Saw an ad for Quest2 that basically said "i was so bored because there's nothing to do in my suburban neighborhood, but now I go on VR with my friends and play basketball at the virtual park!!" Kinda sad how it proves we really do crave human connection and public spaces, but so many of us don't have access to either. Not to mention that now tech is profiting off how lonely we are.

Another thing I've noticed is the moment my peers move to suburbia, they turn their house into the third places. They make a home gym, build a home theater, buy a huge backyard grill, buy a pool, buy playground equipment for their kids. People buy more stuff in attempt to make their house "the place to be" but the irony is, they're a 30 minute drive away now so I'm less likely to stop by and visit. People in suburbia buy a ton of stuff that would be unnecessary if they lived somewhere with normal third places.

Holy shit, I never realised that video games were my third place. It's where I fullfil all my social needs that don't get met irl because suburbia.

I grew up in the "city" of Nashville, TN, where everything you said here is true of damn near every neighborhood outside of its tiny downtown area. It was hellish growing up there, and I still harbor a seething resentment of the place to this day. The myth that it's good to raise children in an environment like this needs to die.

Family just moved to an isolated suburb and its soul crushing living here. Even the mailbox is a 10 minute walk, that’s how car dependent this place is

I grew up in the suburbs of Portland, OR and there were lots of differing land uses mixed in with the single family homes and apartments. I was able to go to friends houses, corner stores, restaurants and just about anything else you could imagine by walking or taking my bike. I took it for granted when I was a kid and seeing/living in places that don't have those things is really depressing.

Even if these suburbs are your absolute jam, do you believe that they should be the ONLY thing allowed to be built in the entire country? Probably not. Not even Hawaii could escape the Euclidian suburbs...

I grew up in a suburb in Orlando. The few years between when I and my neighborhood friends got "too old to play" and when I got my driver's license were some of the worst of my life. I wasn't antisocial by any means, but I can count on my hands how many times I did anything with friends outside of school or online gaming. Now, when I visit my family home, I've found that the current neighborhood kids don't even play outside like my friends and I did when we were their age. I don't know if this is because of more overprotective parents or a different cultural shift that I'm unaware of, but all of this has made me realize it would be a disservice to my future family to live somewhere like this. I don't know how we are going to fix this, but the status quo needs to change. Generations can't just keep getting lonelier and lonelier like they have been for the past few decades.

You hit it on the nail. I've been in urban and rural communities but living in the suburbs is like rotting in a jail cell with nice trees.

Man, this has reminded me of when I was a teenager. There was a cool youth center downtown I would hang out at sometimes. Unfortunately, my family lived out in the suburbs, so I always had to be driven there, which made me less likely to go because it wasn't something I could just do under my own power. Silver City, New Mexico is where it was. It's a small town under 10k people, with an incredible and walkable downtown, but then past that it becomes nothing but stroads and suburban sprawl.

I was a teenager of the 90's who lived in one of those car-dependent suburbs. We would have our parents drop us off at the mall on weekends for our "third place".

Thank you for introducing me to the concept of "The Third Place". I especially like the part about taking a break from hierarchy. And my husband suggests another reason why the social media isn't as good as the street at being a Third Place: in the social media you can't just be. You have to act to be visible. You have to express your emotions or thoughts. In the street you don't have to do anything, you can just be. Even by just sitting on a bench you can participate in life without having to express anything.

I'm actually super mad about having to grow up in a place like this. It's especially annoying that this affects small towns even worse that actual cities. Small towns in the US now are just a couple neighborhoods that are the suburbs of nothing. At least the suburban sprawl of places like Houston or Minneapolis have the city to go to. Small towns used to be cool. If you get the chance, look up Staunton, VA. That place has a pretty big original downtown for it's small (24,000 people) size.

i'm a disabled 20 year old living in the suburbs with my parents. i can't drive. i stay home all day unless my parents can take me out (which is typically only to doctors appointments) or one of my friends picks me up. it's incredibly isolating. public transport is practically ZERO where i live. you hit the nail on the head. it's a lonely experience for children and disabled adults who can't drive

I was lucky to grow up right outside a small city during childhood. I could walk to stores, a blockbuster 😂, restaurants, a theater, the pool, and go to my extracurriculars easily. Running into classmates and hanging out spontaneously happened a lot and I don’t remember needing to plan outings with them. But when I entered high school, we moved to the real suburbs. My single mom was so fried driving me and my two siblings to stuff, we all eventually dropped our extracurriculars and did less social things just to make it easier for her. I was so depressed and my school counselor kept asking why I had no extracurriculars for my college apps. I remember bursting into tears cause I didn’t really have an answer. Now I know its because suburbia sucks your soul up. Having a yard does not replace having a rich and social life. As an adult, I live in a city again 😊

I still find it unbelievable that many American suburbs apparently ban even a corner shop from vast swathes of the area. Or even bars or cafés?

