Funny, but what was his point?

Assuming Kunstler isn't just trying to be darkly ironic and funny, I'd recommend he read this classic by D.J. Waldie, which BTW is also all about my own hometown:

http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Land-A-Suburban-Memoir/dp/0393327280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378023544&sr=8-1&keywords=holy+land+dj+waldie

Holy Land makes a great argument that suburbs, despite their newness and generally bland architecture, can be and are often are full of richness, character, and history. Sure, metro areas have numerous landmarks with these qualities, but in suburbs they're more usually found in the people who populate them.

Just because major cities have more of these qualities doesn't and shouldn't automatically cause people to judge suburbs as inferior. It just makes suburbia a different experience.

The solution is simple. Don't live there. What the hell is wrong with people like this who need to run the lives of others? I want he minute I wasted on this jerk back. The whirling Goracle on the intro should have been a clue.

What the hell is wrong with people like this who need to run the lives of others?

Kip's Law. It bears repeating:

Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.

Of course, I would invite Mr. Kunstler to move to Detroit. I understand one may obtain property for very reasonable prices.

My parents' neighborhood doesn't even have sidewalks. It's designed for you to drive into your driveway and stay there.
I'd have to agree; never was too fond of the 'burbs. I'd rather have a small apartment during the week, and go away to the lake or hills during the weekend.

I hate the burbs.

I moved to a rural area, there werent 200 peolple within a 8 mile radius of my house even when the snow birds came down to the two trailer parks within a half mile of my house.

Back before everyone had cell phones, service providers would drive 20 miles out of their way to take a route that had a gas station within every half mile.

Then they built nearly 5000 homes with in a three mile radius of my place, there is now a 2 mile back up to get onto the highway every day crime has sky rocketed and they put in street lights everywhere to the point the only lights in the shy you can see are the airplanes heading to the airport.

All so some fucking morons could move from one area of the city to a "new" area that looks exactly like the one they just fucking left.

Joel Kotkin provides some pro-suburbia perspective that's often dismissed without comprehending.
http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00747-poverty-and-growth-retro-urbanists-cling-myth-suburban-decline

For example, suburbs are safer:

"A review of 2011 crime data, as reported by the FBI, indicates that the violent-crime rate in the core cities of major metropolitan areas was approximately 3.4 times that of the suburbs. (The data covers 47 of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million population, with data not being available for Chicago, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Providence.)"

I grew up in the suburbs; more recently, when I had stepkids, we raised them in the suburbs. I liked them fine. If you wanted to socialize, you went to a friend's house, or (s)he came to yours. If you wanted to play ball, you went to a vacant lot, or the schoolyard, or maybe someone had a big enough lawn.

I've lived in cities from time to time, and now I live in a rural area (not my idea, my wife picked it out). I don't have a problem with either one, but I don't particularly prefer them to the suburbs either.

Guy is a pretentious fucking moron trying to hide weak ideas behind a cloud of smoke that is made up of hipster contempt and angry humor.

Looking at the first few photos he shows...those are goddamn commecial areas.

The kinds of 'places worth caring about' which he alludes to as being like the thousand year old plazas and markets and cathedrals of the old world, are absent from the photos he describes for a reason.

Its called change asshat, and we do lots of it. 5 years from now, several of those places will be gone and replaced, 10 years later, more, 20 years, even more. The sort of sprawl he shows, is what you call the outcome of a constantly changing dynamic marketplace. One day a footlocker, the next a coffee shop. He attaches a whole lot of meaning to things as an almost desperate attempt to derive significance from the insignificant.

Suburban living is great, today I took my step-daughter on a jog, she met a neighbor and played with puppies, we looked at homes for sale and we talked, she stopped at a traffic circle that had a few park benches and a few multilimbed trees, which she climbed as high as she could.

That is character and meaning, the human element, architecture can encourage that, but every place does not have to, nor can every place do so, simple logistics tell you that EVERY place can't be a popular hangout, some places just have to 'be' and let people get in and out and go about their lives. I'm all for comfortable living in a nice looking environment, but this guy's anti-suburban attitude is as condescending as it is stupid.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens when baby boomers who have spent decades in the suburbs can no longer drive and realize that they don't live within walking distance of the grocery store, the doctor, or adequate public transportation.

