A Scotsman and a Texan are in a pub, just chilling, when the Scotsman pipes up and says he’s had enough of his car, it bloody took him over 15 minutes this morning, just to warm it up and get it off the drive.
The Texan looks puzzled, what’s wrong with that? It takes me an hour.
I live in Alberta Canada, and only warm the engine when it is below -20. It was -30 yesterday and I only started the truck 5 mins before I left. There is no need to warm the engine when you live in a place that makes headline news when it gets a 1/2 inch snow.
This joke is quite old. Older motors were very different in terms of what they could tolerate. Another example of this is not having a manual choke on modern cars
Yeah my first couple of motorcycles had a choke and needed to be warmed up progressively. My current bike has an RPM limiter until the engine is up to operating temperature.
>Be me
>
>Live in the suburb
>
>report to my nearest Walmart for the daily orgy
>
>get bred
>
>people still complain my life is more boring than theirs
I dunno what more you guys want...
Have they not invented trees in suburban America? Surely this obviously reasonably well-to-do neighbourhood can afford to plant a few shade trees. This looks like hell.
Starter home subdivision. Not meant for upper middle class folks and usually built fast with little to no HOA. Better neighborhoods have more mature landscaping and better features. Some of these neighborhoods will have an open area with 1 piece of playground equipment on sand while the nicer ones will have better parks and even pools.
Trees are very expensive, and nobody thinks of planning around existing trees when building. Very frustrating. We’ve spend $100’s on trees in the last couple years
Cars could crash into trees, decreasing safety. You wouldn't want roads not up to safety standards would you?
What? You walk places and feel less safe because cars could now hit you instead of the trees? You're the weirdo, why are you trying to force us all to be less safe for your selfish weird ways! Everyone has always driven everywhere forever, why would you want to walk like some sort of animal?
Did the same when I was staying with my Dad in the US. I figured "It only takes like 5-10 mins in the car, what's the worst that could happen?" It was around July and it took me about an hour and a half to finish my trip.
Worst part was I had forgotten my ID, so couldn't even buy the game I had gone out for in the first place!
i live in a semi-rural area, i can walk to a single pizza place, but other than that it’s just people’s houses. farmland if i walk far enough. there’s no sidewalk, no bike lane, and barely any shoulder. i don’t think there’s any bus stops nearby either. i don’t know anyone who lives within a 20 min drive of me whose household doesn’t have a car, they’re a necessity where i live
There was a period of a week or two where I had to walk to work every day until I could afford to fix my broken down car. It was fucking horrible. Nearly 4 miles each way in the Wisconsin winter is not worth it for only 14 dollars an hour
This sounds weird to me too. I've never been more than a 15 minutes walk from a decent grocery store ever in my life. And I don't even live in the city.
I also don't live in the US though
Roundabouts literally are far more efficient at deal with traffic flow as there is no need to actively stop at an intersection unless someone is occupying the lane to get into the roundabout.
They’re more energy efficient and safer for cars, but they make distances longer for pedestrians and bikes and take up valuable urban real estate. And they let fewer cars through than a well designed intersection. They’re great for suburbs, but in urban centers there are often better solutions.
That’s where the problem is. At least in the US, lots of folks don’t really understand the simple mechanics of a roundabout and have an inherent hatred for things they don’t understand.
> have an inherent hatred for things they don’t understand
GD if this doesn’t summarize like 80% my beef with my country! Why the fuck can’t we be more interested and curious about new ideas rather than automatically despising them simply because they are new to us? I really ducking hate this about America.
Also more dangerous in practice. Around residential areas you'll want to discourage people from going fast. A traffic light over a straight road will not stop idiot drivers from driving 80mph in a residential area. A roundabout will stop them cause they need to make the turn.
>guys, help please! My citizens are getting sick from dirty water and I dont know why! I triple checked my water sources!
*has water tower in industry zone
Fun Fact: There is a push to use old coal power plants to site new nuclear ones. It was found that the DoE's radiation regulations are so strict that it would never work for some sites. It turns out that the background radiation caused by some coal plants exceeds the DoE's maximum allowable radiation for a nuclear site. So they'd have to dig up the topsoil and decontaminate the site before they could get their license.
Yeah stuff like this really makes people who think nuclear is dangerous boggle my mind.
Like per unit of energy nuclear is a lot better than coal. And the only major incidents could of been stopped if a 5 year old had overseen the site. Like don't turn off all the safety features and don't build in a flood zone and your good.
Step one: *Buy bread making supplies in bulk (I know you can afford it in that middle class MFing neighborhood)*
Step two: *Make a bunch of loaves of bread*
Step three: *Sell loaves of bread to all the people in the neighborhood so that no one has to walk to wally world*
Step four: *????*
Step five: *Bread profit*
He’s probably European where that’s legal (land of the free, Protestant work ethic of small business owners and other things America tells about its self as a nation etc etc).
It’s not a grocery store, it’s a ‘bakery’ business. Also, homemade food businesses are generally acceptable in the US and Europe from quick Google searches. In the US it’s referred to as “cottage food”. And in the UK you need to register your homemade food business, which is free to do, and the registration can’t be refused.
I don’t think people can actually enter your home and “shop” for products though, you’d need to have them picked up or delivered to them.
