NationStates Jolt Archive

*Sung to the tune of "America the Beautiful" by Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel ward*

Oh urban sprawl
From mall to mall
You've made us lose our way

They build one more
New Wal Mart store
And Target right next door

America
America
God shed his grace on thee

But we mock her
With Foot Locker
From sea to shining sea

*pissed off lyrics by Dragontide*

How did we get in this mess? If your driving through America, you better know all the sports colors & mascots or you won't know where the hell you are.

I absolutely despise the practice of building cities for cars, rather than for people.

cities are so boring,

They need more Trees.

And waterslides.

I hate urban sprawl. Then again, I also really dislike car culture. It caused us to build in a really short-sighted manner. Of course, part of that is I resent that they're paving over some of the best agricultural land in the country (the California Central Valley) to build tract houses.

How did we get in this mess?

for sprawl itself: massive subsidies for car culture, fucked up zoning laws, and white people running away from the scary darkies

for homogenization: economies of scale

I think that is the big problem for America, I do not think many people where I'm from buy into the idea, but it would explain a lot (global warming, housing crisis, war in Iraq, gas prices, the redneck agenda, etc.) As Greenday says: I don't wanna be an American Idiot.

*Sung to the tune of "America the Beautiful" by Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel ward*

[i]Oh urban sprawl
From mall to mall
You've made us lose our way
<snip>

I nominate this our new national anthem.

I nominate this our new national anthem.

The more I watch McCain supporters, the more I think the national anthem should be "Kill the Poor"

I remember going to Kansas when I was 12 to visit my dad's hometown for a reunion ( a town of approximately 250 people). It was the first time in my life I'd ever seen a town take shape on the horizon. I felt lost outside of it, like floating in international waters--okay, but what city are we in now?

*Sung to the tune of "America the Beautiful" by Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel ward*

Oh urban sprawl
From mall to mall
You've made us lose our way

They build one more
New Wal Mart store
And Target right next door

America
America
God shed his grace on thee

But we mock her
With Foot Locker
From sea to shining sea

*pissed off lyrics by Dragontide*

How did we get in this mess? If your driving through America, you better know all the sports colors & mascots or you won't know where the hell you are.

Dragontide, you are damn near my personal hero for this.

Can I immortalize this in a work of art??

Dragontide, you are damn near my personal hero for this.

Can I immortalize this in a work of art??

*blushes*

*blushes*

I'm serious...

I'm serious...

Is it that good? With my copmlements then. :wink:

Is it that good? With my copmlements then. :wink:

expect something soon...

expect something soon...

:)

Enjoy!

I remember going to Kansas when I was 12 to visit my dad's hometown for a reunion ( a town of approximately 250 people). It was the first time in my life I'd ever seen a town take shape on the horizon. I felt lost outside of it, like floating in international waters--okay, but what city are we in now?

Yeah... even going to Chicago was a bit weird for me. Being from the Bay Area, I never think of cities/towns rising from the horizon. I think of seeing them for the first time coming over some mountains or some such. Even Sacramento, though kinda cool, would bother me a bit to live in. I just don't like being in places that are too flat for too far around.

What inspired me to start this thread was a Super Target Center that was built right across the street from a Super Wal Mart Center. During the last mayor's race, the mayor braged about the new Target Super Center in the debate......She lost the election.
:tongue:

My daughter is stationed at Mountain Home AFB. She periodically drives to Mountain Home or Boise to find things not readily available on the Base (like good coffee and bookstores). According to her, Wal-Mart and Sears are the social centers of Mountain Home. I can think of only one town that doesn't have a Wal-Mart - Plankinton, SD (Pop. @600). Scary.

People like suburbs.

Actually sprawl wouldn't be such a big deal if big cities weren't such asshats about development. But places like NYC only really serve the rich and the poor (with a smattering of lazy civil servants for good measure), so exurban migration is inevitable.

