Replies

Not one mention of the infill high density transportation hub projects that are partially funded by the feds. They promise to be the slums of the future. Imagine being able to step onto a BART train from your front door, mug somebody and then make it home before your crack dealer even misses you.

What people want is the FACADE of urban life mixed with a FACADE of country life. They want the convenience of urbania, but the solitude of the country. The problem is most of suburbanites are ignorant of how a society works, esp where their food comes from. This pisses me off that they move to country-side, then whine whine whine about the lack of services, then try to change rules and the lifestyle of the country with no regard for the people who are already there, and in the end, create the same mess they ran away from. Fools.

See, here is what is disgusting about the above picture picture: all of the houses are so jammed together that there is no room for any thing but cluttered boxes kicked across a landscape. In no way whatsoever will that parcel of land ever look attractive.

What these places could really learn is from the examples of the old Atlanta suburbs (and what Atlanta should really learn about its past). Where you have a whole city canopied in pines. Suburban, yes, but on larger lots with lots of landscaping. It really makes all of the difference in the world. Very quiet, beautiful residential streets as opposed to pulling into a cubicle maze.

Or then you have places like some of the newer suburbs in southern Calfornia that require 50% of the land to be green space. You have many a home with a few in that case, you create places to go mountan biking, hiking, jogging, etc... Lots of rooms for parks or natural environments. It's really a nice mix of urbanization/preservation.

Not perfect, but certainly an improvement over the Boxland you see in so many suburbs.

The health of this suburban configuration, so widely detested in planning and policy circles, may hold the key to the Bay Area's future health. Facing a European-like demographic decline, and losing economic vitality, the Bay Area will need to look to its hinterland for its future growth, if it still has the will to do so, and to house and nurture the next generation of its middle class.

And why are they facing a demographic collapse? Perhaps because they glorify sexual perversion that can not produce children and no sane people want to be surrounded by that much sodomy?

The middle class will never move back into San Fran until the homosexuals die out entirely. Too costly and far too perverse an environemnet to raise children in. Why risk having the kids molested by living in the city when you can commute if you insist on even working there?