Social How much did the formation of suburbs make us more divided?

[Gutter Chris]

The Cities are worse depending on your viewpoint. They're also the economic hubs of every State. Cities undeniably float the existences of small towns and rural communities by providing funding from tax revenue. Yes the farmers feed us, but our farmers are heavily subsidized, where do rural people think that money comes from? The Cities they love to hate. Remember how the entie Country was just freaking out about the longshoremen strike and how it could cripple the economy? What do the Port cities look like? Are they tiny sleepy small communities or are they big bustling cities which we need to receive and then transport goods?

You're right about the sense of division, but the blanket demonization of Cities is also a huge problem with that.

I'm not sure this is true for where I live.

Kinda feel like the rest of Wayne County might be supporting Detroit.

 

[Sinister]

I'm not sure this is true for where I live.

Kinda feel like the rest of Wayne County might be supporting Detroit.

Detroit definitely got hit very very hard both by flight and by disinvestment. From what I've read there have been some improvements in economic recovery from that, with still a ways to go. But its still considered a huge manufacturing center and information hub.

 

[UberHere]

People with the means to move away from crime infested shitholes are always going to do so.

If it wasn't to suburbs, it would be to small towns.

You can't force people to live near criminals.

Not just that. Most people who can afford it like to own property and be able to go outside and not see any neighbors.

 

[flektarn]

You have and raise kids you don't want them in the shitholes that is downtown or in the city for a multitude of reasons.
Your timeline for hoping that voting will fix everything or pouring funds into whatever bullshit program that should fix all the problems shortens drastically at that point and you get the hell out.

 

[Sinister]

Land waste? Have you taken a road trip in the USA? Fucker is huge.

That has nothing to do with wasteful uses of land.

Not just that. Most people who can afford it like to own property and be able to go outside and not see any neighbors.

Then those people should save up to buy an island somewhere

 

[Captain Tenneal]

Ugh this subject has been done to death. The suburbs got whites away from poor minorities, thus I'm grateful for them

You're not supposed to say that part out loud

 

[BreatheSherBro]

Land waste? Have you taken a road trip in the USA? Fucker is huge.

This is a big country, but we are talking about individual towns near major cities. Individual towns have limited amounts of land. Giant parking lots for Walmarts like you see throughout suburbia is a terrible use of land. Especially for a suburban town that is expected to grow due to its proximity to a major city.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

You're not supposed to say that part out loud

Loud and proud!

 

[Limeade]

Amazon.com

 

[UberHere]

That has nothing to do with wasteful uses of land.



Then those people should save up to buy an island somewhere

No need. Plenty of properties on the market.

 

[nostradumbass]

I'm mostly talking about the expansion of the suburbs, government policies that encouraged the expansion of the suburbs, and large numbers of people fleeing cities into the suburbs.

I think there are huge social and political consequences related to that. It created big shifts in demographics. It created people who see themselves as worlds apart from others nearby who are within a couple miles of where they live.

The city of New Orleans has less people than it had 100 years ago. Much of that is due to people leaving to go to the suburbs. Parts of Baton Rouge recently broke off to create the towns of Central and St. George because they don't like the city of Baton Rouge even though that's where most of the people living there work. They want to live in separate suburban communities.

Right, but the starting point wasn't everybody packed into cities, the starting point was most people being rural, and as the economy shifted from agrarian to industrial with more finance and corporate/office jobs, the country urbanized as people moved to cities where a few corporations/industries were.

The negative social consequences were from society becoming more urban in the first place. Having no sense of community because you're surrounded by strangers all day and don't even know 99.999% of your own city isn't a good thing. The billionaires and homeless people already do live in the same cities, along with political corruption, crime, filth. Why would I want to raise kids in an apartment in gangland with bums and junkies everywhere and unusable schools instead of in a smaller community where people know each other, have yards and pets, the schools are better and kids can ride bikes or play sports with friends without having to step in human shit or get knifed by a hobo?

You can't control everything strangers do, so you should at least be able to decide where you live and who you want to surround yourself with.

