[squirrelicus]

+1

My favorite part of the suburbs is that my kids are physically incapable of walking or biking to an urban area. When they have grown to acquire the sense to look out for themselves, then they coincidentally will have the freedom (e.g. drivers license) to go to an urban place. Until then, I love that I can let them just go outside without supervision and dick around. American urbanity is just not for families.

[marssaxman]

I grew up in a such a suburb, incapable of walking or biking to an urban area, and it was painful, unbearably boring. Even after the light rail system came in and it became possible to get downtown, I still felt trapped and lonely in that neighborhood. Perhaps it is more convenient for you, while you raise them; but if your children are having an experience anything like mine, they're going to move far away once they're able, then do their best never to come back.

[mrep]

I'm curious, what would you have done downtown as a kid because pretty much everything I can think of to do downtown requires money which I didn't have as a kid.

Also, are you planning on having kids and raising them in the city?

[jacobolus]

I grew up in a suburb and I am sure glad my kid will be growing up in the city with access to transit and a wide range of amenities within walking distance, and streets/neighborhoods actually designed for walking around. American suburbs are awful for anyone under the age of 16 or anyone without a car. Kids can't do anything without being babied around by a parent.

[tokyodude]

I grew up in the suburbs. I guess I don't know what I was missing. There were parks, hobby stores, shopping centers, open lots where people made bike ramps and burms, we launched model rockets, went to arcades, raced slot cars, flew RC planes. Would also semi regularly ride bikes 2-4 miles away from home and sometimes 6 or 7.

My impression of most high density cities would be that my options would be more limited as a kid. Sure there's a lots of shopping, restaurants, and bars but what is there for kids?

Of course I only have the places I've experienced to go on.

[kraigie]

Berlin has all of those,(albeit it is one of the highest open space cites there are) hell London has over 20 skateparks that is just for skating that is before you consider a lot of the Thames bank serves as open parkside. With the only traffic pedestrians and boats on the water. High density doesn't have to mean no space, it does have to mean no space for autos though, they simply take up too much space. If you have mass transit that reduces carparks and roads to say 10% space opens up a lot more. Playing in the streets or cafes using sidewalk for tables is a lot more compatible with trams running on fixed rails and electric overhead than with massive auto traffic.

High density doesn't me

[IWeldMelons]

Why are you saying "no space for cars"? You need to build multistory and underground garages here and there and you are all set.

[kraigie]

Because that is a fundamental point that seems to often be missed in density discussions. Cars are great for low density areas and appealing at high density areas where as mass transit is great at high density but awful at low.density this why park and ride stations outside the city are a thing.

Even if you could build miltistory underground car parks you still need roadway space. German narrow gauge trams quite happily chug Elon in two directions on 10 feet carry highway capacity traffic one highway lane is 12 feet. They don't need the space. So car traffic takes up much more space that means you can't have the same density. If you don't have those cars you could put all the factories and warehouse space underground and you would have even more surface room this would allow a higher density of people. To imagine this take a look at your closest city on Google maps and how much space is taken up by car parks and roads now if you can reduce that use to 20% while keeping the same city boundaries, the density of the city hasn't changed but a lot more land is available. How much bigger can your house be if the highway is only one lane wide? How many more people can you add in?

You would also have the issue of getting people to and from the miltistory underground but that is exactly what happens on car free areas. You take the tram/bus/train pick up your car/rental/rideshare/uber at the multi story car park and continue on from there. If it's right on the major highways around the area you reduce a lot of the traffic headaches.

[kraigie]

Terrible not appealing, a synonym was autocorrected

[squirrelicus]

A neighborhood optimizing for a 5 year old is very different than a neighborhood optimizing for a 15 year old. It makes sense that people set down roots in a child friendly suburb, and then their teens just deal with the fact that they live in a nice place that might be a bit boring. Parents deal with shuffling them around to whatever. It's really not a big deal. If I were uprooting the family when I had teens, okay, maybe urbanity is for us. Probably not though, because I'd rather deal with a bored surburban teenager than the safety and educational nightmare of American cities.

[jacobolus]

The suburb is best for healthy childless people aged like 40–60 who have few social hobbies and enjoy commuting to work by car and then spending the rest of their time at home, e.g. doing carpentry in their garage, gardening in a large yard, or sitting on a couch watching a big TV. Or those who really love driving cars every day.

Someone age 2 or 6 or 12 or 17 or 23 generally has a better time in the city: more freedom, more things to do within walking/transit distance, less time wasted on car transportation, more people of all ages and interests to engage with.

The density of cities can support a higher density of parks, playgrounds, plazas, markets, museums, libraries, schools, art galleries, music venues, coffeeshops, restaurants, ice cream stores, churches, community centers, ...., which means these can all be easily accessed on foot.

In typical American suburbs everything is dispersed and there are oceans of concrete standing between any two points, so walking around is unpleasant and impractical. People who walk around are viewed with suspicion, and children walking around alone are often reported to the police. In many suburbs, almost nobody rides a bike or takes the bus. Instead, nearly all trips are taken by car, which adds a ton of time overhead to every trip and makes anyone without car dependent on someone else.

[mrep]

That doesn't match my experience growing up in a suburb. We biked by ourselves to each other's houses all the time and especially to parks where we would play ultimate Frisbee, football, and basketball games. Finding open park space to play those games sounds way harder in the city because the parks are always so packed due to the density.

And most of those other benefits you cited you cited would have been practically useless to me as a kid because I had hardly any desposable income.

[IWeldMelons]

I kinda agree that American urbanity is not for families. However, Soviet/Post-Soviet is just fine. I live in a big city in Central Asia, and our schools get better the closer you get to the urban core, the neighborhoods get more affluent, there is a lot of large communal areas between houses, crime is low, parks and recreation areas are clean etc.