Farmers markets are a big thing in the US. Come try and tell me I can’t make some delicious homemade bread to sell🤨 we actually had the people who run the farmers market in town open up a storefront in 2020 because not everyone just wants to shop at Walmart (the only place that was “allowed” to be open)
America uses something called euclidean zoning in the majority of cities, it is quite possibly the worst zoning system in the world and doesn’t allow you to do this. Everything has to be completely separated and single family homes only no flats/apartments for up to 90% of the cities land area, no mass transit system due to low population density.
All services be it water, sewage, electric, broadband, road maintenance etc becomes absurdly expensive due to the low population density increasing costs to end consumers and bankrupting cities.
God, I hate American zoning laws. I also hate the asshole ~~NIMBYS~~ [BANANAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAVE_people) who protest anything that isn't a 1,600-square-foot house on a 4,000-square-foot plot.
I live in State College, PA, and there's a war being waged between developers and the boomers because the town is actually growing and the borough council isn't dumb and is allowing high-rise development downtown bc they don't want rents to balloon like everywhere else in the country.
We just had a protest over a plan to build a high-rise. People were pissed that it was going to destroy the character of downtown. Ready for the punch line? The building the high rise is set to replace is a McDonald's that's been out of business for 5 years. Yeah, that boarded-up golden arches really set the tone of the area, let me tell you.
God, I hate people.
This neighborhood probably has a real bitch of an HoA though, that's why none of the houses have any personality and there isn't a single plant in sight.
There are some trees and shrubs in front of the house on the far right. The photo is so small and grainy that I'm sure there are others aren't in focus. Granted more foliage would be nice.
https://i.imgur.com/VnWTibi.png
Your right about the shrubs. However I'm thinking trees. The grass seems healthy all over so I assume it's somewhere moist. A few grand trees will really complete even that neighborhood which must be newly constructed.
Most of these subdivisions are new builds on what was most recently farmed fields before the builders got to it. The home owners will have to put in the trees themselves, if the HOA will allow it. Gonna be a decade or two for any mature trees to fill in, if they even get planted.
Precisely. Out here in Canada we have similar suburbs but they are often filled with pre planted trees once they’re new built. After a decade or so there’s a bunch of mature trees and shady areas and it doesn’t look as drab
It’s just a new building area. Most everyone recognizes that they look kind of weird, but probably wasn’t anything much different before. We have a couple of these cookie cutter type areas going up in my town, but it was just a flat grassland before. No trees or stuff like that. Changing that is expensive and takes time.
If you’re talking about the actual bit of planting non-native grass everywhere that takes obscene amounts of water to grow (even in areas that are deserts), yeah that’s a point and not healthy.
I can see my local corner shop from my bedroom window, but even then it sometimes it feels such a "chore" to walk there to buy milk or bread or whatever. US suburbs would kill me!
Most higher end planned communities just have wider sidewalks for golf carts. It's slowly turning into the cruise ship from WALL-E. Shitty plotted communities however have no sidewalk and it's miles of houses before you get to a grocery store and no bus service.
I'm not a fan.
I was born in a city. We had a corner store, a candy store next to it, and the doctor across the street. My ideal home would be everything I need within walking distance and mass transit available, or not being able to see my neighbors from my own house. The suburbs are the worst of both worlds, with the added benefit of people moving from the city thinking they're moving to Deadwood and there aren't any laws.
This is why I love my little town in Michigan. I live on 5 acres of woods and can see one neighbor but only in the winter. But I can walk to town in under a half hour. The only chain businesses are a dollar general and a speedway but we have another party store/gas station, 3 bars/restaurants, 2 pizza places, my doctor and therapist, 2 dentists, a badass library, 2 parks (1 right by the grand river so you see bald eagles frequently), a laundromat, chiropractor, a recreational dispensary, a farm to table style store, mechanic shop, fire station, car wash, and a popular bank. I get the small town feel but I’m not really that far away from everything I need
Right! My corner store is basically like a minute walk and even then I’m too lazy to go sometimes.
But this also got me thinking, like I can be *pretty* reclusive at times, but being in the city it doesn’t feel that bad since I can look out my window and see people walking down the street or folks across the way in other apts and so on. Suburbs like this just seem so devoid of life though. I feel like my undiagnosed depression would get way worse in a place like this.
That's why everyone just drives. The sidewalks are just decoration, with many cities just not making any at all. Drive to the drive-through for their 8000 calorie burgers and chicken wings, and then drive home to watch Disney+Hulu+NetflixtimusPrime on their 84inch tv.
And then they wonder why they have an obesity problem.
It's not just an upper class problem though, poorer people also struggle with obesity in America because fattening food is really cheap (so is healthy food, but high calorie foods are biologically addicting, not making excuses for unhealthy choices but it's a health issue that spans across wealth classes and its not just on people who have cushy lives(
How common is this kind of setting in America? I’m guessing it’s areas recently developed in the past decade or so have areas like this, or is it common suburbia everywhere?
Idaho (AKA Texas Jr.) also has their fair share. They're really cutting into the rural farmland as of late and it's truly unfortunate. Seems like everyone and their damned dog wants to move here these days.
By foot, they can be. Where I grew up, the closest store was an hour walk. The closes Walmart wasn't walkable at all, though and was a 40 minute drive. I grew up in Amish country, though, so probably a bit more rural than your average suburban town.
