[bkettle]

"Happy City" by Charles Montgomery brings an interesting angle on the typical urban planning story by focusing largely on how we can plan cities and communities to maximize happiness. In the book, he discusses that people have this "ideal" of moving to the suburbs, owning their own house, etc, but then the long commutes, isolation of living in a car-dependent neighborhood, dangers of living among high-speed cars, etc. all lead many people to actually be less happy overall after moving to the suburbs.

So I think that some of this fact that the suburbs are desirable is not necessarily completely rational, and may instead be heavily influenced by the idea that moving to suburbs is what they grew up seeing as their future (due, of course, to federal programs that incentivized suburbanization) and by auto-industry lobbying and marketing that idealizes a car-dependent lifestyle.

Obviously there will be variability and I'm sure many people enjoy a suburban/rural lifestyle more than they would a city lifestyle. But I don't know if a preference for suburban living is really part of our human nature, and I think assuming that it is can be detrimental as it can take effort away from recreating the peace and quiet and nature access in a way that is accessible to all in a more efficient urban setting.

[johnweldon]

Well said - I don't fully agree, but I agree that an automobile centered world is sub-optimal, and fuels our feelings of disconnection.

I'm fully on-board with working to make suburbs more self-contained and walkable. As others have said, the issue may be zoning and regulations.

[outside1234]

Agreed - this is a really great book