Man, in hindsight, it's amazing how growing up in a suburb can just stunt your health and development. I grew up in the 'burbs outside of Denver and the loneliness of that experience was just awful. I've lived in older urban neighborhoods ever since and it's amazing how much better it has been for my mental and physical health.

I grew up in suburbs, and as a kid, living with family, it seemed normal and good to me at the time. I'd watch movies of families living in cities and wonder how they do it. But now tha ti'm older and live in a city, I look back on my suburban life as being pretty isolated and boring. I had friends, but if they didn't happen to live nearby, I did always have to rely on being driven to go see them. And we moved a lot, as did one of my best friends, so my friends often weren't going to the same school, but even just being a few suburban neighbourhoods over could mean like a 20 minute walk at least just to go see them. So mostly, I remember just staying home most of the time. Watched a lot of tv. Mostly just saw my friends at school. It wasn't until I started driving myself that I actually had the freedom to see my friends as often as I wanted, and that's when the best part of my youth started. I feel like it probably could have started earlier if distance hadn't been such an issue. I've come to appreciate more densely populated areas that don't feel so isolating. The problem with a lot of them in North America, as far as raising a family goes, is that they aren't designed well enough with families and mixed use in mind. It's either suburbs for families or urban areas for single people and childless couples focusing on their careers, etc... Maybe the best you can do is find a suburban area that's right next to an urban area and within walkable distance. If we had more of that missing middle, more people would appreciate it, I think.

This nonsense is spreading to the Caribbean too, spent years of my life being gaslit about being antisocial, turns out the neighborhood I'm in actively deprives you of natural socialization 👎 No grocery stores, no parks, nothing really worthwhile to get to plus it's one giant cul-de-sac. Can't wait for the day when I can choose somewhere better...

I grew up in Jersey city and now living in Utah... I understand this 100%

It's truly fascinating for me that people are obsessed with moving to the suburbs when they have kids, "so their kids can have s yard to play in." Do you want to know what my kid wants more than anything else? Other kids to play with. He couldn't care less about our backyard, because he doesn't want to play out there by himself. So many parents are doing so much harm to their kids by isolating them in these plastic mansions, and they don't even realize it. It's such a shame.

As someone that lives in a stereotypical American saburb with my parents I like the house but hate the place where it sits. The most interesting thing here is a plastic park that nobody uses on the regular. The suburbs are developing a culture but an insanely toxic one where some parents don’t even let their kids play outside anymore and people don’t know their neighbours names (I’m guilty for this). The best way to change this is to add social spots in walkable distances to houses and promote walkability with wider sidewalks and maybe even some benches and water bottle refill stations for joggers and pedestrians walking long distances. Although looking at new housing developments in the USA it seems we are somehow managing to worsen suburbs with even more cul-de-sacs and windy roads.

I feel like another piece of the puzzle is people from car dependent places get used to the feeling of being cocooned from others (or certain type of others) so it reflects in how they live too. Even suburbanites love lifestyle centers but thats because it gives them the feeling of mixed use walkable city but still has the sheltered feel of the suburbs given the sidewalks and everything is privately owned and can control who comes in.

I chose to live in a suburb like this before I got back to riding a bike. I don't regret living here, but I'm working with some like-minded neighbors to get a zoning change so we can have a mini-mart, barber shop, pub, day care, etc. right here, within walking distance. We know it's an uphill battle, but it's one worth fighting. Many of us tend to congregate after work and on weekends on one or another driveway, creating an ad hoc third place, so it's obvious how readily actual third places would be welcomed.

I'm form an Eastern European country, ever since malls started appearing and social media gained popularity, my social life was screwed

People want to blame technology for the current loneliness crisis but it’s actually a life support because so many wouldn’t be depressingly lonely if suburbia wasn’t the norm.

You are the definition of underrated

Even here in New Zealand, they're addicted to building suburban sprawls. The effect of loneliness is the same. I suppose it's in response to the need to build more houses. But I hope this message by your channel and others is heard by the right people so that future generations no longer have to live in such lonely environments.