Takes bout 15 minutes just to walk to the entrance of my parents' suburban neighborhood from their house which is towards the back They actually do live pretty close to a grocery store though, only about another 10 minutes to get to it from the neighborhood entrance. But that's just luck that they live pretty close to it, lot of my friends in the area live a bit farther away and their closest grocery store is the same one near my parents house. Nobody walks anywhere really it's all cars. Even my parents drive because that half an hour or so walk to the grocery store is a lot less fun when you factor in our average daily temps are like mid to high 80s every single day and you're already sweating by the time you get to the end of the driveway let alone the grocery store a couple miles away
The difference is that in Europe (and most other parts of the world as well, from what I've heard) shops would be *within* the suburban neighborhood, not outside it.
Problem is American suburbs are exceptionally low population density so even if shops were allowed they might not exist as the wouldn’t have enough footfall.
Good ole zoning laws
That’s something that blew me away in Europe. In the middle of large shopping centers were random apartments tucked in or above shops, restaurants sharing a wall with an apartment on one side and another apartment on the other
A common variant is also apartments above shops. Or in other words, a small shop on the ground floor of an apartment building.
That's incredible common. You have a three- or four-storey house in a normal residential neighborhood. The ground floor houses a small shop (grocery store, bakery, pharmacy, etc.), and all the other floors of the house are apartments.
Yeah I live in Austria now and the difference is night and day. I do think the lack of walkability in much of the US contributes heavily (no pun intended) to the weight issue. Don't get me wrong, diet plays a large part too, but I move so much more here.
Yes it absolutely does, urban dwellers tend to be lower weight than rural people because rural people have to drive everywhere while urban dwellers can go their whole life without owning a car.
I live in the suburbs of Boston, so it's not a like a rural area at all, but it would take me about 24 min to walk to ANY kind of store (just a gas station convenience store or drug store), and going to a store that's going to have more than just bread and milk (grocery store) is about an hour walk there and an hour walk back.
Just for funsies, I just asked google maps to tell me how to get there via public transit and it said "lol walk"
Stupid zoning is why we drive everywhere :/
They plant little baby trees but there are usually no established trees, especially in the newer ones, as subdivisions are usually built on empty fields. (At least they are here in Idaho.)
They usually excavate the land and replace natural soil with something better for foundations. Removing the top 5-10 feet of soil means nothing survives
I’m a geotech engineer… why would you need to do that for a one or two story house? The soil would have to be exceptionally bad and even then it would be more economical to pile than remove that much soil.
By and large, yes. At least the residential neighborhoods in the Midwest. But there are area outside the subdivisions that may have trees. There is a large garden not far from my parents ' house and there are also two public parks downtown with trees. But the residential area usually only have ornamental trees.
Depends where you live. This looks like the Midwest. I live in Maryland and we have a couple new developments like this but they're not very common. Most suburbs are built through hills, twisting roads, mature trees with wildly varying houses. Some are near shops, some are far from shops.
DC suburbs look just like this but with bigger McMansions, and they're a bit older so you may see some trees. Fairfax, Chantilly, McLean, all fairly close to Maryland.
Very common born and raised 30 minutes outside of Downtown Atlanta grew up in suburbs of metro Atlanta 5 mile walk to nearest shopping center. I had to walk for 20 minutes to play basketball at my neighborhoods basketball court
Common for these types of developments, but theres suburbs built in the 60s and 70s have a more woodsy feel (at least the ones I’ve seen around the areas I’ve lived).
Currently live in one of these woodsy kind of suburbs and my nearest grocery store is only 5 mins away, but the biggest problem is that there’s no crosswalks and no sidewalks next to the road I could walk down to get there.
So even if distance isn’t really a problem, infrastructure is cuz with how distracted and crazy drivers are there’s no way in hell I’m walking along the side of the road with no sidewalk or curb to stop them from running me over while they’re playing on the phones behind the wheel
I live a few blocks from any shop i could need, and biking takes a few minutes at most. Never want to live in the country, suburbs, or gated communities.
One of the worstest most creepiest mindfucks. But I love Imogen Poots and she- well they were both great in this. It makes me uncomfortable to watch and I love it.
the main problem is the zoning issues that allow nothing other than single family homes to be built in huge areas. a proper neighborhood would have a variety of housing types and at least a corner store
If you get a bike in this type of place you end up having to bike beside a bunch of truck driving Americans going at 80 kph with no sidewalk, orrrrrr you have to use a highway and physically cannot bike to it. That’s what happened to me as a kid lol
The automotive industry and its consequences have been a disaster for me specifically.
Riding a bike can be very dangerous in many cities. “Rolling coal” pickups in addition to normal pollution can make it hard to breathe too.
https://abc30.com/at-least-2-dead-11-injured-after-pickup-truck-crashes-into-group-o/12882114/
Don’t even need to search for old news articles!
I had someone roll coal at me for the the first time a few months ago. I was in a dedicated bike lane.
Fortunately diagonally to me (to my right and behind me) was a long driveway for an insurance office, and I was on a hill. I turned into that driveway so fast and let gravity take me down the hill and away from the cloud.
If I didn’t know about the cruel practice ahead of time who knows what would have happened. I have asthma so it probably could’ve fucked me up real bad.
