I grew up in Detroit. I love the city and the rectangular layout of the neighborhoods. It all felt like a community. You could walk to school, walk to the convenient store, walk to the barber shop, walk to the park and so on. During these walks you'd met people, saw others you already knew, and it helped you build relationships with people in your neighborhood. People lived in the front of their homes. There were always people sitting on the front porch and talking to their neighbors and people who passed by. I live in a suburb now. People live in back of their homes, on their patios and decks. People pull into the attached garage and go straight into their house. Now you have to drive to the schools, convenient stores, shops and parks. Suburbs are missing the key ingredients that make a neighborhood a community. Where the cities brought us together, the suburbs are helping to keep us apart.
Way to generalize hundreds of millions. I'm from New Jersey (very close to NYC) and I walk / take the train everywhere. Don't have a drivers license and won't for as long as I can muster.
Same. Even worse is that with this type of urban design there is nowhere to walk to, it's a neighborhood that is nothing but only (the same looking)houses - no stores, venues or any other type of building, nothing in walking distance.
@@xx_skullgamer_xx2754 I googled 1500 sq ft /139 sq m sounds quite huge to me. I grew up in a 55 sq m apartment in Amsterdam city center. Definitely cozy, but nowhere near a prison cell.
We looked at one of those houses before and it looked to big outside but it was so small inside. That’s how it is with the suburban houses, they focus more on the outside then on the inside and it’s really tiny in there
But that is the intent, isn't it? Non-Drivers are "different", so it's not for them that the burb was constructed, it's to make everybody seem the same, including "class sorting" through pricing and such methods.
And if you have car trouble and have to walk somewhere people tend to see someone walking without excercise gear on as unemployed, even when you're walking to work lol
I grew up in a small town, but I dreamed of getting my license for years, you finally have freedom, you can go to friends houses from school that lived to far to walk to, you could explore the world, I can't imagine not having a drivers license.
Henning Nilsen True, but in America the car is a symbol of freedom. If you have a car, you can go from LA to Miami without question. Yeah It’s limiting for short distances, but for longer distances with varying climates and cultures it’s fairly liberating.
Suburbplans often look great on paper. But the community does not stop at the edges of the paper. Many suburbs are islands with little connection to the city, unless you get into a car. That is we're American and many other city's planners need te work on.
Leon Kremer that really is one of the biggest problems with them. Cities here in Canada have the same issues. My suburban Neighbourhood has no real connection to the rest of the city. It’s just a pocket of housing with no shops and no reason for someone who doesn’t leave here to come in. But when you go closer to downtown you start to see Neighbourhoods with grid layouts and shops, cafes, Restaurants and Unique character. There’s actually a reason for people not living in those neighbourhoods to enter them because they’re not just an island of housing, they’re a part of the city.
there is a classic Russian romantic comedy about this called _The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!_ -- the different neighborhoods are in Leningrad and Moscow but have identical apartment complexes
@ersad Kaya suburbs are the most selfish artificial environment , but some people like living in their own little world so thats what their for. Apartments exist because land value is too high because people want to live in that particular area and a house would be too much for most people too afford.
The opposite for me, Cities tend to be too exciting and I rather lived in Suburbs because I prefer a more laid back lifestyle. Also cities can be depressing like you lived in an expensive shoebox often with no access to green space and 24/7 noise.
Exactly, when my cousins came from New York City to a small town where I live, they were bored the heck out. At least there is a public pool and playground. And bike trail. Other than that it's like 10 times smaller than the 35 quarter sack neighborhood in the video.
This reminds me of how some foreigners think that it’s an easy pop from NYC to Austin and make a trip to a Los Angeles in a week.. like haha, no honey.
my neighborhood had sidewalks and pathways everywhere. And sadly, a lot of crime as a result. You see, people from different neighborhoods would have easy access to mine, (which was like middle class) and they would steal things often since there were many walkways and escape routes. This is why we cannot have nice things.
Cars are a big part of American culture I think. Now itr could be because the roads were made for them at the bidding of the motor companies, but it might be that the roads were made for cars because thats what most Americans focused on. I think the car was supposed to be a symbol of that classic American "freedom" that we hear so much about.
@@earthstar393 most American cities were built after cars became mainstream. Many cities around the world date back as old as 1000 years, which were mainly pedestrian
@Hernando Malinche Dr. G. You're right. It wasn't by accident. They sold people the suburbs with a slice of space and the 'freedom' to drive wherever you wanted to go. But, freedom didn't arrive the way it was expected. This is why urban areas needed to be segregated and marginalized to the extent possible. Then most suburbanites will feel some justification in trading in a cosmopolitan environment for a mind-numbing nothing one.
