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Comment by anon373839 | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in suburbia and thought it was dull. Then I moved two two different “world cities” which was interesting, but the the constant presence of other people became tiring. I didn’t enjoy living in an overpriced shoebox, relying on public transportation, or competing with strangers for everything, every day.

I eventually returned to suburbia with a new appreciation for it. Moral of the story: people are different, and it’s good that different locales and lifestyles are available.

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Yeah I grew up in a suburb and spent time in both suburbs and cities as an adult. I certainly prefer the big city but there are a lot of hobbies and lifestyles they do not promote. For example, any hobby that needs space (practicing an instrument without disturbing others, certain kinds of sports practice, hobbies like woodworking that require tools and a space, etc.) becomes a lot harder in a city. You either need to rent some kind of additional space to engage with that hobby, commute somewhere, or both.

I can certainly see the appeal to owning a house with a garage, basement, and yard for some people, even if I dislike the isolation of having that space more personally.

You can have that kind of detached house with a yard, but the thing is you have to be careful in where you place it. Look at towns built or expanded between 1910 and 1950 and you'll see that often times there were single streets of houses sandwiched between denser parts of the city laid out in a grid so those houses wouldn't be excluded or isolated. Those pre-suburban streets were connected to larger roads on either end that were lined with shops, schools, and industry. It's in stark contrast to the suburban hell of houses being packed into winding dead-end streets spread out across miles and miles like the plasmodium of a slime mould. Cul-de-sacs shouldn't exist in a good layout created from scratch because a cul-de-sac means you failed to utilize the space correctly and make the area human traversable.

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