30-05-2005 09:31									#61
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Earth to GePap. NYC is not a typical US city for a large number of reasons. Get out and see the real US for a change.

	30-05-2005 09:37									#62
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Earth to GePap. NYC is not a typical US city for a large number of reasons. Get out and see the real US for a change.

Correct, NYC is THE MOST URBAN of US cities. Are you saying that somehow NYC is more kid friendly than say Kansas City? Or Denver? Or Miami?

And I can tell you that housing costs in NYC are second only to those you find in San Fran.

	30-05-2005 09:44									#63
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quote: Originally posted by DanS To be fair, I don't know as Europeans really have as much of a chance to move outside the city. Land is expensive there and the cities aren't built to move people in and out of the city as much for work. So we would have to reduce the appeal of the suburbs and rural areas in the US as well as make US cities liveable for families. As for your friends, I think I live in what is becoming a liveable part of the city. However, I know for a fact that it's not built to be liveable for families and I see remarkably few children about. It's built for DINKs and singles. If it were built for families, then it would become a lot more boring immediately.

I think it depends on what it means for a city to be more liveable "for families." Good public schools are the obvious place to start, followed by safe streets (though, in fact, the rash of recent child abductions has been more suburban and exurban than urban...). But these things don't make a place less interesting. If anything, middle class kids raised in cities have always struck me as far more interesting that middle class kids raised in suburbia -- far more sophisticated and worldly, and no more decadent than the average suburban kid living in Teenage Wasteland.

	30-05-2005 09:46									#64
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quote: NYC is more kid friendly than say Kansas City? Or Denver? Or Miami?

NYC doesn't have suburbs that are cheap to live in and which provide competition to the city, for one. Very few other cities in the US are like this.

	30-05-2005 09:51									#65
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quote: Originally posted by DanS NYC doesn't have suburbs that are cheap to live in and which provide competition to the city, for one. Very few other cities in the US are like this.

BUt NYC has suburbs that are CHEAPER by far than NYC (the difference between a two bedroom apartment in a building and a three bedroom home with a yard), and also unlike many cities a rail network extends into three states, many dozens of miles way.

Heck, you are closer to NYC in its suburbs than in most American cities.

I mean, for God's sake, we invented the very concept of the suburb.

	30-05-2005 09:55									#66
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quote: I think it depends on what it means for a city to be more liveable "for families." Good public schools are the obvious place to start, followed by safe streets (though, in fact, the rash of recent child abductions has been more suburban and exurban than urban...). But these things don't make a place less interesting. If anything, middle class kids raised in cities have always struck me as far more interesting that middle class kids raised in suburbia -- far more sophisticated and worldly, and no more decadent than the average suburban kid living in Teenage Wasteland.

I'm thinking of practical stuff. As I was in a suburban supermarket the other day changing coins into cash (such an exotic thing is unavailable in the city), it occured to me that a suburb is built to make things easy for mom. The Walmart is a godsend for her, since it's one big box and products are cheap. That's also what makes things soulless in the suburbs, of course. The scale is for cars, not pedestrians.

	30-05-2005 10:02									#67
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quote: BUt NYC has suburbs that are CHEAPER by far than NYC (the difference between a two bedroom apartment in a building and a three bedroom home with a yard), and also unlike many cities a rail network extends into three states, many dozens of miles way. Heck, you are closer to NYC in its suburbs than in most American cities. I mean, for God's sake, we invented the very concept of the suburb.

I imagine it's becoming increasingly difficult to get that 3 bedroom house with a yard. It's becoming unobtainable. That's my point.

The topology of Washington's public transportation is no less wide. But Washington is a typical American city. The city itself is a wasteland for families. The suburbs have room to grow and are growing quickly. Of course, this growth can't last forever, but it can last for an awful long time.

	30-05-2005 10:22									#68
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quote: Originally posted by DanS I imagine it's becoming increasingly difficult to get that 3 bedroom house with a yard. It's becoming unobtainable. That's my point.

And yet, a ticket on a plane to Florida, or Texas, or Colorado is well within the grasp of anyone capable of living in NYC. That is my point- if it were such a terrible place to raise children, then people would go out there to the places a house with a yard is attainable. Heck, colonies of ex-New Yorkers abound in the sunbelt.

I mean, what really is the difference between NYC and San Francisco, with SanFran being the most obvious candidate of the childless City? I mean, Chicago still has more than plenty of families within it as well.

	30-05-2005 10:38									#69
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quote: Originally posted by DanS I'm thinking of practical stuff. As I was in a suburban supermarket the other day changing coins into cash (such an exotic thing is unavailable in the city), it occured to me that a suburb is built to make things easy for mom. The Walmart is a godsend for her, since it's one big box and products are cheap. That's also what makes things soulless in the suburbs, of course. The scale is for cars, not pedestrians.

But humans adapt to their environments. Of course Walmart is a godsend for Mom, if mom lives in a place where everything is a 20 minute drive from everything else and no one walks anywhere (or even can walk anywhere, thanks to the new trend of building residential areas without sidewalks). Put mom within walking distance of six smaller stores that between them meet her needs without necessitating driving, and maybe what mom "needs" changes.