@@redditstop1653 It can be done, usually, some minor changes in the form of walking connections that feed pedestrians quickly to the suburban arterial will help. Ideally, you want the bus to be able to take a fairly direct quick route along the suburban arterial just make sure people can quickly walk over to the road and wait at a nice bus stop to get on the bus. If your bus needs to wind around low-speed suburban streets taking a 90-degree bend every few hundred meters chances are you won't attract many no matter how frequent the service. Nobody wants to spend an hour on the bus to get to a flipping grocery store use your walking network to bring people quickly and conveniently to the bus so it can do its one job of moving as many people as quickly and as directly as possible to where they need to be.
I truly hate the suburbs and American city layouts in general (with the exception of New York City). I hate the "drive everywhere mentality" and big box supermarkets, because they isolate people from everyone else. I admire the European and Asian city layouts, where the dense neighbourhoods allow the residents to communicate with one another, and most importantly, give the city its culture.
@@neilworms2 I've spent some time in Chicago, and all I've got to say to you is that during my time there, I thought of Chicago as beautiful architectually, but terribly dull culturally. While the grid layout works in NYC, I feel like in Chicago's case, it made the city feel boring. However, I think San Francisco is another example of an American grid planning done right
Why do I think that your impression of European cities is derived from a period romcom? Densely packed cities are a dystopian nightmare. This very channel covered the horror of living in most of Hong Kong. And London and Paris are some of the most alienating cities on earth. You guys have a lot going for you. Believe me.
The grid street plan is WAY better than the winding suburban street plan because you can actually WALK to the places you want to go. It gets tedious having to drive everywhere.
Its really not that hard to make suburbs walkable. Just put in a path every dozen or so houses that connects to whatever surrounding streets and you're done. You still have to go the long way if you're driving, but walking becomes not much different than in a grid system. Oh, and put sidewalks back obviously (I'm in Canada and while we've adopted the US love of suburbs, we still keep the sidewalks -- mostly for the sake of safety since suburbs tend to attract families with young kids.) . Of course, having somewhere to walk to is a whole other question. The biggest problem with suburbs is that they tend to be houses only. There's rarely a corner store, and you're usually a good 10-30 minutes drive from the nearest full grocery store / mall.. and frequently that's driving at highway speeds (once you get out of the suburb itself,) making it a _long_ walk. A 10-15 minute drive at 30mph would be around 2 hours for the average walker. Each way. So even if the suburb itself is foot-navigable, you're still stuck taking a vehicle several times a week just to do basic things. . That can of course be somewhat alleviated by setting up the suburbs in a way that they can have easy access to public transportation (bus routes in particular.) There's not really any excuse in 2019 for suburb planners to be intentionally making that any more difficult than the sheer distances already dictate.
It really depends on where the neighborhood is located. I live in a grid street planned hood and the only places in walkable distance are corner stores at maybe a 10 minute walk. There's a park that's maybe 30-40 min walk but you might as well use a car.
@@fjellyo3261 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.
Kevin Arik Rayhan Each housing development in central Florida usually only has a few model homes to choose from, so the houses are mostly the same. They're refered to as cookie cutter homes.
@@Primalxbeast Central Florida? You're not talking about Orlando are you? Because Orlando has some of the most diverse architecture and building design in any big city I've been to.
Jack M I'm talking about the suburbs of the greater Orlando area. Most of the developments are pre-planned with cookie cutter homes. It's been like that for quite awhile. I moved here in the mid 80s and that was already how they were being built.
@@Kejsaren There are tons of places where restaurants and shops are on the ground floor and housing above, even in those sleepy one traffic light towns have those.
Allan Johansen where I live in Florida it has those random stores,restaurant ,malls and sidewalks that you could walk to them but no one really uses the sidewalks anymore everyone drives but surprisingly the traffic runs smoothly
@@shrek7957 What about kids? They're just stuck at home until they turn 15-16? All the cars going to work in the morning causing congestion? All the roads need maintenance that the taxes of these suburbs can't pay for? There's so many issues that "everyone has a car" doesn't even begin a discussion.