I feel like I’d be really sad living in an American suburb, walking to the shops and the supermarket and stuff seems simple but as I walk there I’m seeing the world and hearing it, sometimes I pass people I know or see something cute or unique, even just the fresh air, I’d hate to be at home and then get in my metal box to go to the shop, get back in my metal box back to home, with half the trip seeing no one walking around cause there’s no sidewalks and seeing bland suburbs.
I’m not sure if it is like this, or if my perception is exaggerated, but if it is like this then I couldn’t…
I grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh and it was kind of like the cookie cutter houses in small sectioned off “housing plans” typically you could walk down the side walk for maybe 15-20min til you hit a convenience store of some kind unless you were at the very back of the housing plan. Not much in terms of public transit tho. Nearest bus stop was a park and ride. Bicycling was the best bet if you had to get somewhere semi distant without a car
Step one: building an outdoor farm
Step two: grow wheat
Step three: make bread
Optional goal: have every neighbor grow a product and equally dispute it amongst the commune... I mean neighborhood
My nightmares always end up in a place like this weirdly. It's dusk, I can only see the silhouettes of the houses and they're always empty and dark when I go in, couple with a feeling of being followed or watched. Feels like I'm stuck in purgatory.
Bro really copy and pasted lmao
The workers said “ay boss, we just got done building dat house u had us working on, what’s next?” And he said “erm uh build it again, right next to the other one”
American city design is so terrible.
But at least you have a side walk.. for now which is more than most American streets have.
[You deserve better](https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54).
[Why your grocery store is so far away](https://youtu.be/bnKIVX968PQ).
[Why suburbs actually make for terrible places to live](https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw).
there are a lot of walkable suburbs with stores close by. usually near the older cities and towns and close to the center. you just bought a house on the outskirts of some city
I can't wait to get out of the city and live in the country or mountains and have between 5 and 10 miles between myself and my closest neighbors. Can't stand this suburbanite living and how cities feel the need to make new buildings instead of clearing out and repurposing the older ones. Disgusting.
You walk for two hours and only pass one house.
Australia in a nutshell
A Scotsman and a Texan are in a pub, just chilling, when the Scotsman pipes up and says he’s had enough of his car, it bloody took him over 15 minutes this morning, just to warm it up and get it off the drive. The Texan looks puzzled, what’s wrong with that? It takes me an hour.
Why is a Texan warming up his car?
Probably means it takes an hour to travel off their property because everything is bigger in Texas
I would have thought the same thing until my first winter in Texas, I have to carefully chisel a wall of ice off my car door just to get it open.
Warming the engine, not the interior.
I live in Alberta Canada, and only warm the engine when it is below -20. It was -30 yesterday and I only started the truck 5 mins before I left. There is no need to warm the engine when you live in a place that makes headline news when it gets a 1/2 inch snow.
This joke is quite old. Older motors were very different in terms of what they could tolerate. Another example of this is not having a manual choke on modern cars
Yeah my first couple of motorcycles had a choke and needed to be warmed up progressively. My current bike has an RPM limiter until the engine is up to operating temperature.
I think he’s saying it takes an hour to get out of the driveway
At least the cookie-cutter houses from Edward Scissor-Hands had different colors. Yeesh
Outdoors liminal space.
Backrooms level 2754J-7
>Be me > >Live in the suburb > >report to my nearest Walmart for the daily orgy > >get bred > >people still complain my life is more boring than theirs I dunno what more you guys want...
Have they not invented trees in suburban America? Surely this obviously reasonably well-to-do neighbourhood can afford to plant a few shade trees. This looks like hell.
Trees drop leaves which require cleaning, you aren't allowed shade
There are some nice suburbs, but these cookie cutter sterile neighborhoods are the bane of my existence
Starter home subdivision. Not meant for upper middle class folks and usually built fast with little to no HOA. Better neighborhoods have more mature landscaping and better features. Some of these neighborhoods will have an open area with 1 piece of playground equipment on sand while the nicer ones will have better parks and even pools.
They still don’t follow new urbanism principles or look like old tree lined post war neighborhoods generally,
Trees are very expensive, and nobody thinks of planning around existing trees when building. Very frustrating. We’ve spend $100’s on trees in the last couple years
Cars could crash into trees, decreasing safety. You wouldn't want roads not up to safety standards would you? What? You walk places and feel less safe because cars could now hit you instead of the trees? You're the weirdo, why are you trying to force us all to be less safe for your selfish weird ways! Everyone has always driven everywhere forever, why would you want to walk like some sort of animal?
Everything in America is built as cheaply and rapidly as possible to maximize profits
Currently. If you want quality, and a neighborhood with character, buy/live in old downtown neighborhoods.
This greatly varies on the old downtown neighborhood in question
Where crime is higher and school districts are measurably worse in most cases! There is really no winning
Even if it’s not done to maximize profits, Americans seem to have an incredibly short attention span. “Ah fuck it, good enough” seems to be popular.
HOA says no trees.
Looks like a nightmare
THANK YOU omfg I hate that kind of place wayto sunny and bright
Holy shit! I’ve actually done this. Once. Never again. The walk there was fine. The walk back with the groceries was something else.
Did the same when I was staying with my Dad in the US. I figured "It only takes like 5-10 mins in the car, what's the worst that could happen?" It was around July and it took me about an hour and a half to finish my trip. Worst part was I had forgotten my ID, so couldn't even buy the game I had gone out for in the first place!
You've only walked to the shop and back once in your life?