When you've aged out of being able to go to work and have no other hub for human contact, life is lonely. When you can't get to food or medicine, and have no reasonable opportunity to foster new relationships with close neighbors who can integrate you into a complimentary community, it gets desperate.

It's very nice that some people find their place in a live-work city. It would seem to be the perfect place for some, such as certain self-employed, and perhaps those without kids. But for those with kids who are engaged in outside activities, the community found in the immediate neighborhood won't cut it: there's school, which is usually not within walking distance; and sports and other outside activities, which are usually held in a central place not within walking distance.

When younger, we might have preferred a live-work city. Two problems: I couldn't find a job there, and even if I could we couldn't afford to live there on what I would have earned. So we lived in the burbs, and got what we needed out of it: a comfortable home and a little space. So there wasn't community there -- we got that through our outside activities.

This is all to say that I agree with MarkD: live where you want, but don't try to force me to live there, too. I'm so sick and tired of the social engineers; I wish they'd all go crawl back into the holes from whence they came.

Less noise and lower crime than in the city core are two reasons I live in the burbs. A far larger yard with beautiful shade trees and distance between houses are two more good reasons.

Kunstler, who so strongly advocates living in the city core, with everything being walkable, lives in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs, New York. He should practice what he preaches.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens when baby boomers who have spent decades in the suburbs can no longer drive etc. etc. etc.

That'll be my problem, not yours. I'll find a way to deal with it somehow. It's called personal responsibility. Don't you worry your pretty little head about me and mine. We'll be OK.

I kind of get what he's saying, but I don't see this as an urban vs suburban issue. In the downtown area of my city, there are some really cool spots - the downtown itself is divided into little areas, each with its own distinctive flavor. Some of those areas totally suck, and others are great to spend time in. There isn't much housing downtown, and most of it is totally unaffordable for the average person. They tend to be the trendy condos in refurbished old buildings. There is no grocery store nearby, so the people who live downtown have to not only pay outrageous amounts to keep a car downtown, they will also have to use a car and drive several miles every time they need groceries. That said, if you worked downtown, you'd be a ten-minute walk from work.

I live in a suburb which also has plenty of places to work - lots of big office campuses, and some of them are really beautiful. There are bike trails and sidewalks everywhere. I live two miles from work - ten minutes by car, fifteen by bike - and there is a big grocery store and a Trader Joe's on the way home, and both the Jordan Creek and West Glen town centers are within walking or cycling distance. I am always amazed at how many people I see out walking and biking around here.

I live in a condo development, with townhouses across the street. They've made the development really beautiful, with a tree-filled boulevard going down the middle of it, and the homes have nice big porches in front of them. And maybe this is an Iowa thing, but since they developed this area, there are a lot MORE trees, since it was cornfield before. The trees only need about 5-7 years to really start looking good.

Maybe it's just that the neighborhood I live in was nicely planned - but it's been my experience that the suburbs are a BETTER blend of places to live, work, and shop and require LESS driving.

If you go 40 blocks east to 22nd Street, between the freeway and Hickman, though, you do see an ugly street like the one he pictured. I suppose places like that are everywhere.

Oh, and another thing, don't discount isolation. We introverts prefer it.

Guy is a pretentious fucking moron trying to hide weak ideas behind a cloud of smoke that is made up of hipster contempt and angry humor.

Exactly. I'm sorry but buildings are not the vocabulary of a society and buildings to not tell us who we are (if they do for this guy, then he's a weak minded and sad little man). I'm sorry Amy but they also don't kill your soul (he made basically the same point). Robert is right that mostly he showed commercial areas at first.

I actually do agree with some of his points. Yes, there is a lot of stupid use of space, especially really wide open commercial spaces like he showed, or his example of a few blocks from where the TED Talk was happening having an intersection with 4 blank buildings. That's just stupid... well, not design, since it smacks of not really being designed. I actually do like some of the new developments being done around here (San Diego) which they're calling "City of Villages" where there are more mixed areas that make it possible to walk to everything you need, if you choose to. But the important part of that, IMNSHO, is the "choose" bit. There's a great one being built right next to my neighborhood now, but it'll have an HOA and/or CC&Rs that would preclude me from buying there as I refuse to give up basically all my property rights like that.