American suburbs seem so alien to me, as an Australian that has lived mostly in suburbs, I’m much more familiar with being able to walk basically everywhere with small little shops and milk bars (the Australian version of those little stores that sell candy/lollies and drinks) in the nooks and crannies of the suburbs. When you go for a walk and you want to go on a bit of an adventure it is always so easy to get lost in the sprawling streets, sidewalks going between houses into different streets and like the hundreds of little nature walkways that can go on for a long time, it’s like a spiders web of streets, walkways and discovering small monuments and little-known stores tucked away in the crevices of the city.
@Bugler55 >city blocks this is a video about the suburbs, chief. My neighborhood has a total of 3 house designs, where there is a 1 story design with some optional upgrades like weird bricks on pillars and a total of 2, 2 story designs.
Lived on a metro area all my life, when I came to the US I moved with my father in the suburbs and we both agree, we hate this place and can't wait to move out closer to the city Suburbs are a architecture mess
@@topman8565 Or deep into depts, working non-stop to afford poorly built (way to big for any family) McMansion and the lifestyle that goes with it (a car for each individual over 16 living in the house). All of that for the dull, conformist, consumerist, depressing and superficial life of the suburban hellhole...
it's not every day that rva is mentioned by the national press, so this also caught me by surprise. (i'm also originally from west end henrico, but i'm currently living in alabama.)
As a resident of Midlothian, VA, I can promise you that the majority of neighborhoods around here look exactly like Hallsley, and many new builders gravitate towards the area to build new expensive neighborhoods due to the highly awarded schools, but there’s a big catch, now that so many neighborhoods are here, all the high schools are facing overcrowding (Namely, Cosby / Midlo High. / Clover Hill). And overall, the smaller streets and roads can’t keep up with the influx. So while these families pursue beautiful neighborhoods and nice schools they’re destroying both.
Well, there is currently a movement of affluent people moving to urban areas. What you are seeing is a suburban plan which is more common on cities that were developed between the 1940's up until the 1990's.
Actually studied a semester of this in University in one of my Sociology classes. It has a lot to do with social class & economic growth as stated in the video. (3:19) Highlighted section, "The social class of the parents..." Along with the statement at (3:32).
Irish Eggs midlothian is less than 10 minutes away from Richmond, VA, which is a great city and most jobs are located there. Also if you like cold weather and hot weather, central Virginia is perfect.
“if a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes” 😳 jeeesus lol welcome to the “good ol’ days” of the 1950’s!
Is that untrue? Isn't this the underlying, unstated, argument _against_ "gentrification", when middle class white people move into poorer, (usually) black city neighborhoods?
@@tigerburn81 actually, mixed neighborhoods with wealthier and poorer people are healthy communities. Gentrification is just rich people swarming neighborhoods until the locals are driven out.
Not really only if your town doesn’t have a developed downtown and a train station. But my suburb holds arts festivals and outdoor concerts regularly during the summer.
I live in Austria in Graz and I think uniqueness is also great for navigation, because I think it is easier to remember unique patterns of the streets.
I live in a Latin American city that has a mix of both layouts: the eastern older part of town follow grid pattern; now to the west and mainly inside neighborhoods it adjusts to topography, still the areas are relatively small, dense and walkable (but no one likes to walk unless they're forced to) and you can reach a main avenue within 1 km
@I HATE TOUCANS this are the people that have gun violence in school and instead of solving the social political issues they turn the schools into a prison like architecture
They also completely forgot about orientation of sections to allow the longest side to face north or south if you are in the us, to allow the largest side of any built home to collect the winter sun and reduce to much heating in summer. So not only are we dependent on car's to get around but air-conditioning and heating are must haves to.
The thing about the suburbs, at least here in the US, is that on paper they seem like pleasant places to live but once you live there they are actually depressing and lifeless.
We started getting suburbs like this in some places in Australia and they're generally just for first home-owners who aren't expected to live there for longer than a few years, so they're built as quickly and cheaply as possible, they're not terribly popular, they're just a cheap option.
When I was a kid, we lived on a dead end street behind a suburb, in a little mobile home. We’d call those suburbs the “rich neighborhood.” It always took so long for the water to drain so we’d ask if we could ride our bikes in the rich neighborhood.
America's car-centrism really infuriates me, more so since returning from studying abroad in Chile, where public transportation and walking got me pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. Here at home in the U.S., the nearest grocery store is a forty-minute walk away from my house - that time gets cut to ten or fifteen minutes if you're on a bike, but then there's the issue of returning and having to go uphill the whole way back. To get beyond the residential sprawl and into the next zoning type, you have to drive a minimum of twenty minutes. For my thesis I'm thinking of investigating what it would take to make suburbs more adaptable and resilient, as I took a class on Architecture and the Environment and the idea of mixed-use and pedestrian-focused developments just made so much sense to me. I'll look into more videos like this one!