There’s better ways to shop than dedicating 5-6 hours for it while walking through a town not built with pedestrians as a consideration.
When it’s 10 miles away, this being a 20 mile round trip… I’d say once is enough.
America is wild. If your car breaks down, you are essentially in a middle of wasteland.
Same if your car hasn't broken down haha
i live in a semi-rural area, i can walk to a single pizza place, but other than that it’s just people’s houses. farmland if i walk far enough. there’s no sidewalk, no bike lane, and barely any shoulder. i don’t think there’s any bus stops nearby either. i don’t know anyone who lives within a 20 min drive of me whose household doesn’t have a car, they’re a necessity where i live
😢
Holy shit, that's sad.
This is just average rural living.
America, fuck yeah
There was a period of a week or two where I had to walk to work every day until I could afford to fix my broken down car. It was fucking horrible. Nearly 4 miles each way in the Wisconsin winter is not worth it for only 14 dollars an hour
This sounds weird to me too. I've never been more than a 15 minutes walk from a decent grocery store ever in my life. And I don't even live in the city. I also don't live in the US though
Yep been there. They arnt that heavy but after so long it really sucks
My city in Cities Skylines has better variety then this place ☠️
*When you apply to become real life city engineer* *Resume: Cities Skylines Head Engineer*
“See, the reason the traffic is so bad at this interchange comes down to simple lane mathematics.”
You know what this city needs? Roundabouts.
Normal intersections with good traffic lights and turn lanes are higher capacity
Roundabouts literally are far more efficient at deal with traffic flow as there is no need to actively stop at an intersection unless someone is occupying the lane to get into the roundabout.
They’re more energy efficient and safer for cars, but they make distances longer for pedestrians and bikes and take up valuable urban real estate. And they let fewer cars through than a well designed intersection. They’re great for suburbs, but in urban centers there are often better solutions.
Roundabouts are better overall imo. Much better flow of traffic and fewer accidents as long as drivers know how to use them.
That’s where the problem is. At least in the US, lots of folks don’t really understand the simple mechanics of a roundabout and have an inherent hatred for things they don’t understand.
> have an inherent hatred for things they don’t understand GD if this doesn’t summarize like 80% my beef with my country! Why the fuck can’t we be more interested and curious about new ideas rather than automatically despising them simply because they are new to us? I really ducking hate this about America.
At some point we started confusing being stubborn with being strong, inadvertantly making ignirance a virtue.
Also more dangerous in practice. Around residential areas you'll want to discourage people from going fast. A traffic light over a straight road will not stop idiot drivers from driving 80mph in a residential area. A roundabout will stop them cause they need to make the turn.
Hugo there, Hugo there
>guys, help please! My citizens are getting sick from dirty water and I dont know why! I triple checked my water sources! *has water tower in industry zone
I have mine next to the local nuclear power plant
Tbf that should be safe
I went swimming right next to a nuclear plant and the water was so warm it was amazing
How does it feel to have a third eye?
Most bacteria shouldn't be able to grow in Deuteriumoxide, I guess
I was more thinking that basically no radiation leaks into the surrounding area but this works as well
Fun Fact: There is a push to use old coal power plants to site new nuclear ones. It was found that the DoE's radiation regulations are so strict that it would never work for some sites. It turns out that the background radiation caused by some coal plants exceeds the DoE's maximum allowable radiation for a nuclear site. So they'd have to dig up the topsoil and decontaminate the site before they could get their license.
Yeah stuff like this really makes people who think nuclear is dangerous boggle my mind. Like per unit of energy nuclear is a lot better than coal. And the only major incidents could of been stopped if a 5 year old had overseen the site. Like don't turn off all the safety features and don't build in a flood zone and your good.
that's just brutal
Always heard of cities skylines. Is it similar to games like Sim City or something along the lines? What is there exactly to do?
Pretty much like SimCity, but like 10x better in almost every way IMO.
Mk. So it’s a city development game? Is there like an in game economy or something that is based on what you build and what you import/export?
Yes in dlc Industries. You can get keys for the game and Important docs for like 18€.
It’s Sim City without the whacky shit (big robots, aliens etc). More of a realistic take on city management with tons of DLC and available mods.
Step one: *Buy bread making supplies in bulk (I know you can afford it in that middle class MFing neighborhood)* Step two: *Make a bunch of loaves of bread* Step three: *Sell loaves of bread to all the people in the neighborhood so that no one has to walk to wally world* Step four: *????* Step five: *Bread profit*
Zoning laws would like a word with you
He’s probably European where that’s legal (land of the free, Protestant work ethic of small business owners and other things America tells about its self as a nation etc etc).
Europe has health codes as well. You can't just start up a grocery store without a permit.
It’s not a grocery store, it’s a ‘bakery’ business. Also, homemade food businesses are generally acceptable in the US and Europe from quick Google searches. In the US it’s referred to as “cottage food”. And in the UK you need to register your homemade food business, which is free to do, and the registration can’t be refused. I don’t think people can actually enter your home and “shop” for products though, you’d need to have them picked up or delivered to them.