I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it's funny how his "solutions" tend to be the progressive wet dream of no more cars. Granted, he didn't say we need to outlaw them (though it seemed like he wanted to) he was just sure they were going to become impractical anyway due to peak... err, sorry "No longer cheap" oil (the "climate change" vs "global warming" to "peak oil"). He was touting how awesome trains are (everything should be public transportation, of course) ignoring that nearly every public transport system (especially trains) operate at a loss or only with heavy gov't support.

Cars give people independence. You can live and work far apart (if needed or desired) and getting a new job across town is easy. Picking up and moving is also a lot easier. Lock people down to only public transportation and you've essentially given our betters yet another way to control us. It'd probably start slow, but we'd likely get there. "I'm sorry Mr Smith that you're not happy here at Company B5, and that there's a perfect spot for you at Co C8, but there's no pubtrans from sector 15 to sector 53 that fits the schedule, and it's not like you can just jump in a car and drive there whenever you want you selfish prick. Nor can you move there as it'd be impossible to get a quota override from state planning. You're ours.... bwah ha ha." People will say that's bullshit, but look at Detroit. Oh, it wasn't destroyed by 50+ years of democrat/progressive rule and stupidity.. oh no, it was "white flight" (which is crap, people of all races that had the means essentially left) and those poor, non-white people were "stuck" there as it crumbled around them.

I would've had more respect for the guy (and I did watch the whole thing.. or nearly, I skipped a few seconds here and there when he got really annoying) if it weren't the full "soul-sucking" and "doom and gloom" crap with the only solution being completely following said progressive plans to herd everyone together into controlled groups.

I live in a suburb myself and I like it. I don't want to live wedged in a crappy/tiny place with no real privacy and always having to worry about making any noise that might bug my neighbors who are crammed in around me in every direction. I like having some space in my small but comfortable house and having a bit of a yard for my dog and for get-togethers in the backyard with the pool. I don't mind driving to get things done when needed. I do actually live within walking distance of my parents and maternal grandparents though (about 3/4 mile) which was by choice. Just enough of a buffer that people don't pop by unannounced but close enough that we walk dogs together on weekends and holidays (but not in the 80+ degree weather this weekend) and see each other all the time. My soul is not being sucked out at all.

My neighborhood is an older one (late '50s-early '60s) but nothing is really in walking distance. Technically you could walk but it's not practical (a bit too far and hills to stores). I walk my dog around the neighborhood every day and chat with several neighbors so it's not the soul-sucking isolation-inducing place he claims. Those that find a suburb that way make it that way themselves (or are surrounded by people who'd prefer it that way). My area is also now very central compared to out on the outskirts like it originally was, but this continues to happen. My dad recalls when they went to fix phones in what is now known as Mira Mesa here (just north of Miramar MCAS (was NAS) saying they felt, "Who'd want to live way out in the middle of nowhere like that?" Now that area is basically central San Diego region. Things change.

We're actually lucky to be bordered on the north side of our neighborhood by a municipal airport which keeps developers from creating yet another crammed build-up right next to us... for awhile anyway (FAA bits re-upped not too long ago last 20 years I'm told).

Well that turned into TL;DR rambling...

Bah.. lost my blockquote tags around Robert's quoted line there at the start of my comment.

I was looking at his site to get a better understanding of the plight of smaller cities for general knowledge. I loved this speech, and I have listened to A LOT of Ted Talks. I suppose if you are focused on the fact that he didn't say things nicely, and used bad words, you might feel insulted.

Usually, the Ted speakers are overtly positive and they definitely don't use words that start with f---. I personally found him delightfully entertaining, despite the fact that I typically like sunny, positive, speeches and tend to like sappy movies as well.

The reason was: a. he was f---ing funny. b. I learned so much about how and why a predominant design for suburban houses came into being. And as for c, his analogies expressing what the overall depressive effect of buildings that were not designed in a style conducive to overall well-being were apt and irreverent enough to make me pay attention.