If people were serious about combating sprawl, they'd push to clean metro governments up. Won't hold my breath though: and in the mean time, the middle class can go fuck themselves I suppose.

My newest thing is to become an urban developer-type person. I met Majora Carter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majora_Carter) and Arjun Makhijani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjun_Makhijani) recently (I love my college) and they've convinced me that urban areas can be pretty sexy in a number of ways, if redesigned properly. Hurray for ending urban sprawl!

Another thing urban sprawl has done is destroy broadcast radio. This is really annoying if you like classic rock. You have one company that owns half the radio stations in the country so if your traveling you not only hear the same songs from state to state but actually in the same order.

Another thing urban sprawl has done is destroy broadcast radio. This is really annoying if you like classic rock. You have one company that owns half the radio stations in the country so if your traveling you not only hear the same songs from state to state but actually in the same order.

Makes it hard to find an NPR station anywhere anymore...:(

This is what happens when one lives in a corporate controled fascism

Sprawlburbia is one of our modern visions of hell, as far as I'm concerned. And it was expressly invented as a "visionary" lifestyle by certain individuals whose visions do not appeal to me, most notably ExxonMobil, GM and their ilk, and architects such as Robert Moses (a son of a bitch of the highest order, imho).

Try Living in the UK. Tesco has managed to Create Urban Sprawl all by itself...

so are y'all living in or planning to live in big apartment complexes in the city?

im really not interested in living like spam in a can.

Why do we need all these suburbs? Either live in town or live in a village!

so are y'all living in or planning to live in big apartment complexes in the city?

im really not interested in living like spam in a can.
Native New Yorker here. This spam will kick your out-of-town, cul-de-sac-livin' ass any day of the week, beyotch. :D

I currently live in a fabulous huge apartment in a converted Victorian house on nice tree-lined street in the most useless fucking excuse of a neighborhood, and it suits me just fine. I don't like not seeing people around me. It makes me paranoid.

EDIT: Any place where you have to drive to get a quart of milk is barbaric. And I've seen Deliverance.

I hate urban sprawl. Then again, I also really dislike car culture. It caused us to build in a really short-sighted manner. Of course, part of that is I resent that they're paving over some of the best agricultural land in the country (the California Central Valley) to build tract houses.

Like Anaheim. Easily the best citrus-growing land in the USA, all paved by suburbia: where they cut down the trees and name the streets after them.

so are y'all living in or planning to live in big apartment complexes in the city?

im really not interested in living like spam in a can.

Swing and a miss.

I'm in a city of 300,000 (Spokane) and I live in a flat downtown at about 750 square feet for $635/mo. If you think this size is a Spam can for one person, you have claustrophobia to a degree that is alarming.

O beautiful for smoggy skies
Insecticided grain
For strip-mined mountains' majesty
Above the asphalt plain

America, America
Man sheds his waste on thee
And hides the pines with billboard signs
From sea to oily sea.


God I miss Carlin.

People like having yards.

People like having yards.

We do? News to me.

We do? News to me.

Do you need qualifiers for everything in order to grasp that something might not refer to you? Fine. Some people like to have yards. Is that better?

I can't stand the suburbs. They're just so horrible. I'm a big city person through and through. I love NYC so much.

What the hell is this crap? You complain that its so horrible here in America, and yet, it is a thousand times better than 80% of the world. Every signle America should be ready and willing to die and to kill for this country. Not for its government, but for its people, its history, and its culture. We have taken the best, and the most hardworking from the entire world and brought them together into the greatest people on earth. There are no African Americans, no Asian Americans, no Hispanic Americans, only Americans. The second you become a citizen, you are an American.

Be thankful for what you have, and quit whining.

Suburbs are lame as hell; we need to build upwards, not outwards! There's a town about an hour from where I live that had a massive housing boom for a while, and it's the ugliest goddamn thing I've seen in years. To top it all off, they destroyed some of the best farmland in the state in order to build those horrid, identical houses.