Suburbia really feels dead and dry, through the sea of dry asphalt and the desert of construction dust it feels like something out of a video game.

I would like to add that, in my opinion, these isolating suburbs don't deserve to be called neighborhoods, just subdivisions. Imagine Mr. Rogers and fans singing "it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," but in a residential park of a subdivision instead of the subway. Oh how different the tone would be.

"The world is cruel. It doesn't have to be ugly..." - Jhin the Virtuoso

Hey, great video! I am so happy that you introduced me to this concept, as I finally have a name for something that I'd struggled to describe! I grew up in a suburban neighborhood, but was fortunate to have a few local third places. These local places are where I gravitate to when I return home and I have chance encounters with old friends, make new aquatintences, and have even found employment from being there and meeting people. It's only sad that I usually have to drive to these third places...

Whatever it is that gives kids the feeling of freedom of travel is whats missing. I cant put it to words really, but its the same thing that makes an adult feel its not worth the effort to take a bike or walk somewhere. The atmosphere? I grew up in a small town and had the absolute pleasure of raising my kid in the same neighborhood. Something has changed through the years. That feeling is no longer there. Proper city planning is probably the solution, but poor planning is not the only cause. Sure, newer suburbs got it bad, but it can certainly be seen and felt almost everywhere

I think that a big part that would help would be to build more houses with front porches. Front porches on an American home are traditional and were extremely common prior to the mid-20th Century, therefore an organic part of the American culture. A front porch is an intermediate zone between the private and public. We also need to combat the hyper-individualist, anti-social and self-centered narcissist culture that has taken place since the mid-20th Century. We do a great job talking about "rights" as a society but no one ever talks about "responsibilities" or "obligations". We live in a society where 18 year olds are kicked out of the home, with no real life education, while at the same time we live in a society where we put our elderly parents into nursing homes the very moment they need a little help; the people who were raised have no sense of shame or a sense of obligation to their own forefathers (parents, grandparents, etc.). That isn't even mentioning community; it used to be common in my tiny little town in Vermont for the community to gather and to participate in folk music and dance; now people don't interact or trust each other.We have become a sick, cruel and self-centered anti-social people. We should put an emphasis on the family; not only parents and their children, but also on the TRADITIONAL family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. Individuals are not the building block of society; the family is. Every single person born into this world has familial ties to other people; and upon those ties we have obligations. We should create public awareness campaigns about how greater interaction with family, including extended, can improve our lives; including in regards to our physical and mental health. In regards to "community" we should promote the idea that a healthy community sees itself as a "family of families". Household A, Household B and Household C all live within a close proximity to one another, and each would benefit mutually from not only "getting along" (which is really the bare minimum, low standards) but also from "looking out for each other" and "interacting" (things which seem to be lost concepts on so many in this day and age). Out with the America bar (a place to get drunk and act like a degenerate for over 21 year old's) and in with the British pub (a place to interact freely with other community members in an organic manner, of all ages from children to the elderly). Also another idea would be to bring finance closer to the community. We live in a society which is now service sector and finance dominated. We should restore the institution of the "Postal Bank". The US Postal Service is obligated to provide universal postal coverage in the United States; so if we resurrected the Postal Bank (which existed until 1967) we could also guarantee universal banking coverage. Not only could it simply be a place to save money, but also like the current Postal Savings Bank of China, it could extend financial services to local commercial entities and municipal governments. These suburban community governments could utilize low-interest long-term loans to improve their communities on a physical level. Also, it is hard for homeless people to get help because they have no place of residence, if a persons bank account was attached to the post office it would make life easier to get those people off the streets. The Postal Savings Bank of China has been integral to pulling millions of Chinese out of "severe poverty", if we had our own it could help us too.

the routines we're all set into are so soul-sucking, it's almost exactly the same week after week for months with very few breaks, and even in the breaks there's a lot of monotony because my mom actually *likes* routines (is she alright) so we often go to the same fast food places, more and more driving, even though in la there's good walkability and transit since even the 60s suburbs were never as spread out as other places in the us are today i'm not trusted to go out on my own yet and i don't have a good bike (i have an old one but it's from when i was like 8 so it's pretty small and that was almost 6 years ago), and even i'm slightly reluctant to use transit because of homeless people and stuff

Suburbia or Rurals can feel lonely to a lot of people POV's but me personally it's relaxin' & yes it can be way too serene sometimes.