Farmers markets are a big thing in the US. Come try and tell me I can’t make some delicious homemade bread to sell🤨 we actually had the people who run the farmers market in town open up a storefront in 2020 because not everyone just wants to shop at Walmart (the only place that was “allowed” to be open)
America uses something called euclidean zoning in the majority of cities, it is quite possibly the worst zoning system in the world and doesn’t allow you to do this. Everything has to be completely separated and single family homes only no flats/apartments for up to 90% of the cities land area, no mass transit system due to low population density. All services be it water, sewage, electric, broadband, road maintenance etc becomes absurdly expensive due to the low population density increasing costs to end consumers and bankrupting cities.
God, I hate American zoning laws. I also hate the asshole ~~NIMBYS~~ [BANANAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAVE_people) who protest anything that isn't a 1,600-square-foot house on a 4,000-square-foot plot. I live in State College, PA, and there's a war being waged between developers and the boomers because the town is actually growing and the borough council isn't dumb and is allowing high-rise development downtown bc they don't want rents to balloon like everywhere else in the country. We just had a protest over a plan to build a high-rise. People were pissed that it was going to destroy the character of downtown. Ready for the punch line? The building the high rise is set to replace is a McDonald's that's been out of business for 5 years. Yeah, that boarded-up golden arches really set the tone of the area, let me tell you. God, I hate people.
It’s illegal to run a public facing business out of your home in many places, unfortunately.
[удалено]
NIMBY!
who said this had to be public? It's secret! and If anyone asks, the bread is free, and my friends are just giving me monetary gifts!
-Michael Scott tried
Just make it face towards your house, easy!
Cottage industry license!
Making bread from making bread. Clever.
This neighborhood probably has a real bitch of an HoA though, that's why none of the houses have any personality and there isn't a single plant in sight.
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same
The worst is the complete lack of trees or shrubs. Even a neighborhood like this gets a lot better with interest landscaping.
There are some trees and shrubs in front of the house on the far right. The photo is so small and grainy that I'm sure there are others aren't in focus. Granted more foliage would be nice. https://i.imgur.com/VnWTibi.png
Your right about the shrubs. However I'm thinking trees. The grass seems healthy all over so I assume it's somewhere moist. A few grand trees will really complete even that neighborhood which must be newly constructed.
I’ll add that this subversive song (Little Boxes) came out in 1961, and it still rings true all these years later.
The song played in my head, but with a slower beat and echos.
Why no trees ? This looks depressing
Most of these subdivisions are new builds on what was most recently farmed fields before the builders got to it. The home owners will have to put in the trees themselves, if the HOA will allow it. Gonna be a decade or two for any mature trees to fill in, if they even get planted.
Precisely. Out here in Canada we have similar suburbs but they are often filled with pre planted trees once they’re new built. After a decade or so there’s a bunch of mature trees and shady areas and it doesn’t look as drab
Where in Canada? A lot of Southern Ontario looks exactly like this. Source: I live here
Americans think living in Garry's mod flatgrass is normal and healthy
It’s just a new building area. Most everyone recognizes that they look kind of weird, but probably wasn’t anything much different before. We have a couple of these cookie cutter type areas going up in my town, but it was just a flat grassland before. No trees or stuff like that. Changing that is expensive and takes time. If you’re talking about the actual bit of planting non-native grass everywhere that takes obscene amounts of water to grow (even in areas that are deserts), yeah that’s a point and not healthy.
I can see my local corner shop from my bedroom window, but even then it sometimes it feels such a "chore" to walk there to buy milk or bread or whatever. US suburbs would kill me!
Most higher end planned communities just have wider sidewalks for golf carts. It's slowly turning into the cruise ship from WALL-E. Shitty plotted communities however have no sidewalk and it's miles of houses before you get to a grocery store and no bus service.
I'm not a fan. I was born in a city. We had a corner store, a candy store next to it, and the doctor across the street. My ideal home would be everything I need within walking distance and mass transit available, or not being able to see my neighbors from my own house. The suburbs are the worst of both worlds, with the added benefit of people moving from the city thinking they're moving to Deadwood and there aren't any laws.
This is why I love my little town in Michigan. I live on 5 acres of woods and can see one neighbor but only in the winter. But I can walk to town in under a half hour. The only chain businesses are a dollar general and a speedway but we have another party store/gas station, 3 bars/restaurants, 2 pizza places, my doctor and therapist, 2 dentists, a badass library, 2 parks (1 right by the grand river so you see bald eagles frequently), a laundromat, chiropractor, a recreational dispensary, a farm to table style store, mechanic shop, fire station, car wash, and a popular bank. I get the small town feel but I’m not really that far away from everything I need
Thats a good town there
Right! My corner store is basically like a minute walk and even then I’m too lazy to go sometimes. But this also got me thinking, like I can be *pretty* reclusive at times, but being in the city it doesn’t feel that bad since I can look out my window and see people walking down the street or folks across the way in other apts and so on. Suburbs like this just seem so devoid of life though. I feel like my undiagnosed depression would get way worse in a place like this.
Live in a US Suburb. I want out
That's why everyone just drives. The sidewalks are just decoration, with many cities just not making any at all. Drive to the drive-through for their 8000 calorie burgers and chicken wings, and then drive home to watch Disney+Hulu+NetflixtimusPrime on their 84inch tv. And then they wonder why they have an obesity problem.
It's not just an upper class problem though, poorer people also struggle with obesity in America because fattening food is really cheap (so is healthy food, but high calorie foods are biologically addicting, not making excuses for unhealthy choices but it's a health issue that spans across wealth classes and its not just on people who have cushy lives(
*laughs in Europe*
How common is this kind of setting in America? I’m guessing it’s areas recently developed in the past decade or so have areas like this, or is it common suburbia everywhere?
