What would you miss about the suburbs if you were forced to move to a city?

In the suburbs, you get the comforts and socialization of a neighborhood, and in our area that is a considerable benefit, and a deterrant to crime, since all the oldsters are watching your house for you all day.

You often get more house for your purchase price outside of a city, more amenities or land, or mature landscaping, etc…

In suburbia your children catch a school bus at your house, no bus stops or walking into dangerous areas on the way to school.

We also do actually get plenty of exercise and our air is fairly clean, it’s like a swarm of sweat pants & dogs after work on our roads.

In our neighborhood, children can still ride bikes and play without fear, as adults on our street look out for them, it’s a real community to a degree, but we don’t intrude on each other after 7p, that’s like a big deal, family time.

I’ve lived in small burbs and I’ve lived in big cities and for me, the burbs win hands down—for all the reasons @KNOWITALL says. The city is only a short drive away if I need or miss it… but I rarely do.

Hate suburbs in this area. I live in one now, and it’s a pain. Idiots screaming down the road at 60 MPH. Can’t let the kids ride bikes in the street – some douche in a pickup truck will mow them down. Someone made the mistake of trying to get some exercise last week, and a guy ran over the old lady’s dog while he was leashed beside her. This happened right in front of my house. My son is not allowed outside for a MOMENT without a grownup, even inside the fence. And for a kid of his age and responsibility level, that makes me incredibly sad.

Loved the rural place I lived before this. We could, if we wanted to, cut down a tree and hold a bonfire, and call friends over to play live music in the backyard. Neighbors, complain? Hells no. At least half of them would show up and bring beer! That was a great neighborhood. Still had a couple of particular idiots who drove too fast, but then we started playing catch with a baseball. One or two ethically-questionable “missed throws” solved that problem.

I grew up in the city. I love a well-designed urban area. You can get anything you need within walking distance (or at least bicycle distance), and anything you want is reachable by public transportation, which is convenient and predictable. You can get nearly anything delivered, which is even better. Kids walking to school in the city have crossing guards to help them – they’re not thrown to the mercy and limited attention span of overtired and overcaffienated morning commuters. Added bonus: Museums. Sports venues. Concert halls. Night clubs. Neighborhood pubs close enough that you don’t have to drive home afterward.

@Seek_Kolinahr Wow, that about the dog is horrible, geesh.

I like your baseball idea, we have one or two young neighbors at the end of the road who refuse to follow the 30mph rule in their no muffler having, ugly little cars they think are so cool. May have to steal that idea….lol

Yep. What are they going to do?
“Officer! These people knew I speed down this road all the time and they KNEW that I was coming and they KNEW the damage it would cause if I hit a baseball at 55 MPH instead of the posted 20!!”

@Seek_Kolinahr BTW- I’m reading Wuthering Heights again…it had been awhile- lol

Hellz yeah, when it gets warmer, we’re totally doing it.

Our suburbs all have sidewalks, and underground utilities, no ugly telephone poles and wires. I wonder if you mean rural living?

I chose a home that is within walking distance of a major shopping center, and we have grocery stores one mile from us, North, East, and West, and a park one mile to the South. People walk past my house, on a one block long, side street, an average of two or three every couple of hours or so during the day.

Quiet is what I’d miss. I hated city living. I go to the city everyday for work and school and I’d never move there willingly.

The cities must be where the homosexuals and socialists congregate.~

I’ve lived in cities: Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and several suburbs. I prefer the cities, but don’t mind the suburbs. Cities are much more exciting for someone like me. I think I’d have a hard time with rural living. I’ve always said, “I don’t want to live anywhere that isn’t walking distance to a library,” and I never have.

@bookish1 Our community has a rather large homosexual community for a small midwestern town actually.

Free and plentiful parking is about the only thing I like about the ‘burbs.
If I had kids I’d probably feel differently.
I wouldn’t mind a patch of earth to plant food in, those are hard to come by in the city, and our windows get only three or four hours of direct sunlight in a day.

I like the city much, much better than the suburbs, but I miss having a garden.

I’ve never visited a suburb like the one you described @wundayatta. No sidewalks? No one gets to know their neighbors? No one exercises? How do you know this? Every suburb is different, obviously.

The suburb we lived in for 16 years was surrounded by park land and hiking and biking trails. I walked my children to school, on the sidewalks. The commute to the city was only 7–10 minutes. I could count on my neighbors if I was in need. Now that I live in the country though, I’m spoiled. I could never move back to the suburbs, let alone a city. I would miss the night sky in the evening (we have very little light pollution here). I can sit on my love seat and watch a meteor shower from my living room, but it’s more fun to lay a blanket in our large yard. I would miss the wildlife (we’ve had huge flocks of snow geese, an eagle and red fox on our property). I think I would miss the views and the silence the most.

I live in a city, so I cannot wait to live in a suburb. Well, a country town. I will not miss the sirens, the noise, the dirt, the rats, the crime, the boom beat music coming from cars!! Sorry this answer was in reverse, but I cannot wait…. I just can’t!