Great video! I do have one comment though. Your sentence, "Theres nothing drawing outsiders to the suburbs because there is nothing of value to someone who does not live there," I think is poorly phrased, because some people would hit back with "why would i want random people and strangers coming around who have no business in MY neighborhood?" Consider rephrasing to highlight the advantages it would allow for the people who DO live there, instead.

I grew up in small town (pop. 7000) and walked pretty much everywhere. Unfortunately the downtown commercial area was already gutted by big-box stores and car dependency. So I just kind of wandered around alone.

You explain these topics very well! The B roll is a really nice touch too.

I had no issue growing up in a suburb. I had so many friends in the neighborhood. We rode bikes and skateboards, played football in the yard. Almost every weekend was a block party. The adults drank and the kids played. There was no mixed use zoning nearby. My neighborhood was exactly like those depicted in this video, but we made it work. I'm not saying this to argue or contradict the point of the video or urban advocacy. I am an urban advocate, generally speaking, but I think some of these urban videos speak in absolutes and that's just not fair to the people who do enjoy the suburban life. As an adult, I've moved even further from town. I now live rurally and enjoy every second of it. It's quiet and I have my own land to do the things I enjoy. Yes, I rely on a vehicle to get to town, but when possible I walk when I get there. My point is urban areas are not the absolute best environment for everyone just as suburban and rural areas are not the absolute worst. There is a balance to be found.

These white stop stripes on the tarmac are all way too much to the back. They should be more forward. Or like in the Netherlands: get rid of these stripes and stop shields and give traffic from the right, right of way. It costs less shields renewal and paint for the stripes, after several years. You Americans have much to learn....

The main draw of the suburbs is to get away from other people. It is the reason people moved out here in the first place, to get away from the hustle and bustle of the cities. Some people like their quiet space and wouldn't have it any other way. To introverts, hell is other people.

I went by a suburbs like a week ago (I live nowhere near them) and it literally horrified me that there wasn’t a single tree or bush in a mile radius

I would love my village if there were actual things I can do regularly. I have to drive to the store to get food. I mean there's things to do but I feel like I am isolated in the community college bubble that feels like high school with flexibility.

America is the wealthiest country but not the healthiest country. It's called the United States, yet we are all isolated.

Suburbs have their issues, but I like the fact that they're quieter than most North American cities. I would like to see more mixed land use, just without the skyscrapers (which ruined America as much as shopping centers did). For the safety of those living in multi-family housing, it would be good to cap the building height. No one wants to be on the top floor of a super tall apartment building if there's a fire. As for single-family homes, we would be able to have smaller lots if third-places were well integrated into the suburbs. People would hopefully be less inclined to have a personal gym at home.

"Drive to work, run errands and drive home". Sounds familiar.

Another fantastic video! The part about internet trolls seemed like a tangent at first, but you tied it in well with the concept of "the thrid place" (I also assumed you were calling out oil-snorting trolls who comment on your videos and need to have real social interaction).

I think it's important to note that the suburbs today in the US aren't much different than they were when I grew up in the 1970s/1980s. One of the main differences is that our parents (the Greatest Generation/Silent Generation) gave us a lot more autonomy. They let us walk places and ride our bikes and play by ourselves and at younger ages. We could wander in our own neighborhoods. Just watch any movie from those days or shows set in that time period like Stranger Things to see what I mean. The question is really what changed so that the Baby Boomers and Gen X, and even more the Millennials, became such helicopter parents and so afraid of everything.

In my childhood two periods stick out - when we lived in Victoria, BC, and when we lived in a village on the outskirts of Plymouth, England. In both places I could actually walk or ride my bicycle to various amenities nearby. Pools, libraries, stores, places to explore other than the nearby woods. The rest of my childhood was spent in a suburb outside the city a fair distance. The corner store was a couple km away. Nothing else was within walking distance, other than my elementary school. Junior and Senior high school were a bus ride away, and also in suburbs with nothing else of interest around.

Neighbourhood does have small malls, library, professional centres, community halls. Sports & gyms, walk 10-15 kms a day in mine neighbourhood, and cycle to stores & appointments, even if I do drive I arranged my life to only go to close places. Changed all businesses I use, Dr, Dentists, classes, fitness, lessons, stores etc. to be close to home. Been to Europe lots. Many smaller towns & euro suburbs are the same.

