[bjeds]

This was the best part in the article I think.

> Much of the rest of the world takes for granted architectural principles of how to build life-affirming human settlements. These principles evolved over thousands of years, and it’s no accident that so many cultures reached the same conclusions. Urban Europeans, and indeed Armenians, are accustomed to vertical growth, mixed-use development (shops on first floor, apartments above), sidewalks, plazas, public squares and street cafes. These are the fixtures amidst which your halcyon childhood days played out, where you walked hand in hand with your first love, where you met friends for coffee, and hopped the train to work. It’s the corner with the pastry shop, it’s the supermarket down the street, and the bench in between.

> Few people can prepare themselves for the degree to which Americans have, in the last half-century or so, taken this entire corpus of human experience and thrown it completely into the trash, with the exception of a few older cities–not the places where the majority of Americans live. What has replaced it is a surreal moonscape. For those accustomed to the traditional urban civilisation, the primary question in America is: where do I go? What do I do? Looking around leads to an intangible but intense realisation of emptiness. Suburbia is both a cause and an effect of the destruction of civic and community life in America: there’s increasingly little to come home to, and vanishingly little to go out to.

[acheron]

> Much of the rest of the world takes for granted architectural principles of how to build life-affirming human settlements. These principles evolved over thousands of years, and it’s no accident that so many cultures reached the same conclusions. Urban Europeans, and indeed Armenians, are accustomed to vertical growth, mixed-use development (shops on first floor, apartments above), sidewalks, plazas, public squares and street cafes. These are the fixtures amidst which your halcyon childhood days played out, where you walked hand in hand with your first love, where you met friends for coffee, and hopped the train to work. It’s the corner with the pastry shop, it’s the supermarket down the street, and the bench in between.

That reads as though it were written by an alien. L'enfer c'est les autres. The idea of being required to live in an apartment above and next to a bunch of other people I didn't choose, and where I am immediately confronted by teeming masses of humanity whenever I leave my residence, is a dystopian nightmare, like Winston Smith in 1984 or something. This is the exact opposite of "life-affirming".

(I am perhaps exaggerating a bit, but the writer acting as if this is some sort of universal desire is ridiculous.)

[noisy_boy]

I grew up in a place like that where we had neighbourhood shops/cafes/eating places, all almost next door or at a walking distance. They provide the ingredients that make your memories rich and colorful. I have fond memories of the kind of food that I could only get at the corner shop, the barbershop that used to play corny movies while I got a haircut, the very odd place where we could buy coal for cooking AND rent comics. They are fodder for mutual jokes when I catchup with childhood friends.

One only realizes what the writer is talking about when it is part of their experience growing up. You can't universally desire it but only reflect back at what you had and decide how it was for you.

[graeme]

Have you ever lived anywhere at all outside America? There are plenty of spots in the rest of the world that are both tranquil and yet near amenities within walking distance.

[IC4RUS]

It might seem a bit exaggerated, but I'd expect that's because he's comparing it to growing up in a generic suburb where going on simple errands likely requires a car, and anything other than rows of similar looking houses can be miles away. So, the pastry shop on the corner/ supermarket down the street that the author mentioned are likely inaccessible to those in their childhood days.

That might not immediately seem so bad, but imagine that you didn't own a car (due to being too young or too poor). Then, suburban life may start to feel positively suffocating.

[opportune]

Or too old to drive anymore

[ryandrake]

I think the key qualifier here is "For those accustomed to the traditional urban civilisation." Sure, if you're used to living in a European-style urban environment, American suburbia seems like an alien planet. Just like if you're used to suburbia, living in a city is shockingly different. I appreciate that the author is just laying it out here and and describing it as different, trying not to impart some kind of good/bad judgment.

[IC4RUS]

I see what you're saying, but the oddness may feel apparent even to those growing up in suburbia. I can distinctly remember watching miles and miles of suburban settlements sprawl out from where I grew up and telling a friend that I felt like I was in the book 'The Giver,' which included a barren and (literally and figuratively) color-less landscape filled with occasional identical towns. This was exacerbated by the fact that quickly-developed cities had roads in perfect grid systems and public buildings/schools that adopted the same architectural styles. During travel sports season one could get on a bus, take a nap, and wake up in a town completely indistinguishable from the last...

Furthermore, there is a distinct lack of independence for teens who can't drive - the nearest non-residential building can be more than a mile away. Even if you can drive, the popular destinations for errands are big-brands like starbucks, walmart, and CVS. Public transport is practically nonexistant.

This is obviously anecdotal and I think you make a good point, but it should still be considered that being familiar with American suburbia does not mean that it's impersonal and almost surreal nature is invisible to those who grew up there.