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Comment by vxNsr | Hacker News Reader

This article makes some pretty bold claims in the beginning and then totally fails to back them anywhere in the interview. It repeatedly decried the fall of the suburbs, and yet throughout the interview talked about how they're being revitalized. By the end it admits that the suburbs are seeing a huge resurgence due to covid and people fleeing the packed cities, but it even claims this was happening before, so what's with those false claims at the start?

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Another source making similar claims and who claim to back them up are Strong Towns: https://www.strongtowns.org/book

I haven't looked into it, but I heard about it via the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes whose creator makes videos based on his experience and on his reading of Strong Towns. Starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_SXXTBypIg

Disclaimer: I'm a dirty European with a natural bias against American suburbia and I haven't read the strong towns book. Also strong town's presentation looks a bit like a cult but that might just be my impression.

Ok looks interesting, I bought the book, it’s on its way, but again, just by browsing the website, it seems like they’re an advocacy for changing cities, not necessarily making bold claims about how stupid Ben Carson is.

I don't see it that way because title is "The People the Suburbs Were Built for Are Gone" and then the whole article is saying how suburbs are revitalized to fit needs of those new inhabitants.

So from the start article never was about suburbs. It was about people and social dynamics.

The first 5 paragraphs go to extreme pains to describe suburbs as failed racist projects that only uncle toms and other racists support.

The actual interview spends most of its time focusing on how malls aren’t that useful anymore, and now that they’re changing to be useful people are moving back out to the suburbs. But the core idea of the suburbs: large SFU homes on large plots of land is never questioned.

"Editors Write Headlines, Editors Want Clicks"

Pretty much the answer to any question about why a headline's hook doesn't land in the meat of the article. They got what they wanted from you.

That’s kind of the vibe I got from the article as well. The guy being interviewed had a lot to speak about with little actually being said.

Honestly that sounds like the author doing a really bad job at transcribing the interview, when you talk you repeat yourself if this was just a video maybe it would be ok, but the author says the same thing “8” times in the intro paragraphs and then appears to just transcribe exactly what was said.

One has to wonder how seriously to take your opinions on an article that you characterize as [a] "guy being interviewed", when the article starts off by introducing the two women interviewed.

the suburbs fell? suburban home prices are up 15% just from last year. homes overbid with multiple cash offers in most metro regions. meanwhile look at the exodus from NYC.

the defining story of human geography in the last year is a movement from cities to suburbs

despite that, "people want dense cities" is an evergreen meme on HN

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