Noise Annoys
The Detroit News tackles the pressing issue of suburbanites who have to endure noise from radios, traffic and skateboards. “In years past, city-dwellers often moved to the suburbs to get away from the noise. But sprawl and modern lifestyles are cutting into the tranquility of suburbia, too.” Isn’t that kind of like saying that suburbia is cutting into the tranquility of suburbia?
Ha. Yes, it IS like saying suburbia is cutting into the tranquility of suburbia. But it’s also true. People complain about the trash, the taxes, the pollution of many suburbs now. Duh. what the hell did you think would happen if you parcelled out little plots of land, gave everyone two cars, duplicated services the nearby city can provide, and let snotty kids run around with Twinkie wrappers in their hands? Paradise?
posted by Evan on May 31st, 2005 at 2:47 pmI for one, hate the runners all over our subdivision, always hassling me about ‘the left’. ChemLawn causes SUVs, I just know it. They were never a problem in my area until those trucks showed up. And all these children that seem to come with every 5 bedroom house. Be careful wearing anything shiny around them, they’ll show up by the wagon load and take you to bits. I’m moving to Brush St.
posted by Ryan on May 31st, 2005 at 3:09 pmEverybody wants to move to a place that they think is better. The problem with living in a free society is that if they can afford it, they can. Those folks complaining in the article that things have changed are living in some sort of time warp. If they want things to be nice and rural like they were twenty years ago, they’ve got to move again. If they really expected the neighborhood to be static, they should have chosen a really expensive place like Barton Hills or a really crappy place somewhere in Detroit. It’s not that I like sprawl, I really don’t. But given the fact that at some point in time most of us will be parents of “snotty kids” without infinite disposable income, we’ll all be competing to get into an affordable house with a reasonable yard in a decent public school district where overt crime seems low and the neighbors seem nice. It’s the American dream, isn’t it? A lot of suburbs meet those criteria. Not too many cities do. Dictating where people can move to and where they can’t seems a bit Soviet to me. Last time I checked, neighborhood redlining was also illegal.
posted by JCP2 on May 31st, 2005 at 3:42 pm3 DDDs fruit and vegetable stand outside their home.
Sorry, I don’t remember what all the controversy was about - my mind immediately freezes up at the mere mention of triple Ds.
posted by Real Big on May 31st, 2005 at 4:16 pmPut another way, everyone wants to be the last person to move to their town.
posted by Anna on May 31st, 2005 at 5:36 pmWell said, JCP2. And Anna, you always have a way of summing things up succintly.
“Plenty of me, way too much of you.”
posted by Dave on May 31st, 2005 at 7:29 pmYou guys are retarded. get a life
posted by Babi on May 31st, 2005 at 11:16 pmJCP2- redlining per se is illegal, but exclusionary zoning (i.e. minimum lot size, etc.) is alive and well and serving the same purpose that redlining did.
posted by Joy on June 1st, 2005 at 1:36 amWell, I do have my long-winded moments, too, but I’m trying not to eat up all of AAIO’s bandwidth every month.
posted by Anna on June 1st, 2005 at 9:14 amNice post. My only thought is that, while I agree with the principle of JCP2’s post that people follow their preferences in choosing where to live, increasingly suburbia is the worst of both worlds. That is, none of the energy, culture, social opportunity, or diversity of the city, and none of the friendliness, affordability, or natural beauty of rural areas. I’m a little skeptical of the degree to which one can still find the American dream in the suburbs - at least in the ‘burbs I’m familiar with, fear of crime and political conservatism have kind of dampened the neighborliness, and a few decades of public antipathy toward property taxes sometimes makes it appear that the only suburbs with good public schools are the upper-tier ones where many people have trouble buying a home. Just a thought, anyway.
posted by Nick on June 1st, 2005 at 2:47 pmAnyone who has the name Babi must be a tard.
posted by DrMandrake on June 1st, 2005 at 6:06 pmJoy - I agree that exclusionary zoning tends to drive up housing prices, but at least the barrier to entry is largely economic. What the people in the Detroit News article seem to want is to exclude people based on whether they like them or not.
Nick - I’m not saying that suburbia is where the American dream is, just that that’s where most people end up looking for it. Even in Ann Arbor, where the school system is considered pretty good, there’s a larger demand to move into the Logan and King districts because of their better test scores. I’m in Dickens, and I don’t really care. In fact, I bet if we bused all the Logan kids to Dickens and all the Dickens kids to Logan, there would be a dramatic reversal in test scores and my property value would go up;)
posted by JCP2 on June 1st, 2005 at 9:01 pm“Tard.” That’s funny. Thanks!
posted by Anonymous on June 1st, 2005 at 10:30 pmI like the Buzzcocks reference.
posted by Alex(andra) on June 4th, 2005 at 10:44 amWhile redlining is illegal, fascism is alive and well. Perhaps if everyone weren’t busy promoting an attitude of fear, control and exclusion we could all get together, have a nice barbeque and be neighborly. Don’t trust your neighbors! They might be out to get you. Orwell is alive and well living in suburbia. I’ve been in some of the ex-Soviet nations and our paranoia and fear is far greater.
posted by Andrew on June 5th, 2005 at 1:16 am