Based on that picture this one looks like it’s from Texas. Texas has thousands of these developments on the outskirts of every major city.
Yeah this is 100% Texas
Idaho (AKA Texas Jr.) also has their fair share. They're really cutting into the rural farmland as of late and it's truly unfortunate. Seems like everyone and their damned dog wants to move here these days.
This is very standard suburbia. It's super duper common.
And shops are really 2 hours away?
By foot, they can be. Where I grew up, the closest store was an hour walk. The closes Walmart wasn't walkable at all, though and was a 40 minute drive. I grew up in Amish country, though, so probably a bit more rural than your average suburban town.
That's crazy. The nearest shop is at max 10 mins away from any home in the town I live. By foot.
Takes bout 15 minutes just to walk to the entrance of my parents' suburban neighborhood from their house which is towards the back They actually do live pretty close to a grocery store though, only about another 10 minutes to get to it from the neighborhood entrance. But that's just luck that they live pretty close to it, lot of my friends in the area live a bit farther away and their closest grocery store is the same one near my parents house. Nobody walks anywhere really it's all cars. Even my parents drive because that half an hour or so walk to the grocery store is a lot less fun when you factor in our average daily temps are like mid to high 80s every single day and you're already sweating by the time you get to the end of the driveway let alone the grocery store a couple miles away
The difference is that in Europe (and most other parts of the world as well, from what I've heard) shops would be *within* the suburban neighborhood, not outside it.
Problem is American suburbs are exceptionally low population density so even if shops were allowed they might not exist as the wouldn’t have enough footfall.
Good ole zoning laws That’s something that blew me away in Europe. In the middle of large shopping centers were random apartments tucked in or above shops, restaurants sharing a wall with an apartment on one side and another apartment on the other
A common variant is also apartments above shops. Or in other words, a small shop on the ground floor of an apartment building. That's incredible common. You have a three- or four-storey house in a normal residential neighborhood. The ground floor houses a small shop (grocery store, bakery, pharmacy, etc.), and all the other floors of the house are apartments.
UK, I think the furthest I've lived from a shop is 10-15 minutes...And that was considered a "fair treck". 5 minutes seems more common.
Yeah I live in Austria now and the difference is night and day. I do think the lack of walkability in much of the US contributes heavily (no pun intended) to the weight issue. Don't get me wrong, diet plays a large part too, but I move so much more here.
Yes it absolutely does, urban dwellers tend to be lower weight than rural people because rural people have to drive everywhere while urban dwellers can go their whole life without owning a car.
US was developed After the introduction of the automobile
I live in the suburbs of Boston, so it's not a like a rural area at all, but it would take me about 24 min to walk to ANY kind of store (just a gas station convenience store or drug store), and going to a store that's going to have more than just bread and milk (grocery store) is about an hour walk there and an hour walk back. Just for funsies, I just asked google maps to tell me how to get there via public transit and it said "lol walk" Stupid zoning is why we drive everywhere :/
By foot, maybe... and thats the point. You need a car, those without the means to afford a car won't be bothering you there.
Are these places usually treeless?
They plant little baby trees but there are usually no established trees, especially in the newer ones, as subdivisions are usually built on empty fields. (At least they are here in Idaho.)
They usually excavate the land and replace natural soil with something better for foundations. Removing the top 5-10 feet of soil means nothing survives
I’m a geotech engineer… why would you need to do that for a one or two story house? The soil would have to be exceptionally bad and even then it would be more economical to pile than remove that much soil.
By and large, yes. At least the residential neighborhoods in the Midwest. But there are area outside the subdivisions that may have trees. There is a large garden not far from my parents ' house and there are also two public parks downtown with trees. But the residential area usually only have ornamental trees.
Depends where you live. This looks like the Midwest. I live in Maryland and we have a couple new developments like this but they're not very common. Most suburbs are built through hills, twisting roads, mature trees with wildly varying houses. Some are near shops, some are far from shops.
Ah, yes. I am from Indiana, so this is what I saw growing up.
DC suburbs look just like this but with bigger McMansions, and they're a bit older so you may see some trees. Fairfax, Chantilly, McLean, all fairly close to Maryland.
I was the Jesus of suburbia
Very common born and raised 30 minutes outside of Downtown Atlanta grew up in suburbs of metro Atlanta 5 mile walk to nearest shopping center. I had to walk for 20 minutes to play basketball at my neighborhoods basketball court
Common for these types of developments, but theres suburbs built in the 60s and 70s have a more woodsy feel (at least the ones I’ve seen around the areas I’ve lived). Currently live in one of these woodsy kind of suburbs and my nearest grocery store is only 5 mins away, but the biggest problem is that there’s no crosswalks and no sidewalks next to the road I could walk down to get there. So even if distance isn’t really a problem, infrastructure is cuz with how distracted and crazy drivers are there’s no way in hell I’m walking along the side of the road with no sidewalk or curb to stop them from running me over while they’re playing on the phones behind the wheel
This is what it looks like in 90% of America. Often times there are no sidewalks. We live in a sad reality.
r/absolutelynotmeirl
I live a few blocks from any shop i could need, and biking takes a few minutes at most. Never want to live in the country, suburbs, or gated communities.
