@@Mr.Alkebulan What? You let you destroy buy an dead woman? (When it's a men or it I don't care) That is a disease. Make a vote against it when it is so important or shredder this sheath. Problem solved.
Those damn conservatives, they're like monsters, they never did anything good or right, unlike liberals and socialists, they always do the right thingand treat everybody as equals! Life is like a cartoon story for you, isn't it? The vilains and the heroes, so easy to label.
I'm honestly quite curious as to what you think about domestic aviation and its atrocious effects on the environment as well as its general pointlessness.
All gulf countries are basically a forgotten bastard states of America. Probably because American construction companies built the infrastructure when oil was discovered.
My siblings and I were visiting my parents last week, and we literally couldn’t go anywhere or do anything because there were only two cars, and our parents needed them. You can’t walk anywhere, because there’s nowhere to walk to, and there’s certainly no public transportation. Being in an American suburb is very close to being on house arrest, and it’s by design.
I know the feeling, anytime I visit my sister I'm just miserable since she lives in one of those planned communities on the outskirts of town, so there is nothing interesting within a ten minute drive and even then it's ten minutes to get to the next thing.
Oddly enough I grew up and still live in a very rural area. The fact that 5miles is too far to walk for a bus in a city always puzzled me. with I 20 min walk I could go any where it seemed to me. Then as I grew up I realized kids in cities don't walk ten miles to visit a friends house at 8 years old. I still remember the looks I got when I said to my relatives. Oh ya I just walked around downtown all day and stopped by the museum. LOL it was only 4 miles into downtown. Like a 12 min walk. But you would think I made a trek into the damned arctic. (EDIT: I am not changing this to sound as facetious as I meant it to. I haven't seen so much controversy over a clearly miss typed paragraph since my friend discovered they spelled Niger wrong in our social studies class.)
Living in the city you have all the convenience and none of the space, living in the country, you have all of the space and none of the convenience. In the suburbs, you get neither.
As a rural American, can confirm. Although the lack of convenience can be a pain from time to time, having a forest and wildlife as neighbors can't be replaced.
@@KylesGuide what is this rural America you speak of every time I visit it's just sprawl with nearby forest but not much of an actual town. Is there an example you can give? ( My mind may be broken as when I think of town I imagine a European town. So not a lot of cars, not very good roads, a lot of people walking. Street-side shops, etc
It's interesting you mention Houston, because the city found out the hard way how suburbs can be destructive. On 23 August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall at the Texas gulf coast, causing widespread flooding, with Houston suffering the biggest and deepest flooding, roughly 25 to 30% of the city was underwater, and it was later determined to be linked to the suburbs. Prior to the hurricane, Houston was surrounded by flood plains, these natural features were useful at absorbing water from storms, however, by 2017 these meadows were bulldozed and paved over to make way for new suburbs, effectively compromising the flood plains' ability to prevent flooding, once Harvey made landfall, there was no where for the water to go, but directly into the city. This is the other way suburbs have destroyed the US, for they are built on natural habitats that make things hazardous for residents and nearby communities, to make matters worse, the developers knew what could happen, but were allowed to build anyway, if Hurricane Harvey taught anything, suburbs should not be allowed to build in naturally vulnerable areas, because mother nature is a harsh disciplinarian.
It's not only the suburbs. Look at the concrete wasteland, that's basically one large impervious surface. And this is absolutely bad for water drainage.
I grew up in a European style suburb and it was a wonderful childhood, I could walk to all my friends without my parents guidance as there were many sidewalks and I didn’t need to cross any roads, there was a playground every 100 meters or so so we could play and many more things that made my childhood amazing. Growing up as a teen or young adult was also amazing as there was a bus to anywhere is the city just outside my house, going out was super easy.
We also had several community centers, all my schools and kindergartens were walking distance. A lot of people that you saw every day so I really knew all my neighbors. We were dog owners so I even knew all my neighbors dogs as well. My dad made good friends from taking out the dogs
I’m glad we moved to Scandinavia a few years back. In the dense urban area we now live in our kids have way more freedoms than they ever had in their old housing estate in Ireland. Sure we’ve a smaller living space by a couple of square meters but our kids can walk to school safely, getting to work is a doddle and we aren’t pouring tens of thousands into car ownership. Not to mention literally everything is either a 10 minute walk or bus/tram ride away. There is no way I’m going back to living in a box where even doing something as simple as going for a pint requires a 1/2 hour cab ride and you have to drive to the park so your dog can get proper exercise.
I live in a sub suburb in America and it’s the same exact thing, it’s middle class unlike my extremely wealthy city and it’s suburbs it has an elementary middle and high school all in walking and biking distance and we knew all our neighbors from dogs and when I used to walk to my elementary school. There are also a lot of sidewalks and it’s very bikeable and there’s also a huge park nearby with many amenities. There’s also a plaza with a few restaurants and stores that’s in biking and walking distance it’s a bit car centric but you won’t usually see too many cars on the road and traffic isn’t a big deal except when the schools come out but it’s not that bad either since the schools have their own little area and a lot of kids walk or bike home. Still, it’s not perfect pretty far from buses train stations, the beach, and other stuff like malls. It’s in the Florida Everglades so it’s not the most stunning place either and can get quite boring at times. Still, it’s better than some of the other suburban options like those extremely wealthy neighborhoods
Don't believe a talking head blindly. I grew up in lawned neighborhoods outside the CBD in a US city, and my friends were two blocks away. Stores were 1/2 block away incl: two grocers, two dime stores, a pharmacy and a gas station. I had friends I met in HS that lived way out in newer suburbs. They had friends down the street. There was usually a convenience store...a 70s version of an old general store...within walking or bike distance. I biked about 3 miles a day after school until I got a small motorcycle at 14. I only dated one girl that lived in a remote neighborhood on the river that had no stores or schools within bike distance. That was a set of rich country estates with 5 acre lots. After I got married, we bought a home on the edge of a village in 1990 and walked almost everywhere for small activities or small town shopping. That village is considered a suburb today of the city on the other side of the bay 20 miles (35km) away. There are housing developments that fit this video's BIG MOAN but there are plenty that sound just like your experience too. I visit my hometown
@@STho205 And? Just because you had that doesn’t mean everyone does. Believe it or not your experience is not everyone else’s experience. I live in a place where there is nothing nearby and nobody I know lives close by. I do believe the words people are saying because I didn’t have your experience. I am happy you managed to have all this but don’t act like everyone else does. A
I remember when i bought my first house it was located in an area that was mixed zone. the bank tried to argue with me that the prospect of a store opening up near my house could hurt the property value. My only response was "why would i not want a store in easy walking distance? sign me up!"
Did they explain why would it hurt value? When watching american sitcoms, having to drive to grocery stores was the strangest thing to me and l was wondering how nobody sees business opportunity in opening a grocery store in such neighbourhoods.
As a Brazilian, that was the first thing that really felt off for me when I spent a semester studying in London-Canada, which is a city that takes a lot of lessons from American infraestructure from what I could tell. I know people don't think highly of Brazil, but being able to just ride me bike to places or just have a short walk to the pub or the local pizzaria to meet with the boys makes such a huge difference for me.
Not dying in the streets by machete or not being transformed into a fleshball on my bike by dummy drivers is something I enjoy more than having a walking distance bar. To everybody their own pleasure I guess.
@@RememberingGames that escalated quickly and for no reason. He was just being proud of an aspect of his home country - which I totally agree with, I'm Italian but I could be from the whole of Europe or Asia really, and I can tell suburbs are neither natural nor convenient, that's a simple fact. Enjoy your years of auto isolation, with the occasional car ride to go pass some hours doing nothing at the mall I guess?
@@RememberingGames This is funnier because the US actually does have a specifically machete wielding crime problem: they're called the Macheteros. Because we've absolutely have had no history with violent and organized crime in the US. The Macheteros are actually one of the better political factions in the US.
@@hyperion3145 Good thing I'm Canadian then. No machetes, no guns problem, nice people and lot of space. But granted my initial comment was pretty rude. Sorry about that. In the end, you gotta live where you are happy. If big cities is what you like, it's fine. If I like suburbs, I think it is fine as well. Both have goods and bad.
i once heard: "building extra lanes to highways to tackle traffic issues is the same as having bees on your balcony and to tackle that problem you put additional flowers" i think that discribes the problem very visual.
You ever hear about what happened during Covid? People worked at home in many cases, and it became evident that much of the work could be done at home, rather than spending an hour commuting to work and clogging the streets! The internet allows for much work to be done at home, if only employers would stop requiring their workers come to the office all the time! Look at what were doing here on the internet. I don't need to go to an office to type this message and send it to you, I don't need to commute and hour each way and complain about the traffic or live in the city in a tiny apartment with no yard!
Just out of curiosity, I calculated how much owning my car cost me earlier this year. It was about $8400. I work from home and rarely need to fuel it up, and yet it burns a several thousand dollar hole in my pocket just so I can safely get to the grocery store and navigate the transit-lacking city I'm in. I hate living somewhere that basically requires me to own a car just to do the most basic things.
Blame the taxes on gas, the government-mandated scam that is car insurance, registration fees, planned obsolescence from bloated, too-big-to-fail automobile manufacturers…. In other words, the government is the problem. Or stop complaining and live in a place where they can’t even afford a car if they wanted to.
I'm an American living in Istanbul, Turkey. I never even use public transportation (which is excellent) because everything I need is within a five-minute walk.
7:42 You forgot the 1967 Battleships board game box, the one that actually took the time to draw the women in the kitchen, smiling, while doing the dishes.
The sad thing is that so many of us have grown up living in suburbs that we think it's normal and even desirable. Almost difficult to imagine even living any different way.
I’ve lived in NYC for years. (Born in it) But I would love to be able to live in the suburbs. As I was saying earlier. Not everywhere needs to look like or feel like NYC. Having a Suburban alternative is a nice thing to have. Don’t fall for this PR nonsense.
How did mixed zoning get preserved in European suburbs and not in the U.S.? It does seem as if that change alone would solve many of the negative effects of suburban living.
Bro this isn't as easy as it is portrayed in these kind of videos. I'm from Germany and I know lots of people who are stuck in super expensive yet tiny inner city apartments in huge apartment buildings with like 20 other units. They would like to live in a single family home but it's not affordable anymore, even for the upper middle class.
Brooklyn is what American cities could have, should have, looked like if not for the suburban sprawl. Medium-to-High density housing with mixed zoning, public spaces with room for communal activities, functional public transport network, "mom and pops" stores and restaurants scattered all throughout. New York in general, but especially Brooklyn and Harlem, is a great example of the benefit of neighborhood communities, of having this group of people who care and support one another, who do things together. Communal identity is so important for mental well being! It's only in places like Harlem and Brooklyn that you can have stories like a guy running a food cart for 20 years get people donating money to cover his life saving surgery. You can't have that in a sprawling suburb. You can't have a real community in the suburbs. You are not a true neighborhood. You're just a group of people that happen to live in that area.
Yeah that's true. I have liked the suburbs I've been in, but you often don't know your neighbors. You may smile and say hello, but you often don't stop to talk to them on a personal level. I don't necessarily mind it, because privacy is a big thing in the burbs, but I look forward to feeling a real sense of community some day where I live at.
Not everyone cares to know there neighbors. With cars you can be friends with and hang out with whoever you want; not people that just happened to move in next to you. You are confusing the way you enjoy life to how everyone enjoys theirs
@@mareksimmons9162 And what is stopping you from doing so if you live in Brooklyn? You probably aren't taking a car, but public transportation in NYC is pretty good so there's no need to. Neighborhoods like that aren't closed ghettos where you need to show your passport at a border checkpoint, and it isn't something you have to participate in. It's something that you can participate in and something that has proven itself time and time again to be a massive net positive in people's lives. Just because YOU don't want to live like that doesn't mean other people don't. You are confusing the way you enjoy your life with how many other people would want to live theirs...
I grew up in Houston and can attest to the fact that downtown is largely abandoned on the weekends unless there's a sports game or huge concert going on.
Compared to German cities and towns, that's the main difference I noticed when I was the first time in the US, to Cincinnati. German cities are made for people to live, not for business only. The idea with your cardboard houses, Walmarts style supermarkets and those huge, ugly industrial areas was a very bad one. Your country looks dreary.
i remember flying into houston in 2018 on a connecting flight to mexico - not sure if got a glimpse of downtown but I was in total shock as to how many highways there were, never seen anything like it. I was thinking to myself the maintenance cost must be insane.
I grew up and still live in Houston and I can attest that they're slowly making improvements downtown - now Main Street and Market Square in downtown are actually pretty busy on weekends.
I was in Midland TX after dark once while storm chasing and not only were the streets totally empty of people but we couldn't even find a place to get something to eat - in a good sized city! This completely shocked me since I live in a similarly sized city in the Northeast where you can't walk half a block without encountering several restaurants. The atmosphere of Midland after dark really was post-apocalyptic, a ghost town with gleaming tall buildings and flaming oil refineries in the distance and no people to be seen whatsoever. I remember thinking "damn, nobody wants to be here and I can't blame them!".
Its so weird how I could spend my whole childhood in Canada and think I lived in one of the best places in the world. but after 15 years of travelling and 10 years living in Germany, coming back home felt like I entering a soulless dystopia. I feel so bad for the millions of people who will grow up thinking that this is the "normal" way to live
I felt that hard here in the U.S., it wasn't until I looked into urbanism and had a cousin who lived in an 1800s streetcar suburb in the same city and realized how much better it is.
I also grew up in Canadian suburbs, and I think they're terrific. They're quiet and isolated, but the amenities you need are close enough to be convenient.
Lived in Japan for a few years, coming back to the Canadian prairies made me realise how bad infrastructure and city planning is here. Over there I would walk to buy groceries most of the time, I regularly took the train to other cities even though I had a car, It was super liberating. Here though? It's thankfully not American levels of suburban dystopia but god damn are we sure working our way there.
@@SylviusTheMadanada was a leader in building some of the worst suburbs and often outdid Americans at their own game. Did you grow up in an area built before the 60s by any chance?
I meant it's most likely better than 7.5 billion of people from Asia, Africa, Middle East or Latin America. Hell, even Eastern Europe of CIS region (excluding Moscow or St. Petersburg). Many ppl in the west forget that 3/4 of planet is struggling to get hot water, drinkable water, a cloth or a food. I've spent half of my life in food insecurity, coming from richest city of oil-mining 3rd world country. This whole video is what I would define as "white people's problems".
It still baffles me that Muricans in suburbs dont pay for their streets and maintenance. I don't think suburbia would be so popular in the US, if the homeowner would have to pay regularly for street maintenance like people in my country do.
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 as the video states, the suburbs do not pay enough to maintain their own infrastructure, often relying on the more productive, more dense urban areas for assistance
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 Why would it have to be maintained with tax dollars? Any dollars would do, and the point is that since the tax dollars doesn't cover it, only land sales and development fees for new development does. So the cities sell land to finance existing infrastructure, that's the "ponzi scheme"-aspect of the suburbs. In my (european) country we had a similar situation with a city just north of the capital, a suburb. A very, very wealthy one, in fact, the city with the by far highest medium income earners AND wealth in the country. They have prided themself on low taxes for some time, but being spread out and low tax, they eventually hit the wall when the city couldn't sell more land. It was reveiled that the city council had lied about defecits of 100 of millions, had no way to pay that money back, had to fire a bunch of staff everywhere and drasticly raise taxes on it's citizens. But in Europe, that's one town here or there. In the US, it's the reality of almost every city in the country. And even in the case where you can pay for it with tax money, it's more likley that it's money from people that live in more productive parts of the city that pays for suburbia and then get the short stick themselfs.
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 Did you watch the video? Suburbs require much much more infrastructure per person than dense cities but people there pay the same. Suburbia is subsidized by the people living in dense cities.
My family is American, but we have lived in urban Germany for the past 10 years. We visited our family in suburban Washington, DC and suburban Pittsburgh last summer. Afterward, our teenage daughter said that she could never live like that again.
American/Canadian who lived in the suburbs here. Living there is a special kind of hell. Getting told to go outside was the worst, go outside and go where? The community center costs money and is a 25 minute bike ride on a good day on arterial roads with speed limits double what I could ride at on level ground (my brother did this, he was unsurprisingly hit by a car at one point, he was thankfully fine). The outdoor pool isn’t opened half the year, and the nearest “park” is a small playground on maybe a couple acres. The next nearest one was a fair distance away, and the nearest proper park was several miles away. And that was in the wealthy part of town. I didn’t suffer a day’s worth of economic hardship there. It’s much worse in middle-class suburbs. Needless to say, I was practically glued to my screen and rapidly became very isolated. My stepbrother was instead glued to his car’s steering wheel. And remember, this is for a family that “made it,” for a family that struggles financially, as a kid, you’re stuck in a box and don’t have the ability to go anywhere. It’s hard to believe how the boomers™ think the phones, and not the suburbs, are the problem.
The phones are another problem. I'm typing from a walkable city where the phones indeed are a problem. But compounding lack of community, activities, space for exploration, freedom of movement with phones is probably much worse than just the phone.
@@Peteruspl Don’t get me wrong, phones and the internet are a problem, but they are force multipliers to the main problem: community atomization. Yeah people not being there is a much bigger barrier to talking to them then people being in their phones. They’re also situationally quite useful, particularly for members of niche or marginalized communities.
Canadians are forever saying, the outdoors the outdoors! No wonder they're boring and non-reading as anything. And when outdoors, the most they're capable of is bland non-conversational banalities. You put out what you take in, which is essentially doughy breakfasts and no learning.