Last time I drove through there about a third of those awful houses were for sale.

The suburbs kick the shit out the city any day. Cities are ugly, dirty, filled with rotten people, loud, and too damn crowded.

Urban sprawl is lame, but I'll take it if the only other option is living in a fucking city.

What the hell is this crap? You complain that its so horrible here in America, and yet, it is a thousand times better than 80% of the world. Every signle America should be ready and willing to die and to kill for this country. Not for its government, but for its people, its history, and its culture. We have taken the best, and the most hardworking from the entire world and brought them together into the greatest people on earth.
We've also been the cause of a lot of suffering around the world, both for our own self interests and the interests of others. We're not saints, nor should we excuse our sins, as it were.

And we can improve ourselves quite a bit yet.


There are no African Americans, no Asian Americans, no Hispanic Americans, only Americans. The second you become a citizen, you are an American.


Of everything you said, I can agree with this by far, though possibly in a different sense. It's an attitude I think we should all take, really. Of all the countries of the world, we're one of the very few that unite so many cultures and ethnicities, etc, into one nation.

We weren't exactly founded that way--while we had a number of ethnicities, they were only specific European ones--but we developed that way, and I like that.

Be thankful for what you have, and quit whining.
Oh, pish-tosh. It's not whining to point out the faults in our society and in our country--of which there are many. It's not whining to want to do something to change it. It's not whining to point out that we can't keep doing what we're doing the way we're doing it forever.

We should be thankful for what we have, but that doesn't mean we can't try to improve it. That is, after all, the basis of the American dream, isn't it? Improving yourself and your country, making it the best place it can be?

Suburbs are lame as hell; we need to build upwards, not outwards! There's a town about an hour from where I live that had a massive housing boom for a while, and it's the ugliest goddamn thing I've seen in years. To top it all off, they destroyed some of the best farmland in the state in order to build those horrid, identical houses.

Last time I drove through there about a third of those awful houses were for sale.

Don't you have Agricultural Land Reserves?

We've also been the cause of a lot of suffering around the world, both for our own self interests and the interests of others. We're not saints, nor should we excuse our sins, as it were.

And we can improve ourselves quite a bit yet.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For every "good" one does, there will always an evil one to match it.

No, we're not saints. I never said we were. But the sins of our past are exactly that, the past. We can't change what we did, and no matter how "evil" or "cruel" those sins are viewed, made us thbe country and people we are today.


Of everything you said, I can agree with this by far, though possibly in a different sense. It's an attitude I think we should all take, really. Of all the countries of the world, we're one of the very few that unite so many cultures and ethnicities, etc, into one nation.

We weren't exactly founded that way--while we had a number of ethnicities, they were only specific European ones--but we developed that way, and I like that.



Oh, pish-tosh. It's not whining to point out the faults in our society and in our country--of which there are many. It's not whining to want to do something to change it. It's not whining to point out that we can't keep doing what we're doing the way we're doing it forever.

We should be thankful for what we have, but that doesn't mean we can't try to improve it. That is, after all, the basis of the American dream, isn't it? Improving yourself and your country, making it the best place it can be?

Yes, we can always improve. What I was getting at is the Americans that are always complaining on how ebil our country is. The ones that pretend to have convictions, but avoid violence. For people with real convictions, violence is inevitable. If they really believed it, they would do more than whine on the interwebs, like so many cows in a feed lot.

Last time I drove through there about a third of those awful houses were for sale.

Have you not noticed this subprime mortgage crisis the US is currently suffering from, which combined with credit crunch means foreclosures are up and sales are down. Its not that no-one wants the houses... its that no-one can afford them.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For every "good" one does, there will always an evil one to match it.

No, we're not saints. I never said we were. But the sins of our past are exactly that, the past. We can't change what we did, and no matter how "evil" or "cruel" those sins are viewed, made us thbe country and people we are today.
Well, I guess that's a point, in a sense. So long as we acknowledge they were mistakes, faults, etc, that'll be good enough.