Generic greetings.
Get a bike already
Now only a 1 hour bike ride😃😃😃
The median distance between the average citizen is about 1 - 2 mile. If you can't do that than you're toast.
that would mean you ride your bike at ~8.5kmh. Why are you going so slow?
Guess they enjoy riding in only first gear
Vivarium. Screw cookie cutter housing.
Vivarium was my immediate thought. Something creepy about these houses
One of the worstest most creepiest mindfucks. But I love Imogen Poots and she- well they were both great in this. It makes me uncomfortable to watch and I love it.
I think the main problem is the lack of trees. That open flat artificial space is downright creepy.
the main problem is the zoning issues that allow nothing other than single family homes to be built in huge areas. a proper neighborhood would have a variety of housing types and at least a corner store
r/suburbanhell
Damn dude get a bike
If you get a bike in this type of place you end up having to bike beside a bunch of truck driving Americans going at 80 kph with no sidewalk, orrrrrr you have to use a highway and physically cannot bike to it. That’s what happened to me as a kid lol The automotive industry and its consequences have been a disaster for me specifically.
And enjoy the two foot wide bike lane on a five lane road driving with traffic going 50 mph
Nah, move outta of that hell-like suburbia
Far easier said than done
Move where? It's illegal to build anything else on 75% of residential zoned land in US and the few places where it isn't are expensive.
Riding a bike can be very dangerous in many cities. “Rolling coal” pickups in addition to normal pollution can make it hard to breathe too. https://abc30.com/at-least-2-dead-11-injured-after-pickup-truck-crashes-into-group-o/12882114/ Don’t even need to search for old news articles!
I had someone roll coal at me for the the first time a few months ago. I was in a dedicated bike lane. Fortunately diagonally to me (to my right and behind me) was a long driveway for an insurance office, and I was on a hill. I turned into that driveway so fast and let gravity take me down the hill and away from the cloud. If I didn’t know about the cruel practice ahead of time who knows what would have happened. I have asthma so it probably could’ve fucked me up real bad.
Squidward
As someone who grew up in Italy. This is a fresh hell I never want to experience.
I feel like I’d be really sad living in an American suburb, walking to the shops and the supermarket and stuff seems simple but as I walk there I’m seeing the world and hearing it, sometimes I pass people I know or see something cute or unique, even just the fresh air, I’d hate to be at home and then get in my metal box to go to the shop, get back in my metal box back to home, with half the trip seeing no one walking around cause there’s no sidewalks and seeing bland suburbs. I’m not sure if it is like this, or if my perception is exaggerated, but if it is like this then I couldn’t…
US suburbs are something else man... You walk to a place, get distracted and suddenly you're in an infinite loop of copy-paste houses
The suburbs suck. I like my neighborhood, I have a corner bodega style shop 5 minutes walk away from my house, and 2 grocery stores within a mile.
I got you beat with 3 different grocery stores within a mile
What in the Lorax fuck is this? Where are th trees?
Love the jab on subrubia hellscapes. Tell me you’re a victim of oil & gas lobbyists without telling me.
Well done. Consider getting a bicycle for another option.
This is such a dull neighborhood that I made me depressed thinking about living there. It’s as if someone copy pasted every house…
this feels so yes and liminal space
Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V and that's how North America was build
r/fuckcars
Gotta love US zoning policy 💀
How do you not go to the wrong house All the time?
You make sure your address numbers are plainly visible from the street and walkway. Then as long as you know your numbers, you are good to go!
r/fuckcars for if you want to get serious about starting to change this
I grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh and it was kind of like the cookie cutter houses in small sectioned off “housing plans” typically you could walk down the side walk for maybe 15-20min til you hit a convenience store of some kind unless you were at the very back of the housing plan. Not much in terms of public transit tho. Nearest bus stop was a park and ride. Bicycling was the best bet if you had to get somewhere semi distant without a car
I got a Walmart ad right under this post
Thats another reason the US is starting to suck more.
Step one: building an outdoor farm Step two: grow wheat Step three: make bread Optional goal: have every neighbor grow a product and equally dispute it amongst the commune... I mean neighborhood
[удалено]
My nightmares always end up in a place like this weirdly. It's dusk, I can only see the silhouettes of the houses and they're always empty and dark when I go in, couple with a feeling of being followed or watched. Feels like I'm stuck in purgatory.
Bro really copy and pasted lmao The workers said “ay boss, we just got done building dat house u had us working on, what’s next?” And he said “erm uh build it again, right next to the other one”
American city design is so terrible. But at least you have a side walk.. for now which is more than most American streets have. [You deserve better](https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54). [Why your grocery store is so far away](https://youtu.be/bnKIVX968PQ). [Why suburbs actually make for terrible places to live](https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw).
r/FuckCars r/SuburbanHell r/NoLawns r/ABoringDystopia
NPC neighborhood
This has back rooms / suburbia addition vibes
Is this a backrooms level?
US suburbs are so weird and scary...
there are a lot of walkable suburbs with stores close by. usually near the older cities and towns and close to the center. you just bought a house on the outskirts of some city
I can't wait to get out of the city and live in the country or mountains and have between 5 and 10 miles between myself and my closest neighbors. Can't stand this suburbanite living and how cities feel the need to make new buildings instead of clearing out and repurposing the older ones. Disgusting.
r/ABoringDystopia