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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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 Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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120 miles a day - that couple needs a Chevy Volt. 60 in the morning, plug in, 60 home. Total expenditures: about $1.50 per charge. Or of course they could not live in such an insane part of town. My friends back home in Calgary have now each gotten houses in super inconvenient parts of town and that means no just dropping by when I visit unless I feel like spending 90+ minutes trying to get there. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
| My friends back home in Calgary have now each gotten houses in super inconvenient parts of town and that means no just dropping by when I visit unless I feel like spending 90+ minutes trying to get there. |
Yeah, mine too. It's very strange behavior. Deliberately isolating oneself to procure enough room for stuff and a granite countertop. Go to university, save money for a down payment and then buy a box on the far side of town and what? Watch tv? Sit in traffic to get to work, get to the store, get to friends.. The allure of being a homeowner (mortgage ownership) is very strong, though quite often irrational. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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I guess I'm one of the few who like the suburban lifestyle. I'm going to be one of those guys in Calgary that buys a place that's hard for Mith to visit. The reason - I want a yard for my girl to play in. Streets that are less driven. A garden that I can grow things in. A garage that I can park two cars in.
Those are my reasons. Most of them being influenced by being a parent in Korea. I HATE the fact that one step out of most buildings puts my daughter at risk. That there are so few green spaces for her to play in. That driving and parking anywhere to shop in this city is near impossible.
The downtown life is great for single or newly married people, but raising a family there is often a tough haul. |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
They can be clean and often very homogeneous (with Spanish names - Casa Vista etc). I must insist that they're ugly.
Here's a random pic of a 'burb in PHX:
http://tinyurl.com/2g47pj2
He's a random pic of a residential area of Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/2b99nlw
(randomly chosen, honest) |
Randomly chosen or not, both of those pics are fairly unattractive.
| Quote: |
| Yeah, mine too. It's very strange behavior. Deliberately isolating oneself to procure enough room for stuff and a granite countertop. |
For me, suburbia is desirable in the same manner that having my own bedroom and a door to close it off with is. When I want to go shopping, eat out, hit a bar, etc, I'll hop in my car and happily drive the ten or fifteen minutes it takes me to get there. Concerts or other obscenely large social events? I take the hit and spend 45 minutes in the car every now and then when I feel like attending. Otherwise, I like to keep the blight of concrete and hordes of other people to as bare a minimum as possible in my homelife.
Also, dogs. I love my furry family members too much to subject them to an asphalt yard. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
I guess I'm one of the few who like the suburban lifestyle. I'm going to be one of those guys in Calgary that buys a place that's hard for Mith to visit. The reason - I want a yard for my girl to play in. Streets that are less driven. A garden that I can grow things in. A garage that I can park two cars in.
Those are my reasons. Most of them being influenced by being a parent in Korea. I HATE the fact that one step out of most buildings puts my daughter at risk. That there are so few green spaces for her to play in. That driving and parking anywhere to shop in this city is near impossible.
The downtown life is great for single or newly married people, but raising a family there is often a tough haul. |
I'm not talking about downtown though, one of the friends I'm talking about used to have a place near Lion's Park, which means three small parks within five minutes. All it requires is a smaller house than one you would normally get in the suburbs. I remember back in jr. high we all envied our friend who lived in a pretty quaint (=half the size of ours) place in Sunnyside because he got to do everything.
On the other hand I strongly disliked going to the house of any friend in the suburbs as paradoxically it felt really stuffy and constrained there. Visiting one of those places means you have to stay within the house, even a convenience store is 30+ minutes away by foot, and the only thing in the neighborhood might be a park or school. And the kids there have a much stronger impact on the way things look to your kids, since those that always wander around outside end up defining the neighborhood from a child's point of view, and that means you have to hope that you're lucky that you end up with a good one because it's impossible to tell before you move in. In a more centralized location these kids get diluted due to the larger amount of people everywhere else.
For a parent I would recommend at least a place one bus ride away from the C-Train. Two buses and then a C-Train = not being able to do anything anywhere without a car. Keep in mind that having to use a car all the time is actually more dangerous since that means being driven around all the time by one's friends and acquaintances as a teenager as opposed to being able to take transit more often.