@@sanriosonderweg I've been the outdoorsman type my whole life, I've done considerable camping and backpacking. I've also done a fair bit of personal writing, which I dare say was not "premade." You know what I didn't have near my house? Forests, creeks, rivers, or even so much as a neat looking pile of rocks. There were a few sanitized parks, sure, but anything interesting was far away. As for urban amenities, like shops and theaters were all far away. There was no place to just "hang out" unless you could drive there. Hell, we had to drive just to get to the interesting bike paths! But it's easier to insult people on the internet than to reflect on the dogshit outside your generation built for us.
And this is the reason I'm so glad that Urbanism and public transportation are gaining traction in the US. I love cars and love driving but every time I see how sprawled out Metro Detroit is (where I've lived all my life) and how lousy our bus system is (as of March 2023) it drives me nuts.
I'm also from metro Detroit. It almost makes me cry when I look at early 20th century pictures of Detroit. The street cars, architecture...If only that was invested in and built upon.
And one thing I do believe, is that the US would also be the country that can turn this around. Usually much faster with changes than any other country I've lived. Will be a long and difficult process. A lot will be depending on elections and those are really crazy in there
Remember, the Netherlands are highly rated for both the quality of their trucking and the sheer joy of driving there. These are places that spend a lot of money on good public transportation and bike infrastructure. This is not a coincidence. Driving gets a lot better when not everyone has to do it all the time.
@@AlRoderick I get absolutely dumbfounded when car centric societies like the US don't understand this basic concept. It should be a no brainer to have fewer car drivers while also having a functioning public transportation system. Fewer drivers means low congestion AND road accidents. Citizens would have more choices when it comes to getting around their own city/region/state/county/province/district/country/continent. In conclusion: cars are fine but car dependency was supposed to be an avoidable cancer.
As an American, I can tell you that the American Dream (TM) is actually strong. That dream is making your boss's boss's boss very rich while you toil and suffer and blame everyone for your misery except the people causing it.
One who accepts such things without the will to cry out against such things, even a bit, is as complacent in the situation as those who begin it. This is America, after all. You can sit with it, or do something about banging your boss's wife and take his American dream lease imho
So no other countries on the planet have businesses and those businesses have bosses who work with the home of making a return that they can then spend on goods and services?
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Yes we do, but we have those things called labour laws that mandate minimum liveable salaries, maximum workable hours, paid vacations, unlimited sick days, parental leave, actually effective business, corporate and investment taxes. You know, things that makes these businesses attractive and sustainable rather than the 8th circle of hell sucking up your soul for a few bucks and the hope of someday magically becoming a millionaire if you work a bit harder.
Correction: in most of Europe we can walk to an affordable grocery store - otherwise it is not considered very accessible and quite a lot of people get upset, although other stores like clothing and small electronics typically requires a metro/tram/bus/bike trip, and something like furniture or washing machine may need a train trip + ordering a delivery van. Schools are accessible by walking, though universities require dorms unless you happen to live in the same city.
@@Bozebo that's not true around all the europe. Eastern Europe still has shared rooms. But I can't imagine living in a place where it takes more than 5 minutes to walk to a grocery. Through my entire life I had a store in 200m radius around my house and I didn't even go there because if you go another 100m you get lesser prices because this one store is considered a bit less accessible than the other one
@@holesmak that’s seems crazy to me I live by a major arterial road that has far more businesses next to the suburban neighborhoods and I have to walk 1/2mi 800m down my neighborhood across a 4 lane intersection to get a snack or walk a kilometer in other direction by my house to go to a supermarket. USA zoning is horrible.
You see in a city with mom and pop stores, you need to visit multiple stores and cross multiple streets with traffic to buy the stuff you can buy in a single box store like Walmart. Also you got shopping carts at Walmart, go to a mom and pop store and you got no shopping cart, you got no parking lot, you carry your grocery bag full of ice cream and milk onto the subway with a bunch of strangers looking at you as your ice cream melts and drips through your bag as the train experiences another delay.
This one hit hard. The healthcare. The gun laws. I read history books about 1700s London where British writers say, “thank god we don’t live like that anymore” and I (an American) say, “come again?”
Ngl, I was genuinely shocked when I moved to the UK and saw that there was a corner store at the end of my block. I’m from outside of the Seattle area, and something like this is literally non-existent. The closest thing we have there was either a gas station or the grocery story halfway across town to get food.
You should have everything within a 5-10 minutes walking distance that you need on a daily or weekly basis. Within a 5 minute walk I have: 4 Supermarkets, a photographer, a phone shop, two barbers, 4 restaurants, 1 fast food shop, 2 café/bars, a pharmacy, a optician, a bakery, 4 clothing stores, a shoe store, a florist, a dry cleaner, 2 general stores, 2 drug stores, a pet shop, a souvenir/gift shop, a book store, an ice cream parlor, a fuel station, and probably a few I forget. This is normal nearly everywhere in my country. The city centre with more speciality stores is about a 15 minute bike ride. Some big box stores like IKEA are further away.
@@rogerwilco2 OH YEAH? Well I have the freedom to walk 30 minutes up and down a steep hill to get to a Safeway! Which also happens to be the only supermarket that’s not a few hour’s walk away…
I live in suburbs outside US and yet I have these within 10 minutes walk: supermarket, cafes, general stores, clothing shop, drug stores, barbershop, phone repair shop, conventional market, non-specialized clinic, gas station, stationery, gift shop, furniture shop and building material and household equipment store.
One less discussed social problem is that modern ring cameras and neighborhood Facebook groups make suburbs feel like high control surveillance states. I've seen so many posts where people upload ring camera footage of a "suspicious individual" who turns out to just be a POC minding their own business. Folks will just straight up dox their neighbors for any perceived bad behavior as well. You feel isolated in suburbs, but you also feel like you're being watched, because in a way, you are being watched.
I just had to stop looking at our neighborhood Facebook group because of this. Between the nice normal posts are the anti-outsider diatribes, photos of litter, complaints about the roads, people complaining about bikes or joggers not staying in the ditch or whatever and you just have to grit your teeth and try not to respond.
Also Ring is owned by Amazon now and the give cops footage without any warrants since when you use the Ring camera you give permission to Amazon to use your footage however they like! Jake Hanrahan from Popular Front did a great podcast series covering all over Amazons litany ethical violations. It’s called Megacorp and the episode about their role in the surveillance state and ring cameras is episode 5!
When you watch videos like this you can really appreciate living in Europe, without a car, having couple of grocery stores, bus lines, tram lines, pizzerias and other amenities within 5-10 minutes walk distance. I don't even have a driving license because I never felt a need of having car.
The one thing that bothers me not only as someone who cares about the natural environment but also just... aesthetically, is the lack of trees. Even in the suburbs I grew up in you'd just hear a truck nearby in the spring and summer constantly, chopping down trees. It was like a "default" background noise and it wasn't loggers or something, it was just some family somewhere cutting down a tree. I do live in an aged area where trees do die, but they're not replacing them with anything. (And a lot of them weren't dead, the family just was sick of raking leaves or something.) My area could have been considered "in the woods" at one point but now it's just a bunch of fields.
I have a coworker who bought a plot of land in the burbs and clear-cut the whole thing to make it easier to put a house on it. The only trees around are on other people's land. Another friend bought an empty lot and the whole area was cleared. The developer cleared out every tree before subdividing the land. It's sad. It's like we still live in the 1800s and haven't learned anything.
Kinda similartly parents' neighbor keeps pestering them to remove some birch trees that sometimes drop branches and leaves on the neighbor's side. Without the trees the area would look like absolute garbage in comparison. It's ridiculous how little respect people have for anything related to nature.
I live near the sea so I get people poisoning trees to make them die forcing the local council to chop them down "improving" their views to the sea and therefore raising property value, and it just cost the area's sparrow population
This hurts kids especially. You know how many kids there were my age in my suburban neighborhood growing up? Two. One was a bully and the other had religious nutjobs for parents. It didn't get better until high school when we moved from the suburbs to a small town with mixed zoning. The difference was night and day. Just the simple fact that you could walk or bike somewhere was life-changing.
@@yeboscrebo4451 And what is there for those kids to do in their suburban cage? As soon as you try to leave the neighborhood, you're usually on a main road with no sidewalks. So they can ride their bikes around the block and nowhere else. Exhilarating. These places almost never have parks either, and when they do, they're aimed for small children. There are no arcades, skate parks, video stores, or "third places" in general for kids (or adults, for that matter) to go that don't cost money. And that's not even mentioning how often kids get harassed by police just for being kids or existing in public in view of a baby boomer. So we stick them in a box with nowhere to go and nothing to do. That sounds like the American dream to me...
@@themightymcb7310 you’re a complainer aren’t ya. When I was a kid we could take some sticks and make bows and arrows. We’d have fun digging a hole for f@#$s sake. You really need someone to build arcades and skate parks for you? A cage for you is a place with no video stores!? Hahha
It just came to me that suburbia's effective isolation and the lack of good public transportation is precisely what made the middle of 2020 the lowest point of my life. The only reason I'm still alive now and didn't kill myself is because my 21st birthday came right after the lowest point of my life (the first week of August 2020) and I was starting to take classes again in the fall term. Luckily, I discovered more youth ministries shortly afterwards, but I also realised that since walkability is very poor where I live (Metro Detroit), church is now the main thing keeping me mentally stable right now. And although I like cars and I like driving, I still support improving public transportation and building walkable neighbourhoods.
So, I have the anxious behavior of someone who was raised food insecure, but with food, medicine, internet/phone/connectivity, water, toilets, ect. A large part of that is because I was raised in the suburbs, usually without reliable transportation. I am terrified of being in a suburb, because if you need something, you have to drive for miles to get to the nearest corner, grocery, or convenience store. I live on a small but decently developed stretch of stroad now in an apartment, and while the stroad sucks for all stroad reasons, I live smack dab next to a walmart and two pharmacies, and can walk to about five fast food places, five banks, even more restaurants, and even in a pinch, an urgent care just half a mile away with sidewalks the entire way. My security anxiety is still there, but it's gone down like 80%. I legitimately have nightmares to this day of getting trapped in a suburb without transportation. I am never ever living in one again.
Suburbs didn't just kill the American Dream as a concept, they killed the dreams of countless individuals without them even knowing it. As someone who grew up in the endless cookie-cutter Toronto suburbs and now lives in the glorious mixed-use city that is Edinburgh, it's astonishing how many everyday good things just aren't possible in the suburbs: regular connections with the community, ease of access to goods and services on foot/bike/public transport, green space that isn't just a kid's park, a sense of pride in my local area and everything that subtly influences a person to do. The potential for better mental and physical health is incomparable. Doing away with the suburbs is good for society writ large and good for individual people. But you'd never know it if you didn't have the chance to experience something different, especially because North American society structures out the possibility of an alternative.
It's comments like this that remind me that Edinburgh, by no means free of problems and in need of serious work, is leaps and bounds ahead of suburb-hell. That said, we should not get too comfortable, because we have been and still are building suburbs here in Scotland.
@@jackhanson1852 Exactly - we're unimaginably far ahead of suburban wastelands like where I grew up, but it will only stay that way (and get better) if people stand up and fight for public spaces, affordable housing, green space, etc.
@@죽은_시민의_사회 They look spacious because there's nothing in them. I almost never knew my neighbours' names, the vast majority of luscious green lawns go unused (despite requiring vast amounts of water to maintain amidst the climate crisis), and it was literally a 50+ minute walk along dangerous roads from my parent's house to the nearest corner shop. I am not at all joking when I say I wouldn't ever live in a place like that again even if you paid me silly money to do so.
@@RememberingGames Yeah, they're great. I can leave my box at any time I want and walk to my job, to a park, pub or cafe, or bike to a forest, all within minutes because everything isn't packed full of highways, copy-pasted single-family homes and big boxstores with giant parking lots.
@@RememberingGames It's not just about high-rises vs. single family homes, it's about fiscal solvency and quality of life. You're painting a false dichotomy where you're completely leaving out the possibility of small apartments, condos, duplexes, triplexes, and other middle density housing. To put it another way, the average American will spend $450,000 on vehicle ownership in their lifetime. If the average American were able to live without a car, they could invest that $450,000 and have over $3 million dollars by the time they retire.
I lived in Japan for four years and I am frequently angered by the fact the United States doesn’t understand the value of a good public transit system. The fact that it takes me a half hour just to get on the highway from my home 5 miles away is absurd. There’s zero reason a relatively small city like that in which I live should be so spread out. And it’s all just to appease the handful of rich people we actually have here in the Central Valley.
also as someone who grew up in a city with a pretty good amount of freedom, i think suburbs must be actual hell for kids, and i don't even think most people realize because they're so used to suburbs they can't imagine anything else. from age 10-18 i lived in bangkok and we lived about a 5-10 minute walk from a metro station, a skytrain station (basically elevated metro but it was called bts or skytrain) and a boat station (there are boats that run along a water management system/basically exposed sewer). when i was 12, a new mall opened up, also 10 minutes away and it was connected by pedestrian walkways to the bts and metro stations. my school was a 15 minute walk away (but i took the bus mostly bc my parents didn't want me out walking in bad weather - it look like an hour though bc of traffic lmao) and when i started going to tutors after school or on weekends they were also just 15-20 minutes away. when i was 12/13 ish i started skipping taking the bus home on some days and would go to the mall with my friends or walk down to one of the cafes near my school to get something to eat. if i wanted to see a movie but my parents were busy, i would just go on my own to one of the malls i could get to in like 20 minutes using public transit and watch it on my own. if i wanted snacks, there were literally 3 different convenience stores within a 5 minute walk from my house (one was literally like a minute away lol) that i could go to on my own without bothering my parents (well, i had to ask them for money sometimes, but that's it). sometimes someone would plan a party at a bowling alley or to have a meal together at a restaurant and we would just let our parents know where we're going and who we'll be with and arrange our own transport (either walking or a motorcycle taxi (these things are so much fun lol) or public transport or some combination of all of them). i had pretty strict parents but they would let me do all this stuff because it was safe (also sometimes i just didn't tell them lol) contrast that with being a kid in a car-dependent suburb. you literally can't go anywhere without your parents because you're too young to drive. want to go to a friends house? well unless that friend lives in the same suburb as you, you can't. want to get some snacks? better have your parents drive you around. same for going to the park or watching a movie or going to a party or going to school or going to any shop or going to have a meal with your friends. literally any activity you can think of that you can't do from home, you need your parents to drive you around. that's until you're old enough to drive yourself around, and then either your parents need to buy you your own car or you need to share with your parents so you STILL can't do anything if your parents are using the car. or i guess you as a 16 year old can try to make enough money on the shitty minimum wage jobs that you need a car to get to to be able to buy your own car somehow. plus this is more stressful for the parents. when i wanted snacks i could just tell my parents i'm going to the shop and be back in 10 minutes with all my stuff. there were two coffee shops within 10 minutes of me and i used to go there all the time to get interesting beverages or muffins as a teenager. my parents didn't have to do anything apart from giving me an allowance and just allowing me to step outside the apartment unsupervised. in the suburbs, if your kids want something and you think it's fine/want them to have it you literally have to get in your car and drive all the way there and do it yourself. americans always say that suburbs are a great place to raise kids but they're literally a terrible place for the kids and for the parents. this type of reliance on the people who are driving the cars is frustrating for everyone involved.
I lived 6 months in the US. While in the border between downtown and suburb, because it was a college town, I still had the feeling the architecture actively hated me. In my home country, I can just cross the street to buy bread, while in the US, the closest bakery was 30 minutes away on foot.
The more I learn about American systems such as healthcare and education along with the city planning, union busting and infrastructure, the more I am ever grateful to live in a european country with national parks, public transit, strong unions and free universal healthcare along with cheap access to education regardless of wallet size.
My city always has a bunch of bond elections in the local ballot. There are new education buildings and stuff that are noncontroversial, but there are bond elections to do REPAIRS on the roads. Taking out a loan to do REPAIRS! Something we do all the time! That’s not an investment that yields long term returns, that’s perpetual upkeep.
@@dragoneyr1632 And what about the people and business on that road? Normally, I would just suggest the city offer to buy out the properties via eminent domain, but, if they don't have the money to fix the road, they probably don't have money to buy out however many people. Just curious on the best way to resolve the situation.
@@spectiliayou can always let a road decay back to being gravel or dirt, although that is generally only reasonable in rural contexts. (Although i personally think most suburban side streets should be gravel to reduce maintenance costs and make the permiable surfaces. Of course sidewalks would still need to be included for a complete street, although that would be a funny sight, a suburban gravel road with proper sidewalks set back a couple feet with a grass buffer.)
@@jasonreed7522 To clarify, the person I was responding to was talking about turning the road and (I assumed) the surrounding areas into a park. Hence my question. To your point though, no offense, but that is a horrible idea. Pot hole marked roads will basically completely wreck your vehicle over time and these areas do not have public transit. Which is also a problem that needs fixing, but, if we don't think these people exist in an area where they even deserve basic road infrastructure, then they probably don't live in an area suitable for buses. Unless you mean stripping the road down, rather than letting it decay naturally. Than I suppose that works, but gravel and dirt roads are absolutely atrocious for stuff like snow plows. There is another pavement option more efficient than asphalt for these low traffic roads that always seems to be overlooked in these conversations: chip and seal. Basically what happens if gravel and asphalt had a baby. This is anecdotal, but my grandma's road had it. She lived there well over 40 and the township had to patch it on very rare occasions but I don't recall them ever having to pull the whole thing up and relay it like they do with asphalt. As a note, my grandma's township was notorious for their ill kept asphalt roads. So, if they were to have done repaving at any point, I assume they would have done so to the main roads that were so decrepit and not her random side road (just to further illustrate that I don't think they ever repaved her road, but it obviously wasn't there). That last part is kind of off topic, but I just wanted to bring it up because, again, I feel like it is rarely discussed.
