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I mean I guess it is better than the previous name of “White Flight.”
But yeah, no shit some people are going to move out to the bland suburbs if they can work remotely because it is cheaper for decent space. Sure, you have to drive absolutely everywhere and everything looks the same but some people are fine with that.
Me. I’m fine with that. But also even the biggest city within 150 miles would still require me to drive absolutely everywhere, just at slower speeds. (And I’m not sure Chicago would actually be much better for mass transit). We moved near DC for about five years and we hated it and had no family support and all our money was spent going back and forth to the Midwest every holiday. We’re way happier living here and vacationing to NYC and Mexico and wherever else we couldn’t afford when we lived in a big city.
I guess I often forget that there are a large chunk of cities in the US that are still horribly spread out. It’s nuts that Dallas and Houston, for instance, are not much more dense than a city I grew up near that only had 30k people.
Not a fan of needing to drive 10+ miles to do anything, at least from an environmental perspective. I like being able to walk down the street to pick up groceries or hit up a bar.
I love the idea of that, but it’s way too expensive to live in those places. I love NYC. We go for a few days every few years and we spend so much money eating and drinking and going to shows. You can always walk to an amazing bagel place for breakfast. Being there is awesome. Every time I go I think I’d love to spend all my time there.
Then I think about paying double my mortgage for a tiny apartment. Probably more for a family of four. I think about listening to my neighbors fuck or fight through the walls or smell them smoking pot. I wouldn’t be able to have a garage full of tools I can use any time I want. I wouldn’t be able to sit out on my deck drinking scotch and smoking cigars in absolute serenity - though NYC balconies have a serenity of their own odd you tune out the sirens and stuff. I think about how much I’d spend a month going out, and it’d either be more than my rent or why am I even living there anyway? I’d have to make about 5x my salary to even think about living in a big city. And if I made that much honestly I’d probably just work remotely and spend all my time on vacation in the tropics and then why would it matter where I live in the first place?
Cities are amazing places but I never want to give up everything I have here to live in one. I can get anywhere worth being around here in twenty minutes or less. Maybe another ten if I have to go during rush hour. And what is here? Food of every ethnicity - Indian, Mediterranean, Mexican, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Persian, Italian - not all of it is outstanding but some of it is as good as I’ve had anywhere. An excellent theater. A planetarium. A half dozen movie theaters. A baseball stadium (minor league, but I don’t really care anyway. Tickets are cheap enough it’s something to do even though I’m not into sports), college football, basketball (where they also hold concerts though we don’t draw the big acts), and hockey. Hiking/Bike trails that cover the entire city. A zoo (it’s not amazing, but it’s here). Music and art festivals. Museums and gardens. I mean it can’t begin to compare to NYC but it’s pretty damn lively. No, I can’t walk to any of it, but it’s all so accessible. I can drive to downtown or old town or campus and walk around there to do all the city things.
I don’t mean to disparage big cities. Like I said I think they are neat. Just not for me.
How close to DC proper were you? I see many jobs in McLean, VA.
Commutes throughout that region are absolutely horrendous. They’re so bad that, when I lived in the area, I basically didn’t go out on weeknights because of the traffic.
Same, moved 15 years ago because of that and don’t tegrwt it one bit. Screw NoVA.
I worked at Belvoir while I was there. I really have no desire to move back. All my family is in Michigan except my son who’s away for college and will be moving back next year. Plus since the housing mess, we couldn’t move if we wanted to. Our current house is too good a deal.
“People can get much of what they used to get in the city in the suburbs, in the exurbs and on their computer,”
That last part is, I think, the key problem. People don’t have to live near each other to work together anymore, and that was the last thing giving cities a reason for being.
Walkable cities are pretty great. So is public transit. So is having enough people that you can have subcultures (art stuff, music scenes, queer spaces, etc). Cities have many reasons for being.
If I have to be in a city I’d rather it be walkable with public transit. But since I don’t have to be in a city for work they’re just nice things for people who still live in cities. If the city stopped existing it wouldn’t matter if it was walkable and had mass transit.
Culture is really the only reason I go to a city, but I don’t think that’s enough to sustain them economically. Especially because there’s vast Internet subcultures and you can stream concerts to your house.