I’ve lived in Florida my whole life. I enjoy walking down the streets, it’s my favorite part of visiting other other countries. It’s really hard to walk around in America. Especially if you live in the suburbs, which I do. In my neighborhood, only the main roads have sidewalks, and to catch a bus I have to walk a couple of miles. I love visiting bigger cities and walking around/ taking public transportation. I hate how the suburban sprawl makes it so hard.
I live super close to Midlothian, Virginia and what holds true across the US is that the Suburbs don't lead anywhere. At the entrance of each neighborhood is an unsafe main road far from any stores or buildings.
Really? In my place we usually sit on the porch with candles so the whole street stay "bright" and spend our time with neigbhors, having barbeque and various outdoor activities, and the males wouldn't go to sleep until the electricity is back on.
Laying under a tree outside my "golf course culde-sac" home right now. Sounds lovely till u have to deal with an Association. I was fined for my "rustic grass" planted in my landscaping... Complaints they "looked like weeds"
I live in the “suburbs” in the UK, we’re in walking distance of the school (20mins) shops (10mins) and other services, we have frequent busses into the larger town and then into the nearby city, i’m not sure where america went wrong with this one
Worst part about a suburb that you aren’t familiar with is if you’re driving in the direction you think you should be going, you might be on the wrong street at the end. I do prefer main streets connecting to small streets with arms of even smaller streets over a huge grid pattern, and if you can incorporate shopping centers or mini-outlet type destinations every quarter mile or so, you can make the suburban layout much easier on the mind.
Alright! I can say that I've really enjoyed your videos on the design of communities and stuff! More interesting and enlightening than I thought they'd be. It's cool to compare planned communities versus the unplanned ones near me 🤷♂️
Ian Quiñones exactly, Hawaii landscapes, yards, houses, etc look wayyyy different than the houses of Alaska. There’s some houses in Hawaii that have gaps between the floor boards and walls. You’d never see that in Alaska
One thing I've always loved about my hometown is how I can walk from one end to the other if I had to, but I don't have to. Everything you need is within walking distance - it's the perfect SimCity. I always say now that I can't imagine living somewhere where a church, bar, party store, gas station, mechanic, hair/tan/nails, laundromat, 2 fast foods, 2 good restaurants, and 2 small businesses aren't every 8 blocks. Each neighborhood is distinct, but they're all cohesive. It is easy to navigate, built on a grid design. The transit is convenient. The parks and rec are excellent and equitably dispersed. Each side of the river has their own version of their needed staples mirroring the other side's. It is urban with a suburban feel, and five minutes later, you can be rural. It is (my) perfect city.
I’ve been loving the urban planning and design videos Vox has been publishing lately. I’m going to school for this right now and it’s been great to share these
Lol in south korea most of us lives in 10 to 20 storey apartments. Even if there are private owned houses, the dont have th suburbs that american houses have
I live half of the time in downtown Toronto and half of the time into the suburbs. I can very clearly see the advantages and disadvantages of both and the clear objectives between the two distinct styles of city layouts. One is very loud, straight, but navigable. And the other is quiet, curvey and car-oriented with navigability not a priority.
its a shame that a lot of their videos contain political biases, cause their graphics and production video value are unmatched on youtube. their content can range from informative videos like this, to saying cameras are racist to black people and tourist visiting brazil should visit the crime ridden favelas as 'theyre not that bad'
I've been getting interested in 3D modeling and city design and this is really interesting. I initially started making a grid design but I'm totally applying this to the most far away zones :O It's also super choking to see SO MANY houses. I only see houses in towns (cheaper ones are either old (like the family has always lived there) or very small) and the outside of the cities, and these are usually very expensive
The worst thing about suburbs isn't that you have to drive everywhere. Its that you only have boring places to go to like franchise restaurants in malls.
People in the comments are already having heart attacks with the small scratch the surface bit they did here. They couldn't handle the truth! It's a shame people get upset over historical facts
@@TheSultan1470 no it’s true. The US gov handed out GI loans to ww2 soldiers for them to buy houses. Except they made it VERY hard for black vets to collect their benefits and that’s partially why there was such a big housing disparity
@@CeruleanStallion The thing is I never exactly tried to find out, it was just something I wondered about and tbh anyone can find out the surface reasons of something by a simple google search but the in-depth reasons are always fun to wonder about. No offence though.