American suburbs are dangerous to live in, too. Emergency services have a harder time getting to you, you probably don't know any of your neighbors, and they're not accessible for the disabled. People seem to have this weird notion that they'll be in peak health and able bodied forever, never realizing that even without old age taking their health from them, they're really just one bad accident away from not being able to drive anywhere anymore, while stuck in a neighborhood where driving is mandatory.
How can emergency services possibly have a "harder" time to get to a wide spacious suburban home compared to an extremely tall apartment building, with stairs and elevator, on tight-space crowded street? I live in a rancher, no stairs, no steps. I've had ambulances roll stretcher right into my front door right from the driveway three times, one of them when my right hip dislocated.
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Because of the vast distances involved. Suburbia makes everything extremely far away and the streets are very often designed in a way that there are no fast shortcuts so getting to the house fast enough in the first place is where the problem lies. Highrises of course have their own set of problems, as you mentioned, but in a dense area the distance for the services to drive is covered much faster. Doesn't have to be highrises though to help with that, middle density housing alone would reduce the problem immensely.
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Cul-de-sacs. American Suburbs are almost never a grid, they're intentionally windy and twisty and end in dead ends forcing you to go the whole way around and back in from the other side instead of Through (precisely to prevent through traffic, mind you).
@@RocketboyX You don't need a citation, it's common sense. @HoundofCulann explains it right above you. Most car-dependent suburbs are intentionally built to be circuitous and complex to discourage or eliminate through-traffic. They usually eschew things like sidewalks and direct paths through the development too, meaning that whether you're in an emergency vehicle, a car, on bike, or on foot, you always have to take the long way around. Since they take up so much more space, the emergency vehicles have to travel much farther to get to you before they even reach your labrynthian housing development. And since low-density developments generate much less tax revenue and require a lot more money be spent on the sprawling infrastructure, they have less money for municipal services. This means that there are many fewer emergency services, post offices, hospitals, and police precincts available to cover very large swaths of land.
It's quite a sea-change of mindset you go through as a globally-curious American having grown up in car sprawl in the 90's. I grew up loving trips in the backseat of my parent's van, and I didn't realize until the past few years why I liked it: it felt so luxurious to be driven around. That is why I liked cars--the sense of luxury they give as a passenger. Now, as an adult, if I want the luxury of being "driven" around, I take the bus or train. I still love cars, but as an adult, I've never hated them more than when I had to drive to work. Why on Earth do Americans think this is the best--and ONLY--way to do things? Driving is just not special if you MUST do it just to live your life. We've taken what should be an incredible luxury and turned it into a tool of economic survival. So stupid, and so unbelievably wasteful.
@@sanriosonderweg I mean, I wouldn't denigrate it that way. I think most people--children and adults, alike--like to feel taken care of at least sometimes, if they're honest with themselves; the adult part is realizing the value of taking care of other people. What I think too many people don't think about when they drive is that their driving isn't about just them; we have a duty to care about the people around us while we're behind the wheel, too. I think for too many people, driving is a totally self-centered act, because it's too stressful to treat it as responsibly as you should. Hence buying so many enormous cars and trucks that are clearly only meant to protect those inside, our shameful traffic mortality rates, etc. This country's immaturity is so wonderfully embodied by our enormous pickups with their leather-lined cabins and usually-empty beds that it'd poetic if it wasn't grotesque.
I've been living in Switzerland for the past few years and it's crazy how well hidden parking garages can be and how little they disturb the cities in most cases. I was so aprehensive avout living in a small town outside of Zurich when we moved because I've always lived in larger cities. But it's never been an issue. Bus/train connections in my small town are literally better than those of many LA areas.
@@ganargxkraken I mean, non-Swiss citizens living here are like 27ish % of the population. Many of them are white, yes. But should that have anything to do with anything in a normal situation?
I'm always surprised at how common it is in the US to have a huge plot of land and it's just one small diner and a forest of parking around it. It's like they've never heard of underground or even overground multi-story parking lots. I mean, let's forget car centrism is cancer in terms of urban development for a second and think strategically: if you have 1000m2 of land to use and you could use 90% of it for a shop and just 10% of it for parking because you build it two stories high or underground, why wouldn't you? Sure, it's more expensive to build but you can have maybe twice or more people at your business buying stuff from you. It may not be perfect, but it is still longer-term thinking than just building a massive parking lot outside your shop and wasting 70% of the plot on cement and paint and I never understood why they don't do it
@@justaname999 Well Switzerland is in Europe and Europe is the home continent of white people, just as Africa is to blacks. If you go to Africa, you don't question why their are so many blacks living there, it is Africa after all. If you go to Japan, where are there so many Asians, where is all the diversity? No one questions that but in Europe everyone expects it to be multiethnic and multi racial. White people aren't allowed to be native to any region, that is just politically incorrect!
I am a person who doesn't drive and doesn't bike just due to the fact that riding fast things gives me anxiety because I'm always worried about hitting things. I've had to live in a low density environment once, it was hellish. One hour of walking just to get groceries.
Growing up in NYC in an area with mixed urban housing, I was absolutely stunned when I travelled through some cities in America. Completely desolate landscapes cut up by roads and parking lots, the only source of fun and entertainment were the local bars(good luck if you're under 21), no small coffee shops where you can meet new people. It looked miserable.
I felt this so much. I'm picking colleges to go to and some of them are lovely but there's NOTHING to do/see for miles, as the "town/city" they're located in has maybe 5 buildings I can conceivably visit within 10 mins of campus, and basically nothing to actually do. Idk how I'd survive outside of here and some of the other east coast cities tbh
I feel you so much. I grew up in Westchester but spent most weekends in NYC after I turned 16. I hated driving and it was easier to have my parents drive me to the town train station and go to Grand Central than it was to spend time in my own area without a car.
I grew up in an American suburb in California and I always wondered why I was so sad and lonely.. Then I moved to places like Melbourne and Tokyo which are strong on transit oriented development and have incredible cultures due to it and realized OH... THATS WHY... My nightmare is to end up in a US suburb again.
This video is over dramatized, and the comments prove the stereotype of the arrogant European. I am saying this as a European, who has lived is whole life in Europe, but experienced living in the suburbs due to an exchange program. Living in the suburbs as an average earn in Europe, results mostly living in a tiny and small apartment which is surrounded by streets and commercial facilities. Unless you have a newly built apartment, it is mostly noisy. The view outside your window is mostly another façade. If you want to get around, you have no other choice, than using an overprized and overcrowded public transportation system. It may will get your through the city, but if you want to get outside of it, you need to own a car like in the US. And other than in the US, cars in a lot of European countries are for an average earner affordable due to the continuing anti motorized vehicle lobbyism. Living in the US for a few months was a positive culture shock. The family I lived were settled in the suburbs outside of a big city. The community was filled with beautiful houses in a comfortable size. Every house had owned a backyard where we would eat and drink in the evenings. The neighborhood was quiet so that I loved to make walks outside of it. And contrary to the video, a five minute drive would take me to a plaza or mall, where you would find all amenities. But what I liked the most about their lifestyle, was the easy accessibility to get around outside of your town. On the weekends we would make round trips to national and state parks. Where I need to take two busses and two different trains and double amount of money to do a similar trip. I would if I could IMMEDIATELY prefer living in an American Suburb rather than in a west European suburb.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 "the stereotype of the arrogant European" my brother in Christ the comment you replied to is literally coming from someone born and raised in America.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 i get what youre saying. i was staying in a florida suburb for a few weeks too, and im also european. it was nice for the time being there, but GODDAMN was i glad when i was back in an actual city. Also, the european suburbs are not really any better. its the same problem. everything positive you named, is also found in the country. and living in the country means you also get to experience nature by just walking outside. you dont even have to go there by car.
Adam I love your videos, and I will continue to watch them as long as they entertain me, bluntly speaking. But I have to ask, why don't you put references in the description? Due to the nature of your subject matter and your amusing presentation, your content appeals to people who like to know "where you got that from," so to speak.
The funny thing is that the "American Dream" concept was brought up back in time when there were more highways, cars, and a heavily suburb-dependent society.
I'm glad you made this video the suburbs have been a serious cause of stress and dysfunction in my life and the people around me don't even see the problems I have with this system.
Suburbs are fantastic... as long as you have a reliable way to commute without needing a car. In Europe our public transport compensates for this and makes suburbs livable so people can actually live in nature and work in the city getting the best of both worlds and not having to live in a tiny apartment.
Yeah, European suburbs are just the lower density area of a city the design philosophy doesn't change there's still parks, sidewalks bars and small businesses, when one thinks of suburbia, it's really just the residential wasteland NA is so well acquainted with
I used to live in a suburban neighborhood in Florida until 2019 when I moved to the Boston area, and the difference was extremely noticeable, I was able to walk everywhere and I have easy access to public transportation. Thanks to these factors, I was able to go for my dream and become a photographer, something that I know would have never happened if I lived in the suburbs today.
Boston is extremely expensive. And has a huge problem with racism, as most expensive US cities do. I am sure is more walkable than a Florida suburb, but the cost difference to the average family is insurmountable.
And you get to photograph dirty streets, slums, rundown neighborhoods, homeless people living in cardboard boxes and sometimes relieving themselves on the streets when they are not begging for money or doing drugs. Oh there are lots of things to photograph in those cities alright!
I talked to someone from the UK about urban planning and he said "it boggles my mind as to how almost everything that is wrong with the USA is rooted in racism".
I grew up in a traditional inner city neighborhood and everything was within walking distance. I walked to school, walked to the local store for snacks, walked over to my friends houses and walked to the park. Since I went to an inner city elementary school and then a highschool just a few blocks out of the inner city, I had no idea that my lifestyle wasn't the norm and that many kids in other neighborhoods didn't have that option and had to get their parents to drive them to friends or the store or had to take the bus. After seeing this I am so glad I grew up in an inner city neighborhood. In Canada by the way where most suburbs aren't as horrible as the U.S. but are still pretty bad.
And most of Canada you'll never see, you just live in the cities of Canada, all those wide open spaces, you'll never see. You don't get to experience nature, except for pigeons in the park, a few rats, a squirrel or two.
Don't forget about the HOA (Homeowners Association) rules in the suburbs, there are some really strange and overly controlling ones out there. They operate like small communist countries. Some HOAs have rules around the color of curtains and blinds that residents can have in their windows. They might require all curtains and blinds to be a specific color or prohibit certain patterns or designs. Some HOAs have rules around the type and color of outdoor furniture that residents can have on their patios or decks. They might prohibit certain materials or colors, or require all outdoor furniture to be a certain style or design. Some HOAs have rules around the types of holiday decorations that residents can have on their homes. They might prohibit certain types of decorations, such as inflatable lawn ornaments or large displays, or require all decorations to be taken down within a certain time frame. Some HOAs have rules around the types of plants and flowers that residents can have in their gardens. They might prohibit certain types of plants or require residents to have a certain percentage of their yard dedicated to specific types of flowers or shrubs.
@aviation cat That one might be on the city, some cities do have ordinances for lawn length. Usually cities will control a surprising amount of things about property even without an HOA. HOAs take it to the next level though.
Like so many other things in this country, we rushed into something and embraced it before fully understanding the consequences. You can see this all throughout history if you look.
I also found it funny as an Eastern European how Americans think that soviet architecture is present in the US. It isn't. You want to see soviet style architecture, go to Russia, Romanian, Serbia, Hungary, and most of Eastern Europe. Americans did just fine ruining their own country and it's aesthetic, no reds were required.
I like the format of these videos that Adam has been pumping out lately. Making it simple and visual of why its a problem and also at the end what locals can do to slowly demand changes
Hey Adam! I thought it was ironic that just before the CARS scream at 8:13 I was served a Chevy ad. I think you can curate those ads in your settings! Great video!
I live in a American Suburb and, everything he says is true. It takes 15-30 minutes to get anywhere, every couple months there is a tragic car accident, I know people who's parents have to evade taxes in order to pay rent, and many kids are depressed or become incels because they're not old enough to get a driver's license and basically stuck in their homes when their not at school, I also know people who can't afford fresh food and live of packed foods and fast food.
7:59 my dad recounted that growing up, pharmacists would have large jars on the counter that they would serve pills to houswives by the scoop from. The pills: Amphetamine. "Buzzing" he said.
Oh it's getting to that point again! There's not an Adderall shortage nationally due to kid's scripts! Bunch of people over 30 begging for them, claiming to have crippling ADHD... You know, despite having a decent career, going to college, etc., being successful for their first 3-4 decades on this planet. Now people that need it medically can't even get it. They said just since the pandemic, MILLIONS of adults got scripts and from terrible sources, like tele"doctors" -- no testing, no checking up on them, etc.
It's fascinating to see how North America used to have real cities with walkable streets, mixed zoning and public transport. The idea that this type of design is "un-American" in any way is so weird when you think about it.
I grew up in a small American agricultural town that was surprisingly walkable. I always walked to school, and there were always kids running around. Everything in town, which wasn’t much, was a 15 minute walk at most. I always thought this was normal until I moved to Alabama briefly and didn’t even have access to sidewalks let alone somewhere to actually walk too. My partner who grew up in suburbia gets spooked whenever she sees kids walking anywhere. I could never wrap my head around why that was so concerning to her until I realized that she just didn’t have the option to go places without her parents car growing up.
I lived in America from the day I was born until I was nearly 17. I spent most of my life in suburban houses that were far away from everything, and the closest I'd ever lived to any place of business was a bowling alley, a roller skating rink, and a church that were all on the same road like 15 minutes walking from my house. That was the highest density suburb I'd ever lived in, and it only had 3 places to go and I only lived there for a year before moving to another suburb. I moved to New Zealand in 2019, and the house I moved to had a convenience store, laundromat, barbershop, cafe, and beauty salon all within a 2 minute walk, plus a liquor store, pharmacy, another convenience store, a bakery, and a Chinese takeaway restaurant within like a 7 minute walk, and there was a bus stop right outside that went to the center of the suburb. Plus, that house was easy walking distance from a botanic garden and a park, which wasn't something I was super familiar with in the US. Not to mention I had lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, which has been on the list of best towns in America for many years until the city asked people to stop because too many people were moving there. In that city, my house was like a 30 minute walk to a damn 7/11, let alone literally anywhere else. Often my friends lived like 15-20 minutes driving, and I didn't really have any friends on our block except this one kid across the street who told me he thought I was annoying when I left (which, to be fair, I was). TL;DR, American suburbs are a hellscape. Tbh, American city planning is a hellscape.
I grew up living in the suburbs mostly in WA, moved alot but always in the burbs, always within a 10-20 walk to some sort of gas station or mini mart. Like he said, very car-centric because I walked or biked everywhere and always felt like i was gonna get ran over at some point but was cheap for what little money we had. Funny enough I live in Phoenix now which is made up mostly suburbs!
This video is over dramatized, and the comments prove the stereotype of the arrogant European. I am saying this as a European, who has lived is whole life in Europe, but experienced living in the suburbs due to an exchange program. Living in the suburbs as an average earn in Europe, results mostly living in a tiny and small apartment which is surrounded by streets and commercial facilities. Unless you have a newly built apartment, it is mostly noisy. The view outside your window is mostly another façade. If you want to get around, you have no other choice, than using an overprized and overcrowded public transportation system. It may will get your through the city, but if you want to get outside of it, you need to own a car like in the US. And other than in the US, cars in a lot of European countries are for an average earner affordable due to the continuing anti motorized vehicle lobbyism. Living in the US for a few months was a positive culture shock. The family I lived were settled in the suburbs outside of a big city. The community was filled with beautiful houses in a comfortable size. Every house had owned a backyard where we would eat and drink in the evenings. The neighborhood was quiet so that I loved to make walks outside of it. And contrary to the video, a five minute drive would take me to a plaza or mall, where you would find all amenities. But what I liked the most about their lifestyle, was the easy accessibility to get around outside of your town. On the weekends we would make round trips to national and state parks. Where I need to take two busses and two different trains and double amount of money to do a similar trip. I would if I could IMMEDIATELY prefer living in an American Suburb rather than in a west European suburb.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 these videos and comments are similar (UA-cam is filled with anti-videos). Over dramatized is a good word for it. There is also the aspect that what is a suburb, what is a city, etc is not defined. There are towns, cities, and large mixes of both. The people who make the videos and who consume them and comment tend to be white and not poor. Their experience is very much that cities are nice because they are living in high-income areas not accessible to poor people. Essentially white enclaves. Their experience with suburbs tends to be a drive through a low-income area with a lack of infrastructure investment. It is essentially racism that sounds good. White people are moving back to cities, gentrifying them, driving out minorities and the poor, and declaring them superior. It is reverse white flight. I have been many places and can find positive aspect about most. I use my bike for a lot of transportation and have not had much trouble. It takes skill though, like driving. The suburbs and towns I am familiar with have access to trails, hiking, biking, and other amenities (north east US). The cities I am familiar with tend to be great if you are not poor and can afford $3k/month rent plus Uber fees (NYC and other NE US). TLDR; these videos are more about white flight back to cities as minorities move to suburbs.