What I like about the burbs is the amount of living space I can afford. For what I pay for my 2000+ sq. ft. house, I could maybe get a two-bed, one-bath, 400 sq. ft. rental in the city.

I like the space and quiet. I have a big garden. There are birds and animals sharing my garden with me. There isn’t much traffic. There’s still noise on occasions from neighbours but we aren’t so close to each other that it is bothersome often. It’s funny you say you can’t walk anywhere because here we have lots and lots of walking tracks. They just happen to go through trees and nature reserves. I wouldn’t have that in the city. Most things I need are within a 10 minute drive except cultural things like museums, art galleries and the like.

In a perfect life I would also have a city apartment to go to at weekends.

I grew up in suburbs that not only had sidewalks, but we also had tunnels under roads if the corner was far for children to walk to school or the community pool. We had bicycle paths behind the houses and a bus system. Suburbs vary in size and shape around the country. Now I live in a suburb that does not have most of those things, but we do have sidewalks and walking paths that connect many neighborhoods and lead to the local elementary school. I am so far out you wouldn’t walk to any stores though.

Suburbs tend to be more quiet and more green immediately around rather than having to go to a park or designated green space. The flora around feels more tranquil and the air a little fresher.

When you are a kid you can walk right outside and play. You don’t have to walk over to the park or have an adult accompany you (depends on the age). You can have a pool right in your backyard if you want. You can have more privacy depending on where you live.

There are sidewalks in some suburban developments. I like that it’s quieter. I like that it’s cleaner. I like seeing trees and birds and squirrels and bunnies and deer.

Cities are convenient, but for me it’s overstimulation. I can visit for a day or two, but I get overwhelmed by it all.

My second house is in the sticks, and I see a lot of neighbors walking for exercise, which allows them to see other neighbors and be friendly, so I disagree with your premise.
If I lived there, then moved to the city, I would miss the quiet, of course.

I love the city and I love the rural. I am not fond of the inbetween which to me means suburbs. I lived 2.5 hours from anything and it was amazing but I was sick of it after 6 years. 2.5 hour drive to a vet or a dentist is not good especially if it is an emergency. I am in a medium sized town now (by aussie standards, still small by USA standards) and it is boring. Can’t make too much noise at the wrong time of day with my power tools but still a fair drive from a real city.

I think speed bumps are a good idea to slow down the idiots. Throwing a baseball at the windshield of a speeding car is like dropping rocks off the overpass onto the cars below, you can easily kill or maim people. A woman died here not long ago from rocks off the overpass. Of course the perp was a 14 year old so he got a smack on the wrist.

I hate the suburbs almost as much as I hate cities. As I no longer have to choose one of those options, I will be happy in my rural setting.

It turns out I do live in a city. The population is just over 80,000 with no downtown. The City hall is in a remodeled former plant nursery building. In the same block there is a new police station, a new Civic meeting hall and a post office. I doubt the tallest building is more than three stories, I know of one condominium building that tall. It occupies 14.2 square miles in Sacramento County, approximately 15 miles north of the city of Sacramento.

Suburbs here are very different than in the USA. We live in the suburbs but it’s still part of the city. Suburbs are basically the outer edges of the city.
We used to live close to downtown. I don’t miss the noise and hustle at all. The only draw back of being at the edge of the city, right now, is the buses don’t run all day here (the area is still quite new). I like it here but would rather be on an acreage. Still, in my opinion, it’s a giant step up from where we were before.

Suburbs in the UK do have pavements (sidewalks) and streetlights, and usually some public transport to get you to the nearest city. However, they are magnets for burglars and car-thieves, and I do find them to be deathly-dull places to live.

Where I live now is kind of between a suburb and city. It was a suburb 100 years ago. But if money was no object, I’d have a fancy apartment right in the heart of the city.

I’m in the UK and live in a semi suburb. It is a quiet residential district with shops, swimming pool, doctors, dentists and restaurants nearby. It is also convenient for the open countryside and only two miles from the city centre. It feels ideal to me.

I wouldn’t like to live in a modern suburb in the USA. They have no amenities or character and are a ‘desert with windows’. You need a car to get anywhere which is quite depressing.

Always hit the side of the car. I’m out for scaring straight, not killing people. Better their car gets hit than my child.

@flutherother Not all suburbs in the US are like that. I grew up in a master planned community that based it’s plan on the UK. It was considered the second master planned community in the US; Reston, Virginia is considered to be the first. Smaller housing lots and townhouses with centrally located community facilities throughout the town. Some other communities around the US are focusing on building neighborhoods like this again.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the US suburbs are as you described, but there are efforts in some parts of the country to make suburban towns easier to get around without always needing to use a car and many activities and also offer amenities for its residents.

There are lovely suburbs all over the USA. I lived in one which was developed in the 1940’s and I liked it. I walked and cycled everywhere though not many did. It had local shops and restaurants and parks.

The suburbs I am talking about are more recent and were built in the last ten or twenty years and consist of nothing but very large houses and lots of land. They are all over America and are so recent that many don’t even have shrubs or trees in their gardens. There is no evidence of urban planning just endless houses put up by builders. To me they seem soulless and a terrible waste of land.

