You lot all spent your twenties railing against the outdated and unsustainable lifestyles of our parents but now as soon as you sign a pre-nup suddenly you want to go and do the exact same fucking thing.
Leftists are not immune to boomer brainworms I guess. :deeper-sadness:
The wife and two kids in a suburb model is basically the path that has the most social infrastructure. So the alternative is… whatever you can cobble together after you’ve rejected what you find abhorrent. It’s really a feeling of walking upstream
Living in a city is kinda fucked for Americans who want to settle down and/or have kids. Moving to the 'burbs means:
- You're paying vastly less money for vastly more space. You'd be hard pressed to even find something you could make a down payment for in big metro areas for most people, and if you did manage to snag it you'll be paying $3k+/month for the mortgage instead of <$2k/month
- You have access to far better public schools generally. Public schools inside cities are notoriously fucked by arcane property-taxes-become-school-funds shenanigans designed to fuck over the inner cities by racist white people, and while private schools can be really good they can also cost college tuition-level prices
- Your cost-of-living drops dramatically. Groceries, eating out, entertainment, etc are almost always more expensive in dense urban areas, especially since a lot of those are on islands or otherwise in places where it's more difficult to ship stuff in
The only thing you lose out on is public transit which is absolute dogshit even in most major American cities anyway, so unless you live in Chicago/New York/<insert placeholder here for your city so someone from every city in the US doesn't immediately get big mad in my DMs> this is a no-brainer.
It's fucked and ultimately solvable by a society that actually gives enough of a shit to collectively fix it, but for individuals it's hard to lob blame at people.
so unless you live in Chicago/New York/<insert placeholder here for your city so someone from every city in the US doesn’t immediately get big mad in my DMs> this is a no-brainer
Wrong, no American city has good transit.
Bought an asbestos ridden 1960s home in the oldest neighborhood in a suburb of a midsize city. It was the only affordable way to escape being hounded by landlords. I’d love to live in the city but it’s 2-3x more expensive and even then I would have to drive a car everywhere as the “mass transit” here is a 2 mile straight line that only connects a few affluent areas.
I’m trying to do my part however by refusing to mow the lawn until it gets to the point they can fine me. I’m also looking into violets as an alternative ground cover.
I’m trying to do my part however by refusing to mow the lawn until it gets to the point they can fine me. I’m also looking into violets as an alternative ground cover.
Incredibly based
Idk what city you're talking about but it sorta makes sense, a lot of the time it's way more expensive to buy a home In a city. Going to the suburbs is significantly cheaper. Although I like living in the city and I don't have nearly enough money to buy a house lol
As a suburbanite communist, I'll give my take. In a vacuum, yes you are not wrong, we definitely shouldn't prefer to live in suburbs. But, we live in America, and America very much encourages moving to the suburbs due to:
- School districts and how funds are raised
- Lots more open space
- Lots more housing development going on (more to choose from)
- Housing prices in city are insane
- All infrastructure is built around cars anyways
It definitely sucks in many ways, mostly that its absolutely not walkable and I need to drive to get anywhere. If I lived in a better country, I'd definitely move to a more urban area if I could.
It's literally the path of least resistance materially. It would be weirder if they didn't end up doing it.
It's the "in the suburbs" that's the biggest thing here. It'd be different if they were thinking of like buying a two flat with another couple, but we're talking 80's movie suburban houses with like three floors and as many bathrooms for two people and an infant.
Before WW2 and before private homeownership got big, it was really common in US cities for whole extended families, even whole communities, to live in the same apartment building. One person would be the de jure landlord but everyone would be a de facto part-owner of the building. That's how my grandparents grew up. I hope that's something that makes a comeback for millenials, zoomers and their kids.
Yeah let's bring this back.
Also let's make it a green-roofed apartment building with strawbale insulation and lime plaster, and a couple shared rooms. Plus shared cars.
Super high density but no worries about parking or noise, more yard space on the roof.
All we'd have to do is fight the code enforcement people.
it's not brain worms to want a stable existence for yourself + family
people become conservative as they age is bc it is in their material interests to do so
I mean that's not surprising at all with how awful urban living is in the US.
Another example that material conditions trump everything else. If, like me, you will never be able to afford a house, you're not going to be deradicalized because you suddenly own property.
If they're like my friends they can't afford to own housing in the city and are exhausted of a decade+ of a leech taking more than a mortgage costs while forbidding them from doing anything in/to their own home
More than anything this is what has convinced me revolution is impossible in the United States.
I know it's cliché to compare the US to Rome, but I do think our collapse will look similar. No revolution, and the union will shrink to parts of the northeast coast. Everywhere else you'll get a bunch of successor states; some of those will become rump states, but some that have pre-existing working class movements may actually have a socialist takeover.
The US collapse will look more like the Hapsburg Empire. An unruly collection of nationalities all mashed together finally realize that they can get rid of their ruling class and rule themselves instead.