I really could care less about homes, decoration, or any of it, as long as I have one to live in, but listening to his talk made me re-frame my thinking.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens when baby boomers who have spent decades in the suburbs can no longer drive and realize that they don't live within walking distance of the grocery store, the doctor, or adequate public transportation.

First of all, the vast majority of seniors don't lose the ability to drive until they're in the final stages of whatever they die of. I know some who have more trouble walking than driving.

Those who can't drive can have their groceries delivered, and take a taxi to the doctor if they don't have a friend or neighbor who can give them a lift. Or if all else fails, they can move where they do have access to all those things.

The recent criticism of suburbia seems to be entirely from the perspective of New York City, Washington DC and Los Angeles. The characterization bears little resemblance to reality. Most the cities throughout this country, and even in many other countries, are less dense than the aforementioned suburbs and would be considered downright rural by the standards of the critics.

I fail to see the appeal of living in a cramped, smelly, noisy city crammed with people. That sounds perfectly soul sucking. (I have a Japanese colleague who grew up in true "suburbia"--yes, Japan has them--and makes the same criticism.)

For the record, I've lived in and visited cities around the world, for some time I lived in the San Francisco bay area and Los Angeles. To call either of the latter two suburbs almost perverts the word.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens when baby boomers who have spent decades in the suburbs can no longer drive and realize that they don't live within walking distance of the grocery store, the doctor, or adequate public transportation.

This may be the dumbest argument ever. A senior citizen incapable of driving is also incapable of walking to the store and carrying home groceries.

In addition, I'm curious about this view of human existence where people live isolated lives without family, friends and neighbors. Yet, it seems that people in big cities live in more isolation than those in the majority of suburban and rural communities. They then project their own loneliness and psychosis onto everyone else. Do people in cities really condemn suburbia or are they jealous of it and want it to be as miserable as they are?

"I grew up in the suburbs. They are soul-killing."

Wow, what a sweeping statement to make without any objective evidence to back it up. What scientific proof do you have of this assertion, Amy? I thought you were a science-based person.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience in suburbia. I had plenty of bad experiences growing up, just like everyone else, but exactly 0% of them can be anywhere near objectively traced to the fact that I grew up in suburbia, specifically Lakewood. All of the bad stuff could just as easily happened in an urban school in an urban area. In fact, the people in my neighborhood often helped me get through things. Again, sorry if your neighbors weren't the same kind of people. Bear in mind, you can find lots of apathetic and selfish people in the big city too.

"He's right that there's no place you want to hang out."

Really? Here in Lakewood, where I live, there's plenty of places I like to hang. The parks, for example. Why is this TED speaker's experience valid and mine is not? Because he's presumably got more money and influence than I do and has the privilege of doing TED talks? How wonderfully elitist, to say the least.

"You stay home, largely isolated."

Again Amy, such a sweeping statement without any proof to back it up. Some people are isolated, some people join Neighborhood Watch or go out to eat or frequently join in a million other group events. I'll be happy to point you to the City of Lakewood's Parks and Recreation Catalog website, if you like, highlighting all the wonderful, enriching and educational classes and opportunities the city and its residents provide, if you like. And if you really believe that there aren't lots of people in the "big city" who aren't also isolated homebodies, I've got a really nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you for a great price.

"Since I moved away from my parents' home, I have always, always lived in a live-work city and neighborhood. I walked out to mail a letter yesterday..."

How nice for you, Amy. But not everyone wants that experience, and then also not everyone can afford it. There's also just the tiny teeny fact in the laws of physics that more than one object cannot fill one spot of space. That means that if everyone tried to move to your spot of small urban heaven, it likely wouldn't stay a small urban heaven for very long.

"My parents' neighborhood doesn't even have sidewalks. It's designed for you to drive into your driveway and stay there."

Lakewood has sidewalks, walking trails and even public postings at the parks highlighting touring and exercise options at each of them. But right near Lakewood, there's a small and very beautiful, well-kept and expensive neighborhood of homes in Long Beach called Lakewood Village, which surrounds the Liberal Arts Campus of Long Beach City College. It even has an entry on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakewood_Village,_Long_Beach,_California.