 

[BreatheSherBro]

Amazon.com

This is free on Audible right now, so I will give it a shot.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

The subject pops up every once in a while. I've looked up the amount of funding inner city schools received vs. suburban schools many times in the past. It's calculated per pupil per year. Schools in poor areas receive more federal dollars to compensate for lower local earnings, and a lot of inner city schools have higher per pupil income than suburban schools. It's a myth that city schools always receive less funding. Some of them do, but many of them are richer than suburban schools, it depends on the area. When inner city schools fail to produce any outcomes of value whatsoever when given plenty of money, the narrative usually turns into "Well, inner city schools have a greater need so they need even more money." It's an equity thing, the idea is to give terrible schools even more money and likely receive poorer outcomes than the suburban school anyway. At which point do you realize that you won't turn iron into gold? I could post a report or two but y'all just assume things and never read anything, so doubt there would be a point.

If we mixed up the student population of both schools, this would eliminate the high-performing schools and the abysmally-performing schools and create a bunch of middling schools, until people decided "Hey, actually, we want a good school" and the two populations split again.

You're right in your first paragraph but wrong on the second one.

There are definitely limits to how much money can improve a school. The thing is, "bad schools" aren't bad because the teachers, administration, facilities, etc. are low quality, they're bad because the students there are REALLY troubled, poor, struggling. Their homes lives are an absolute mess and 8 hours at school don't make up for the 16 hours of garbage they get at home, plus weekends, holidays, and the summer.

But you're wrong in that a mixed population would "eliminate high-performing schools." Yeah, the school averages would go down but high-performing kids would stay high-performing. With growing gentrification there have been studies about how mixed-income schools affect their students and it turns out that low-income kids benefit from being in schools with high-performing kids, not the other way around. High-performing kids by and large come from stable, academically-focused households so just being around low-income kids doesn't affect them.

But low-income kids do benefit from the general improvements in school climate that high-performing kids bring.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Suburbs atomized American citizens to make us more effective consumers for the wealthy class. Made us dependent on cars and got us thinking giant stores we must buy in bulk from are good ideas. Buying groceries this way also creates more food waste in households, because it's better to buy produce fresh as you need it than it is to buy that in bulk and half of it ends up spoiling. There also a tremendous waste of land space, and led to the huge local political problem of NIMBYism, which prevents smarter development that would ease homelessness and poverty.

They're also a huge Ponzi scheme if you look at the money that's wasted in them paying off previous debts with the promise of forever growth that isnt possible.

Yup. The suburbs started as a way for land developers and car manufacturers to make a shit ton of money and they've been shitty ever since.

This is Sherfront so being honest about being bigoted is ok. But even from a strictly economic, non-racial view, the suburbs are a drain. This video (and the entire channel) covers it perfectly:

 

[Belaya Smert]

You think the functioning nuclear family and suburban experience has been detrimental to society. What are you some kind of fucking idiot, TS?

 

[Sinister]

You think the functioning nuclear family and suburban experience has been detrimental to society. What are you some kind of fucking idiot, TS?

Countries who have undone both and are developed Nations rank way higher for happiness than we do, but sure, they're the best things ever

 

[UberHere]

Countries who have undone both and are developed Nations rank way higher for happiness than we do, but sure, they're the best things ever

You sound poor

 

[Belaya Smert]

Countries who have undone both and are developed Nations rank way higher for happiness than we do, but sure, they're the best things ever

Happiness scores….

You couldn’t find any thing more subjectively ridiculous to pull out of your ass. Why don’t you look up two parent households and their relation to crime reduction globally.

 

[Sinister]

Happiness scores….

You couldn’t find any thing more subjectively ridiculous to pull out of your ass. Why don’t you look up two parent households and their relation to crime reduction globally.

Talk about subjectively ridiculous...two-parent households as compared to what? Any other variables in those statistics or do you wanna run with correlation being equivalent to causation? Should I go in on how happiness indexes are also higher in Nations with less crime who also arent as suburbanized as the US is?

The nuclear Family was not some grand movement towards social enlightenment and neither were the suburbs. Housewives from the most idealized period of IS History were habitually wine drunk by 12pm or hopped up on barbiturates due to the misery of their entire identities being someone's wife and Mommy, men were working often so much and so far to get ahead their kids hardly knew them, or they were socially pressured to start families they didnt even want, without the assistance of extended family within the household. The suburbs are incredibly boring, most kids who arent cooped up in their own houses just go to a friend's house and be cooped up in their house until someone's older sibling got a car and could drive them to anywhere interesting, which was always too far to walk:

 

[Sinister]

You sound poor

I dont need to Uber anywhere