why are american suburbs so badly designed?

[Sea Skimmer]

we have something like that in america, we call it the Strip Mall. Examples of the badly designed suburban places that pop up when you drive down one of these oversized roads.

I dont know about you, but I've NEVER seen a strip mall in America that didn't have sidewalks connecting the stores all together or at least into several large blocks which you could still walk inbetween. Whatever place Wong mentioned sounds far worse then this.

[General Soontir Fel]

4. No transit? Because there is this misconception that busses/subways/light rail are all for the poor/crazy homeless. Do you want to be rubbing elbows with the poor and homeless? If not, than don't ride the bus!

To be honest, as far as the crazy part is, they're right. In my experience, about one time in three that I get on a bus or train, there's going to be someone aboard talking about a)aliens, b)government conspiracies, c)God, or d)all of the above. Granted, this is my experience in the SF Bay Area and Greater LA public transit systems. I've learned to tune this out and simply read my book, but I can see that it would be extremely uncomfortable for someone with kids (these people tend to have a love affair with the word "fuck").

It seems that city designers wish to isolate shopping, employment (comercial/industrial) and housing.

Why? If the place of employment is a factory spewing smoke and chemicals, that makes sense, but a modern office? What's wrong with being able to have malls, offices, houses, and schools all within walking distance? A big negative consequence of this planning the presense of residential neighborhoods right next to major highways. It's dirty, it's noisy, and it's more dangerous for the kids.

My family lives in a rather nice suburb, where I could get to almost anywhere by bike (it would take forever on foot, but riding is OK). Still, there are some places where, while it's possible to get by bike, it's not advisable for an inexperienced rider to try.

And yes, places with no sidewalks or bike lanes really suck.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

It seems that city designers wish to isolate shopping, employment (comercial/industrial) and housing.

I've noticed. It's called Land Use Planning.

Houston doesn't have it, so all i need to find a commercial area is walk a short distance. In fact, it's so good like that that you may very well live in the shadow of a huge skyscraper no matter what part of town your in, all within walking distance. I've no opinion of the bus system (aka the Metro), but it seems nice and comprehensive.

Houston also has a very good bicycle environment as well, with bike lanes everywhere, people always using them, and 'Share the Road' signs where there isn't a bike path. Unfortunately my bicycle is eight counties away, and Dave's still jittery about that attempted vehicular homicide back in New Orleans that resulted in my old bike getting totaled.

[Dennis Toy]

Dennis Toy wrote:


My problem is that the area in question is badly designed. You have to literaly walk beside a highway and around oversized streets to get to the mall.



No, you don't. You have to walk under the parkway overpass. And even if you didn't want to do that, and you wanted to get to the mall, you could have walked your ass out and taken one of the courtesy shuttle buses.

thats what I do everytime. The shuttlebuses would be great if they actually had any that went to the mall,

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Dennis Toy wrote:


My problem is that the area in question is badly designed. You have to literaly walk beside a highway and around oversized streets to get to the mall.



No, you don't. You have to walk under the parkway overpass. And even if you didn't want to do that, and you wanted to get to the mall, you could have walked your ass out and taken one of the courtesy shuttle buses.

thats what I do everytime. The shuttlebuses would be great if they actually had any that went to the mall,

How far is the shuttlebus stop from the mall?

[Dennis Toy]

it stops on the street next to the mall however it doesn't go into the mall parking lot. When you get off the bus you have to walk about 50 yards to the mall.

[Aeolus]

Look at those new suiburban "power centres" that are replacing shopping malls. A "power centre" is a collection of large big-box stores that are arranged around a huge parking lot. In essence, they took the traditional shopping mall and turned it inside out. Whereas the old shopping mall was centred around the mall, the new "power centre" is centred around the parking lot. The parking lot is literally the central feature of the modern "power centre". That tells you how far "car culture" has gone; it's ridiculous. Modern power centres are so shitty for a walking browser that I've seen people get in their cars and drive to the opposite end of the giant central parking lot in order to continue their shopping.

Have you ever read "Edge City" by Joel Garreau? He discusses the design of suburbs, malls and the like. They have a "rule" called the 600 feet rule. If someone has to go more than 600 feet the will attemt to go to thier car and drive. So developers try and design malls so that customers cannot see how far they have to walk. I imagine that it is harder to do that with outdoor power centers.

[Dartzap]

Atleast your suburbs were designed, the majority of 'burbs around here were just a pile of stone plonked down by a load of drunk fishermen. For 18 years I've had to walk up and down this hill without so much as a hint of a pavement

[Lonestar]

it stops on the street next to the mall however it doesn't go into the mall parking lot. When you get off the bus you have to walk about 50 yards to the mall.

