
A Decade of Urban Transformation, Seen from Above - jbegley
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/27/upshot/america-from-above.html
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dredmorbius
NYT's "interactives" features are an excellent example of presentation
directly thwarting reader utility.

There's a classic format for side-by-side image comparison. It's called "side-
by-side image comparison".

Display both images (or all images in a series), and allow the reader's eye to
move between them at will, picking out differences and similarities.

By scroll-hijacking and overloading, this is defeated. I cannot toggle between
images, and instead have to scroll up some indeterminate and majickal amount
before ... I'm parked several paragraphs or images above, or my viewing
position simply jumps randomly about the page.

Some designer is having a fun time, but this is too clever by half.

Please stop.

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dredmorbius
Just to be clear: the article and analysis are interesting.

The presentation detracts massively from them.

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nojvek
American Exurbia/Surbubia reminds me of this song by Malvina Reynolds

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on
the hillside, Little boxes all the same,

There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one

And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses All went to the university Where they were put in
boxes And they came out all the same

And there's doctors and lawyers And business executives

And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry And they all
have pretty children

And the children go to school, And the children go to summer camp

And then to the university Where they are put in boxes And they come out all
the same.

And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family In boxes made of
ticky tacky And they all look just the same,

There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one

And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.

~~~
TulliusCicero
I'm an urbanist and hate this sort of condescending BS.

Like, sure single family homes in suburbia tend to look the same. You know
what also looks the same from the outside? Apartments. Literally all you can
see for each one is a window and maybe a balcony, and they all look identical.

The problem with American suburbia is not that houses are similar looking, or
that the people in them raise families, go into business, or go to university.
The song seriously reads like r/im14andthisisdeep material.

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naravara
>Like, sure single family homes in suburbia tend to look the same. You know
what also looks the same from the outside? Apartments. Literally all you can
see for each one is a window and maybe a balcony, and they all look identical.

It really kind of depends. People focus on the "And they all look just the
same" element of the song and glance over the fact that they're "made of
ticky-tacky."

In an urban setting large solidly built structures slowly form accretions and
extensions to them that slowly help a neighborhood develop character and
personality over time. Large apartment blocks that don't permit something like
that, as you see in lots of East Asian countries where they had to throw up
tons of housing REAL fast, can also end up looking really bland and
dehumanizing.

But then you go to a place that has had time to really develop character as
multiple generations of residents have written over them without ever fully
erasing what came before and you end up with beloved urban centers like New
York or Paris.

The suburban development model doesn't really allow for that. The houses can
get extensions in theory, but often deed restrictions or HOAs insist on things
adhering to specifically defined code about how they can look and what they
can do. The conformism is a willful aesthetic choice rather than just a
pragmatic shortcut.

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LargoLasskhyfv
Grown 'organically' within constraints of geography, climate, and local
customs over large times vs. industrially stamped out mass products modelled
after contemporary design fads.

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cgriswald
I'm from Minnesota originally and still have family there, so I visit
regularly. It looks both the same and very, very different from when I lived
there. It almost feels like an alternate reality. I grew up primarily south of
the river in what would probably have been considered exurbs. There were farms
and vast areas of undeveloped land. They're all quite suburban now (a lot of
this was happening when I was growing up) and the populations have exploded.

This same thing seems to have happened in many other cities around the U.S. as
indicated by the 'bullet wound' pattern all over the map.

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neonate
[http://archive.md/NrnL8](http://archive.md/NrnL8)

(Doesn't have the 'after' images though.)

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fourthark
Just don’t try to scroll back to see any of them again, or you will end up
somewhere else on the page.

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cia-killer
Soccer, Baseball, Basketball being replace by Asian sports. Should be titled
The Great Replacement.

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Ericson2314
Which is more likely to end the suburban madness: land war / security
breakdown or carbon tax?

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lotsofpulp
High cost of fuel to income ratios. People aren't going to give up single
family detached homes with garages and yards until they have to. And they're
sure as hell not going to vote for it.

Alternatively, sufficient numbers of people stop having children altogether,
and then don't mind living in dense cities.

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asdf21
I'd advocate for the opposite... I think everyone should own an acre or two,
planted with as many trees as possible to stave off climate change.

There are many more mental health issues in densely populated areas, much less
biodiversity, more pollution, etc.

>Alternatively, sufficient numbers of people stop having children altogether,

We tried that, it was called billed as a "aging population crisis" and used as
justification to import millions of people from other failed countries into
the US.

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bwanab
Lots of people living far away from each other - this is the recipe for mental
health issues related to loneliness. Young people are voting with their feet
by moving from such areas to urban areas and they're staying there.

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asdf21
I'm one of those people.. and I hate it in the city. But I like making six
figures and that's not currently possible where I'm from originally.

>mental health issues related to loneliness

Citation? It's a fact that urban living is associated with higher levels of
mental illness, not just conjecture.

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icebraining
I don't have a citation for loneliness per se, but suicide rates for young
people are much higher in rural areas, "even after controlling for a broad
array of county-level sociodemographic, economic, and health care system
characteristics."

[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2195006)

Of course, there's always the issue about whether suburbs and exurbs count as
rural or urban, which leads to people talking past each other.

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DanBC
I can't see where they controlled for distance needed to travel to reach
emergency departments after a suicide attempt. I'm sure they did, because it's
a pretty big factor for how many people die from some methods, but it would
have been nice to see this more clearly described.

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icebraining
Well, even if that accounts for part of the effect, it's still a benefit from
urban living!

