[j_heffe]

Single family homes are fine. The problem in the U.S. is that it's illegal to build anything _but_ single family homes in the majority of suburbs. Wouldn't it be better if people had access to a walkable grocery store, coffee shop or park? Or if kids could safely walk or bike to school? Many communities have absolutely zero options and are completely reliant on cars in order to go about daily life.

[bluGill]

Most suburbs also have higher density zones where you can have apartments. The single family homes get the majority of the land space, but there are also apartments and townhouses which are more dense.

[mikebenfield]

There are sometimes apartments spotted around in a suburby area, but due to the nature of US suburbs they don't really get many of the advantages density should bring - everything you might want to go to is still at least a moderate car ride away, there's no people out and about because there's no reason for them to be there, etc. Any time you leave your apartment you go straight to the parking lot and get in your car. It's pathetic really.

[jjav]

> due to the nature of US suburbs

The US is a big place. Lots of different suburbs.

> everything you might want to go to is still at least a moderate car ride away, there's no people out and about because there's no reason for them to be there

Can you point at specific places like this? Google street view links?

Every suburb I've lived in the US I can walk to just about everything I need, kids walk to playground and parks, friends houses, etc.

I'm curious to see these suburbs where one can't walk anywhere.

[mikebenfield]

To be honest this is one of those Internet comments where I feel like the commenter is in a different reality than me. None of the dozens of suburban US people I've known has ever found it feasible to walk to much of anything - yes, maybe a neighborhood playground if they're lucky. They definitely don't walk to the grocery store, to a restaurant, to a bar, to the gym, to work, etc.

Here's a suburb: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.107277,-80.6508196,3a,75y,25...

Here's another: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3137771,-121.9844666,3a,75y,...

In the latter it _may_ be theoretically feasible to walk to a couple restaurants, if you don't mind a fairly unpleasant trip. In practice I guarantee you almost no one does this.

But those are just a couple arbitrary choices; in my experience they're pretty much all like that.

On the other hand, by being selective about where I live (walkable neighborhoods are scarce in the US), I've been able to live in several places where a great grocery store, a gym, multiple great restaurants, a bar or two, and other interesting destinations were within a 5 minute walk - in some cases literally right next door. If most of the land around you is taken up by single family homes with pointlessly large lots, it's completely infeasible for anything more than a tiny percentage of people to live close to these things, short of building a grocery store for every 100 people or something absurd.

[jjav]

> To be honest this is one of those Internet comments where I feel like the commenter is in a different reality than me.

Same, but that's why I say the US is a big place. There isn't a standard US suburb.

> They definitely don't walk to the grocery store, to a restaurant, to a bar, to the gym, to work, etc.

That is alien to my experience. I can walk to all of those, with multiple instances of each one, from a suburban SFH.

On the first link near Charlotte, I have two comments: First one is that it stretches the definition of suburb. Switch to satellite view and zoom out until you see Charlotte. Those houses are in the midst of vast stretches of green, far away from the nearest urban area (Charlotte) a half hour away. That seems semi-rural to me. Are we calling that a suburb?

Even so, there is a supermarket, gym, tavern and a few other stores within 1 mile. A very easy bike ride.

The second link is definitely suburban, smack in the middle of built-up areas. Also more familiar to me since I have lived in various spots not far from there. You can easily walk to Saratoga Ave which is full of businesses.

[mikebenfield]

So there's a pretty big push for urbanism the last few years. There's lots of YouTube channels and other social media stuff dedicated to the idea that the US needs more walkable neighborhoods, more bike infrastructure, less car dependence, etc.

In your view then... what in the world is this about? If suburbs are perfectly walkable, why does anyone care about urbanism? Why does this channel https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes have over a million subscribers?

Moreover, why is the suburb such a post-automobile phenomenon? If it's viable to get everywhere from a suburb without a car, why were people in 1000 BCE or 1000 CE or 1800 CE not living in suburbs?

I just find this perspective so weird... I've definitely met plenty of people who are very pro-suburb, but it's because they consider it natural and acceptable to need a car for any trip, not because they think they can get places without a car.

[munk-a]

Those high density zones suffer economically by being forced to subsidized the extensive infrastructure for single family homes - and in the US it's quite difficult to find an area to inhabit that actually prioritizes pedestrians over cars.

[jjav]

> The problem in the U.S. is that it's illegal to build anything _but_ single family homes in the majority of suburbs.

This is always repeated, but could you point to studies documenting in which cities it is illegal? All around I see townhouses, apartment buildings, 2/4/6-plexes and other variants being built, none of which are single family homes. Maybe it takes a bunch of paperwork (I don't know) but clearly it isn't illegal.

> Wouldn't it be better if people had access to a walkable grocery store, coffee shop or park? Or if kids could safely walk or bike to school?

This is a false dichotomy. One can also live in a SFH and walk/bike to all of these things and more. I do, and I do, so does my kid.

[csnover]

> This is always repeated, but could you point to studies documenting in which cities it is illegal?

You don’t need to look at a study, you can just look at zoning and land use maps for basically any city in America. Areas zoned single-family are not allowed to build anything else. There are multiple articles on Wikipedia[0][1][2] about this topic with literally hundreds of citations to primary and secondary sources. What a frustrating question.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-family_zoning

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_in_the_United_States