British person here...It seems a shame to have all that space in front of houses, only to have a perfected manicured lawn. Why not plant some nice shrubs and flowers to look at?
Look at the sheer size of property you have in a suburb! I think that is also a letdown for communication among the residents. I live in Germany and the property I'm living on is 10 meters wide. In our garden we "only" have a simple fence that keeps us away from our neighbours. Not that this is a bad thing. In contrary, it gets us to talk. As a result of that, the whole street I live in does an annual little party in summer with a tent and food and everything. Just because everybody knows anybody else. If you have a property that is wide with like 40 meters and more and cheap on top. Good for you. But you isolate yourself the more land you own around you.
Because every nation on earth builds houses out of wood when they have an abudance of it (Canada, Finland, Sweden etc). They don't "look big" they are big. Your concept of tacky and cheap is subjective, I can't help you with that
I’ve always lived in a townhouse-like neighborhood (the houses are all connected side to side) so it feels weird that houses even have windows and rooms at the sides of the house
I live in the lesser-developed part of town and for that I am grateful. Our houses are different sizes, materials and colors. In the center there's an elementary school in which the neighboring kids attend. After class families come to play on the playgrounds whilst church-led baseball teams use the field. Our streets might be cracked but they're well used:)
They aren't expensive. Houses here are way cheaper than most other developed countries. Also, not every american city is a suburb. There are plenty of walkable american cities.
The standard culdesac subdivision design is also the most efficient way to place lots for developers. More Lots = More Houses = More Return for investment. Zoning bylaws held by towns and septic regulations also play a huge role in maintaining this model.
I grew up in Detroit. I love the city and the rectangular layout of the neighborhoods. It all felt like a community. You could walk to school, walk to the convenient store, walk to the barber shop, walk to the park and so on. During these walks you'd met people, saw others you already knew, and it helped you build relationships with people in your neighborhood. People lived in the front of their homes. There were always people sitting on the front porch and talking to their neighbors and people who passed by.
I live in a suburb now. People live in back of their homes, on their patios and decks. People pull into the attached garage and go straight into their house. Now you have to drive to the schools, convenient stores, shops and parks. Suburbs are missing the key ingredients that make a neighborhood a community. Where the cities brought us together, the suburbs are helping to keep us apart.
I think that was the idea.
Demographics are destiny.
I'm sure the demographics of the Detroit your talking about are quite different than what they are now.
@Soloson North American’s don’t walk now, they take the car everywhere
Way to generalize hundreds of millions. I'm from New Jersey (very close to NYC) and I walk / take the train everywhere. Don't have a drivers license and won't for as long as I can muster.
Rich White people are inherently anti social so they have no desire to connect with anyone
As a european it's so weird to see streets without a pavement/sidewalk. Where tf are you supposed to walk?
Americans don't walk. They drive, travel 3 km? Lemme take a car.
@@jjc5475 To be fair, I would drive everywhere if the only way to walk was down the middle of the road.
Same. Even worse is that with this type of urban design there is nowhere to walk to, it's a neighborhood that is nothing but only (the same looking)houses - no stores, venues or any other type of building, nothing in walking distance.
bios47 you mean gated communities
Sidewalks are common in American suburbs but yes, many do lack them, especially on streets with less traffic.
As a European it's so odd seeing SUCH big houses! Those are practically mansions by my standards
As a canadian anything below 1500 sq ft is a prison cell
@@xx_skullgamer_xx2754 I googled 1500 sq ft /139 sq m sounds quite huge to me. I grew up in a 55 sq m apartment in Amsterdam city center. Definitely cozy, but nowhere near a prison cell.
@@xx_skullgamer_xx2754 🤣🤣
We looked at one of those houses before and it looked to big outside but it was so small inside. That’s how it is with the suburban houses, they focus more on the outside then on the inside and it’s really tiny in there
As a maroccan those are castles by our standards
When you're someone who can't drive suburbs are an absolute hellscape. It takes ages to walk anywhere and the few buses there are are terrible.
But that is the intent, isn't it? Non-Drivers are "different", so it's not for them that the burb was constructed, it's to make everybody seem the same, including "class sorting" through pricing and such methods.
And if you have car trouble and have to walk somewhere people tend to see someone walking without excercise gear on as unemployed, even when you're walking to work lol
I grew up in a small town, but I dreamed of getting my license for years, you finally have freedom, you can go to friends houses from school that lived to far to walk to, you could explore the world, I can't imagine not having a drivers license.
