short bus ride away, and multiple shops and cafes surrounding us. And we're about 15 minutes by bus from the city centre.
Just saying... the issues the US seems to have with cities seem to mostly be a result of lack of caring about them, not inherent properties of cities.
Americans also have parks, buses, shops, and cafes. All the suburbs I have lived in are about 10 minutes from a "city center".