Geez, you want me to play the violin for you? Poor guy!

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

it stops on the street next to the mall however it doesn't go into the mall parking lot. When you get off the bus you have to walk about 50 yards to the mall.

...Half a football field. You're screaming about half a football field being too long? The only circumstances I'd consider that so would be three feet of snow on the ground or severe storms with driving rain, high wind, and three lightning bolts a second.

Where I'm from, fifty yards is considered a very short walk, and half a mile is a rather long one. I'd hate to see the environment you're a product of, village idiot.

[Dennis Toy]

Ho...hum....do I have to do this again.

Today i was in a suburb of VA to buy a piece of stereo equipment, I had to walk with that heavy ass thing from there to the Metro and back to DC. In the suburb, there were almost no sidewalks, the streets were like highways and there were barren land between the oversized stores and parking lots. American suburbs are all the same, they look monotonous, nothing but oversized stores and malls. You actually have to drive just to the corner store.

Just why in the hell are suburbs designed this way? Why not design suburbs that hug the city and that are linked by transit?

Dennis Toy wrote:


It was Springfield VA. It has buses and it is linked to the metro with a huge transit center. What i am talking about was that you have to walk aorund the massive highways and the large parking lots and the large Avenues and sidewalk-less places.

now point out where I said anywhere i DON'T like to walk there?

[Dennis Toy]

...Half a football field. You're screaming about half a football field being too long? The only circumstances I'd consider that so would be three feet of snow on the ground or severe storms with driving rain, high wind, and three lightning bolts a second.

Where I'm from, fifty yards is considered a very short walk, and half a mile is a rather long one. I'd hate to see the environment you're a product of, village idiot.

I am the product of an URBAN lifestyle, where walking was a way of life, where walking and carrying large items like groceries and other items are a lifestyle. I love this carless lifestyle ok.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

...Half a football field. You're screaming about half a football field being too long? The only circumstances I'd consider that so would be three feet of snow on the ground or severe storms with driving rain, high wind, and three lightning bolts a second.

Where I'm from, fifty yards is considered a very short walk, and half a mile is a rather long one. I'd hate to see the environment you're a product of, village idiot.

I am the product of an URBAN lifestyle, where walking was a way of life, where walking and carrying large items like groceries and other items are a lifestyle. I love this carless lifestyle ok.

Then why are you complaining about needing to walk fifty yards from the street to the mall, village idiot?

[Dennis Toy]

where DID i complain? I didn't complain. I asked a question? I don't complain unless absoleutly warranted

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

where DID i complain? I didn't complain. I asked a question? I don't complain unless absoleutly warranted

Don't play fucking semantics games with me, village idiot!

thats what I do everytime. The shuttlebuses would be great if they actually had any that went to the mall,

How far is the shuttlebus stop from the mall?

There's no reason to believe that was anything but a thinly veiled complaint. No fuck off and stop hijacking your own fucking thread!

[Dennis Toy]

you know what? I'm not gonna debate you.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

you know what? I'm not gonna debate you.

Concession accepted, village idiot. So you're essentially going to take your ball and go home just because the big bad gay guy won't let you do stupid things with it? You are indeed a child.

[Dennis Toy]

man your funny! you should get up on stage.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

man your funny! you should get up on stage.

Man you're spamming! Maybe you should get a ban poll.

[Shinova]

Erhem, anyway, my suburban town, although really great, does have one thing that boggles my mind. It's a walmart supercenter. Really. Freakin. Huge.

The hugeness doesn't bother me. A store like that would be really convenient somewhere near the town center, where a lot of people congregate and shop. I imagine it'd get loads of customers too.

But that's the thing. It's not in the town center. It's far away from the urban sector of town. In fact, it's attached near the end of a deep and isolated road surrounded by what seem like truck warehouses, some machine shops of some kind, and so on. No other stores. When I mean no, I mean NO, as in nothing else for at least a couple of miles in any direction. And no houses or any other residences either.

It's a giant walmart super center sitting in the middle of practically nowhere. The entirety of the road's traffic is made up of walmart customers. And maybe the occasional semi dropping at some station or going off.

It's silly. But that's not it's biggest offense. Oh no, the best is served for last.










Right next to that walmart super center is an equally enormous Sam's Club.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Right next to that walmart super center is an equally enormous Sam's Club.

