[coastflow]

There might be two separate assertions under discussion. One is that it is typically difficult in a suburb to get to a landmark destination (e.g. to the grocery store, to the gym, to a coffee shop, and to work) just by walking, without a car.

This is true. At the same time, suburbs with low rates of crime are typically nicer to walk around without a destination in mind. It’s typically easier to go outside for a jog or run in a suburb than in downtown, as there are fewer cars on the road and other pedestrians on the sidewalk.

[matwood]

Yeah, people tend to take the worst suburb setup and compare it to the best city setup. The reality is, there's a lot in between.

I live on the coast in a suburb about a 1/2 hour outside the downtown area. The long edge of my suburb is banked by a river with neighborhood supported docks, and large green spaces along the river. There's a grocery store at the entrance to the neighborhood (along with cleaners, bars, etc...) that people walk and ride bikes to. There are other large green spaces where kids play sports plus there's tennis and basketball courts, golfing, pools, etc...

I'm not saying where I live is perfect, but as I started with, people like to take the worst mid-west suburban hell and compare it to the best city like NYC. When I see these discussion what I hear is all the more reason why people are migrating to the coasts.

[alphabettsy]

> At the same time, suburbs with low rates of crime are typically nicer to walk around without a destination in mind.

I have to disagree here. In the suburbs there is nowhere to go and nothing to discover. Walking around the city I see new people, restaurants or other businesses that I find interesting. The suburbs where I grew up were always the same thing.

[throw0101a]

> The suburbs where I grew up were always the same thing.

Hence the title of the book The Geography of Nowhere:

> The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape is a book written in 1993 by James Howard Kunstler exploring the effects of suburban sprawl, civil planning, and the automobile on American society and is an attempt to discover how and why suburbia has ceased to be a credible human habitat, and what society might do about it. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good: "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere

[Retric]

I have been in plenty of suburbs without sidewalks or almost worse where there are bits and pieces of sidewalks that don’t connect to each other. Walking on the road is possible, but can be quite dangerous in such places.

[jjav]

> One is that it is typically difficult in a suburb to get to a landmark destination (e.g. to the grocery store, to the gym, to a coffee shop, and to work) just by walking, without a car.

> This is true.

Could you post a few map links to suburbs (not rural) where you can't walk to, say, a grocery store or a coffee shop?

[pnutjam]

https://goo.gl/maps/fzso3eAFVVKKtsZb7

Scroll all over the east side of Indianapolis. This is near where I grew up.