@@ShaggyRodgers420 I wasn't living in a white enclave, I lived in a neighborhood with all sorts of people. Just down the street were the Tongans, I remember because I heard them slaughtering a pig in their front yard and they had a Tongan flag flying from their house.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 You're making the mistake of comparing living as a pauper in Europe vs. living with a comfortable disposable income in the US. Because paupers in the US don't live in nice comfortable suburbs. They live in run down areas (as shown in the video btw.) or homeless on the street.
thats a nice way of saying the mentally disabled one that mamma dropped on his head when he was a baby and she was wasted, they keep him in the basement
It's horrible for children, too. Studies are needed on how many of millennials' mental health problems are just caused by not having had independence as children.
The story of my teens to young adulthood there are psychological effects . That you can never recover from living in the suburbia . And the worst part I had no car and no friends . So I missed out on the most essential period of my life that I can never ever ever live again . No milestones no nothing just stuck in mediocrity wasted away 😔
Also, some kids have both parents working or single parents so they don't have someone there to always drive them. There were comments on About Here talking about how some parents got frustrated and bullied their kids over having to drive them so much. When some of those parents supported car centricism. Or some parents guilting their kids that gas is expensive. How can all kids go to their lessons or activities to get ahead in life and for their future careers? Some channels like Twosetviolin complain about how some people say classical music is elistism but what would help break that down is for kids and people to be able to travel and participate in any activity or lessons in the first place.
I live in Atlanta. Flying in once I noticed the surrounding suburbs looked like neighborhoods stitched into the earth. And a loong drive away from the inner city.
Those 1950s suburbs were actually reasonably sustainable compared to modern suburbs. A 1200sf home on a small lot with minimal space in between isn't so bad. Today the houses would be 2-3 times that size and that whole street would have 1/3 as many houses on it because they all want massive yards.
@@bioliv1 Yeah I think they're nice and theyre often more than sustainable since the homes can produce more power than they consume with solar panels and often have features like communal gardens in the common areas. Only problem is they tend to be inhabited by the same brand of NIMBYs that ruined the suburbs. Over time they'll develop the same problems of manufactured unaffordability due to residents blocking nearby development in favor of low density.
Massive yards that serve no purpose other than for mowing, wasting water and dumping poison to keep it looking unnaturally green. How much of that space never even sees a human foot other than when it's being mowed or fertilized?
Not true at all in most “builder spec” suburbs of today. Small homes, many times multi-family or town homes, clustered on small lots. The “modern” ones you describe aren’t practical with shrinking available spaces in many cities. Those bring an enormous amount of their own problems, of course
I live in s villge in France. There are four restaurants, three bakeries, two butchers two garages etc and a market every secod Wednesday. All within a mile.
Working in local government i can tell you this. The planners and staff are on board with getting rid of so much car dependency but ... The politicians keep doing car dependent crap because the average voter is a HUGE CAR BRAIN. People get mad because we take one lane from three to have some walkability and bike lanes. They'll call and yell about it. It's depressing.
Thank god I was born in Brazil. Although the larger cities like São Paulo and Rio are hell and the infrastructure being kinda shit, it was always nice to have anything within walking distance.
As a kid who grew up in the suburbs, there was a decent amount to do. Common areas with woods/creaks to explore. Movies to see on the weekend or malls to meet friends at. Yes, there needed to be bike lanes, or at least walking lanes. The closest grocery store was a dangerous walk from my house. My area has transformed through last time I went back almost all of the common area was gone, replaced by more housing. The grassy hills were flattened to make room for tennis courts/soccer fields. The malls are all dead and abandoned except for a handful of stores. The stripmall (valley) which at one time was the nations largest/longest stripmall is still there but replaced by an equally large one on the other side of the highway, and other just a few miles down (I have no idea why). All seem pretty much empty.
Imagine coming from a small farm community where you basically need a car to get from your house to the only shop, hairdresser, doctors office and bar within several miles, moving into what was promised as "the big city" and then finding out that it is even worse there.
@@justicedemocrat9357 wow, didn't think anyone would challenge that. Let me see. Once you've made it to your small town you can walk from the shop to the hair dresser, to the doctor and then to the bar. With sprwling cities and suburbia, each of these is half an hour of driving from each other, at best.
Thing is: If you need public transport for groceries (and not just for a bigger selection) in Europe, you already live very rural - because even many small villages have a small shop for basic groceries, bakery (their main business), postage service and maybe something more. I think, these could be retrofitted to existing suburbs in the US as well - just replacing a single (!) house. Only minimal parking (only for personal and ADA, as people are supposed to walk there) and maybe limit the number of deliveries too. Also retrofit sidewalks by reducing the width of the roads to barely more than two cars (in Europe we go down to 4,8 m aka 5 1/4 yards). For new buildings also reduce the setback to maybe 2 yards behind the sidewalk and encourage plants and not just grass on the front yard - again to make the area *feel* smaller. All of this will automatically reduce the driving speed. Also allow doubles instead of a single family home, covering the same area.
My favourite example ever of a destroyed city is Ogdensburg NY. Once one of the largest cities in upstate New York, a compact and bustling city on the St Lawrence, the entire downtown district was torn down in the 60s to build a highway through it. The place became nothing more than a suburb with no city and is notoriously one of the worst places to live in the state.
When I was little I always wanted to move out and live in the US. Thank goodness I stayed in Europe, never ever would I take a step there other than vacation
@@Amir-jn5mo Yeah, I know. It's a shame that the barrier is set so high for hard working and motivating young people , but as a "refugee" from the far east, you just have to shout "asylum", even though you are just pretending and there you go...you're in.
In Germany we have a Road Fund, which is implemeted in a way of "use it or lose it". Making an incentive to always use it for the road, instead of using that money for public transportation...
Heaven forbid i just want my own town home to buy for under 100k within walkable buildings parks and transportation that sounds dystopian, next you say kids will have to walk to school within a mile!!!!
@Eshical that commute sounds horrible. So does being stuck in a concrete tower with a few thousand other people that I am forced to rent for thousands a month and never own, just to take the bus to my job so I can pay my rent.
That "street labyrinth" line is incredibly accurate. It's maddening to live in a place where following the street is like mapping a single strand of spaghetti around your plate. That photo of Houston is insane... how is 80% of that land use not stacked in a vertical parking structure? Also those ads are barely the tip of the iceberg for what I like to call the Leave It To Beaver times. I don't have a link handy, but there's an old article from a womens' magazine with a few pages of instruction on how to be a perfect docile wifey. The most memorable tip I can recall is that it's important to know what time your husband will be home from work. This is not only so that you can have dinner smelling delicious in the oven, but also so that you can shoo the children outside to play so they don't rush Daddy at the door. And of course make sure to freshen your makeup, straighten your outfit and fix your hair, then sit still for 15 minutes and don't worry your pretty little head about anything, because you don't want to look stressed when he comes home. After all the grueling domestic labour we've spent three pages telling you to do.
This talks about all the problems I had with isolated suburbs here in America. The área I live in is a good area, it’s a mix of quiet residential houses with corner stores in of the streets. There’s several bus lines going through the place with a railroad line running right through the town.
When I was a kid my parents had the option to either remodel our house in the country or buy a different house in town. They asked me and my sister what we wanted and we absolutely wanted to stay in the country. Some things definitely sucked about the country. I had to bike three miles along the shoulder of 45mph roads or back country roads that were barely two lanes just to get to my closet friend's house. But we could play outside all we wanted because we had acres and acres of land available between us and the few neighbors. I wouldn't have been able to do that in town. Our town had zero lawns, no grocery store, nowhere to hang out besides the corner store and laundromat, and you still had to take the school bus because the school was ten miles away. It wasn't safe to play anywhere since there were no parks or rec centers. You were either in a house or driving somewhere. It's not surprising that the town got overrun with drugs when I was a teen and now half of the houses are abandoned. I live in the city now and the only way I would move is to upgrade to an even better city.
I'm turning 30 this year, and I have never owned a car. I don't need it here in Europe. I live in a mid-rise at the edge of a decently sized city, with two separate supermarkets, half a dozen restaurants, various doctor's offices, two schools, a pharmacy, a couple bakeries and several other stores within 15 minutes walking distance. For anything further away I take the bus, which only costs me 25€/month to ride any bus anywhere within the wider city area at any time.
I have coworkers that drive an hour each way for work. I’ll never understand throwing away 10+ hours every week sitting in traffic. So many people I know work too long at a job they hate, driving too much during a commute they hate, and spend their free time on weekends maintaining a yard they don’t have time to enjoy. Seems insane to me. I like the ideas of densifying suburbs and allowing more mixed zoning so people can live closer to their job.
Some North American cities *do* have new high-rise residential, but the way it’s built is what they call “Avenue Developments” in Toronto, where tiny parts of the suburbs are not zoned for single family homes, so developers slam as much as they physically can fit into the tiny areas. Look up photos of the newer toronto condos, it’s all clumps of massive condos directly beside single family spawl, it’s one or the other, nothing in the middle.
thats why we need to pass the cities multiplexes as of right proposal. We cant just keep having a high rise next to single detached houses which are 5 minutes away from a TTC stop.
I grew up in the suburbs and now live in a major city. Even though US cities are notoriously car-centric, the difference is *astounding*. It's mind-boggling but I really am proud of the place that I live, and I love that I get to walk by the same people every day on my way to work. I don't love almost getting hit by cars, but we are getting a bunch of new infrastructure investment soon that will densify things, so unless I get priced out I'm here to stay.
In the Philippines we have nearby stores like that too. We call it "sari-sari" stores where we can buy food and medicine. When your house is near a barangay terminal, you have more options where you can walk less than a minute to get to a market and convenience stores and a water district.
I grew up in a sort of exurb where everyone had 5 acre plots. The novelty of having a big yard wore off when I was like 11. On the other side of our neighbor's woods, there was a suburban development where my friends lived (same school system). When you got through the woods, you had to "trespass" through someone's Chemlawn. Adults accosting children for trespassing on grass between houses says a lot about suburban life. The other option was to walk around several miles on streets with no sidewalks. I know my upbringing was extremely privileged compared to some, but the way that we lived was also extremely absurd.
Sort of similar to one place I lived. To get to school was a straight shot if I went out my backyard, crossed some railway tracks and then through some what was then vacant lots into the back field of the school. Now with more suburbia filling in those gaps if any kids live in my old house they'd probably be driven the long way around because they'd have to cut through people's yards otherwise.
Why do people think they need such big yards? I would much rather have a close by public park that would be bigger than any yard and actually has ppl doing stuff and I dont have to mow it, when i was kid I lived in a suburb with a big yard then moved innner city to a small yard but a massive public park with like 2 playgrounds and huge fields less than a 5 min walk away and it was 10 times better
@@TheN0remac i would love to have a massive yard like the to grow food and all kinds of medicinal plants. That's like my dream. I would love to have all that empty space around me. As someone with PTSD from serving in the military living in congested areas makes me mentally ill. I will always prefer suburbs then dense urban living.
@@joshuaortiz2031 of course, having all that space is nice. Having a garden is nice. So I guess it depends how much time do you have on your hands. Living away from people is more of a rural setting than this is. Because there are neighbors all around you still. It's also kinda funny, my home in Brooklyn is more quiet at night than this exurb where I grew up. There's an interstate on the other side of the woods and the sound of is constant.
@@christopherjrager i don't mind white noise like that though. Traffic sounds from the highway isn't that bad if you got some distance between you and the highway. Double pane windows also help with the noise. I can't stand living in cramped apartment buildings where you can hear the neighbors through the walls that's a hundred times worse.
European here. Two important things must be mentioned: (1) The US-type sprawl is simply physically impossible because municipalities in Europe are generally smaller and they all have their urban plans and areas earmarked for residential development, so there is really limited space to expand because there border of the next town or village is literally "right there". And in larger cities, there is high demand for apartments so the mixed use is more carefully planned. And (2) Even developers in Europe are MUCH smaller and you do not see them building entire suburbs, but rather a few streets, if that. Also many many more Europeans purchase the plot first and then they look for a suitable developer, which is why you often do not find identical buildings on the same street (with the exception stated above).
The first 100 people to use code SOMETHING at the link below will get 60% off of Incogni: incogni.com/something
It was the SZEA act of 1922 only one person can stop it and her name is Gina Raimondo
@@Mr.Alkebulan What? You let you destroy buy an dead woman? (When it's a men or it I don't care) That is a disease. Make a vote against it when it is so important or shredder this sheath. Problem solved.
Those damn conservatives, they're like monsters, they never did anything good or right, unlike liberals and socialists, they always do the right thingand treat everybody as equals!
Life is like a cartoon story for you, isn't it? The vilains and the heroes, so easy to label.
Did you just drop the Rampart theme at 3:20? :D :D
I'm honestly quite curious as to what you think about domestic aviation and its atrocious effects on the environment as well as its general pointlessness.
USA: *сomes up with the worst urban planning ever*
Arab Emirates: "Write that down, write that down!"
"And make it 10x worse!"
@aviation cat
And let slaves build it
@@NightZoneDE and add unnecessary tall towers next to it.
And don't make a sewage system for the most part of the country we have truck like a lot of trucks and why public transport we have uber
All gulf countries are basically a forgotten bastard states of America. Probably because American construction companies built the infrastructure when oil was discovered.
My siblings and I were visiting my parents last week, and we literally couldn’t go anywhere or do anything because there were only two cars, and our parents needed them. You can’t walk anywhere, because there’s nowhere to walk to, and there’s certainly no public transportation. Being in an American suburb is very close to being on house arrest, and it’s by design.
I know the feeling, anytime I visit my sister I'm just miserable since she lives in one of those planned communities on the outskirts of town, so there is nothing interesting within a ten minute drive and even then it's ten minutes to get to the next thing.
First time at your parents' house?
@@Mike-fx4nu maybe they moved since the last time OP visited them?
When I was visiting my relatives in states, I said I’ll take the bus to to downtown no worries and they said it’s too dangerous :(
Oddly enough I grew up and still live in a very rural area. The fact that 5miles is too far to walk for a bus in a city always puzzled me. with I 20 min walk I could go any where it seemed to me. Then as I grew up I realized kids in cities don't walk ten miles to visit a friends house at 8 years old. I still remember the looks I got when I said to my relatives. Oh ya I just walked around downtown all day and stopped by the museum. LOL it was only 4 miles into downtown. Like a 12 min walk. But you would think I made a trek into the damned arctic. (EDIT: I am not changing this to sound as facetious as I meant it to. I haven't seen so much controversy over a clearly miss typed paragraph since my friend discovered they spelled Niger wrong in our social studies class.)
Living in the city you have all the convenience and none of the space, living in the country, you have all of the space and none of the convenience. In the suburbs, you get neither.
living in a City without sprawl you have all the convenience *and* fast access to nature
As a rural American, can confirm. Although the lack of convenience can be a pain from time to time, having a forest and wildlife as neighbors can't be replaced.
@@tommihommi1 as a European i can confirm, i could bike from downtown to a forest.
Bullshit
@@KylesGuide what is this rural America you speak of every time I visit it's just sprawl with nearby forest but not much of an actual town. Is there an example you can give? ( My mind may be broken as when I think of town I imagine a European town. So not a lot of cars, not very good roads, a lot of people walking. Street-side shops, etc
It's interesting you mention Houston, because the city found out the hard way how suburbs can be destructive. On 23 August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall at the Texas gulf coast, causing widespread flooding, with Houston suffering the biggest and deepest flooding, roughly 25 to 30% of the city was underwater, and it was later determined to be linked to the suburbs. Prior to the hurricane, Houston was surrounded by flood plains, these natural features were useful at absorbing water from storms, however, by 2017 these meadows were bulldozed and paved over to make way for new suburbs, effectively compromising the flood plains' ability to prevent flooding, once Harvey made landfall, there was no where for the water to go, but directly into the city. This is the other way suburbs have destroyed the US, for they are built on natural habitats that make things hazardous for residents and nearby communities, to make matters worse, the developers knew what could happen, but were allowed to build anyway, if Hurricane Harvey taught anything, suburbs should not be allowed to build in naturally vulnerable areas, because mother nature is a harsh disciplinarian.
Very beautiful said.
Unfortunately, in Ontario, Canada, we are about to learn this lesson if our "state" government gets its way.
It's not only the suburbs. Look at the concrete wasteland, that's basically one large impervious surface. And this is absolutely bad for water drainage.
Did the city of Houston actually learn anything from it and are there plans in motion or are they just going to wait for the next hurricane?
@@Martin-di9pp They are going to wait. They (state government) are conservative americans after all.
I grew up in a European style suburb and it was a wonderful childhood, I could walk to all my friends without my parents guidance as there were many sidewalks and I didn’t need to cross any roads, there was a playground every 100 meters or so so we could play and many more things that made my childhood amazing. Growing up as a teen or young adult was also amazing as there was a bus to anywhere is the city just outside my house, going out was super easy.
We also had several community centers, all my schools and kindergartens were walking distance. A lot of people that you saw every day so I really knew all my neighbors. We were dog owners so I even knew all my neighbors dogs as well. My dad made good friends from taking out the dogs
I’m glad we moved to Scandinavia a few years back. In the dense urban area we now live in our kids have way more freedoms than they ever had in their old housing estate in Ireland.
Sure we’ve a smaller living space by a couple of square meters but our kids can walk to school safely, getting to work is a doddle and we aren’t pouring tens of thousands into car ownership.
Not to mention literally everything is either a 10 minute walk or bus/tram ride away.
There is no way I’m going back to living in a box where even doing something as simple as going for a pint requires a 1/2 hour cab ride and you have to drive to the park so your dog can get proper exercise.