Anyway: does this REALLY sound like hell on earth to you, Amy? Frankly to me it sounds like it has a lot of the work-home qualities you describe, including nice independent restaurants, shopping and even a bit of business and industry within walking distance. But yes, Lakewood Village also has no sidewalks. Why? Well, in the debate over the decades whether or not to add them, it's never been alleged by anyone that walking is or should be prohibited. ("Walking in L.A.", anyone?) The late 1930s-early 1950s-era homebuilders' official statements were that they had no idea what the city specs for sidewalks would eventually be in the area, so they left them out in the hope they could be added later. Since then, the homeowners themselves have fought adding sidewalks because they love their extra-expansive lawns. But I personally have met many of them, and they are very neighborly and decent people. They no more want to be isolated than you do, I'd bet, Amy.

You're obviously such a mature, knowledgeable and decent person Amy, but IMHO at least, I'll never understand why you seem to have this need to look down your nose at other people about the perfectly decent, non-destructive choices they make about some life topics.

And Amy & Co., please allow me to provide a better link for Lakewood Village:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakewood_Village,_Long_Beach,_California

Also just quickly to add: of course, some suburbs-- like some cities-- are far better designed than others. If you honestly can't get food to live on without driving in your area, whether it's densely or sparsely populated, that's of course something prospective residents should be made aware of. And I happily admit, a lot of the reasons Lakewood "works" as a good suburb was and is due to common-sense planning on the part of the city fathers and the councils following them.

If you live in a suburb that doesn't have a lot of the advantages I described about my own area, of course it can be (or become) much more of a negative experience. But to paint the suburbs with such a broad brush as "soul-killing" IMHO makes about as much sense as people believing every urban center is a clone of Detroit. People are what make all the difference, not their proximity to whatever historic landmarks are deemed most significant.

I love my suburbs. Lots of friendly neighbors, all my kids friends are nearby, my kids have a nice yard (and neighbors yards) to play in, no one is right on top of me....and little noise and no filth.

This is not a sudden concern with eththetics. This is a push to make suburbia pay for the socialism of the cities.

( forbes . com/sites/realspin/2012/08/13/how-obama-is-robbing-the-suburbs-to-pay-for-the-cities/ )
How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For The Cities
8/13/12 - Forbes by Stanley Kurtz [edited]
=== ===
In the eyes of the leftist community organizers who trained Obama, suburbs are instruments of bigotry and greed. They are a way of selfishly refusing to share tax money with the urban poor. Obama adopted this view early on, and he has never wavered from this ideological commitment, as a review of his actions in office goes to show.

President Obama’s plans for a second-term include an initiative to systematically redistribute the wealth of America’s suburbs to the cities.
=== ===

Burn Down the Suburbs?
8/1/12 - National Review by Stanley Kurtz  [edited]
=== ===
Obama’s former community-organizing mentors and colleagues want the administration to condition future federal aid to the states on their following the recommendations served up by these anti-suburban planning commissions. That would quickly turn an apparently modest set of regional-planning grants into a lever for sweeping social change.

An equally ambitious facet of Obama’s anti-suburban blueprint involves the work of Kruglik’s Building One America. Traditionally, Alinskyite community organizers mobilize leftist church groups. Kruglik’s group goes a step further by organizing not only the religious left but politicians from relatively less-well-off inner-ring suburbs.

The goal is to build coalitions between urban and inner-ring suburban state legislators, in a bid to force regional tax-base sharing on middle-class suburbanites. That is how the practice came to Minnesota.
=== ===

How about you live where you want to and I won't tell you why you're wrong/bad/foolish; and I'll live where I want without you telling me why I'm wrong/bad/foolish?

From an economic and ecological perspective, density is good, sprawl is bad. Smart policy would discourage building up, not out.

(got that the wrong way and comments don't seem editable):

Smart policy would encourage building up not out.

Except for a few years during college, I've always lived in the suburbs. I much prefer it to my time in the city, and I cannot imagine living in an isolated rural area. Still, I wouldn't call either of those choices "soul-killing".