As a history fan, 3rd places are the centers of innovation. They’re gathering spots for intellectuals like scientists and philosophers such as with cafes during the enlightenment. It’s an ideal place for universities too, as universities are social and centers of innovation. I don’t think society would’ve been a tenth as advanced as today without 3rd places.

Eh, I feel this. I live in a trailer park on the side of a highway, but it had the same problems. Outside of school I rarely left it as there was barely any way out of it, even when a Meijer went up across the street. The bus was pretty much only for school, so getting around without help was impossible.

this is the kind of content I love, I live in the city, but any time I have to go to the suburbs, I feel a sense of dread that is hard to explain. just like you said, there's nothing of value to those who don't live there.

You might have covered this and I missed it, but I would add that the car dependency of suburbs also leads to walking much less which leads to worse health, like obesity/metabolic syndrome.

I mean it's park of the reason I'm so isolated with my autism it's even worse I spend most of the time in my backyard I feel trapped

I've never felt more alone / lonely than I do now living in suburbia after living in NYC for 8 years. Previous to NYC, I was in college and previous to that K-12, so I think because I was in activities where people interact with each other, that helped me artificially feel 'less lonely'. Even though it's gotten worse to live in, I utterly miss NYC.

5:37 No wonder I've felt better since leaving Facebook, despite everything going on!

Great video.

Many people move to the suburbs to move away from people in the first place. After work, they don't want to stay in the noisy urban area. Who would want a metal shop business next to their home?

I don´t want to brag, but growing up in a traditional small town in Italy, getting used to walk or bike pretty much everywhere I wanted to go as a kid (the candy store, the youth activity center, the city historical center, etc.) since elementary school, it´s so... strange to see these neighborhoods you are showing and not seeing small shops and cafes and such. I have needed the car to get around in my life only when the distance or the weather didn´t allow me to walk or bike, because in a small town public transport is not well developed (at least in Italy). Now, living in a big city in Germany, I think that if I need to use the car more than 5-6 times in a year, it would mean something is wrong, it´s just much easier to use public transport. In short, thank you for the different perspective. It´s just difficult for me to imagine to always, always having to use the car with no alternative.

Ever since we moved to the suburbs, I've been much more depressed and lonely. Infrastructure is so bad that some streets don't even have proper spacing, making driving dangerous, and it's bad for just if you're walking bc there is no space to walk and you might get hit by a car. Then some streets will have sidewalks on one side of the street but not on the other, also making it harder to actually walk to places. There's lots of streets with no sidewalks though. There are quite a few stores close by but really no motive to walk to these places because of the risk of a car hitting you, which if we had better infrastructure here then a lot of these places would easily be within walkinng distance. Really the only places you can walk to safely is the trail for biking or walking/running. Theres also a a neat record shop but records can be expensive, plus you dont wanna drop it while walking. The only place in town that's focused more on people than cars is the outside mall, its easy to walk around in that area, its not a bad 3rd place but the catch is to get there you have to drive there. I despise the suburbs and miss my old town.

This is a terrible advertisement for urbanism. People move to the suburbs looking for space, quiet, and isolation. For much of this video, they’re just thinking, “yeah, that’s exactly what I want in a place to live.” As an urbanist, you have to recognize that different people value different things-accommodating differences is huge part of urbanism! Your job is to highlight that over-prioritizing one thing leads to really bad trade offs. While plenty of people want to live in quiet neighborhood, pretty much everyone thinks strip malls suck. And once you start pointing it out, most people will also agree that it’s kind of annoying that you have to drive 15 minutes whenever you want to do literally anything. The list goes on. Once you’ve laid out all of these big trade offs, you tell them that they can actually have a quiet neighborhood without all of these trade offs. By embracing traditional development patterns, with different land uses and amenities closely spaced, they can get tons of benefits with only a small reduction in the quiet they desire. It’s not about choosing between downtown and suburbia; it’s about choosing a better, more balanced option that works better for you and everyone else.

Great video! I'm curious about potential third places for lower income families. Having a cafe or bar is great if you can afford to spend an extra $5-15 per day on food or drinks, but many people can't do that. How can we (as a community) create third spaces without forcing folks to spend money every time they go there? Having a rec center or youth center could be an answer, or perhaps parks. I'm an American but I wonder if Europeans have figured this question out

The local "third place" is the front stoop and hallway between apartments. Plenty of people congregating, hanging out, doing drugs, etc. No thanks; you can keep your third places.