I live in a sub suburb in America and it’s the same exact thing, it’s middle class unlike my extremely wealthy city and it’s suburbs it has an elementary middle and high school all in walking and biking distance and we knew all our neighbors from dogs and when I used to walk to my elementary school. There are also a lot of sidewalks and it’s very bikeable and there’s also a huge park nearby with many amenities. There’s also a plaza with a few restaurants and stores that’s in biking and walking distance it’s a bit car centric but you won’t usually see too many cars on the road and traffic isn’t a big deal except when the schools come out but it’s not that bad either since the schools have their own little area and a lot of kids walk or bike home. Still, it’s not perfect pretty far from buses train stations, the beach, and other stuff like malls. It’s in the Florida Everglades so it’s not the most stunning place either and can get quite boring at times. Still, it’s better than some of the other suburban options like those extremely wealthy neighborhoods
Don't believe a talking head blindly. I grew up in lawned neighborhoods outside the CBD in a US city, and my friends were two blocks away. Stores were 1/2 block away incl: two grocers, two dime stores, a pharmacy and a gas station.
I had friends I met in HS that lived way out in newer suburbs. They had friends down the street. There was usually a convenience store...a 70s version of an old general store...within walking or bike distance.
I biked about 3 miles a day after school until I got a small motorcycle at 14. I only dated one girl that lived in a remote neighborhood on the river that had no stores or schools within bike distance. That was a set of rich country estates with 5 acre lots.
After I got married, we bought a home on the edge of a village in 1990 and walked almost everywhere for small activities or small town shopping. That village is considered a suburb today of the city on the other side of the bay 20 miles (35km) away.
There are housing developments that fit this video's BIG MOAN but there are plenty that sound just like your experience too.
I visit my hometown
@@STho205 And? Just because you had that doesn’t mean everyone does. Believe it or not your experience is not everyone else’s experience. I live in a place where there is nothing nearby and nobody I know lives close by. I do believe the words people are saying because I didn’t have your experience. I am happy you managed to have all this but don’t act like everyone else does. A
I remember when i bought my first house it was located in an area that was mixed zone. the bank tried to argue with me that the prospect of a store opening up near my house could hurt the property value. My only response was "why would i not want a store in easy walking distance? sign me up!"
Did they explain why would it hurt value? When watching american sitcoms, having to drive to grocery stores was the strangest thing to me and l was wondering how nobody sees business opportunity in opening a grocery store in such neighbourhoods.
Also curious in how the hell they tried to justify that
@@anteveic327 something about the idea that it could hurt the natural beauty of the tree line or cause noise
@@anteveic327 and those neighborhoods are too low density to have enough customers for a local store to be viable.
@SS-rf1ri Didn't know that until recently, when l stumbled upon something about that on youtube
As a Brazilian, that was the first thing that really felt off for me when I spent a semester studying in London-Canada, which is a city that takes a lot of lessons from American infraestructure from what I could tell.
I know people don't think highly of Brazil, but being able to just ride me bike to places or just have a short walk to the pub or the local pizzaria to meet with the boys makes such a huge difference for me.
Not dying in the streets by machete or not being transformed into a fleshball on my bike by dummy drivers is something I enjoy more than having a walking distance bar. To everybody their own pleasure I guess.
@@RememberingGames that escalated quickly and for no reason. He was just being proud of an aspect of his home country - which I totally agree with, I'm Italian but I could be from the whole of Europe or Asia really, and I can tell suburbs are neither natural nor convenient, that's a simple fact. Enjoy your years of auto isolation, with the occasional car ride to go pass some hours doing nothing at the mall I guess?
@@RememberingGames wouldn’t be a ploblem if you have sidewalk /transit infrastructure
@@RememberingGames This is funnier because the US actually does have a specifically machete wielding crime problem: they're called the Macheteros. Because we've absolutely have had no history with violent and organized crime in the US.
The Macheteros are actually one of the better political factions in the US.
@@hyperion3145 Good thing I'm Canadian then. No machetes, no guns problem, nice people and lot of space.
But granted my initial comment was pretty rude. Sorry about that.
In the end, you gotta live where you are happy. If big cities is what you like, it's fine. If I like suburbs, I think it is fine as well. Both have goods and bad.
i once heard:
"building extra lanes to highways to tackle traffic issues is the same as having bees on your balcony and to tackle that problem you put additional flowers"
i think that discribes the problem very visual.
You ever hear about what happened during Covid? People worked at home in many cases, and it became evident that much of the work could be done at home, rather than spending an hour commuting to work and clogging the streets! The internet allows for much work to be done at home, if only employers would stop requiring their workers come to the office all the time! Look at what were doing here on the internet. I don't need to go to an office to type this message and send it to you, I don't need to commute and hour each way and complain about the traffic or live in the city in a tiny apartment with no yard!
What are you babbling about?
Just out of curiosity, I calculated how much owning my car cost me earlier this year. It was about $8400. I work from home and rarely need to fuel it up, and yet it burns a several thousand dollar hole in my pocket just so I can safely get to the grocery store and navigate the transit-lacking city I'm in. I hate living somewhere that basically requires me to own a car just to do the most basic things.
What car you drive?
bug pod voters have hollowed out the country while backing bottomless funding for endless war, and you worry about a few thousand dollars.
Must drive a nice car 😅
Blame the taxes on gas, the government-mandated scam that is car insurance, registration fees, planned obsolescence from bloated, too-big-to-fail automobile manufacturers…. In other words, the government is the problem. Or stop complaining and live in a place where they can’t even afford a car if they wanted to.
I'm an American living in Istanbul, Turkey. I never even use public transportation (which is excellent) because everything I need is within a five-minute walk.
7:42 You forgot the 1967 Battleships board game box, the one that actually took the time to draw the women in the kitchen, smiling, while doing the dishes.
Just Googled that. OMG ha ha.
Looked it up, that's just downright hilarious. So strong was their misogyny that they'll draw that even when it has nothing to do with the product. XD
The sad thing is that so many of us have grown up living in suburbs that we think it's normal and even desirable. Almost difficult to imagine even living any different way.
I’ve lived in NYC for years. (Born in it) But I would love to be able to live in the suburbs. As I was saying earlier. Not everywhere needs to look like or feel like NYC. Having a Suburban alternative is a nice thing to have. Don’t fall for this PR nonsense.
How did mixed zoning get preserved in European suburbs and not in the U.S.? It does seem as if that change alone would solve many of the negative effects of suburban living.
@@karenryder6317 I have Family over in Europe. I wouldn’t want to live like them. Very cramped life style. I prefer having room to breath.
It's easier to fool someone than to convince them they've been fooled.
Bro this isn't as easy as it is portrayed in these kind of videos. I'm from Germany and I know lots of people who are stuck in super expensive yet tiny inner city apartments in huge apartment buildings with like 20 other units. They would like to live in a single family home but it's not affordable anymore, even for the upper middle class.
Brooklyn is what American cities could have, should have, looked like if not for the suburban sprawl. Medium-to-High density housing with mixed zoning, public spaces with room for communal activities, functional public transport network, "mom and pops" stores and restaurants scattered all throughout. New York in general, but especially Brooklyn and Harlem, is a great example of the benefit of neighborhood communities, of having this group of people who care and support one another, who do things together. Communal identity is so important for mental well being!
It's only in places like Harlem and Brooklyn that you can have stories like a guy running a food cart for 20 years get people donating money to cover his life saving surgery.
You can't have that in a sprawling suburb. You can't have a real community in the suburbs. You are not a true neighborhood. You're just a group of people that happen to live in that area.
Yeah that's true. I have liked the suburbs I've been in, but you often don't know your neighbors. You may smile and say hello, but you often don't stop to talk to them on a personal level.
I don't necessarily mind it, because privacy is a big thing in the burbs, but I look forward to feeling a real sense of community some day where I live at.
I seem to recall that Sesame Street was modeled off urban living in Brooklyn.
Not everyone cares to know there neighbors. With cars you can be friends with and hang out with whoever you want; not people that just happened to move in next to you. You are confusing the way you enjoy life to how everyone enjoys theirs
@@mareksimmons9162 And what is stopping you from doing so if you live in Brooklyn?
You probably aren't taking a car, but public transportation in NYC is pretty good so there's no need to.
Neighborhoods like that aren't closed ghettos where you need to show your passport at a border checkpoint, and it isn't something you have to participate in. It's something that you can participate in and something that has proven itself time and time again to be a massive net positive in people's lives.
Just because YOU don't want to live like that doesn't mean other people don't.
You are confusing the way you enjoy your life with how many other people would want to live theirs...
Brooklyn as an example? 😂 Are you serious?
I grew up in Houston and can attest to the fact that downtown is largely abandoned on the weekends unless there's a sports game or huge concert going on.
That's crazy.
Compared to German cities and towns, that's the main difference I noticed when I was the first time in the US, to Cincinnati. German cities are made for people to live, not for business only.
The idea with your cardboard houses, Walmarts style supermarkets and those huge, ugly industrial areas was a very bad one. Your country looks dreary.
i remember flying into houston in 2018 on a connecting flight to mexico - not sure if got a glimpse of downtown but I was in total shock as to how many highways there were, never seen anything like it. I was thinking to myself the maintenance cost must be insane.
I grew up and still live in Houston and I can attest that they're slowly making improvements downtown - now Main Street and Market Square in downtown are actually pretty busy on weekends.
I was in Midland TX after dark once while storm chasing and not only were the streets totally empty of people but we couldn't even find a place to get something to eat - in a good sized city! This completely shocked me since I live in a similarly sized city in the Northeast where you can't walk half a block without encountering several restaurants. The atmosphere of Midland after dark really was post-apocalyptic, a ghost town with gleaming tall buildings and flaming oil refineries in the distance and no people to be seen whatsoever. I remember thinking "damn, nobody wants to be here and I can't blame them!".
Its so weird how I could spend my whole childhood in Canada and think I lived in one of the best places in the world. but after 15 years of travelling and 10 years living in Germany, coming back home felt like I entering a soulless dystopia.
I feel so bad for the millions of people who will grow up thinking that this is the "normal" way to live
I felt that hard here in the U.S., it wasn't until I looked into urbanism and had a cousin who lived in an 1800s streetcar suburb in the same city and realized how much better it is.
I also grew up in Canadian suburbs, and I think they're terrific. They're quiet and isolated, but the amenities you need are close enough to be convenient.
Lived in Japan for a few years, coming back to the Canadian prairies made me realise how bad infrastructure and city planning is here. Over there I would walk to buy groceries most of the time, I regularly took the train to other cities even though I had a car, It was super liberating. Here though? It's thankfully not American levels of suburban dystopia but god damn are we sure working our way there.
@@SylviusTheMadanada was a leader in building some of the worst suburbs and often outdid Americans at their own game. Did you grow up in an area built before the 60s by any chance?
I meant it's most likely better than 7.5 billion of people from Asia, Africa, Middle East or Latin America. Hell, even Eastern Europe of CIS region (excluding Moscow or St. Petersburg). Many ppl in the west forget that 3/4 of planet is struggling to get hot water, drinkable water, a cloth or a food. I've spent half of my life in food insecurity, coming from richest city of oil-mining 3rd world country. This whole video is what I would define as "white people's problems".
It still baffles me that Muricans in suburbs dont pay for their streets and maintenance. I don't think suburbia would be so popular in the US, if the homeowner would have to pay regularly for street maintenance like people in my country do.
Public roads have to be maintained with tax money so surely Americans do pay for it like everyone else?
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 as the video states, the suburbs do not pay enough to maintain their own infrastructure, often relying on the more productive, more dense urban areas for assistance
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 Why would it have to be maintained with tax dollars? Any dollars would do, and the point is that since the tax dollars doesn't cover it, only land sales and development fees for new development does. So the cities sell land to finance existing infrastructure, that's the "ponzi scheme"-aspect of the suburbs.
In my (european) country we had a similar situation with a city just north of the capital, a suburb. A very, very wealthy one, in fact, the city with the by far highest medium income earners AND wealth in the country. They have prided themself on low taxes for some time, but being spread out and low tax, they eventually hit the wall when the city couldn't sell more land. It was reveiled that the city council had lied about defecits of 100 of millions, had no way to pay that money back, had to fire a bunch of staff everywhere and drasticly raise taxes on it's citizens.
But in Europe, that's one town here or there. In the US, it's the reality of almost every city in the country. And even in the case where you can pay for it with tax money, it's more likley that it's money from people that live in more productive parts of the city that pays for suburbia and then get the short stick themselfs.
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 Did you watch the video? Suburbs require much much more infrastructure per person than dense cities but people there pay the same. Suburbia is subsidized by the people living in dense cities.
Theoretically that’s where our taxes are supposed to go.
My family is American, but we have lived in urban Germany for the past 10 years. We visited our family in suburban Washington, DC and suburban Pittsburgh last summer. Afterward, our teenage daughter said that she could never live like that again.
American/Canadian who lived in the suburbs here. Living there is a special kind of hell. Getting told to go outside was the worst, go outside and go where? The community center costs money and is a 25 minute bike ride on a good day on arterial roads with speed limits double what I could ride at on level ground (my brother did this, he was unsurprisingly hit by a car at one point, he was thankfully fine). The outdoor pool isn’t opened half the year, and the nearest “park” is a small playground on maybe a couple acres. The next nearest one was a fair distance away, and the nearest proper park was several miles away. And that was in the wealthy part of town. I didn’t suffer a day’s worth of economic hardship there. It’s much worse in middle-class suburbs.
Needless to say, I was practically glued to my screen and rapidly became very isolated. My stepbrother was instead glued to his car’s steering wheel.
And remember, this is for a family that “made it,” for a family that struggles financially, as a kid, you’re stuck in a box and don’t have the ability to go anywhere. It’s hard to believe how the boomers™ think the phones, and not the suburbs, are the problem.
The phones are another problem. I'm typing from a walkable city where the phones indeed are a problem. But compounding lack of community, activities, space for exploration, freedom of movement with phones is probably much worse than just the phone.
@@Peteruspl
Don’t get me wrong, phones and the internet are a problem, but they are force multipliers to the main problem: community atomization.
Yeah people not being there is a much bigger barrier to talking to them then people being in their phones. They’re also situationally quite useful, particularly for members of niche or marginalized communities.
Its telling what kind of audience this appeals to, you couldn't think of anything to do outside, you need your entertainment premade.
Canadians are forever saying, the outdoors the outdoors! No wonder they're boring and non-reading as anything. And when outdoors, the most they're capable of is bland non-conversational banalities. You put out what you take in, which is essentially doughy breakfasts and no learning.
@@sanriosonderweg I've been the outdoorsman type my whole life, I've done considerable camping and backpacking. I've also done a fair bit of personal writing, which I dare say was not "premade."
You know what I didn't have near my house? Forests, creeks, rivers, or even so much as a neat looking pile of rocks. There were a few sanitized parks, sure, but anything interesting was far away. As for urban amenities, like shops and theaters were all far away. There was no place to just "hang out" unless you could drive there. Hell, we had to drive just to get to the interesting bike paths!
But it's easier to insult people on the internet than to reflect on the dogshit outside your generation built for us.
And this is the reason I'm so glad that Urbanism and public transportation are gaining traction in the US.
I love cars and love driving but every time I see how sprawled out Metro Detroit is (where I've lived all my life) and how lousy our bus system is (as of March 2023) it drives me nuts.
I'm also from metro Detroit. It almost makes me cry when I look at early 20th century pictures of Detroit. The street cars, architecture...If only that was invested in and built upon.
And one thing I do believe, is that the US would also be the country that can turn this around. Usually much faster with changes than any other country I've lived. Will be a long and difficult process. A lot will be depending on elections and those are really crazy in there
Remember, the Netherlands are highly rated for both the quality of their trucking and the sheer joy of driving there. These are places that spend a lot of money on good public transportation and bike infrastructure. This is not a coincidence. Driving gets a lot better when not everyone has to do it all the time.
@@AlRoderick I get absolutely dumbfounded when car centric societies like the US don't understand this basic concept. It should be a no brainer to have fewer car drivers while also having a functioning public transportation system. Fewer drivers means low congestion AND road accidents. Citizens would have more choices when it comes to getting around their own city/region/state/county/province/district/country/continent.
In conclusion: cars are fine but car dependency was supposed to be an avoidable cancer.
@@MustraOrdo Yup, exactly. Good public transportation means that people who like driving have more space on the road!
As an American, I can tell you that the American Dream (TM) is actually strong. That dream is making your boss's boss's boss very rich while you toil and suffer and blame everyone for your misery except the people causing it.
One who accepts such things without the will to cry out against such things, even a bit, is as complacent in the situation as those who begin it.
This is America, after all. You can sit with it, or do something about banging your boss's wife and take his American dream lease imho
So no other countries on the planet have businesses and those businesses have bosses who work with the home of making a return that they can then spend on goods and services?
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Video is titled Suburbia ruining America
This guy: Automatically wants to involve the entire planet in the category.
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Yes we do, but we have those things called labour laws that mandate minimum liveable salaries, maximum workable hours, paid vacations, unlimited sick days, parental leave, actually effective business, corporate and investment taxes. You know, things that makes these businesses attractive and sustainable rather than the 8th circle of hell sucking up your soul for a few bucks and the hope of someday magically becoming a millionaire if you work a bit harder.
That’s just capitalism in general
Correction: in most of Europe we can walk to an affordable grocery store - otherwise it is not considered very accessible and quite a lot of people get upset, although other stores like clothing and small electronics typically requires a metro/tram/bus/bike trip, and something like furniture or washing machine may need a train trip + ordering a delivery van. Schools are accessible by walking, though universities require dorms unless you happen to live in the same city.
That sounds pretty accessible to me... not to mention much cheaper than cost of ownership of a car.
