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> I'm not being condescending about living in suburbs or rural areas, just the design of a large portion of car dominated suburban areas of the US.

It sounds like your experience in Pitt was bad and I'm sorry you didn't have fun. I'm glad you found a home in NYC that you love.

What's not okay is projecting your suburb in Pitt onto the entire Midwest. There's a large geography to the US with many different cultures. What you wrote felt condescending and classist when framed alongside your projection that doesn't ring true for most of the towns in the Midwest.

To frame this with your example, if I only spoke about the worst parts of NYC and then projected them onto the entire city I doubt you'd have a very high opinion of me. That's why people don't like what you said.

Pittsburgh suburbs were just an example, there's plenty of nice walkable spots all over America, what I was talking about are car centric sprawls where you can't really go anywhere unless you get in a car. Having traveled most of North East, East Coast, Rust Belt and West Coast of the US, this is not a rare thing that's only seen in Pitt, even fairly dense parts of Long Island are just isolated homes and strip malls.

He was talking about the car-mandatory suburban design of the USA, which is pretty much everywhere by law outside of a few grandfathered places that were built before the car was invented and some commercial down towns. They also tend to be very expensive since they are in short supply and high demand. It has nothing to do with the people or culture per say and his experience exists everywhere! Look at pretty much an identical experience in Houston: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54 . The channel also has few examples of the same thing in london, ontario, canada.

In Europe, small town life is not necessarily suburban life, there are a lot of of walk-able villages connected via a train line that you could take to commute to your job in city, and they're wayyyyyyyyyy better than the sadness that is US & Canadian suburbia.

The offense people took had nothing to do with cars and more to do with generalizations and common microaggressions by coastal folks from large metros.

Honestly, I am very frustrated that this forum struggles so repeatedly to empathize with voices outside large metros, but I will attempt to break this down shotgun-style for you.

> As a New Yorker driving around middle america is super depressing.

Imagine if I called the place you're from, the place you grew up "depressing". All for a lack of sidewalks? As others shared we have woods, parks, lots of activities, etc. Yeah, it's not the same culture as NYC, but I don't think it requires being insulted. It's also not factual that you can only get around with a car. I survived til I was 16 with just a bike and rode everywhere. Still do, and now I live in San Jose.

> I can't imagine growing up trapped in my own home on a street with no sidewalks, only being able to go where my parents take me and finally growing into driving age so that I can go from parking lot to parking lot.

To most of the midwest and south, this is an extreme exaggeration but conveyed as commonplace.

I don't owe any more mental energy to this thread, so this is my last reply. I do hope that you (and him!) can be aware of the microaggressions in this thread and why they're not okay.

Many of us grew up in "trapped in my own home on a street with no sidewalks, only being able to go where my parents take me and finally growing into driving age so that I can go from parking lot to parking lot." and escaped to cities or loathe the suburbia we live in today.

Microagressions? So damn sensitive jeez.

Just want to add that I actually did grow up in a Midwest suburb, developed in the 1980s, and I didn't like it at all. I totally agree with OP's characterization: I enjoy walking to get around, and the built environment, which doesn't allow for that, depressed me. I relished every opportunity to spend time in the city, which is quite walkable.

Some suburbs in the SF South Bay and Orange County, CA are even worse in this respect, though. The sidewalks are there but there's no walking in places like Yorba Linda or Placentia.

I would take no offense to anyone calling the places where I grew up or have lived depressing.

If this is the Strong Towns YT video talking about how Houston is basically a dystopia, not all of Houston is like this. There are many walkable neighborhoods in this city. Examples: Downtown and Midtown Houston, Downtown Woodlands, Downtown Conroe, some parts of Sugar Land, Downtown Galveston, etc.

There are also (many) more suburbs with housing across all price points that are primarily accessible by car, and the families that live there that are happy with this arrangement.

As someone who lived in NYC and now lives in Houston, I much prefer the latter.

It would be cool if there were more trees or a sweet bar along my walk, but I still try to walk two miles per day.

Public transit was cool (and I was a HUGE fan of the NYC Subways), and I wish we had a commuter rail station somewhere, but I much prefer the privacy and freedom of my own car.

Also, public transit in Manhattan is much more convenient than public transit in South Brooklyn or Forest Hills, where you're usually looking at a 30 minute trip minimum to get _ANYWHERE_. (I owned a car in NYC and all but stopped taking public transit once we got it.)

I like a lot of things about Houston and Dallas, but one thing I particularly like is that you don't _have to_ live the urban experience if you don't want to. We have something for almost everyone. I personally don't think that urbanization should be foisted on everyone.

The North Hills (suburbs) of Pittsburgh are depressing indeed. I love the work the city proper has done to make walking and cycling a priority though!

Yeah I actually really liked proper Pittsburgh and was impressed by all of the bike lanes and greenery.

You’re still just generalizing your experience in a way that implies that you actually know what most of middle America is like, when you don’t. And having lived in Poland doesn’t somehow prove that you do.

I’ve lived in the US for over 20 years and have been to more than half of the states, including all of the east coast, west coast and large parts of the mid west. The states I haven’t been to are way more rural than the ones that I’ve seen. If I had to guess I’ve probably seen more of the US than 95% of Americans.

I’ve also done road trips through large parts of Europe and can tell you that none of it is littered with strip malls, parking lots and houses on streets without sidewalks.