Yes, we can always improve. What I was getting at is the Americans that are always complaining on how ebil our country is. The ones that pretend to have convictions, but avoid violence. For people with real convictions, violence is inevitable. If they really believed it, they would do more than whine on the interwebs, like so many cows in a feed lot.

Violence is not inevitable, and I decry your attempt to call all protests as automatically violent.

And here's the thing: if we're always complaining, maybe we should actually try changing some policies?

Have you not noticed this subprime mortgage crisis the US is currently suffering from, which combined with credit crunch means foreclosures are up and sales are down. Its not that no-one wants the houses... its that no-one can afford them.

I thought it was because no one is selling at the right price. For example if they get put down to a few thousand dollars i think i might buy 10 American houses to live in. If someone wants to sell their house back for a profit they are out of luck

Do you need qualifiers for everything in order to grasp that something might not refer to you? Fine. Some people like to have yards. Is that better?

No. Just when someone makes a sweeping generalization without taking into consideration how much of a pain in the ass a yard is unless you've got the money to pay for someone else to keep up with it.

So yeah, that is better.

What the hell is this crap? You complain that its so horrible here in America, and yet, it is a thousand times better than 80% of the world. Every signle America should be ready and willing to die and to kill for this country. Not for its government, but for its people, its history, and its culture. We have taken the best, and the most hardworking from the entire world and brought them together into the greatest people on earth. There are no African Americans, no Asian Americans, no Hispanic Americans, only Americans. The second you become a citizen, you are an American.

Be thankful for what you have, and quit whining.

Of for cryin' out loud. Who said "it's horrible here in America", huh? WHO? You can take that knee-jerk reaction and blow it out your gazoo.

The thread is about suburban sprawl, okay? Can you comprehend that, or has your "America, love it or leave it" had blocked out all rational thought?

I love my country, but I think it's time we start seeing other people.

I thought it was because no one is selling at the right price. For example if they get put down to a few thousand dollars i think i might buy 10 American houses to live in. If someone wants to sell their house back for a profit they are out of luck

And deservedly so, given that houses are places to live, and using them for investment vehicles is asking for...well...what we've got now. Housing values SHOULD go down when they're overinflated. Assuming that they'll always increase in value is willfully ignoring what little fundamental truth there is in economics.

And deservedly so, given that houses are places to live, and using them for investment vehicles is asking for...well...what we've got now. Housing values SHOULD go down when they're overinflated. Assuming that they'll always increase in value is willfully ignoring what little fundamental truth there is in economics.

Unlike stocks, housing is a physical asset whose demand is based on population growth; the price can only go up so much because there's a finite number of people capable of and willing to purchase a house. That market simply doesn't have the growth potential to make it a good short-term investment; now, holding a house for decades and improving it can make it a good lifetime investment, but not something to flip in a matter of months or weeks.

I don't see the problem with urban sprawl, malls, Wal Mart/Target, or development in general. I used to be really into nostalgia. Not so much now. I've moved on. I like the one-stop shopping that malls offer, I like having a Barnes & Noble in the same building as Sears and food court with affordable cuisine from around the globe.

People like suburbs.

Actually sprawl wouldn't be such a big deal if big cities weren't such asshats about development. But places like NYC only really serve the rich and the poor (with a smattering of lazy civil servants for good measure), so exurban migration is inevitable.

If people were serious about combating sprawl, they'd push to clean metro governments up. Won't hold my breath though: and in the mean time, the middle class can go fuck themselves I suppose.

Care to expand? Different cities have vastly different approaches to development, some of which have resulted in worse sprawl than others. Exurban migration is inevitable because of evolving transportation technology, no matter what the class structure of your city is, but sometimes you get sprawlapalooza (Atlanta, where if you work downtown you better leave by 2:30 on Halloween if you want to take your kids trick-or-treating) and sometimes you get something approaching sanity (DC exurbia.)