And in university dorms you get a room to yourself, instead of almost always sharing in the 1st year in the US :/
@@Bozebo that's not true around all the europe. Eastern Europe still has shared rooms. But I can't imagine living in a place where it takes more than 5 minutes to walk to a grocery. Through my entire life I had a store in 200m radius around my house and I didn't even go there because if you go another 100m you get lesser prices because this one store is considered a bit less accessible than the other one
@@holesmak that’s seems crazy to me I live by a major arterial road that has far more businesses next to the suburban neighborhoods and I have to walk 1/2mi 800m down my neighborhood across a 4 lane intersection to get a snack or walk a kilometer in other direction by my house to go to a supermarket. USA zoning is horrible.
You see in a city with mom and pop stores, you need to visit multiple stores and cross multiple streets with traffic to buy the stuff you can buy in a single box store like Walmart. Also you got shopping carts at Walmart, go to a mom and pop store and you got no shopping cart, you got no parking lot, you carry your grocery bag full of ice cream and milk onto the subway with a bunch of strangers looking at you as your ice cream melts and drips through your bag as the train experiences another delay.
"Imagine living in a dystopian future. - America"
This one hit hard. The healthcare. The gun laws. I read history books about 1700s London where British writers say, “thank god we don’t live like that anymore” and I (an American) say, “come again?”
So are you chinese or japanese ?
@@ioanvalentinpavlov605 Japanese
@@ioanvalentinpavlov605 I live in California last 20 year but uh first come from Laos
@Don't Read My Profile Photo ok
Ngl, I was genuinely shocked when I moved to the UK and saw that there was a corner store at the end of my block. I’m from outside of the Seattle area, and something like this is literally non-existent. The closest thing we have there was either a gas station or the grocery story halfway across town to get food.
You should have everything within a 5-10 minutes walking distance that you need on a daily or weekly basis.
Within a 5 minute walk I have: 4 Supermarkets, a photographer, a phone shop, two barbers, 4 restaurants, 1 fast food shop, 2 café/bars, a pharmacy, a optician, a bakery, 4 clothing stores, a shoe store, a florist, a dry cleaner, 2 general stores, 2 drug stores, a pet shop, a souvenir/gift shop, a book store, an ice cream parlor, a fuel station, and probably a few I forget.
This is normal nearly everywhere in my country. The city centre with more speciality stores is about a 15 minute bike ride. Some big box stores like IKEA are further away.
@@rogerwilco2 Sounds terribly oppressive, how can society be so cruel as to provide you easy access to everything you need!
Non-existent and outright illegal in many US cities, which have zoning policies forbidding any business in a residential zone.
@@rogerwilco2 OH YEAH? Well I have the freedom to walk 30 minutes up and down a steep hill to get to a Safeway! Which also happens to be the only supermarket that’s not a few hour’s walk away…
I live in suburbs outside US and yet I have these within 10 minutes walk: supermarket, cafes, general stores, clothing shop, drug stores, barbershop, phone repair shop, conventional market, non-specialized clinic, gas station, stationery, gift shop, furniture shop and building material and household equipment store.
One less discussed social problem is that modern ring cameras and neighborhood Facebook groups make suburbs feel like high control surveillance states. I've seen so many posts where people upload ring camera footage of a "suspicious individual" who turns out to just be a POC minding their own business. Folks will just straight up dox their neighbors for any perceived bad behavior as well. You feel isolated in suburbs, but you also feel like you're being watched, because in a way, you are being watched.
Meanwhile in more urban areas with mid rise buildings.
The grannies looking out the windows are the surveillance system.
I just had to stop looking at our neighborhood Facebook group because of this. Between the nice normal posts are the anti-outsider diatribes, photos of litter, complaints about the roads, people complaining about bikes or joggers not staying in the ditch or whatever and you just have to grit your teeth and try not to respond.
Interesting...
Also Ring is owned by Amazon now and the give cops footage without any warrants since when you use the Ring camera you give permission to Amazon to use your footage however they like! Jake Hanrahan from Popular Front did a great podcast series covering all over Amazons litany ethical violations. It’s called Megacorp and the episode about their role in the surveillance state and ring cameras is episode 5!
The US is 100% a surveillance state.
When you watch videos like this you can really appreciate living in Europe, without a car, having couple of grocery stores, bus lines, tram lines, pizzerias and other amenities within 5-10 minutes walk distance. I don't even have a driving license because I never felt a need of having car.
The one thing that bothers me not only as someone who cares about the natural environment but also just... aesthetically, is the lack of trees. Even in the suburbs I grew up in you'd just hear a truck nearby in the spring and summer constantly, chopping down trees. It was like a "default" background noise and it wasn't loggers or something, it was just some family somewhere cutting down a tree. I do live in an aged area where trees do die, but they're not replacing them with anything. (And a lot of them weren't dead, the family just was sick of raking leaves or something.) My area could have been considered "in the woods" at one point but now it's just a bunch of fields.
I have a coworker who bought a plot of land in the burbs and clear-cut the whole thing to make it easier to put a house on it. The only trees around are on other people's land. Another friend bought an empty lot and the whole area was cleared. The developer cleared out every tree before subdividing the land. It's sad. It's like we still live in the 1800s and haven't learned anything.
Kinda similartly parents' neighbor keeps pestering them to remove some birch trees that sometimes drop branches and leaves on the neighbor's side. Without the trees the area would look like absolute garbage in comparison. It's ridiculous how little respect people have for anything related to nature.
I live near the sea so I get people poisoning trees to make them die forcing the local council to chop them down "improving" their views to the sea and therefore raising property value, and it just cost the area's sparrow population
@@Solstice261 what the fuck that's so fucked up. I'm not surprised but still disappointed...
The trees in my suburb are great
This hurts kids especially. You know how many kids there were my age in my suburban neighborhood growing up? Two. One was a bully and the other had religious nutjobs for parents. It didn't get better until high school when we moved from the suburbs to a small town with mixed zoning. The difference was night and day. Just the simple fact that you could walk or bike somewhere was life-changing.
The suburbs used to be full of kids. We’d ride around in troops on our bmx bikes. You’re conflating different issues
@@yeboscrebo4451 And what is there for those kids to do in their suburban cage? As soon as you try to leave the neighborhood, you're usually on a main road with no sidewalks. So they can ride their bikes around the block and nowhere else. Exhilarating. These places almost never have parks either, and when they do, they're aimed for small children. There are no arcades, skate parks, video stores, or "third places" in general for kids (or adults, for that matter) to go that don't cost money. And that's not even mentioning how often kids get harassed by police just for being kids or existing in public in view of a baby boomer.
So we stick them in a box with nowhere to go and nothing to do. That sounds like the American dream to me...
@@themightymcb7310 you’re a complainer aren’t ya. When I was a kid we could take some sticks and make bows and arrows. We’d have fun digging a hole for f@#$s sake. You really need someone to build arcades and skate parks for you? A cage for you is a place with no video stores!? Hahha
It just came to me that suburbia's effective isolation and the lack of good public transportation is precisely what made the middle of 2020 the lowest point of my life. The only reason I'm still alive now and didn't kill myself is because my 21st birthday came right after the lowest point of my life (the first week of August 2020) and I was starting to take classes again in the fall term. Luckily, I discovered more youth ministries shortly afterwards, but I also realised that since walkability is very poor where I live (Metro Detroit), church is now the main thing keeping me mentally stable right now. And although I like cars and I like driving, I still support improving public transportation and building walkable neighbourhoods.
@@electric7487 you’re honestly trying to blame your depression on the structure and design of cities? Lol
"They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
- George Carlin
Please...you are free to move out anywhere else
@@donaldhysa4836 people like you are the problem carlin was talkiing about
@@donaldhysa4836 with what money
@@batatanna With the Monopoly money you got from your family landing on the train station, it ain’t that hard.
@@batatanna Well the average american has a higher income than like 90% of the worlds population. That should do it for a start
So, I have the anxious behavior of someone who was raised food insecure, but with food, medicine, internet/phone/connectivity, water, toilets, ect. A large part of that is because I was raised in the suburbs, usually without reliable transportation. I am terrified of being in a suburb, because if you need something, you have to drive for miles to get to the nearest corner, grocery, or convenience store.
I live on a small but decently developed stretch of stroad now in an apartment, and while the stroad sucks for all stroad reasons, I live smack dab next to a walmart and two pharmacies, and can walk to about five fast food places, five banks, even more restaurants, and even in a pinch, an urgent care just half a mile away with sidewalks the entire way. My security anxiety is still there, but it's gone down like 80%.
I legitimately have nightmares to this day of getting trapped in a suburb without transportation. I am never ever living in one again.
Or you could order it online and have it delivered!
Suburbs didn't just kill the American Dream as a concept, they killed the dreams of countless individuals without them even knowing it.
As someone who grew up in the endless cookie-cutter Toronto suburbs and now lives in the glorious mixed-use city that is Edinburgh, it's astonishing how many everyday good things just aren't possible in the suburbs: regular connections with the community, ease of access to goods and services on foot/bike/public transport, green space that isn't just a kid's park, a sense of pride in my local area and everything that subtly influences a person to do. The potential for better mental and physical health is incomparable.
Doing away with the suburbs is good for society writ large and good for individual people. But you'd never know it if you didn't have the chance to experience something different, especially because North American society structures out the possibility of an alternative.
As a non-American, I used to admire suburbs, they looked so spacious and nice compared to where I lived in the city. Now I know better.
It's comments like this that remind me that Edinburgh, by no means free of problems and in need of serious work, is leaps and bounds ahead of suburb-hell. That said, we should not get too comfortable, because we have been and still are building suburbs here in Scotland.
Meanwhile, the premier of Ontario wants more suburban sprawl to line the pockets of his developer patrons.
@@jackhanson1852 Exactly - we're unimaginably far ahead of suburban wastelands like where I grew up, but it will only stay that way (and get better) if people stand up and fight for public spaces, affordable housing, green space, etc.
@@죽은_시민의_사회 They look spacious because there's nothing in them. I almost never knew my neighbours' names, the vast majority of luscious green lawns go unused (despite requiring vast amounts of water to maintain amidst the climate crisis), and it was literally a 50+ minute walk along dangerous roads from my parent's house to the nearest corner shop. I am not at all joking when I say I wouldn't ever live in a place like that again even if you paid me silly money to do so.
I hate car-centric city planning so much. My life feels like a collection of boxes that I spend hours driving between
So you prefer the collection of boxes where we can stack more humans basically? Fascinating.
@@RememberingGames Yeah, they're great. I can leave my box at any time I want and walk to my job, to a park, pub or cafe, or bike to a forest, all within minutes because everything isn't packed full of highways, copy-pasted single-family homes and big boxstores with giant parking lots.
Indian cities are neither planned for cars or people.
@@RememberingGames yeah if my life is gonna be a collection of boxes anyway I'd rather not waste money on fuel and a vehicle that I don't want
@@RememberingGames It's not just about high-rises vs. single family homes, it's about fiscal solvency and quality of life. You're painting a false dichotomy where you're completely leaving out the possibility of small apartments, condos, duplexes, triplexes, and other middle density housing.
To put it another way, the average American will spend $450,000 on vehicle ownership in their lifetime. If the average American were able to live without a car, they could invest that $450,000 and have over $3 million dollars by the time they retire.
I lived in Japan for four years and I am frequently angered by the fact the United States doesn’t understand the value of a good public transit system. The fact that it takes me a half hour just to get on the highway from my home 5 miles away is absurd. There’s zero reason a relatively small city like that in which I live should be so spread out. And it’s all just to appease the handful of rich people we actually have here in the Central Valley.
Japan can do what japanese demographics enables. There is a reason why diversity is difference.
@@sanriosonderweg you mean the US can't develop efficient urban areas and mobility options because they are too racist?
That's what the oil industry has done to a country.
@@sanriosonderweg Japan has immigrants but stay ignorant.
also as someone who grew up in a city with a pretty good amount of freedom, i think suburbs must be actual hell for kids, and i don't even think most people realize because they're so used to suburbs they can't imagine anything else.
from age 10-18 i lived in bangkok and we lived about a 5-10 minute walk from a metro station, a skytrain station (basically elevated metro but it was called bts or skytrain) and a boat station (there are boats that run along a water management system/basically exposed sewer). when i was 12, a new mall opened up, also 10 minutes away and it was connected by pedestrian walkways to the bts and metro stations. my school was a 15 minute walk away (but i took the bus mostly bc my parents didn't want me out walking in bad weather - it look like an hour though bc of traffic lmao) and when i started going to tutors after school or on weekends they were also just 15-20 minutes away. when i was 12/13 ish i started skipping taking the bus home on some days and would go to the mall with my friends or walk down to one of the cafes near my school to get something to eat. if i wanted to see a movie but my parents were busy, i would just go on my own to one of the malls i could get to in like 20 minutes using public transit and watch it on my own. if i wanted snacks, there were literally 3 different convenience stores within a 5 minute walk from my house (one was literally like a minute away lol) that i could go to on my own without bothering my parents (well, i had to ask them for money sometimes, but that's it). sometimes someone would plan a party at a bowling alley or to have a meal together at a restaurant and we would just let our parents know where we're going and who we'll be with and arrange our own transport (either walking or a motorcycle taxi (these things are so much fun lol) or public transport or some combination of all of them). i had pretty strict parents but they would let me do all this stuff because it was safe (also sometimes i just didn't tell them lol)
contrast that with being a kid in a car-dependent suburb. you literally can't go anywhere without your parents because you're too young to drive. want to go to a friends house? well unless that friend lives in the same suburb as you, you can't. want to get some snacks? better have your parents drive you around. same for going to the park or watching a movie or going to a party or going to school or going to any shop or going to have a meal with your friends. literally any activity you can think of that you can't do from home, you need your parents to drive you around. that's until you're old enough to drive yourself around, and then either your parents need to buy you your own car or you need to share with your parents so you STILL can't do anything if your parents are using the car. or i guess you as a 16 year old can try to make enough money on the shitty minimum wage jobs that you need a car to get to to be able to buy your own car somehow. plus this is more stressful for the parents. when i wanted snacks i could just tell my parents i'm going to the shop and be back in 10 minutes with all my stuff. there were two coffee shops within 10 minutes of me and i used to go there all the time to get interesting beverages or muffins as a teenager. my parents didn't have to do anything apart from giving me an allowance and just allowing me to step outside the apartment unsupervised. in the suburbs, if your kids want something and you think it's fine/want them to have it you literally have to get in your car and drive all the way there and do it yourself. americans always say that suburbs are a great place to raise kids but they're literally a terrible place for the kids and for the parents. this type of reliance on the people who are driving the cars is frustrating for everyone involved.
I lived 6 months in the US. While in the border between downtown and suburb, because it was a college town, I still had the feeling the architecture actively hated me. In my home country, I can just cross the street to buy bread, while in the US, the closest bakery was 30 minutes away on foot.
30 minutes on foot to buy bread is pretty close compared to most American neighborhoods. And it’s rare there would be a route to walk through 😂
You’re supposed to own a car.
@@SCIFIguy64 yeah true. Though that’s not easy if you’re only staying 6 months.
30 minutes on foot is short for the US, I wish it was not though.
@@SCIFIguy64 Why would someone buy a car if they’re living there for just 6 months?
The more I learn about American systems such as healthcare and education along with the city planning, union busting and infrastructure, the more I am ever grateful to live in a european country with national parks, public transit, strong unions and free universal healthcare along with cheap access to education regardless of wallet size.
You have no idea how soul-crushing it is to be an american with a conscience.
We do have National Parks, problem is you need a car to get to them usually so your point is still valid
I wish I could move to Europe. But it’s too expensive. Not to mention, I have a disability, so that’s probably disqualifying on its own.
There's no free healthcare in Europe
@@BlitzkriegOmega as long you arent a priest we will welcome you
I think Nethrlandia hired US engineers around the 50s to construct their cities and it ended up as a disaster. I think this might make a good story.
A new channel called Distilled just made a video on that. Search for "How the Netherlands Built a Biking Utopia"
True, Holland is the European US. It´s a soulless country. One giant industrial parc/ suburb.
That didn't happen. Plan Jokinen wasn't adopted. And the modernist suburbs we did design we designed ourselves.
Only Rotterdam was rebuilt for cars I think
There's also Fordlandia...
selfishness, egocentrism and consumerism kills
and kills those egocentrics and consumers too
My city always has a bunch of bond elections in the local ballot. There are new education buildings and stuff that are noncontroversial, but there are bond elections to do REPAIRS on the roads. Taking out a loan to do REPAIRS! Something we do all the time! That’s not an investment that yields long term returns, that’s perpetual upkeep.
How about advising to get rid of the upkeep itself by removing that road, or repurposing it to a park?
@@dragoneyr1632 I suppose I will advise them to adopt a socialist economy too, while I’m shooting for the moon
@@dragoneyr1632 And what about the people and business on that road? Normally, I would just suggest the city offer to buy out the properties via eminent domain, but, if they don't have the money to fix the road, they probably don't have money to buy out however many people.
Just curious on the best way to resolve the situation.
@@spectiliayou can always let a road decay back to being gravel or dirt, although that is generally only reasonable in rural contexts. (Although i personally think most suburban side streets should be gravel to reduce maintenance costs and make the permiable surfaces. Of course sidewalks would still need to be included for a complete street, although that would be a funny sight, a suburban gravel road with proper sidewalks set back a couple feet with a grass buffer.)
@@jasonreed7522 To clarify, the person I was responding to was talking about turning the road and (I assumed) the surrounding areas into a park. Hence my question.