I grew up in an eastern european city of 1.3 million people, right on the edge of it on the farthest neighbourhood. I had public transportation, both busses and metro that can take me from my home to the city center in about 15-20 minutes. The city itself was planned by the socialists so it had very good master planned neighbourhoods with lots of parks and shops everywhere. I was always super appreciative I lived in such a place where I could socialize with people. My childhood was great, I was let to roam around the neighbourhood with my friends, without parent suprvesion from around the age of 11. The neighbourhood was safe and we aways found interesting things to do. We played football, we rode skateboards and bikes. It really was great. The insides of those master-planned socialist neighbourhoods are great because a lot of the space is taken by green space, not roads or parking lots. The roads themselves had 20-30kph speed limit and speedbumps were everywhere. The chance of a car hitting a child was very low, at least on the inside of those neighbourhoods. Everything I need I have within walking distance - 3 large grocery stores, several schools and kindergardens, the hospital is 2 bus stops away, plenty of smaller shops, a large shopping mall that doesn't have a surface parking lot, instead it has an underground parking lot of 3 levels. I literally do not need to own a car to live my life. I still do because I like cars and I am into cars, so I own 2 BMW's but they key point here is that I do not need to. Everyone here can live their life without having the hassle of owning and maitaining a car, paying taxes and insurance, paying for gas, etc. etc. Transportation by public transport is so much cheaper than having a car and driving yourself everywhere. Just think about this, especially if you are a person of lower income, having the option to not own a car means you can save more of your income, thus enables you to live an easier life. If you are poor and you have to have a car in order to do the most basic stuff in life like buy food from the grocery store, then everything becomes harder for you. Going to a job interview, going to the gym, going to the hospital, going shopping, going for a leisurly walk in the park, going on a date as a teenager or a young adult. If you have to have a car in order to do any of those activities, then life is much harder as a result, you spend much more of your income in order to be able to participate in society. I honestly think cars should only be used outside of cities and for leisurly purposes like racing. Cities should focus more on enabling their citizens to life their life car-free.

Why would you think people are lonely in sububia?

There should be at least one corner store in each suburban neighbourhood, one that can be stocked by small van so the NIMBYs do not complain about big rigs in their neighbourhoods.

Another issue I've noticed is, the few, new mixed use developments in the US tend to be a massive single development. Several blocks owned by one property developer that built the entire thing at once and leases everything to the various businesses. It leads to the issue that the entire space, including plazas, is privately owned. Not public space. It's a giant outdoor mall. You'll find nobody lingers there after business hours because that's "loitering". They're still not genuine organic places. But I guess it's a start.

Honestly I have no hope that the U.S. will ever improve its urban planning. This is forever.

10 minutes till we get to the subject in the description.

maybe this is just me as well but the other shitty part is when everyone moves away and you're the only one left, and you finally see how lifeless the place is. my buddies and i used to romp around our neighbourhood all the time, until even the closest friend is 15 minutes away. the others are all in big cities or live a distance away. in terms of driving, you're right. there's a walkable plaza here but everyone, even within walking distance, just pulls up in their car, parks, does their thing, and then drives off. all the people around my age either left for a bigger city (uni) or has clustered around the local unis, esp. in student housing. i don't even know half my city nor do i like it because if you don't drive here you go nowhere. since i don't have a car and full license i basically can't do anything.

here in Argentina we have coffee shops,plazas, restaurants and mini markets and even kiosks in the neighbourhood! so there are some reason for someone to get out and socialice

When I temporarily lived in America, in the suburbs, I commented on how all houses felt the same. Other pointed out to me the houses having different architectural elements and even two (two! In a whole subdivision!) with brick facades. Sure, they were designed by different folks, but all set back exactly --twenty feet-- (I meant twenty yards, but a quick check on Google Maps' satellite imagery suggests 15-18), with a two-car wide driveway leading into a garage, attached to the one or two story detached building. Not one without garage. No side-by-side duplex. Near where I grew up there was a detached house, set back some fifteen feet from the street, with a driveway leading up to it. Its front included a gate for the car to drive into an interior courtyard, with the building itself designed around that. Certainly not a common sort of building and definitely not at this scale, but especially in larger places (such as four story buildings in cities) hardly unique. That sort of creativity was entirely absent from the place I lived for that year.

7:53 trees with pretty foliage

I live in a post war suburb from the 50s. So the lot sizes are still small and the neighbourhood is just about walkable. We can complete many errands on foot or bike. Unfortunately all the stores within walking distance are in ugly & depressing strip malls. My wife and I are trying to get by with just one car here. But this will be our first winter without the second car so let's see how it goes... The savings are huge though without the second car.