Streaming a concert to your house is really not the same experience at all as going to a concert. There are still many things that can’t really be replicated on the internet. During the pandemic my job tried to do an online dance party and it was extremely sad. Also I remember reading an interview with someone who ran events professionally, and the interviewer was like “What can’t you do online?” and the interviewer just replied “Have sex with people.”
Cities have been a thing since nearly the dawn of history. We might need to rethink some parts, like making them less car-focused, but I’m confident they’ll be around.
I agree totally that cities have been a thing since the dawn of history. But now that we don’t need to hire street urchins to run messages to people anymore there’s one less thing pushing people into them.
And cities aren’t very nice, even the nice ones. Dealing with strangers is not fun. There is a line for everything. Everything is twice the price. The subway never, ever, ever smells good.
But that’s me, and every four years I learn how weird I am. So maybe cities have a hope. Which would be nice because the exurbs are plowing under a lot of nice farmland.
I mean, different strokes, I guess. I love living in new york. I’d say it’s perfectly nice.
The lines and prices aren’t as any worse than when I lived in NJ. The subway is fine. Especially the ones that are above ground. But more importantly you can walk places. Like, I walked out of my apartment to do some christmas shopping today. I stopped at a target, a discount shop, looked at some other independent places. No unusual lines. And then I got a slice of pizza (veggie slice, pretty big. it’s basically a meal) for $4 from a place on the corner. Doing that out in the 'burbs would’ve been a ton of driving, traffic, and parking, plus I’d be less likely to casually poke into an interesting looking shop.
Also I like when there’s people around. Whenever I’m out in the suburbs and there’s no one out and about, it feels like a horror movie. I feel safer when there’s people around.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to live in the suburbs either. There’s still too many people and instead of lines of people they’re lines of cars. They’re awful.
I want a hole in the side of a mountain, where I can look out on a dark night and see no lights except the stars. Where there’s no human within earshot, and it’s a ten mile walk to get to anything resembling a store.
Humans are the most dangerous animals on the planet and I don’t feel safe with them as neighbors.
That’s how my boss at work feels. He’s a cool guy. He takes a train for a few hours to come into the city for work when he has to, but he’s much happier at his house by the lake.
And I’m totally fine with you living in a mountainside. It’d be weird if I objected.
What I don’t like is when, like, the four people living in a mountain have the same political weight as four million people living in a city. (Hyperbole on the numbers). Or when people are like “We can’t spend money on maintaining the subway in the city, we need to focus on stuff that benefits fewer people”. Or when people act like the countryside is “real America” despite millions more people living in cities. But I’m getting off topic.
Humans are the most dangerous animals on the planet and I don’t feel safe with them as neighbors.
A couple years ago I had a nasty bike accident in Brooklyn. My own fault. Was lost, hit the curb weird and just flew off the bike. And a bunch of people just came out of the background to see if I was okay. When they realized I couldn’t stand up, one of them called an ambulance and stayed with me until they came. He even gave me his phone number in case I needed anything. (I’m fine now, though I have a big scar and the one arm isn’t as good as it used to be)
If that had happened in the suburbs where my parents live? Very likely no one would have been there to help. Way out in the country? Even less likely.
I saw a lady trip and fall down the stairs at the subway. Dropped all of her stuff. A bunch of people came running out to help her up and collect her stuff. (She was fine. Or fine enough to walk away, anyway)
I dropped a grocery bag on the subway once. Everyone helped me get my stuff back.
So yeah, people are dangerous, but also a lot of the time they’re pretty good.
The “donut effect,” a term coined three years ago
Wait, what? Haven’t we been using this term for decades? I’ve been using it at least a couple decades, specifically to describe the contrast between cities like Detroit and cities like Boston. 1970s-1980s were bad for all US cities, but some continued and accelerated the hollowing out until there was not much left while others had the resiliency to remain a destination, to attract businesses and residents, and rebuild better, faster, stronger than ever. I certainly wasn’t the inventor of this term, but if I’m using it, it must be widespread.
And why are we talking about donut effects now? Many cities have recovered from that crisis, and even Detroit has that little sprinkling of powdered sugar starting to fill the donut hole. A reshuffling based ofpn office workers working from home isn’t going to change that