	30-05-2005 10:47									#70
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quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly thanks to the new trend of building residential areas without sidewalks

	30-05-2005 10:52									#71
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I don't think those six neighborhood stores exist in the US, even in what we could call liveable cities. They certainly don't exist in my neighborhood. It seems to me that Europeans must do without some of the time. Certainly, they will pay more.

Besides, what mom wants to schlepp a dozen bags of groceries from the grocery store every week, even if it is a couple of blocks. Just not convenient.

By the way, that sidewalk trend is an old trend, which seems to be reversing itself nowadays. But those sidewalks are pretty damn useless nonetheless.

Last edited by DanS on 30-05-2005 at 10:57

	30-05-2005 10:57									#72
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quote: Originally posted by DanS I don't think those six neighborhood stores exist in the US, even in what we could call liveable cities. They certainly don't exist in my neighborhood.

Weird.

I have 4 Neighborhood dry cleaners, one neighborhood bakery, 1 neighborhood rental place/ice cream parlor, 1 Neighborhood butcher/ upscale food market, 1 Neighborhood pharmacy just one block away, 3 Neighborhood Bodegas (small Latin owned groceries). As the radius increases the number of neighborhood groceries increases exponentially.

Neighborhood being defined as small bsuinesses not part of or affiliated with any larger corporate chains.

I did not include the two local supermarkets (part of NY based chains) or restaurants, which are commonly not part of any greater chain.

	30-05-2005 10:58									#73
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Besides, what mom wants to schlepp a dozen bags of groceries from the grocery store every week, even if it is a couple of blocks. Just not convenient.

Most non-American mothers. I cant think of a single Italian mother who would just buy food once in two weeks.

quote: By the way, that sidewalk trend is an old trend, which seems to be reversing itself nowadays. But those sidewalks are pretty damn useless nonetheless.

And Americans get fatter by the day. one wonders why.

	30-05-2005 10:59									#74
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All of that exists in my neighborhood too, GePap. But the number of products available is insufficient for supermom. It's just fine for DINKs and singles.

	30-05-2005 11:02									#75
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quote: Originally posted by DanS All of that exists in my neighborhood too, GePap. But the number of products available is insufficient for supermom.

"Supermom"??

What the hell is supermom?

And what products are unavailable? Fine, she can't shop in bulk, but most American families don't consist of 7 kids.

	30-05-2005 11:36									#76
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quote: Originally posted by DanS The topology of Washington's public transportation is no less wide. But Washington is a typical American city. The city itself is a wasteland for families. The suburbs have room to grow and are growing quickly. Of course, this growth can't last forever, but it can last for an awful long time.

When the American suburbanite has to compete with the Chinese and the Indian suburbanite for gas, suburban living is going to get very unaffordable.

Currently, American drivers average 8,000 miles of driving per year. The typical exurban dweller will probably be driving twice as much, or 16,000 miles. A two-adult family will be doing 32,000 miles a year, and given average SUV fuel efficiency, 2,000 gallons of gas.

At $2 a gallon, that's $4,000 a year, significant but tolerable. At $6 a gallon, which is what Europeans pay, that's a steep $12,000. We're not considering the other costs of car ownership here either, or the increased cost of other products that need to be trucked in from coastal ports.

Bar some breakthrough in fusion power, the end of that "awful long time" is going to come in our lifetimes.

	30-05-2005 13:02									#77
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quote: Originally posted by mrmitchell Drake it's an interesting article. But I've said it once and I'll say it again: The US has too many unique aspects to make a generalization like proposed possible.

You're most likely correct. It's fun to take a look at the issue from a whole new angle though, isn't it?

quote: For #3 Marriage Gap, why does he only take into account statistics involving white women? You can't ignore 20% of the entire population.

Probably because blacks as a group (and hispanics, to a lesser extent) vote overwhelmingly Democrat for reasons other than the ones covered by his hypothesis. One of the unique aspects mentioned above...

	30-05-2005 13:18									#78
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quote: Put mom within walking distance of six smaller stores that between them meet her needs without necessitating driving, and maybe what mom "needs" changes.

Doubtful. Japanese towns are designed this way, but it hasn't stopped the invasion of one-stop shopping centers.

	30-05-2005 14:17									#79
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quote: Originally posted by DanS But Washington is a typical American city. The city itself is a wasteland for families. The suburbs have room to grow and are growing quickly. Of course, this growth can't last forever, but it can last for an awful long time.

For a guy who spouts realism -- especially fiscal realism -- you're positively on drugs here. Washington, with its bizarre fiscal and political relationship to the Federal government, is absolutely the least typical American city, even less so than New York. Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, Cleveland, Houston, even San Francisco -- these are typical American cities, different as they are from each other. But DC, with the structural barriers it has to controlling its land, taxing its industry, and sending representatives to Congress, is a city like no other.

	30-05-2005 15:22									#80
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui If you live in an area where your housing prices are higher, you likely don't have many non-English speaking immigrants in your schools . This is a place I think the analysis breaks down. The places with the highest housing prices are usually pretty 'white'. Perhaps immigration raises housing prices through a national supply shortage, but that doesn't work for me either.

Yea, lord knows that Los Angeles and New York have hardly any immigrants.