I don't see the problem with urban sprawl, malls, Wal Mart/Target, or development in general. I used to be really into nostalgia. Not so much now. I've moved on. I like the one-stop shopping that malls offer, I like having a Barnes & Noble in the same building as Sears and food court with affordable cuisine from around the globe.

That makes sense, as you've mentioned that you hate everybody you come into contact with as they're all drooling morons. I like knowing who my neighbors are, even if I'm not really friends with them. To each his own.

Have you not noticed this subprime mortgage crisis the US is currently suffering from, which combined with credit crunch means foreclosures are up and sales are down. Its not that no-one wants the houses... its that no-one can afford them.

Yes, I'm well aware of it; honestly, how can anyone not have heard of the crisis?

I have no problems with urban sprawl, because to this day, any attempt to curtail it has merely resulted in housing becoming unaffordable, as a quick search on Demographia should indicate.

Unlike stocks, housing is a physical asset whose demand is based on population growth; the price can only go up so much because there's a finite number of people capable of and willing to purchase a house. That market simply doesn't have the growth potential to make it a good short-term investment; now, holding a house for decades and improving it can make it a good lifetime investment, but not something to flip in a matter of months or weeks.

Which is what folks had been doing (didn't TLC have a show called "Flip This House"?), and it is for them that my sympathy is largely absent.

I don't see the problem with urban sprawl, malls, Wal Mart/Target, or development in general. I used to be really into nostalgia. Not so much now. I've moved on. I like the one-stop shopping that malls offer, I like having a Barnes & Noble in the same building as Sears and food court with affordable cuisine from around the globe.

Mall food isn't cuisine. It's penance.

In fairness, I don't really understand how ANYBODY could possibly want to live in the subburbs. Ireland is developing them at a frightening pace (or at least, it used to until about a year ago), and they give me the creeps.

They combine the worst of both worlds : you are far away from the towns or cities, so there is no real infratructure like shops, pubs, cinemas, theatres, or even a decent bus link.
Yet you are not in the country, you live in one big heap with hundreds or even thousands of others, with nosey neighbours left, right and centre.
It's a nightmare.

In fairness, I don't really understand how ANYBODY could possibly want to live in the subburbs. Ireland is developing them at a frightening pace (or at least, it used to until about a year ago), and they give me the creeps.

They combine the worst of both worlds : you are far away from the towns or cities, so there is no real infratructure like shops, pubs, cinemas, theatres, or even a decent bus link.
Yet you are not in the country, you live in one big heap with hundreds or even thousands of others, with nosey neighbours left, right and centre.
It's a nightmare.

This somewhat puffy article (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime) in the March '08 Atlantic mentions some interesting changes in residential development -- specifically, building a walkable downtown along with the residences, a "lifestyle center" that will contain said pubs, cinemas, & theatres.

But developers are also starting to find ways to bring the city to newer suburbs—and provide an alternative to conventional, car-based suburban life. “Lifestyle centers”—walkable developments that create an urban feel, even when built in previously undeveloped places—are becoming popular with some builders. They feature narrow streets and small storefronts that come up to the sidewalk, mixed in with housing and office space. Parking is mostly hidden underground or in the interior of faux city blocks.
.....
Building lifestyle centers is far more complex than building McMansion developments (or malls). These new, faux-urban centers have many moving parts, and they need to achieve critical mass quickly to attract buyers and retailers. As a result, during the 1990s, lifestyle centers spread slowly. But real-estate developers are gaining more experience with this sort of building, and it is proliferating. Very few, if any, regional malls are being built these days—lifestyle centers are going up instead.

Mall food isn't cuisine. It's penance.
You know how it is when you're hungry, anything tastes good.

The one big problem I have with malls is that they're too often too full. Except the book, game, and hobby shops. Those are pretty vacant most of the year.