To your point though, no offense, but that is a horrible idea. Pot hole marked roads will basically completely wreck your vehicle over time and these areas do not have public transit. Which is also a problem that needs fixing, but, if we don't think these people exist in an area where they even deserve basic road infrastructure, then they probably don't live in an area suitable for buses.
Unless you mean stripping the road down, rather than letting it decay naturally. Than I suppose that works, but gravel and dirt roads are absolutely atrocious for stuff like snow plows. There is another pavement option more efficient than asphalt for these low traffic roads that always seems to be overlooked in these conversations: chip and seal. Basically what happens if gravel and asphalt had a baby. This is anecdotal, but my grandma's road had it. She lived there well over 40 and the township had to patch it on very rare occasions but I don't recall them ever having to pull the whole thing up and relay it like they do with asphalt. As a note, my grandma's township was notorious for their ill kept asphalt roads. So, if they were to have done repaving at any point, I assume they would have done so to the main roads that were so decrepit and not her random side road (just to further illustrate that I don't think they ever repaved her road, but it obviously wasn't there). That last part is kind of off topic, but I just wanted to bring it up because, again, I feel like it is rarely discussed.
American suburbs are dangerous to live in, too. Emergency services have a harder time getting to you, you probably don't know any of your neighbors, and they're not accessible for the disabled. People seem to have this weird notion that they'll be in peak health and able bodied forever, never realizing that even without old age taking their health from them, they're really just one bad accident away from not being able to drive anywhere anymore, while stuck in a neighborhood where driving is mandatory.
How can emergency services possibly have a "harder" time to get to a wide spacious suburban home compared to an extremely tall apartment building, with stairs and elevator, on tight-space crowded street?
I live in a rancher, no stairs, no steps. I've had ambulances roll stretcher right into my front door
right from the driveway three times, one of them when my right hip dislocated.
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Because of the vast distances involved. Suburbia makes everything extremely far away and the streets are very often designed in a way that there are no fast shortcuts so getting to the house fast enough in the first place is where the problem lies.
Highrises of course have their own set of problems, as you mentioned, but in a dense area the distance for the services to drive is covered much faster. Doesn't have to be highrises though to help with that, middle density housing alone would reduce the problem immensely.
@@theultimatereductionist7592 Cul-de-sacs. American Suburbs are almost never a grid, they're intentionally windy and twisty and end in dead ends forcing you to go the whole way around and back in from the other side instead of Through (precisely to prevent through traffic, mind you).
Citation Needed
@@RocketboyX You don't need a citation, it's common sense. @HoundofCulann explains it right above you. Most car-dependent suburbs are intentionally built to be circuitous and complex to discourage or eliminate through-traffic. They usually eschew things like sidewalks and direct paths through the development too, meaning that whether you're in an emergency vehicle, a car, on bike, or on foot, you always have to take the long way around. Since they take up so much more space, the emergency vehicles have to travel much farther to get to you before they even reach your labrynthian housing development. And since low-density developments generate much less tax revenue and require a lot more money be spent on the sprawling infrastructure, they have less money for municipal services. This means that there are many fewer emergency services, post offices, hospitals, and police precincts available to cover very large swaths of land.
It's quite a sea-change of mindset you go through as a globally-curious American having grown up in car sprawl in the 90's. I grew up loving trips in the backseat of my parent's van, and I didn't realize until the past few years why I liked it: it felt so luxurious to be driven around. That is why I liked cars--the sense of luxury they give as a passenger. Now, as an adult, if I want the luxury of being "driven" around, I take the bus or train. I still love cars, but as an adult, I've never hated them more than when I had to drive to work. Why on Earth do Americans think this is the best--and ONLY--way to do things? Driving is just not special if you MUST do it just to live your life. We've taken what should be an incredible luxury and turned it into a tool of economic survival. So stupid, and so unbelievably wasteful.
Preach🙌
Remember: cars are fine BUT car dependency was supposed to be an avoidable cancer.
@@MustraOrdo Absolutely! The freedom a car can provide isn't actual freedom unless you can choose not to have one without sacrificing for that choice.
Thanks for being honest that the live in a pod mentality is the mindset of a child.
@@sanriosonderweg I mean, I wouldn't denigrate it that way. I think most people--children and adults, alike--like to feel taken care of at least sometimes, if they're honest with themselves; the adult part is realizing the value of taking care of other people.
What I think too many people don't think about when they drive is that their driving isn't about just them; we have a duty to care about the people around us while we're behind the wheel, too. I think for too many people, driving is a totally self-centered act, because it's too stressful to treat it as responsibly as you should. Hence buying so many enormous cars and trucks that are clearly only meant to protect those inside, our shameful traffic mortality rates, etc.
This country's immaturity is so wonderfully embodied by our enormous pickups with their leather-lined cabins and usually-empty beds that it'd poetic if it wasn't grotesque.
I've been living in Switzerland for the past few years and it's crazy how well hidden parking garages can be and how little they disturb the cities in most cases. I was so aprehensive avout living in a small town outside of Zurich when we moved because I've always lived in larger cities. But it's never been an issue. Bus/train connections in my small town are literally better than those of many LA areas.
whats the racial demograpics of Switzerland and LA?
@@ganargxkraken I mean, non-Swiss citizens living here are like 27ish % of the population. Many of them are white, yes. But should that have anything to do with anything in a normal situation?
I'm always surprised at how common it is in the US to have a huge plot of land and it's just one small diner and a forest of parking around it. It's like they've never heard of underground or even overground multi-story parking lots. I mean, let's forget car centrism is cancer in terms of urban development for a second and think strategically: if you have 1000m2 of land to use and you could use 90% of it for a shop and just 10% of it for parking because you build it two stories high or underground, why wouldn't you? Sure, it's more expensive to build but you can have maybe twice or more people at your business buying stuff from you. It may not be perfect, but it is still longer-term thinking than just building a massive parking lot outside your shop and wasting 70% of the plot on cement and paint and I never understood why they don't do it
@@justaname999 Well Switzerland is in Europe and Europe is the home continent of white people, just as Africa is to blacks. If you go to Africa, you don't question why their are so many blacks living there, it is Africa after all. If you go to Japan, where are there so many Asians, where is all the diversity? No one questions that but in Europe everyone expects it to be multiethnic and multi racial. White people aren't allowed to be native to any region, that is just politically incorrect!
@Thomas Kalbfus uhh, Africa isn't just black... Egypt is almost fully white
With respect to urban planning, you never seem to run out of important subjects to touch on.
He talked about much of this in the past, nothing is really new.
Is that really surprising? Urban planning can be pretty complicated, theres tons of things you can talk about
I am a person who doesn't drive and doesn't bike just due to the fact that riding fast things gives me anxiety because I'm always worried about hitting things. I've had to live in a low density environment once, it was hellish. One hour of walking just to get groceries.
That's a you problem.
@@fungo6631 yes, and?
@@katethegoat7507just curious, what other types of comments were you expecting on the internet?
@@derrickstorm6976 I guess a normal level of politeness is too much to ask for
You can always ride slowly, that’s the beauty of cycling: everyone can ride at her own pace
Growing up in NYC in an area with mixed urban housing, I was absolutely stunned when I travelled through some cities in America. Completely desolate landscapes cut up by roads and parking lots, the only source of fun and entertainment were the local bars(good luck if you're under 21), no small coffee shops where you can meet new people. It looked miserable.
I felt this so much. I'm picking colleges to go to and some of them are lovely but there's NOTHING to do/see for miles, as the "town/city" they're located in has maybe 5 buildings I can conceivably visit within 10 mins of campus, and basically nothing to actually do. Idk how I'd survive outside of here and some of the other east coast cities tbh
I feel you so much. I grew up in Westchester but spent most weekends in NYC after I turned 16. I hated driving and it was easier to have my parents drive me to the town train station and go to Grand Central than it was to spend time in my own area without a car.
@@noodle4796 This audience exposes itself as the desire for superficial things.
When I go to nyc I’m appalled at the rot and smell of sewage. What are you talking about
@@yeboscrebo4451 The city government is to blame on that one; it's not an inherent issue with dense urban environments themselves.
I grew up in an American suburb in California and I always wondered why I was so sad and lonely..
Then I moved to places like Melbourne and Tokyo which are strong on transit oriented development and have incredible cultures due to it and realized OH... THATS WHY...
My nightmare is to end up in a US suburb again.
This video is over dramatized, and the comments prove the stereotype of the arrogant European. I am saying this as a European, who has lived is whole life in Europe, but experienced living in the suburbs due to an exchange program. Living in the suburbs as an average earn in Europe, results mostly living in a tiny and small apartment which is surrounded by streets and commercial facilities. Unless you have a newly built apartment, it is mostly noisy. The view outside your window is mostly another façade.
If you want to get around, you have no other choice, than using an overprized and overcrowded public transportation system. It may will get your through the city, but if you want to get outside of it, you need to own a car like in the US. And other than in the US, cars in a lot of European countries are for an average earner affordable due to the continuing anti motorized vehicle lobbyism. Living in the US for a few months was a positive culture shock. The family I lived were settled in the suburbs outside of a big city. The community was filled with beautiful houses in a comfortable size. Every house had owned a backyard where we would eat and drink in the evenings. The neighborhood was quiet so that I loved to make walks outside of it. And contrary to the video, a five minute drive would take me to a plaza or mall, where you would find all amenities. But what I liked the most about their lifestyle, was the easy accessibility to get around outside of your town. On the weekends we would make round trips to national and state parks. Where I need to take two busses and two different trains and double amount of money to do a similar trip.
I would if I could IMMEDIATELY prefer living in an American Suburb rather than in a west European suburb.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 "the stereotype of the arrogant European" my brother in Christ the comment you replied to is literally coming from someone born and raised in America.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 Lmao, you're a fool for not reading the comment you're replying to.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 i get what youre saying. i was staying in a florida suburb for a few weeks too, and im also european. it was nice for the time being there, but GODDAMN was i glad when i was back in an actual city.
Also, the european suburbs are not really any better. its the same problem. everything positive you named, is also found in the country. and living in the country means you also get to experience nature by just walking outside. you dont even have to go there by car.
@@flagwashere I was referring to the comments in the comment section.
Adam I love your videos, and I will continue to watch them as long as they entertain me, bluntly speaking. But I have to ask, why don't you put references in the description? Due to the nature of your subject matter and your amusing presentation, your content appeals to people who like to know "where you got that from," so to speak.
Great editing. Quality of Adam's videos keeps going up and the content remains excellent as usual.
The constant media and cultural ethos teaching us what we ‘should’ dream about. What our ‘dream’ should be. United States of marketing.
The funny thing is that the "American Dream" concept was brought up back in time when there were more highways, cars, and a heavily suburb-dependent society.
I'm glad you made this video the suburbs have been a serious cause of stress and dysfunction in my life and the people around me don't even see the problems I have with this system.
Suburbs are fantastic... as long as you have a reliable way to commute without needing a car. In Europe our public transport compensates for this and makes suburbs livable so people can actually live in nature and work in the city getting the best of both worlds and not having to live in a tiny apartment.
Yeah, European suburbs are just the lower density area of a city the design philosophy doesn't change there's still parks, sidewalks bars and small businesses, when one thinks of suburbia, it's really just the residential wasteland NA is so well acquainted with
Great video! Never been happier to live in Europe, although many cities here face similar issues, albeit at a lesser scale.
I used to live in a suburban neighborhood in Florida until 2019 when I moved to the Boston area, and the difference was extremely noticeable, I was able to walk everywhere and I have easy access to public transportation. Thanks to these factors, I was able to go for my dream and become a photographer, something that I know would have never happened if I lived in the suburbs today.
Boston is extremely expensive. And has a huge problem with racism, as most expensive US cities do. I am sure is more walkable than a Florida suburb, but the cost difference to the average family is insurmountable.
And you get to photograph dirty streets, slums, rundown neighborhoods, homeless people living in cardboard boxes and sometimes relieving themselves on the streets when they are not begging for money or doing drugs. Oh there are lots of things to photograph in those cities alright!
@@ShaggyRodgers420 supply and demand dude, there is almost no walkable places in the us and alot of demand therfore high prices
THANK YOU for not shying away from how much racism had/has a role in all this.
I talked to someone from the UK about urban planning and he said "it boggles my mind as to how almost everything that is wrong with the USA is rooted in racism".
@@electric7487 and that's coming from the UK, a nation so rooted in racism that when their queen died, multiple countries celebrated.
@@romxxiiseems that it is.. However that doesn't really change the point.
@@electric7487 the UK is another bad example. They are running around with machetes.
why do you hate White people
I grew up in a traditional inner city neighborhood and everything was within walking distance. I walked to school, walked to the local store for snacks, walked over to my friends houses and walked to the park.
Since I went to an inner city elementary school and then a highschool just a few blocks out of the inner city, I had no idea that my lifestyle wasn't the norm and that many kids in other neighborhoods didn't have that option and had to get their parents to drive them to friends or the store or had to take the bus. After seeing this I am so glad I grew up in an inner city neighborhood.
In Canada by the way where most suburbs aren't as horrible as the U.S. but are still pretty bad.
And most of Canada you'll never see, you just live in the cities of Canada, all those wide open spaces, you'll never see. You don't get to experience nature, except for pigeons in the park, a few rats, a squirrel or two.
Don't forget about the HOA (Homeowners Association) rules in the suburbs, there are some really strange and overly controlling ones out there. They operate like small communist countries.
Some HOAs have rules around the color of curtains and blinds that residents can have in their windows. They might require all curtains and blinds to be a specific color or prohibit certain patterns or designs.
Some HOAs have rules around the type and color of outdoor furniture that residents can have on their patios or decks. They might prohibit certain materials or colors, or require all outdoor furniture to be a certain style or design.
Some HOAs have rules around the types of holiday decorations that residents can have on their homes. They might prohibit certain types of decorations, such as inflatable lawn ornaments or large displays, or require all decorations to be taken down within a certain time frame.
Some HOAs have rules around the types of plants and flowers that residents can have in their gardens. They might prohibit certain types of plants or require residents to have a certain percentage of their yard dedicated to specific types of flowers or shrubs.
Dont worry about HOAs. They have no actual power, and if they do something, you can sue them with ease
It's a cult
lmao I'd far rather communism than US urban planning and suburbs
A small communist country wouldn’t have this madness going on 😊
@aviation cat That one might be on the city, some cities do have ordinances for lawn length. Usually cities will control a surprising amount of things about property even without an HOA. HOAs take it to the next level though.
Like so many other things in this country, we rushed into something and embraced it before fully understanding the consequences. You can see this all throughout history if you look.
Americans: "sOvIeT mOdErNiSt bLoCkS rUiNeD oUr CiTiEs!"
Also Americans: living in suburbs
I also found it funny as an Eastern European how Americans think that soviet architecture is present in the US. It isn't. You want to see soviet style architecture, go to Russia, Romanian, Serbia, Hungary, and most of Eastern Europe. Americans did just fine ruining their own country and it's aesthetic, no reds were required.
I like the format of these videos that Adam has been pumping out lately. Making it simple and visual of why its a problem and also at the end what locals can do to slowly demand changes
Hey Adam! I thought it was ironic that just before the CARS scream at 8:13 I was served a Chevy ad. I think you can curate those ads in your settings! Great video!
I live in a American Suburb and, everything he says is true. It takes 15-30 minutes to get anywhere, every couple months there is a tragic car accident, I know people who's parents have to evade taxes in order to pay rent, and many kids are depressed or become incels because they're not old enough to get a driver's license and basically stuck in their homes when their not at school, I also know people who can't afford fresh food and live of packed foods and fast food.
cope
7:59 my dad recounted that growing up, pharmacists would have large jars on the counter that they would serve pills to houswives by the scoop from. The pills: Amphetamine. "Buzzing" he said.
Housewives on speed are not always a bad thing...
Oh it's getting to that point again! There's not an Adderall shortage nationally due to kid's scripts! Bunch of people over 30 begging for them, claiming to have crippling ADHD... You know, despite having a decent career, going to college, etc., being successful for their first 3-4 decades on this planet.
Now people that need it medically can't even get it. They said just since the pandemic, MILLIONS of adults got scripts and from terrible sources, like tele"doctors" -- no testing, no checking up on them, etc.
That is sad to hear but given the description of suburbs and how housewivies were treated its understandable.
Adam going over a million subscribers tells me we are not alone in hating suburbs.
A whole lot of communists these days
It's fascinating to see how North America used to have real cities with walkable streets, mixed zoning and public transport. The idea that this type of design is "un-American" in any way is so weird when you think about it.
I grew up in a small American agricultural town that was surprisingly walkable. I always walked to school, and there were always kids running around. Everything in town, which wasn’t much, was a 15 minute walk at most. I always thought this was normal until I moved to Alabama briefly and didn’t even have access to sidewalks let alone somewhere to actually walk too.
My partner who grew up in suburbia gets spooked whenever she sees kids walking anywhere. I could never wrap my head around why that was so concerning to her until I realized that she just didn’t have the option to go places without her parents car growing up.
Did you ever get diddled while walking to school?
This is an informative video. Keep up the good work as always.
I lived in America from the day I was born until I was nearly 17. I spent most of my life in suburban houses that were far away from everything, and the closest I'd ever lived to any place of business was a bowling alley, a roller skating rink, and a church that were all on the same road like 15 minutes walking from my house. That was the highest density suburb I'd ever lived in, and it only had 3 places to go and I only lived there for a year before moving to another suburb. I moved to New Zealand in 2019, and the house I moved to had a convenience store, laundromat, barbershop, cafe, and beauty salon all within a 2 minute walk, plus a liquor store, pharmacy, another convenience store, a bakery, and a Chinese takeaway restaurant within like a 7 minute walk, and there was a bus stop right outside that went to the center of the suburb.