We do plenty of walking; the kids' schools, a park, and the grocery store are just around the corner. We can socialize as much as we like; we have lots of friends, family, and neighbors nearby. We also have a large house on almost an acre of land in a neighborhood that left plenty of large trees in every yard. From spring through early fall, I can't see a single neighbor from any of my back windows or from the back porch. It's quiet and private, and those are probably the two things I like best about where I live. That and the excellent schools - both public and private.

I look back on my time living Midtown Atlanta, and I think: loud, crowded, unsafe, and dirty. No desire to go back. I just don't care to be around tons of people at all times. As an introvert, I cannot fathom why some people feel the need to be in each others' orbits all the time. And living in a building with a few hundred other people makes me claustrophobic. The suburbs give me space without making me feel isolated.

"I grew up in the suburbs. They are soul-killing."

Wow, what a sweeping statement to make without any objective evidence to back it up. What scientific proof do you have of this assertion, Amy? I thought you were a science-based person.

Agreed. Amy, you have said other times that you were a shy child and were teased/bullied for being Jewish. Maybe you are confusing your specific isolated childhood with a suburban experience overall. I grew up in suburbs and was happy (and emerged with soul intact).

There are some suburbs I think are pretty awful (though their residents often seem to like them) but the same can be said for many cities. I have a colleague who just relocated to Paris, which, unsurprisingly, is proving a very stressful place to live when you aren't wealthy. When I have visited other astrophysicists there, they were unable to go out to eat with us because they couldn't afford it. Not exactly the tourist experience, but does that make Paris "soul-destroying"?

In the URL box, I pasted the URL for an article by the Vital Age Network, on Maintaining Mobility In an Aging Population, which states in part:

"According to AARP, eighty-nine percent of older adults travel in private vehicles. This group does not easily give up cars for public transportation. These behaviors can affect their mobility as they age and, therefore, their ability to socialize with friends and family, to meet their physical needs, and to take part in activities that make their lives meaningful.

As people age, a number of factors can threaten mobility, including impaired ability to drive, limited availability of alternative forms of transportation and unwillingness to be dependent upon others. Adding to the issue, nearly 80% of older adults live in suburban and rural areas where public transportation is limited and walking to destinations is not feasible.

Being a nondriver can be a risk factor for isolation. AARP's national study indicates that half of all nondrivers age 65 or over stay at home on any given day, missing opportunities for social interaction or community involvement.

[...] By 2030, 25% of licensed drivers in the United States will be over the age of 65 (The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging)."

Here's a link to a second article that discusses the trend of seniors moving to "suburban town centers," also known as boutique cities, where they can rely more on walking and public transportation to nearby businesses and community centers, and less on driving:

http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2012/Feb/McIlwainSeniors2

My home is in Pittsburgh, which has a lot of senior citizens who have living in one place for 50+ years. I have learned that most people in my neighborhood who drive a black Lincoln town car are over the age of 70 (Conjecture on my part - I don't actually go into the senior center or the senior towers and ask). I am no longer surprised when someone driving a Lincoln town car pulls into the middle of the intersection and then stops, to look both ways, despite having the green light, and despite that being a bad idea generally.

Many of my elderly neighbors surrendered their car keys years ago but can still walk to church or to the grocery store (3 to five blocks away). Most of their kids moved away years ago to get work in better economies, but it helps that they've grown old in a place where they have decades-long relationships which encourage a communal exchange of resources (including assistance from neighbors' now adult children, neices, and nephews) and long-term memories of the local geography.

For people who have the the concerns of food, shelter, and health care reasonably handled, the issue of needing human contact, of feeling isolated not just for want of human contact but from a sense of being... not an integral part of something lively, seems to be the next pressing component of a high quality of life. I think the new "boutique city" suburban town centers can make this available, but they are modern hybrids, not the suburbs built in the 1950s - 1980s.

Trapped because your neighborhood has no sidewalks? Reminds me of that video of the people trapped on an escalator that stopped moving. Glad I didn't know that as an eight year old on a Schwinn Stingray. Never been so free in my life as on that bike riding to school, the park, the library and the comic book store with my friends. Heaven may look something like that.

Who needs sidewalks when the streets are mostly empty of cars?