@@bigredc222 I can, it's called Europe.
@@bigredc222 I can do all that in my country by taking a bus.
Being so reliant on cars for transportation sounds so dystopian to me.
Henning Nilsen True, but in America the car is a symbol of freedom. If you have a car, you can go from LA to Miami without question. Yeah It’s limiting for short distances, but for longer distances with varying climates and cultures it’s fairly liberating.
@@Chrisc0Disc0 Of course. My country is roughly the size of California so I totally understand the need for the car.
Henning Nilsen It is.
How is it dystopian? Our history is different than yours which is why our cities/towns/whatever is built differently. :\
I feel the same, that’s why I only bike and use public transportation
Suburbplans often look great on paper. But the community does not stop at the edges of the paper. Many suburbs are islands with little connection to the city, unless you get into a car. That is we're American and many other city's planners need te work on.
Leon Kremer that really is one of the biggest problems with them. Cities here in Canada have the same issues. My suburban Neighbourhood has no real connection to the rest of the city. It’s just a pocket of housing with no shops and no reason for someone who doesn’t leave here to come in. But when you go closer to downtown you start to see Neighbourhoods with grid layouts and shops, cafes, Restaurants and Unique character. There’s actually a reason for people not living in those neighbourhoods to enter them because they’re not just an island of housing, they’re a part of the city.
Chad Hutsee same I like on Long Island and to get to NYC you need to drive or take a train
It’s called zoning they zone certain places for certain things
Where*
LITERALLY look great on paper. And hideous in reality.
No wonder I've mistaken some neighborhoods for my own even when I'd be 50 miles away.
@@motorsphere356 hUh
hUh
there is a classic Russian romantic comedy about this called _The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!_ -- the different neighborhoods are in Leningrad and Moscow but have identical apartment complexes
doesn't help that the houses are homogenized as well
Thought I was the only one experiencing the kafkaesque reality of America’s surbubia haha
suburbs are depressing, and there's nothing to do anywhere.
It isnt built for community but for practical logistics
@ersad Kaya suburbs are the most selfish artificial environment , but some people like living in their own little world so thats what their for. Apartments exist because land value is too high because people want to live in that particular area and a house would be too much for most people too afford.
The opposite for me, Cities tend to be too exciting and I rather lived in Suburbs because I prefer a more laid back lifestyle. Also cities can be depressing like you lived in an expensive shoebox often with no access to green space and 24/7 noise.
Exactly, when my cousins came from New York City to a small town where I live, they were bored the heck out. At least there is a public pool and playground. And bike trail. Other than that it's like 10 times smaller than the 35 quarter sack neighborhood in the video.
Not having an home is depressing.
So that's why it takes forever to walk anywhere in America
Bel562 Not all of America, just most of the suburbs
Canada too
This reminds me of how some foreigners think that it’s an easy pop from NYC to Austin and make a trip to a Los Angeles in a week.. like haha, no honey.
my neighborhood had sidewalks and pathways everywhere. And sadly, a lot of crime as a result. You see, people from different neighborhoods would have easy access to mine, (which was like middle class) and they would steal things often since there were many walkways and escape routes. This is why we cannot have nice things.
@@urai9438 Then go get to robbing. Adapt to ur environment my boy 😂😂😂 not that hard
Did car companies pay big money for this kind of development? Especially with nothing being within walking distance of a suburb
Cars are a big part of American culture I think. Now itr could be because the roads were made for them at the bidding of the motor companies, but it might be that the roads were made for cars because thats what most Americans focused on. I think the car was supposed to be a symbol of that classic American "freedom" that we hear so much about.
Absolutely the car manufactures lobbied the government to expand the road infrastructure with the sole purpose to sell more automobiles.
@@earthstar393 most American cities were built after cars became mainstream. Many cities around the world date back as old as 1000 years, which were mainly pedestrian
@Hernando Malinche Dr. G.
You're right. It wasn't by accident. They sold people the suburbs with a slice of space and the 'freedom' to drive wherever you wanted to go. But, freedom didn't arrive the way it was expected. This is why urban areas needed to be segregated and marginalized to the extent possible. Then most suburbanites will feel some justification in trading in a cosmopolitan environment for a mind-numbing nothing one.
Just gunna put this here, the main killer was Parking lots.
I wish public transport would be more integrated in neighbourhoods.