So something like this IMO is okay while this is an absolute nightmare. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
So something like this IMO is okay while this is an absolute nightmare. |
I don't know anything about Calgary, but the example you have above (the good one I mean) is usually quite pricey in a large metro area here in the States. And if it isn't, odds are the schools in that area aren't that good, and/or the crime rate is above average.
I'm generalizing of course and there are exceptions to the rule. That's one thing I liked about San Diego actually. Neighborhoods such as the one pictured above are somewhat affordable. I should note though that's mainly due to gentrification in the past decade or so. That and the glut of housing and the poor economy in the San Diego area.
Anyway, given the fact that it is pricey, you'd think there would be an effort into building more areas like it. I guess time will tell. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
So something like this IMO is okay while this is an absolute nightmare. |
I don't know anything about Calgary, but the example you have above (the good one I mean) is usually quite pricey in a large metro area here in the States. And if it isn't, odds are the schools in that area aren't that good, and/or the crime rate is above average.
I'm generalizing of course and there are exceptions to the rule. That's one thing I liked about San Diego actually. Neighborhoods such as the one pictured above are somewhat affordable. I should note though that's mainly due to gentrification in the past decade or so. That and the glut of housing and the poor economy in the San Diego area.
Anyway, given the fact that it is pricey, you'd think there would be an effort into building more areas like it. I guess time will tell. |
I'm not sure about schools. It's true that with a place with fairly quick access to the rest of the city you're going to end up with a smaller and older place, but you can drastically change your house if you don't mind working on it on the weekends. I'll show you the house where I lived from about three or four until jr. high. Here's the front, here's the back. You'll notice that in the back in particular it puts the rest of them to shame, and that's due to my dad obsessively building things every weekend. Shrubs in the back - dad. Fence on the left - dad. Fence on the right - dad. Porch in the back - dad. Gate, fence behind that other fence - dad. It started out as a pretty empty-looking place and turned into a tiny fortress. The fence in the front was him too. Inside as well. The basement used to be a big dungeon-like thing with no rooms, and a few years later there were two extra ones - one turned into my brother's new bedroom when he became a teenager, and the other went from cold dungeon corner into a cozy basement place with TV and gas-powered fireplace, the warmest part of the house during the winter. We moved out about ten years later and it sold within a week of being listed at a much better price. It was also within walking distance of his work, though walking distance in this case means about 50 minutes. No C-Train (subway) nearby but the bus stopped just a minute away and going somewhere at the time in the winter meant 1) phoning the number to see when the bus came, 2) waiting until it was three minutes away, running outside, stamping your feet a bit and then there's the bus, off to wherever you need to go. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 6:17 am Post subject: |
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We're in a depression and oil is 90$/barrel. If/when the West recoveres, the output of oil (which has likely peaked) will not match the demand outside of 100$ costs. The suburban model is going to end.
My cousins complex in Calgary has a park just outside the door (and a c-train station). It is always full of kids. Kids socialize, parents socialize. It's good for the neighborhood for people to interact and know one another.
http://tinyurl.com/23rj7c5
And in Canada, if you're worried about bad schools (meaning bad students) use the French immersion Catholic schools. They're outstanding. Fees are <100$/semester.
My point is that urban planning should develop cities where there are lots of parks, transit and walkable neighborhoods. If some of you want to live out in the 'burbs that's fine. The policy should be towards cities and not these weird in between rural-urban things we call suburbs. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 6:54 am Post subject: |
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| I don't think I hae mentioned it yet, so forgive me if I have: I strongly recommend reading Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker about Robert Moses, who basically made NYC and Long Island what they are today, at least when it comes to roads and bridges. He is a big reason why our urban planning is such a disaster. Yes, NYC itself is considered pretty well designed but it is in spite of him, not because of him. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 7:01 am Post subject: |
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Right. Moses was going to pave Central Park and make parking lots. This plan was stopped when a housewife on a walk in CP found the blueprints and took them to the media.
Had Moses not had his way with Long Island it would have been built like Philly or Baltimore (row houses around CBD's). Moses is also the reason that JFK has such crappy mass transit connections to Manhattan. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 3:05 am Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
So something like this IMO is okay while this is an absolute nightmare. |
Hahaha... your worst nightmare is most likely where I'm going to live. The first place you posted is actually quite nice looking. But I'm hoping to have another kid or two, and bring the in-laws over from Korea (to stay?). A certain amount of space is needed for 6+ people. |
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