Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
My ex moved out to the suburbs. I can honestly say that if I moved to the suburbs, I would kill myself.
Some things that would lead me to this:
- Going to a "good" restaurant in a strip mall
- Conversation with other suburban people--I manage to survive it at my daughter's games, but if these people were my only options, forget it
- Doing house and yard stuff
- Knowing which of my neighbors votes for Trump with their little yard signs
- People minding my fucking business ("Well, his car is there, he must be home")
- Commuting
- Car culture
- Idle housewives power walking or whatever
- Malls--holy fuck do I hate malls
I realize people seek where they grew up. But the idea that I would want to design my life such that I don't have to interact with anyone who isn't like me is crazy. Leave my house that has it's own little play area for my kids and is in a neighborhood that no one who doesn't live there has any reason to visit, to get in my car so that I don't have to interact with anyone to drive to a mall to hang out or to some strip mall to have a drink would be torture.
TM |
Every now and then we look at moving to a bigger place, and then realize that to do so, we'd have to move further out, and we quickly end the discussion. We're 20 minutes from anywhere we want to be. We are surrounded by restaurants, within walking distance to the bayou, within biking distance to museums and downtown. If you look at the bullseye that is the Houston map, we're right to the southwest right outside the most center ring, about a mile and a half from downtown. The idea of commuting makes my blood run cold.
Our neighborhood has gentrified considerably in the 16 years that I've been in my house, but it's still the artsy, quirky space I moved to when I came back to Houston, even though some of the cute bungalows have been torn down to be replaced by ridiculous McMansions*. It's a mix of blue collar Hispanic and extreme white collar. It's been the gayborhood for decades. If it were up to Montrose, Beto O'Rourke would already have beaten Ted Cruz fro the Senate seat.
The city is the size of Rhode Island, so almost everyone lives a somewhat suburban life by Thurgreed's standards. The car culture is ridiculous, and the strip mall is king in this town, but some of them are awesome, with Korean restaurants and Mexican sports bars and Japanese Karaoke bars in the same 100 yard space. And the clusters of communities are also amazing.
Ft. Bend County, which is the suburban cousin to the west of Harris County (where Houston is) is one of the most diverse in the country with a population that was 19 percent Asian, 24 percent Hispanic, 21 percent black and 36 percent white in the 2010 census. It's probably even more widely distributed now. And it's almost 50/50 Republican/Democratic. Montgomery county to the North, though, is still pretty white and Republican and I can't imagine a more soulless existence than living there.
But all in all, I'm really happy to be deep inside the city in my small 1000 square foot house. And I love the house and yard stuff.
*The one next door is 4000 square feet on a 5000 square foot lot, 4 bedrooms and 5 1/2 baths. So ridiculous that it's been on the market for over 400 days. We're conflicted in that we want someone to move in (after the developer has endured significant pain), but we know anyone who would buy this thing is just terrible.