Plus, that house was easy walking distance from a botanic garden and a park, which wasn't something I was super familiar with in the US. Not to mention I had lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, which has been on the list of best towns in America for many years until the city asked people to stop because too many people were moving there. In that city, my house was like a 30 minute walk to a damn 7/11, let alone literally anywhere else. Often my friends lived like 15-20 minutes driving, and I didn't really have any friends on our block except this one kid across the street who told me he thought I was annoying when I left (which, to be fair, I was).
TL;DR, American suburbs are a hellscape. Tbh, American city planning is a hellscape.
I grew up living in the suburbs mostly in WA, moved alot but always in the burbs, always within a 10-20 walk to some sort of gas station or mini mart. Like he said, very car-centric because I walked or biked everywhere and always felt like i was gonna get ran over at some point but was cheap for what little money we had. Funny enough I live in Phoenix now which is made up mostly suburbs!
This video is over dramatized, and the comments prove the stereotype of the arrogant European. I am saying this as a European, who has lived is whole life in Europe, but experienced living in the suburbs due to an exchange program. Living in the suburbs as an average earn in Europe, results mostly living in a tiny and small apartment which is surrounded by streets and commercial facilities. Unless you have a newly built apartment, it is mostly noisy. The view outside your window is mostly another façade.
If you want to get around, you have no other choice, than using an overprized and overcrowded public transportation system. It may will get your through the city, but if you want to get outside of it, you need to own a car like in the US. And other than in the US, cars in a lot of European countries are for an average earner affordable due to the continuing anti motorized vehicle lobbyism. Living in the US for a few months was a positive culture shock. The family I lived were settled in the suburbs outside of a big city. The community was filled with beautiful houses in a comfortable size. Every house had owned a backyard where we would eat and drink in the evenings. The neighborhood was quiet so that I loved to make walks outside of it. And contrary to the video, a five minute drive would take me to a plaza or mall, where you would find all amenities. But what I liked the most about their lifestyle, was the easy accessibility to get around outside of your town. On the weekends we would make round trips to national and state parks. Where I need to take two busses and two different trains and double amount of money to do a similar trip.
I would if I could IMMEDIATELY prefer living in an American Suburb rather than in a west European suburb.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 these videos and comments are similar (UA-cam is filled with anti-videos). Over dramatized is a good word for it. There is also the aspect that what is a suburb, what is a city, etc is not defined. There are towns, cities, and large mixes of both. The people who make the videos and who consume them and comment tend to be white and not poor. Their experience is very much that cities are nice because they are living in high-income areas not accessible to poor people. Essentially white enclaves. Their experience with suburbs tends to be a drive through a low-income area with a lack of infrastructure investment. It is essentially racism that sounds good. White people are moving back to cities, gentrifying them, driving out minorities and the poor, and declaring them superior. It is reverse white flight. I have been many places and can find positive aspect about most. I use my bike for a lot of transportation and have not had much trouble. It takes skill though, like driving.
The suburbs and towns I am familiar with have access to trails, hiking, biking, and other amenities (north east US). The cities I am familiar with tend to be great if you are not poor and can afford $3k/month rent plus Uber fees (NYC and other NE US).
TLDR; these videos are more about white flight back to cities as minorities move to suburbs.
@@ShaggyRodgers420 I wasn't living in a white enclave, I lived in a neighborhood with all sorts of people. Just down the street were the Tongans, I remember because I heard them slaughtering a pig in their front yard and they had a Tongan flag flying from their house.
@@ceooflonelinessinc.267 You're making the mistake of comparing living as a pauper in Europe vs. living with a comfortable disposable income in the US. Because paupers in the US don't live in nice comfortable suburbs. They live in run down areas (as shown in the video btw.) or homeless on the street.
Nothing gets me depressed like the slow, casual, seemingly irreparable destruction of my home as described in videos like this.
I love your sense of humor. The deadpan delivery that is exactly the same tone as the serious parts gets me every time.
"Mom staying at home to take care of the 2.5 children" ah, yes, truly the dream to have half a child at home
thats a nice way of saying the mentally disabled one that mamma dropped on his head when he was a baby and she was wasted, they keep him in the basement
To quote World According to Briggs, "stop typing, learn how math and averages work first."
It's horrible for children, too. Studies are needed on how many of millennials' mental health problems are just caused by not having had independence as children.
The story of my teens to young adulthood there are psychological effects . That you can never recover from living in the suburbia . And the worst part I had no car and no friends . So I missed out on the most essential period of my life that I can never ever ever live again . No milestones no nothing just stuck in mediocrity wasted away 😔
Also, some kids have both parents working or single parents so they don't have someone there to always drive them. There were comments on About Here talking about how some parents got frustrated and bullied their kids over having to drive them so much. When some of those parents supported car centricism. Or some parents guilting their kids that gas is expensive. How can all kids go to their lessons or activities to get ahead in life and for their future careers?
Some channels like Twosetviolin complain about how some people say classical music is elistism but what would help break that down is for kids and people to be able to travel and participate in any activity or lessons in the first place.
I live in Atlanta. Flying in once I noticed the surrounding suburbs looked like neighborhoods stitched into the earth. And a loong drive away from the inner city.
Those 1950s suburbs were actually reasonably sustainable compared to modern suburbs. A 1200sf home on a small lot with minimal space in between isn't so bad. Today the houses would be 2-3 times that size and that whole street would have 1/3 as many houses on it because they all want massive yards.
Did you hear about Ross Chapin's "Pocket Neighborhoods"?
@@bioliv1 Yeah I think they're nice and theyre often more than sustainable since the homes can produce more power than they consume with solar panels and often have features like communal gardens in the common areas. Only problem is they tend to be inhabited by the same brand of NIMBYs that ruined the suburbs. Over time they'll develop the same problems of manufactured unaffordability due to residents blocking nearby development in favor of low density.
@@MidnightBreezey Yeah, in general Market Towns are the best!
Massive yards that serve no purpose other than for mowing, wasting water and dumping poison to keep it looking unnaturally green. How much of that space never even sees a human foot other than when it's being mowed or fertilized?
Not true at all in most “builder spec” suburbs of today. Small homes, many times multi-family or town homes, clustered on small lots. The “modern” ones you describe aren’t practical with shrinking available spaces in many cities. Those bring an enormous amount of their own problems, of course
I live in s villge in France. There are four restaurants, three bakeries, two butchers two garages etc and a market every secod Wednesday. All within a mile.
guy who made the video wants to urbanize your village and fill it full of migrants btw
Working in local government i can tell you this. The planners and staff are on board with getting rid of so much car dependency but ... The politicians keep doing car dependent crap because the average voter is a HUGE CAR BRAIN. People get mad because we take one lane from three to have some walkability and bike lanes. They'll call and yell about it. It's depressing.
Incredible video. Thank you so much for making this, please keep speaking what needs to be said
Thank god I was born in Brazil. Although the larger cities like São Paulo and Rio are hell and the infrastructure being kinda shit, it was always nice to have anything within walking distance.
As a kid who grew up in the suburbs, there was a decent amount to do. Common areas with woods/creaks to explore. Movies to see on the weekend or malls to meet friends at. Yes, there needed to be bike lanes, or at least walking lanes. The closest grocery store was a dangerous walk from my house. My area has transformed through last time I went back almost all of the common area was gone, replaced by more housing. The grassy hills were flattened to make room for tennis courts/soccer fields. The malls are all dead and abandoned except for a handful of stores. The stripmall (valley) which at one time was the nations largest/longest stripmall is still there but replaced by an equally large one on the other side of the highway, and other just a few miles down (I have no idea why). All seem pretty much empty.
Douglas Adams had a point, an alien species looking at the US from above might determine cars are the dominant lifeforms
That's why we in Germany have Denkmalschutz and Naturschutz.
Imagine coming from a small farm community where you basically need a car to get from your house to the only shop, hairdresser, doctors office and bar within several miles, moving into what was promised as "the big city" and then finding out that it is even worse there.
How is it worse exactly?
@@justicedemocrat9357 wow, didn't think anyone would challenge that. Let me see. Once you've made it to your small town you can walk from the shop to the hair dresser, to the doctor and then to the bar. With sprwling cities and suburbia, each of these is half an hour of driving from each other, at best.
@@andreewert6576 If you drive to a shopping mall each of those business are within walking distance. How is it worse exactly?
@@justicedemocrat9357 easy. There are no bars at my shopping mall, my hairdresser isn't where i shop and the doctor is in another place entirely.
The image of Houston just blew me away. I checked it out on Google Maps and indeed downtown Houston is largely car parks.
Thing is: If you need public transport for groceries (and not just for a bigger selection) in Europe, you already live very rural - because even many small villages have a small shop for basic groceries, bakery (their main business), postage service and maybe something more. I think, these could be retrofitted to existing suburbs in the US as well - just replacing a single (!) house. Only minimal parking (only for personal and ADA, as people are supposed to walk there) and maybe limit the number of deliveries too.
Also retrofit sidewalks by reducing the width of the roads to barely more than two cars (in Europe we go down to 4,8 m aka 5 1/4 yards). For new buildings also reduce the setback to maybe 2 yards behind the sidewalk and encourage plants and not just grass on the front yard - again to make the area *feel* smaller. All of this will automatically reduce the driving speed.
Also allow doubles instead of a single family home, covering the same area.
My favourite example ever of a destroyed city is Ogdensburg NY. Once one of the largest cities in upstate New York, a compact and bustling city on the St Lawrence, the entire downtown district was torn down in the 60s to build a highway through it. The place became nothing more than a suburb with no city and is notoriously one of the worst places to live in the state.
When I was little I always wanted to move out and live in the US.
Thank goodness I stayed in Europe, never ever would I take a step there other than vacation
good choice, As a Canadian I wish I could move to EU. Immigration is hard thou since its so hard to get a job as a non EU citizen.
@@Amir-jn5mo Yeah, I know. It's a shame that the barrier is set so high for hard working and motivating young people , but as a "refugee" from the far east, you just have to shout "asylum", even though you are just pretending and there you go...you're in.
@@fabienbable Sure; sure. As a North African it’s sooo easy to immigrate to the EU - a literal piece of cake. You may as well have no borders.
You're a liar. Europeans don't say "vacation" they say "holiday".
Nice try though.
In Germany we have a Road Fund, which is implemeted in a way of "use it or lose it". Making an incentive to always use it for the road, instead of using that money for public transportation...
Wegentaks?
And many people are gobsmacked that there are those of us who refuse to have kids who’d have to inherit this dystopia.
Heaven forbid i just want my own town home to buy for under 100k within walkable buildings parks and transportation that sounds dystopian, next you say kids will have to walk to school within a mile!!!!
@Eshical that commute sounds horrible. So does being stuck in a concrete tower with a few thousand other people that I am forced to rent for thousands a month and never own, just to take the bus to my job so I can pay my rent.
@@ShaggyRodgers420 That's also cause North American law forbids mixed zoning, and so produced two extremes. Watch Not Just Bikes on it.
It should be a crime destroying trees and little forested areas in favour of expanding the suburbs.
That "street labyrinth" line is incredibly accurate. It's maddening to live in a place where following the street is like mapping a single strand of spaghetti around your plate. That photo of Houston is insane... how is 80% of that land use not stacked in a vertical parking structure?
Also those ads are barely the tip of the iceberg for what I like to call the Leave It To Beaver times. I don't have a link handy, but there's an old article from a womens' magazine with a few pages of instruction on how to be a perfect docile wifey. The most memorable tip I can recall is that it's important to know what time your husband will be home from work. This is not only so that you can have dinner smelling delicious in the oven, but also so that you can shoo the children outside to play so they don't rush Daddy at the door. And of course make sure to freshen your makeup, straighten your outfit and fix your hair, then sit still for 15 minutes and don't worry your pretty little head about anything, because you don't want to look stressed when he comes home. After all the grueling domestic labour we've spent three pages telling you to do.
This talks about all the problems I had with isolated suburbs here in America. The área I live in is a good area, it’s a mix of quiet residential houses with corner stores in of the streets. There’s several bus lines going through the place with a railroad line running right through the town.
When I was a kid my parents had the option to either remodel our house in the country or buy a different house in town. They asked me and my sister what we wanted and we absolutely wanted to stay in the country. Some things definitely sucked about the country. I had to bike three miles along the shoulder of 45mph roads or back country roads that were barely two lanes just to get to my closet friend's house. But we could play outside all we wanted because we had acres and acres of land available between us and the few neighbors. I wouldn't have been able to do that in town. Our town had zero lawns, no grocery store, nowhere to hang out besides the corner store and laundromat, and you still had to take the school bus because the school was ten miles away. It wasn't safe to play anywhere since there were no parks or rec centers. You were either in a house or driving somewhere. It's not surprising that the town got overrun with drugs when I was a teen and now half of the houses are abandoned. I live in the city now and the only way I would move is to upgrade to an even better city.
I'm turning 30 this year, and I have never owned a car. I don't need it here in Europe. I live in a mid-rise at the edge of a decently sized city, with two separate supermarkets, half a dozen restaurants, various doctor's offices, two schools, a pharmacy, a couple bakeries and several other stores within 15 minutes walking distance. For anything further away I take the bus, which only costs me 25€/month to ride any bus anywhere within the wider city area at any time.
I have coworkers that drive an hour each way for work. I’ll never understand throwing away 10+ hours every week sitting in traffic. So many people I know work too long at a job they hate, driving too much during a commute they hate, and spend their free time on weekends maintaining a yard they don’t have time to enjoy. Seems insane to me.
I like the ideas of densifying suburbs and allowing more mixed zoning so people can live closer to their job.
Some North American cities *do* have new high-rise residential, but the way it’s built is what they call “Avenue Developments” in Toronto, where tiny parts of the suburbs are not zoned for single family homes, so developers slam as much as they physically can fit into the tiny areas.
Look up photos of the newer toronto condos, it’s all clumps of massive condos directly beside single family spawl, it’s one or the other, nothing in the middle.
thats why we need to pass the cities multiplexes as of right proposal. We cant just keep having a high rise next to single detached houses which are 5 minutes away from a TTC stop.
There’s a line from a show that I love “The American dream ain’t dead. It’s just, sleeping off a bad trip.”
This has some serious temporarily embarrassed millionaire vibes.
I grew up in the suburbs and now live in a major city. Even though US cities are notoriously car-centric, the difference is *astounding*. It's mind-boggling but I really am proud of the place that I live, and I love that I get to walk by the same people every day on my way to work. I don't love almost getting hit by cars, but we are getting a bunch of new infrastructure investment soon that will densify things, so unless I get priced out I'm here to stay.
Thanks for making a video about this
In morocco there's a store right at your window sometimes where you can just walk with no need for any form of machine transportation
In the Philippines we have nearby stores like that too. We call it "sari-sari" stores where we can buy food and medicine.
When your house is near a barangay terminal, you have more options where you can walk less than a minute to get to a market and convenience stores and a water district.
@@BuizelCream Cool
I grew up in a sort of exurb where everyone had 5 acre plots. The novelty of having a big yard wore off when I was like 11. On the other side of our neighbor's woods, there was a suburban development where my friends lived (same school system). When you got through the woods, you had to "trespass" through someone's Chemlawn. Adults accosting children for trespassing on grass between houses says a lot about suburban life. The other option was to walk around several miles on streets with no sidewalks. I know my upbringing was extremely privileged compared to some, but the way that we lived was also extremely absurd.
Sort of similar to one place I lived. To get to school was a straight shot if I went out my backyard, crossed some railway tracks and then through some what was then vacant lots into the back field of the school. Now with more suburbia filling in those gaps if any kids live in my old house they'd probably be driven the long way around because they'd have to cut through people's yards otherwise.
Why do people think they need such big yards? I would much rather have a close by public park that would be bigger than any yard and actually has ppl doing stuff and I dont have to mow it, when i was kid I lived in a suburb with a big yard then moved innner city to a small yard but a massive public park with like 2 playgrounds and huge fields less than a 5 min walk away and it was 10 times better
@@TheN0remac i would love to have a massive yard like the to grow food and all kinds of medicinal plants. That's like my dream. I would love to have all that empty space around me. As someone with PTSD from serving in the military living in congested areas makes me mentally ill. I will always prefer suburbs then dense urban living.
@@joshuaortiz2031 of course, having all that space is nice. Having a garden is nice. So I guess it depends how much time do you have on your hands. Living away from people is more of a rural setting than this is. Because there are neighbors all around you still. It's also kinda funny, my home in Brooklyn is more quiet at night than this exurb where I grew up. There's an interstate on the other side of the woods and the sound of is constant.
@@christopherjrager i don't mind white noise like that though. Traffic sounds from the highway isn't that bad if you got some distance between you and the highway. Double pane windows also help with the noise. I can't stand living in cramped apartment buildings where you can hear the neighbors through the walls that's a hundred times worse.
European here. Two important things must be mentioned: (1) The US-type sprawl is simply physically impossible because municipalities in Europe are generally smaller and they all have their urban plans and areas earmarked for residential development, so there is really limited space to expand because there border of the next town or village is literally "right there". And in larger cities, there is high demand for apartments so the mixed use is more carefully planned. And (2) Even developers in Europe are MUCH smaller and you do not see them building entire suburbs, but rather a few streets, if that. Also many many more Europeans purchase the plot first and then they look for a suitable developer, which is why you often do not find identical buildings on the same street (with the exception stated above).