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Comment by JambalayaJimbo | Hacker News Reader

Your kid will hate your car constrained area, because they will be unable to get around themselves until they’re old enough / rich enough to drive one

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Suburb doesn't mean car constrained. I grew up in the suburbs and rode my bike and skateboard just about everywhere from the time I was 13 to the time I could drive.

There usually aren't any meaningful destinations (like shops / a park / a mall) within a suburb you can reach in a reasonable amount of time, except a friend if the live close.

As a Central European, I guess I will never understand. We have "suburbs" and they have shops and parks, both poor and rich.

American suburbs feature poorly interconnected residential-only areas that sprawl endlessly. You can easily be a ten minute walk from a friend (through yards and across fences, not over a walking path) but a ten or fifteen minute drive away due to the Byzantine road layout.

Commercial zones that have groceries, restaurants, shops, and entertainment are almost always several kilometers away. You could technically bike there, but there are rarely bike lanes. And due to serving the needs of a large, low-density area, you’d have to bike on multi-lane high-speed thoroughfares which is far less safe than being able to use small local streets. Where there are sidewalks, they often end abruptly and don’t actually connect to anywhere or anything.

It is truly hell.

> Where there are sidewalks, they often end abruptly and don’t actually connect to anywhere or anything.

My (American) definition of suburbia primarily involves a lack of sidewalks.

This explains why cars are a necessity. :/

What is a necessity is to change that situation.

Ideally yes.

America has zoning laws that ban anything other than single-family homes in a given area.

Go play SimCity again. The concept of mixed-use doesn't exist because it's built by an American.

FWIW, which version of the game do you recommend?

Not OP, but I think SimCity 2000 has a certain charm to it, but if I had to pick my favorite from the series, I'd say SimCity 4 is the way to go. It's available on GOG.

I live in a very suburban neighborhood in Arizona and we have 2 neighborhood parks within a 2-3 minute walk. There are 2-3 more parks in the 5-10 minute range. There is a 10 minute walk to 3 grocery stores, a bar, many fast food restaurants, tons of medical offices, etc. All of my friends and family who live in different suburbs have similar amounts of services with a short walk as well.

That's hardly universal. I recently moved from inside the city of Buffalo, NY to a suburb of Albany, NY. I'm now significantly closer to non-gas-station shops than I was in the city. There are a lot of very poorly planned cities in the US, many suburbs are newer & much less car-centric despite being lower density.

Sure in the 80’s. Nowadays if you leave teens alone someone will call child services.

Then the kid moves to NYC, loves it, meets someone, has a kid, and realizes they need two SUV’s and a heated garage near good schools.

Somehow my parents managed to raise me without any SUVs.

Not saying you need the above, but you’ll feel like you do. It’s certainly the easier way

Addressing the hypothetical person you’re describing: car infrastructure may solve some needs, but it is in direct conflict with other needs. Give every adult a guaranteed parking space just at home and at work, and the physical space required for that alone is an unbelievable double-digit percentage of the city area. Cities are so valuable because they pack a lot of amenities and markets (including your family’s schools and workplaces) in a compact area. Place everything significantly further apart, add more concrete and noise, and you’ve lost on all fronts: safety, charm and efficiency.

> car infrastructure may solve some needs, but it is in direct conflict with other needs

True for all infrastructure choices

> the physical space required for that alone is an unbelievable double-digit percentage of the city area

True, and I do miss big city life, but all the major cities have been captured by anti-development fanatics of a particular political bent vehemently opposed to me, people like me, and our priorities.

Conclusion: double-garage areas work best for my mix of requirements.

You can have two SUVs, a heated garage, and also ride a bike or take the train to work. You can get a reasonable second hand bike for under $100 here and probably in most of the US, it's not like you need to sacrifice the garage heating to afford one.

I get that density and banning cars are hostile to driving an SUV everywhere, but bike infrastructure and public transport aren't. If anything they take traffic off the road and speed up the morning commute of drivers, so they enable a better experience for drivers too.

this comment cracks me up because i’m the suburban kid who moved to NYC, loved it, had a kid, and continue to tease my parents for “ruining” my childhood.

Being trapped in your suburban neighborhood without access to a car is a special kind of hell. During the week mom and dad were too tired to drive me anywhere after work, unless it was urgent. Long commutes. Weekends were fun - sometimes.

There were SOME really awesome things about suburbia though. Snow days were the best.

then you ask yourself why aren’t the schools good enough in nyc… and it leads you down a rabbit hole

I grew up in NYC and maybe having my movement restricted might have been a good thing.

I was deep into NY's drug and party scene from about the time I turned 12. Pedos used to follow me walking home from the public library.

Lotta my friends growing up did not make it and I no longer live in NYC.

this sounds more like “i grew up in a horrible neighborhood”, which can happen easily in the suburbs too! Sometimes drug use is even more common amongst youngsters in suburbs - because there’s “nothing to do”.

I grew up in midtown manhattan and went to private school. I grew up in the best neighborhood. The point was the free roaming and access to mass transit gave me access to all of the "bad neighborhoods".

Next caller.

Sorry you had that experience.

My opinion is that parenting is supposed to play a major role here. Educating your child on the dangers of _why_ we avoid certain neighborhoods, _why_ we don’t do drugs, and surrounding them with good role models early is so so important.

I guess what i’m saying is, if you parents locked you up in a safe cage (like I grew up - in a “safe” suburb without access to much), you might have grown up to be a naive 18 year old. And then you’d maybe go off to college and end up with the wrong crowd doing drugs and other stuff anyway. Completely isolating a teenager from the world doesn’t teach them how to navigate it.

The pedo’s following you home is creepy as hell though. No comment on that. Damn.

Again, just my opinion. We can agree to disagree. Have a great day. :)

Like with many things caused by non-existant socal safety nets, these problems are bigger in the US than elsewhere.

Dirodi or other ebikes make kids very mobile nowadays

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