Yeah I've always lived in cities and wanted to be out in nature, but have run into these types issues that you're talking about when trying to plan an escape from the city. Good video thanks.

You said Exactly what Ive been thinking the past number of years

They should include “Do you consider your neighbourhood rural, suburban, or urban?” in those surveys.

Boomers be like WHy dO KiD’s PLaY sO MUcH oN tHeRe GiZmo’S (aka phones / tablets /computers) ANd DOn’T gO oUTsiDe. The Outside a concrete wasteland

Integrating coffee shops, bakeries, convenience stores, etc. into neighborhoods is not the magic solution for increasing a child's happiness. As an urbanist adult, I personally would love that. But different approaches have to be taken for children vs adults. In fact child happiness has been a reason to argue _in_ _favor_ of suburbs, because children can easily walk or bike to their friend's house down the street and have watergun fights in the backyard (or play video games together). And their childhood friend in all likelihood would live reasonably close if they met that friend in elementary school, which have small boundaries around a neighborhood. That child having to watch for large industrial trucks bringing shipments of new supply for the local businesses, increased contact with adult strangers coming from outside the neighborhood to visit those businesses (strangers who might feel less inclined to maintain the safety of a neighborhood they don't live in), does make it more hostile to the child. The reason why this works outside of North America is because ENTIRE CITIES are built with this integration. So strangers aren't coming to your neighborhood because their neighborhood already has those shops. The zoning laws in N.A. have flipped upside the cities that existed before them and created this problem. So it has to be an integrated or systematic solution, where series of neighborhoods are flipped back, and not a targeted solution where the flipped-back mixed-use new neighborhoods would feel lopsided compared to the rest. With a title like "Suburbia Doesn't Have to Feel Lonely", I was expecting to see a more practical approach that everyone can do on an individual scale. Finding that 3rd place, yes might mean getting in the car and driving your kid to the local library so they can read some books or play on the computers. But it doesn't mean you as the parent have to give up your time. If you have unopened mail and bills to pay you can bring your laptop to the library and get your errands done. Hotspot to your phone if you need a private network. Listen to podcasts, music, or read a book. These things aren't time-wasters - they're valuable underrated activities that lower the stress level of your average adult.

Suburbs offer more privacy and safety than any urban place

Living in suburb: bad living in shitty: good owning car: bad owning nothing: good and you vill be happy

I have never seen or been to a "third place" and I'm convinced they don't actually exist.

My parents and so many other gen X have moved to the suburbs to get away from people only to complain for years about never knowing any of their neighbors and lacking a sense of community

I think, it's interesting to compare the suburbs to low-density areas in Europe, because the de-facto housing situation is similar: Single-familiy homes with multiple cars. But they still look way less car-oriented… The roads are as narrow as possible with on-street paring _supposed_ to block one lane, serving as additional traffic-calming. Also the front yards are always gardens (usually with a small fence), making everything look less boring and the road feel even narrower.

Another important issue is accessibility & exclusion, e.g. a country club that is expensive to join, events that require an entrance fee to participate in. With the current energy crisis, cold / warm places (cool during heatwaves & warm during winter) have opened up in parts of the UK where people can go to hang out, play board games, get access to wifi, get coffee / tea & a biscuit (cookie), recharge devices, read a book etc. In my city our local library offers many clubs & activities people can join for free / small donation. Next door was a local community hall that could be hired (for a nominal fee) for clubs & events. I was part of a craft club & helped the library mend books. The U3 (University of the Third Age) aimed at senior citizens offered regular courses & talks etc. On a Friday night there was a movie night. The library held regular coffee mornings & craft markets on a Saturday morning to raise funds. Of course you needed your car to get there... Our library did offer a mobile library for some of the local retirement centres. It's good that communities engage with urban planners to make neighbourhoods more livable & lovable, but it's also good to start with what you have. Car-free Sundays, where roads are closed to cars for a few hours so residents can enjoy biking, skating, walking around an area, perhaps coinciding with a market for small businesses, crafters & artists. Some communities have developed pedestrian zones around schools, providing a safer & healthier area for school kids. Organised bike buses temporarily close roads periodically so kids can walk or ride to school safely. In The Netherlands they have "woonerfs" (living streets) where cars & people safely coexist - people socialise & kids can play in the streets safely while cars are free to use these streets too.