That's why Uber and Lyft exist now. To combat the public transportation problem. I'd say its pretty effective too
It’s only work if the population is dense. Suburbs are more spread out
@@braindead6611 There's a box video where they show how Toronto made a efficient bus system in there suburbs. There suburbs are just like our suburbs.
@@redditstop1653 It can be done, usually, some minor changes in the form of walking connections that feed pedestrians quickly to the suburban arterial will help. Ideally, you want the bus to be able to take a fairly direct quick route along the suburban arterial just make sure people can quickly walk over to the road and wait at a nice bus stop to get on the bus. If your bus needs to wind around low-speed suburban streets taking a 90-degree bend every few hundred meters chances are you won't attract many no matter how frequent the service. Nobody wants to spend an hour on the bus to get to a flipping grocery store use your walking network to bring people quickly and conveniently to the bus so it can do its one job of moving as many people as quickly and as directly as possible to where they need to be.
Visit Australia xd
I truly hate the suburbs and American city layouts in general (with the exception of New York City). I hate the "drive everywhere mentality" and big box supermarkets, because they isolate people from everyone else. I admire the European and Asian city layouts, where the dense neighbourhoods allow the residents to communicate with one another, and most importantly, give the city its culture.
There are other good American cities Chicago for one...
@@neilworms2 I've spent some time in Chicago, and all I've got to say to you is that during my time there, I thought of Chicago as beautiful architectually, but terribly dull culturally. While the grid layout works in NYC, I feel like in Chicago's case, it made the city feel boring.
However, I think San Francisco is another example of an American grid planning done right
@@keiffactory You probably are from NYC aren't you :/
Why do I think that your impression of European cities is derived from a period romcom? Densely packed cities are a dystopian nightmare. This very channel covered the horror of living in most of Hong Kong. And London and Paris are some of the most alienating cities on earth.
You guys have a lot going for you. Believe me.
I think you forget not everyone wants to live near each other, essentially a culture battle royale.
The grid street plan is WAY better than the winding suburban street plan because you can actually WALK to the places you want to go.
It gets tedious having to drive everywhere.
Its really not that hard to make suburbs walkable. Just put in a path every dozen or so houses that connects to whatever surrounding streets and you're done. You still have to go the long way if you're driving, but walking becomes not much different than in a grid system. Oh, and put sidewalks back obviously (I'm in Canada and while we've adopted the US love of suburbs, we still keep the sidewalks -- mostly for the sake of safety since suburbs tend to attract families with young kids.)
.
Of course, having somewhere to walk to is a whole other question. The biggest problem with suburbs is that they tend to be houses only. There's rarely a corner store, and you're usually a good 10-30 minutes drive from the nearest full grocery store / mall.. and frequently that's driving at highway speeds (once you get out of the suburb itself,) making it a _long_ walk. A 10-15 minute drive at 30mph would be around 2 hours for the average walker. Each way. So even if the suburb itself is foot-navigable, you're still stuck taking a vehicle several times a week just to do basic things.
.
That can of course be somewhat alleviated by setting up the suburbs in a way that they can have easy access to public transportation (bus routes in particular.) There's not really any excuse in 2019 for suburb planners to be intentionally making that any more difficult than the sheer distances already dictate.
It is not that good if the ground has diferent levels
@@PabloEmanuel96 like san francisco?
High density grid will and does lead to concentrated lower class populations stacked on top of each other, don't see how thats better.
It really depends on where the neighborhood is located. I live in a grid street planned hood and the only places in walkable distance are corner stores at maybe a 10 minute walk. There's a park that's maybe 30-40 min walk but you might as well use a car.
Wow! Kinda honored that my comments from that previous story have been cited. I meant to spark thought and it worked. Am happy!
100%
The internet provides a legitimate blessing in getting our thoughts out
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same
Well, do you sell me some weed now or what?
@@fjellyo3261 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.
I forgot about this.
APUSH test vibe
Looks like housing under communism if everybody had a house for themselves.
City Beautiful and Vox both made a video on this in the same day
yeah, I literally watched the video on city beautiful and then this one came next lol
covers so much of the same information too. weird
Copied each other
Copy cats
+
Because they were designed by Cities Skylines players
Yeah but you can tell when you're in an unmodded neighborhood.
When you hired New Mayor to design these suburbans
Time to use the move it mod
@@brendancarlton7326 Yeah blueberry tree short and big version for the win!
