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Comment by trgn | Hacker News Reader

it's and/and. Suburbanites impose their values on the city (free parking, highways, vote against bikelanes, ...). I don't care if they'd be in their suburbs and just live there. go live in the burbs, be happy, but don't degrade my neighborhood with your cars.

we really can have our cake and eat it, nice cities for the people who prefer them, suburbs for the others, so much room.

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Absolutely this. Every time someone suggests dense urban living or asking for people to pay for their car-dependent life, suburbanites come out of the woodwork and scream and holler that their rights are being taken away. As if the majority of the country isn't suburban sprawl catering to car dependent life. We only have a handful of dense, walkable cities with public transit in the entire country. Suburbanites have plenty of places to choose from, literally anywhere else outside of NYC, Chicago, SF, and Boston.

As a New Yorker, I'm totally fine with people choosing a suburban life. Do you, I don't care. But don't kill congestion pricing and think you're entitled to drive into the densest part of the United States and park for free in my neighborhood just because. Don't block funding for public transit for 40 years and then complain you need your car because the train is scary to you the two times a year you use it.

congestion pricing in manhattan is the best example. unreal this got shot down by intervention from the governor.

Do non-residents get to vote in your city elections? If not, how are suburbanites imposing their values on your city?

my city has consolidated with the burbs. so anything that benefits the core areas gets no traction because it doesn't immediately benefit the burbs. vice versa, other cities haven't consolidated, and they do have better city amenities.

Those people are your fellow city dwellers then, and deserve to be heard just as much as people in the urban core.

they're not my fellow city dwellers. they've turned their back on city life, live 15-30miles away, rarely if ever visit. it's just an administrative, historical quirk that they have a claim on the city and local politics. other cities have different administrative boundaries, that hug the city proper much closer. Those cities have much better urban amenities (traffic calming, light rail, bikelanes, ...) than mine, because they don't have people who loathe city life have a voice in city matters.

There’s drain effect where as the city gets defunded, people with money and an interest in civic engagement move to the suburbs, and start voting accordingly.

Having kids is a pivotal moment. Suddenly that rich urban life looks like danger for your little ones.

I was an urban kid and we stayed in the city when we had kids, so my kids got to go to a school where the janitor had to arrive early and remove the needles and broken beer bottles from the playground.

Yes, city life is objectively worse for families in most regards.

That's not the fault of the suburbs.

Nope, it's not. But urban hellscapes happen somehow.

I grew up in my city when it was smaller, safer, and more economically varied. Now the middle has hollowed out and we're headed toward Manhattan, where hedge fund managers step over the homeless to get to their penthouse.

It pains me to think that this is inevitable. I don't begrudge anyone moving out of the city. I personally cannot stand the thought of getting in a car to do absolutely anything, but I know lots of people who live that way and are happy.

My city (Seattle) is part of a large county that includes suburbs. My city is also part of a state with a mix of many types of areas. Legislation and budgets happen at all three levels, and because the city is a primary economic engine of the state, others have an interest in dictating what happens in the city.

When your state or county mandates free parking or any of the other complaints the parent poster had, let me know.

yeah luckily seattle (and other cities like tacoma etc) aren't like that.

seattle is always a poster child for this stuff but it really isn't that bad for the upper middle class (anyone with a software job).

it's probably tougher now. but i started my career in seattle proper 10y ago and 2020 was a giant boon. low interest rates, 3k sqft house outside seattle (but still easily drivable to it thanks to reverse commute) for sub-$600k (went under asking) and sub-3% (-> inflation proof)..what a way to spend that salary the 2010s gave me to save up and enjoy the remote career I'd long established.

preparation meets opportunity isn't gonna stop being true even in a "bad" economy.

Province of Ontario literally just passed a bill (212) to rip up already-installed bike lanes in City of Toronto at an estimated taxpayer cost of ~$50MCAD, despite opposition from city residents AND city officials, which is unheard of because municipal infrastructure is outside the scope of the province.

Sounds like the city will appeal and win then.

I recall the state of Indiana was banning dedicated bus lanes. Many of the impositions come from the county and state level.

The political strategy in Ontario was to force amalgamate the cities with the suburbs so that the suburbs could politicaly dominate the cities.

Gross stuff.

You can see at the voting district maps the city of Ottawa for example will 100% vote for a different candidate that all the distant suburbs attached to their municipality and the suburb candidate wins.

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