Out of curiosity, do you have kids? It's mighty convenient to have a car with all the stuff in it and plenty of space to park that car nearby, and also lots of space for the kids to play outside.
Carry less stuff? The amount of crap people haul around for their kids is astonishing.
The only reason I drove anywhere with my son was because our region wasn't easily walk-able. That, and travel sports (though if the immediate area was walkable, that would have been reduced to weekend games).
He's since moved out, and we've traded our single-family for a TH in a denser area (though still suburban). I walk to work, walk to the park, have access to many trails, and only drive on the weekends to run errands. It was more QOL-improving than I ever imagined.
Anyway, I've grown to hate suburban sprawl. I find dense suburb packed around transit to be much better from a QOL perspective.
My wife and I bought a house in pre-car suburb that was exactly what we wanted: dense, public transit, lots of places to go on foot (doctor, library, municipal building, 3 separate shopping districts, hardware/general store, dozen parks and playgrounds, &c). We wanted a good school, but weren't willing to sacrifice our way of life, and we found, I think, the perfect spot. (We love our neighbors too, but didn't know that until after we moved in).
When we looked at places I gave an immediate veto if there wasn't a sidewalk or if there wasn't a trolley stop a within 10min - 15 min walk, or a bus within 5min. Our elementary school is an 8min walk, the middle and high schools are about 20min. We only drive when public transit would more than double the amount of time it would take or if we need to go where there isn't transit. My wife will also drive for the large grocery runs each month, but the week-to-week is put in the stroller and carried home.
We enjoy this. Cars drive us nuts, not to mention the hassle of parking.
Where is this? In the states, suburbs were dreamed up along with the assumption of having a car - so the idea of a 'non-car' suburb is pretty foreign to me
Just south of Pittsburgh in the Mt Lebanon and Dormont area. My area was built up in Tue 1920s before having a car, let lone multiple cars for a family was a given.
I'm not sure what you'd call this if not a suburb. The exurban areas are the ones from the 50s on that are nothing but houses arranged in the worst way possible.
Honestly, a lot of the first and second ring suburbs are like this. The Mon Valley (suburbs and towns along one of our rivers to the south east) is set up like this, but has been decimated by the loss of industry.
(Mt Lebanon is a township so part of it does go down the super low density route, but not the older sections.)
I have an 11-month-old and any given time I put him in a carseat it's 50-50 whether he'll holler until we get there. I take BART now even more than I used to.
> and also lots of space for the kids to play outside.
Do kids still play outside these days? I'm only 27, but from what I've seen of the 6-18 crowd they tend to be stuck in front of a screen most of the day.