I've never seen a Sam's anywhere but next to Walmart in my quarter-century of life. No matter what the city.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I usually see the Sams next to the Wal-Mart too, but aren't they owned by the same company? I thought Sams was just a retail bulk store version of Walmart.


Edit: on topic, we got a lot of massive shopping centres near where I live. There's one called the "Hamilton Plaza" that's absolutly, ridiculously huge. If you tried walking from one place to the next, you would leave the zip code.

That or you would die trying, because the traffic between sections is horrific and there are no crosswalks that I have found. I tried to walk it one time, and I felt like frogger.

[Erik von Nein]

Erhem, anyway, my suburban town, although really great, does have one thing that boggles my mind. It's a walmart supercenter. Really. Freakin. Huge.

The hugeness doesn't bother me. A store like that would be really convenient somewhere near the town center, where a lot of people congregate and shop. I imagine it'd get loads of customers too.

But that's the thing. It's not in the town center. It's far away from the urban sector of town. In fact, it's attached near the end of a deep and isolated road surrounded by what seem like truck warehouses, some machine shops of some kind, and so on. No other stores. When I mean no, I mean NO, as in nothing else for at least a couple of miles in any direction. And no houses or any other residences either.

It's a giant walmart super center sitting in the middle of practically nowhere. The entirety of the road's traffic is made up of walmart customers. And maybe the occasional semi dropping at some station or going off.

Of course. Whoever built the thing, most likely, would have loved to have built the thing in the middle of the town. The city planners, backed by enough advocates (well, voters that would most likely vote them out of office) denied them of even getting near their downtown (or city center, whichever).

The same thing happened in my town; the biggest construction company in town wanted to build a Home Depot in town. The city flat out refused to let it anywhere near downtown. The reason? "It'll destroyed our downtown's unique culture!" Never mind that it would be in walking/biking distance of one of the city's biggest residential populations (college students) and right along all of the city bus lines or that the "unique culture" consists of dozens of small clothing stores and (more recently) chain clothing stores and beauty supply/salons, as well as a bunch of bars and a half-dozen resturants. So, now it's all being built at the edge of the city (along with a bunch of other big box stores) while increasing traffic along an already heavily travelled major road, decreasing farming/ranching land and, to top it all off, the city isn't even getting any of the tax revenue, since the owner had to go to the county to get it built. Of course, now the city's making a big effort to annex the land, now that it's hugely profitable.

Point is, the majority of the people who pushed that developement out where heavily liberal, anti-growth (supposedly) enviromentalists. Yet, because of their actions it's now increasing pollution and growth. Their latest efforts? To fight a multi-use hotel/housing/commercial building in the downtown area because it'll be greater than 3-stories tall. It'd be compact, convient and attrach more tourism and decrease the need for tourists to drive (all the hotels currently are on the outskirts of town). But, no; it'll destroy that "unique culture" again.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

Erhem, anyway, my suburban town, although really great, does have one thing that boggles my mind. It's a walmart supercenter. Really. Freakin. Huge.

The hugeness doesn't bother me. A store like that would be really convenient somewhere near the town center, where a lot of people congregate and shop. I imagine it'd get loads of customers too.

But that's the thing. It's not in the town center. It's far away from the urban sector of town. In fact, it's attached near the end of a deep and isolated road surrounded by what seem like truck warehouses, some machine shops of some kind, and so on. No other stores. When I mean no, I mean NO, as in nothing else for at least a couple of miles in any direction. And no houses or any other residences either.

It's a giant walmart super center sitting in the middle of practically nowhere. The entirety of the road's traffic is made up of walmart customers. And maybe the occasional semi dropping at some station or going off.

It's silly. But that's not it's biggest offense. Oh no, the best is served for last.










Right next to that walmart super center is an equally enormous Sam's Club.

Pfft, We have three Walmart Supercenters, a Target Greatland (Target's answer to the Supercenter) a Sam's club (characteristically located next to one of the the Walmarts, the one in fact closest to the Target)
and two of your garden variety super markets.


All within the five square miles I walk as part of my regular weekly routine (not a five mile square, but rather, a boot shaped plot four miles north/south, one mile wide with an extra square mile tacked to the north east corner)

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I have to admit, being from the UK whenver I have seen American suburbs on TV or visited them I am appalled by how inefficiently they use space. They always seems to be based around a single (or several parallel) long straight stretches of road leading out of the cities with houses, small shops and services just dotted along the whole length at random, but behind those shops there is often vast unused area.

Also we do have retail parks, but generally they are far smaller than even the modest sized ones I have seen in America; you usually see about 3 or 4 big stores here taking up the kind of space a single Walmart would take up.