Indeed, @flutherother

And there are so many restrictions on commercial development in these areas. They set up incredible wasteful strip-malls, then micromanage what’s allowed inside them to the point that you have maybe a large-chain grocery store, a Chinese take-away, a pizza shop, a discount hair salon, an overpriced liquor store likely owned by the grocery, and 17 empty units.

Closest pub? 15–20 minute drive. Yes, drive. Because allowing a pub close enough to the neighborhood to eliminate the need for a car and thus the possibility of drunk driving would make no sense whatsoever.

@flutherother Lack of planning is a pet peeve of mine so I have to agree. Where I live now the metro area grew up in the “my land” orientation without thought to who or what else is around. Now as it has become more populated they are attempting to develop plans and rezoning, but it is a little too after the fact in my opinion. My specific town I live in they will be able to have some positive influence since we are so small and there is still quite a bit of available land.

The community I grew up in has gone down hill a little. Part of the natural cycle of a community I guess, the homes were smaller and fewer upgrades compared to newer construction, so it began to attract lower income families. It’s still beautiful there, if I moved back to the area I would still consider living there, but it doesn’t have the same glory it once did. I think back in the 1950’s and 1960’s the suburbs had a more modest approach to living, and for a while there in recent history it got out of control.

@wundayatta I wholeheartedly share your sentiments.
Suburbs are perhaps the worst for teenagers. It’s ironic that [most] parents think the opposite.
In nearly all suburbs, teenagers must learn to drive. Guess what demographic is most at risk for car accidents?
You want a teenager to learn the value of work? Well, they have to get a job that they will most likely have to drive to. How will they get there? A car. Where will they get this car? How will they finance it? By working. And how do we get to work again? Most suburban parents cannot lug their children back and forth to jobs.
Carpooling might work, but who wants to when you’re working for money for college and have to pay your own gas?
That’s one aspect that has driven me absolutely insane while living in the suburbs.

I miss Philadelphia.

@Seek_Kolinahr – that is an excellent example for your child! Who pays for the damage to the vehicle?

Who’d pay for the damage to my son when those assholes mow him down for daring to ride his bicycle on a 20 mph roadway?

The guy driving the car I would assume. But I am not disagreeing that speeding in residential areas is bad, but I really don’t think chucking stuff at the car is a good idea. Your actions could cause the drive of that car to have a potentially fatal accident. If he veers off the road into someone’s house and kills some other kid, whose fault would that be?

@rooeytoo The police won’t stay and watch, even if you give them a time frame (like 5:15pm – 5:30pm), it’s very difficult to see the same perp every day, same time, not heeding children playing in the street. I think it’s an interesting idea really.

Don’t worry – they wreck into other people’s houses without my help. One guy on my old street had to replace his fence three times in one year due to the drunken teenaged idiots in their mud boggin’ trucks, driving circles around the neighborhood at all hours of the day and night. And there’s a reason we used baseballs against the doors instead of tack strips against the tires. The tack strip was tempting. But dangerous.

Also, remember that this isn’t us lying in wait for people to come down the road. This is my husband and I standing in the front yard while our toddler plays. We did, actually, play catch. And if some douche came careening down the road at 50+, I’d “miss” the catch. Oops. Maybe it’d hit the truck, maybe it’d fly right over, maybe it’d hit the road… It’s a deterrent, not a nuclear warhead.

Can you not lobby your local council for traffic calming measures? I don’t like them but a number of estates over here have installed such measures to stop rat running and speeding through residential areas.

Well, I don’t live there anymore, but it was a private road. Any calming measures would have to be a) agreed upon by 90% of the residents on the road, b) permitted at the expense of the petitioner, and c) paid for in full by the residents themselves.

That’s not happening.

In Australia everyone has a smart phone with a camera. They take pics and vids of everything. I would take pics of license plates and vids of them speeding through your street and supply them to the police. People are getting dobbed in here daily for such things as well as talking and texting while driving.

I cannot believe that you are defending your actions regardless of what prompted them. Throwing a baseball at a speeding car is pretty tricky as you say, it could go anywhere like through the window and into the guy’s head. Could you justify his death. No a baseball isn’t a nuclear warhead but neither is a rock dropped from an overpass as the teens do here but it kills people nonetheless.

I made my choice. It stopped the speeders, stopped the destruction of the fences along the road, and no one died.

End justified the means, in this case.

I live in the suburbs of a city that has only 18000 citizens. The closest big city is Buffalo New York and the other is Pittsburgh Pa. Since they are both more than 100 miles away moving into our small city would make little difference to me.

I like Pittsburgh but the street patterns are an anathema to me. Block in Pittsburgh have 3,4,5, and 6 corners. I have aimed for certain places and ended up on a one way boulevard heading out of the city. It usually takes me three tries to hit the address I’m searching for.

You must be superwoman, saved the burbs from the speeders with the toss of one ball. I am impressed. In this day and age, you are lucky the dude didn’t come back to see who dinged his vehicle and beat the crap out of you! But congrats on your outcome. An eye for an eye hey!

And even better, you get to feel superior! Everybody wins.