My sububan neighborhood is pretty chatty. I can talk to a neighbor for hours. Every day at 3 all the retired people gather over at Bob's. One of our neighbors grows corn in this front yard & he lets the neighbors pick it. Used to be 4 houses here with chickens too. We used to use the empty lot by the ravine for a mass garage sale area once a year, wish they'd bring that back. We also have an annual summer event where the whole neighborhood can come to a culdesac for dinner with food trucks.

Honestly i've mostly just been watching your videos because I had just moved out of Reno so its kinda cool seeing familiar stuff in the clips. Otherwise I do agree with what you're saying.

New York City has its problems, but seeing videos like this makes me glad to be born, raised here and to still be living here.

Criminals from the city drove to my suburb and robbed us. When I lived in the city as a kid I had started taking the bus by myself at 11. Now the suburb is boring and we like to drive to mixed use communities with great restaurants, parks, housing etc.

I agree that the places you showed in your clips looked rather depressing. That being said, you are presenting a very one-sided argument to support your case. I grew up in suburbia in the UK, and it wasn't THAT bad, but perhaps it's different here. My school was a 15 minute walk away. We had a train station 2 minute's walk from my house, with access to central London in 30 minutes, and trains came every 30 minutes. There was also a park, corner store and cafe within 5 minutes walk, and a supermarket was a 5 minute drive or 20 minute walk away. There were footpaths everywhere although we didn't have much bike infrastructure. Something you didn't mention, which is a big plus of suburbs is that I lived in a cul-de-sac and I had kids to play with in my street. There were 5 familes with kids in our cul-de-sac and we could often play out in the road on our bikes or go into each other's back gardens. It was great. It did get worse as I got older though. As a teenager, there wasn't much to do in the immediate vicinity until I could drive at age 17. After that, it got a bit better, but only because I could drive or go to London on the train. So my view is not that suburbs are always and only bad, but that it depends on how they're built, and your argument about zoning is totally right. Mixed-use is crucial.

This type of urbanism isn't only depressing, but also fuels poverty and inequality. It makes housing artificially expensive, by only allowing single family homes and huge rental apartment complexes, but not medium sized multi-family developments, and it makes it very expensive to start a business because you need to buy or rent a huge space occupied mostly by parking, and that is adjacent to a busy "stroad" (meaning only big corporations can afford to buy them). Cities in the US and Canada should just allow small businesses (corner stores, cafés, pet shops, etc.) and small and medium sized multi-family developments (small apartment buildings and multi-family houses) to be built in the suburbs. That would improve the economic situation and give opportunities to a lot of people, and as you say in this video, would make the suburbs much livelier and interesting.

I’m not sure the third place is really real; i’ve never been outside my home and not felt like i’m in a liminal space, somewhere its okay to pass through but i have an overwhelming feeling not to stick around too long.

I would love to have a small grocery shop at the end of my street. The closest place I have is a liquor store and it's about a mile away.

I live in a walkable town that is incredibly boring, but it is one of the nicest places to live, People mostly want to live in boring, but functional places. They don't want exiting places near them, those are places where they go for fun and then come home to peace and quiet. I still can walk to some restauraunts and a grocery store and only use my car for long distance travel, over 20mi. I remember hearing europeans of many years ago who first visited japan being surprised at their lack of 3rd places, and that people mostly congregated at other peoples homes, but that was Japan a place known for good urbanism. I also don't think the social criticisms of suburbia are good ones, as suburbia is far more socially functional than most of our rural areas, small towns, and big cities, and loneliness is what you make of it, The Amish seem to be doing well socially and they all live on farms, and I live in a place that is walkable and I never interact with anyone here, as most friends who share my values are scattered across the metro area, and my social life was just as good when I lived in suburbia with my parents as I do now. Suburbia should be criticized on financial reasons as they are the only ones where suburbia underperforms Cities, Towns and Rural Areas. Most of the other criticisms like Aesthetic Uglyness, or Social reasons are often worse in other living arrangements than suburbia

What a useful health study

In Chicago the Metra suburbs are by far the best example of suburbs in the USA imo. They have vibrant downtowns and commuters can go to Chicago via rail. Very European and North American.

12:20 I'm not American so it took me a couple seconds to realise those are only garages, after looking away I first thought you found another suburb that is way more livable. But no, they actually can build a nice looking community with a decent scale and proximity but it's just garage doors instead of front doors and windows, a shame

It’s glorious. You can have peace and privacy at your house.