And get off my lawn.

What scientific proof do you have of this assertion, Amy? I thought you were a science-based person.

Um, do you understand that you don't "prove" an opinion.

I was quoting someone else (hence the italics). What is often amusing about your opinions is how absolute they are. Some suburbs are unpleasant but all of them are soul-destroying? Silly. No places to congregate? Other than streets, parks, pools, homes?

You seem to have loved living in NYC. I had a friend who had to leave it in the middle of the night and drive straight through back to Texas and his family because he was suicidal. Living in a city full of people congregating around you when you feel utterly alone can be pretty soul-destroying too.

There is all the difference in the world between saying that Kunstler has found some awful neighborhoods and saying "I sure agree that suburbia is a catastrophic failure and an awful and alienating place to be."

Thank you Amy.

[i]"There are some suburbs I think are pretty awful (though their residents often seem to like them) but the same can be said for many cities. I have a colleague who just relocated to Paris, which, unsurprisingly, is proving a very stressful place to live when you aren't wealthy. When I have visited other astrophysicists there, they were unable to go out to eat with us because they couldn't afford it. Not exactly the tourist experience, but does that make Paris "soul-destroying"?"[/i]

Astra: correctamundo, and thanks for backing me up. Well said. :-)

"Trapped because your neighborhood has no sidewalks? Reminds me of that video of the people trapped on an escalator that stopped moving."

LOL. Thanks Tmitsss!

"And Michelle is right on about elderly people not being able to get around."

Glad you brought this up Amy. Here in Lakewood (and I've noticed in many other suburbs) we also have special low-cost, well-maintained senior housing close to shopping and transportation hubs, so that they can be productive and happy instead of isolated and bored (or worse). There's even a Senior Center.

As I wrote earlier, good people and smart design make all the difference. My local "big city," Los Angeles, for all its problems, is NOT Detroit, and Lakewood as well as similar suburbs, for all their own issues (and of course every municipality has some-- I don't mean to argue that there's any perfect place) is NOT a soul-crushing place.

"I grew up in the suburbs. They are soul-killing. They cut down all the trees to built the subdivision my parents moved to."

Cities are horrible. I just returned from DragonCon, where my commute to and from the convention, in the very center of Atlanta, featured a drive through streets with storefronts armored against break-ins, lined with cameras, being traveled by people who move in groups and check their surroundings constantly for thugs. A bicycle rack featured a bare frame, its owner having had all the useful parts stolen while he probably worked. When it rained, the first 30 minutes washed a dirty brown sludge off the street, the accumulated detritus of constant traffic and wear.

And I hear that in California, the nearby bar cannot be convinced to keep people from urinating on your fence or turn down its music when you want it to be quiet.

Tsk.

I assume that Kunstler was attempting to persuade his audience of the rightness of his views. It would make no sense for him to show pictures of idyllic suburban settings or nightmarish urban settings. I imagine a fair amount of cherry picking is going on here.

I'm not sure where the "no sidewalks" meme came from, but when I was growing up in a suburban development, we had sidewalks, street lights, the whole nine yards. I honestly can't remember feeling isolated at all. I had neighborhood friends, as did my parents. My friends and I rode our bkes all over the place, including into a nearby small city.

Unfortunately there are not all that many live-work urban areas, and frankly, many are extremely pricy, and not getting any less so. Brilliant ideas such as rent control policies, building codes designed to deter contstruction of housing for low and even middle-income people are not helping.

I managed to make it all the way through my young adult years without having my soul crushed or even squeezed by my environment.

We're going to have to disagree on this one. However, I will point out that suburbanites are not trying to use the government to compel everyone to live in suburbs.

"...and the neighborhood is filled with people going places and is a center for eating, drinking, hanging out, and doing business in a way suburbs are not."

I'm on a cul-de-sac. It's nice and quiet with only a few neighbors out at any given time, and the houses are all set back from the street. For the most part, I hear the birds and insects instead of people and traffic. It's peaceful.

When I want the action and hubbub of the city, I know where to find it. We're down there with or without the kids a few times a month. And of course, I work in the city. I really like Atlanta; I'm just glad I don't have to live there.