Haha nice one
imagine living with the exact same house design with your neighbors
Kevin Arik Rayhan Each housing development in central Florida usually only has a few model homes to choose from, so the houses are mostly the same. They're refered to as cookie cutter homes.
It would be easier to escape when the husband comes home. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@@Primalxbeast Central Florida? You're not talking about Orlando are you? Because Orlando has some of the most diverse architecture and building design in any big city I've been to.
My dad’s neighborhood has a street with literally the same two houses all the way down the street
Jack M I'm talking about the suburbs of the greater Orlando area. Most of the developments are pre-planned with cookie cutter homes. It's been like that for quite awhile. I moved here in the mid 80s and that was already how they were being built.
I hate suburbs, I live on the Main Street in my subdivision so it’s noisy and Anti-pedestrian.
Worst of both designs.
Same for me
Give us this day our daily Anxiety Attacks
Moral of the story: Don't buy houses on main arterial roads.
So... Why don't you move?
@@danarrib cuz I’m 17
High Walkability and Local Stores make a City and Suburb (economically) VIBRANT.
Amerca was too dependent on cars over the past 6 decades.
They also make a city more sustainable financially since they generate for revenue for the city.
You took your car to the mall to walk.
All urban planning was car centric in the post war era.
I am having trouble imagining a random house in between a McDonalds and a grocery store and thinking that's a good fit.
@@Kejsaren I'd look at it the other way around. You need the random store / restaurant / whatever sprinkled in among the houses.
@@Kejsaren There are tons of places where restaurants and shops are on the ground floor and housing above, even in those sleepy one traffic light towns have those.
Allan Johansen where I live in Florida it has those random stores,restaurant ,malls and sidewalks that you could walk to them but no one really uses the sidewalks anymore everyone drives but surprisingly the traffic runs smoothly
Dragon Skunk Studio and central run underground utilities for SEWER!
Vox here dishing out questions I never though of answered!
just like "how many Muslims can we fit in western countries?
all of them!"
Do you mean giving answers to questions you never thought to ask?
@@Half_Finiswhat? What does that have to do with anything?
Sprawl is one of the biggest villains in urban planning today. Unfortunately, that's very deeply rooted in the heads of the Americans.
It's starting to happen in Africa too, but stopping a middle class that's bought into an idea of wealth is hard
@Hernando Malinche South Africa
Everyone has a car and you can start driving at 15. So not really a problem
@@shrek7957 The cars are the problem, too many cars on the road
@@shrek7957 What about kids? They're just stuck at home until they turn 15-16? All the cars going to work in the morning causing congestion? All the roads need maintenance that the taxes of these suburbs can't pay for? There's so many issues that "everyone has a car" doesn't even begin a discussion.
“You ever feel like your just going in circles”
Why are you attacking me like this Vox guy.
American suburbs seem so alien to me, as an Australian that has lived mostly in suburbs, I’m much more familiar with being able to walk basically everywhere with small little shops and milk bars (the Australian version of those little stores that sell candy/lollies and drinks) in the nooks and crannies of the suburbs. When you go for a walk and you want to go on a bit of an adventure it is always so easy to get lost in the sprawling streets, sidewalks going between houses into different streets and like the hundreds of little nature walkways that can go on for a long time, it’s like a spiders web of streets, walkways and discovering small monuments and little-known stores tucked away in the crevices of the city.
TIL Australia is more walkable than the US. That does sound absolutely lovely, though.
The frustration of bad design and lack of architecture variety.
@Bugler55 >city blocks
this is a video about the suburbs, chief. My neighborhood has a total of 3 house designs, where there is a 1 story design with some optional upgrades like weird bricks on pillars and a total of 2, 2 story designs.
did you ever see Russian microdistricts?
@Bugler55 Wrong video but yes in London. Surreal isn’t it?
me: boy, can’t wait to watch some youtube
youtube: here’s a video on suburbs.
Lovin the suburb videos
Felipe Almeida yea actual there legendary
that story made me cry
A good video on suburbs
_i love these roads where the houses don’t change_
- lorde, 400 lux
I literally played that today. 💅🏻💅🏻
lorde? you mean Randy Marsh, riiight?!
HenryManson get out
HenryManson 💀
Lived on a metro area all my life, when I came to the US I moved with my father in the suburbs and we both agree, we hate this place and can't wait to move out closer to the city
Suburbs are a architecture mess
i feel pretty honored that my neighborhood was just featured in a vox video...
Lucky that your rich
@@topman8565 Or deep into depts, working non-stop to afford poorly built (way to big for any family) McMansion and the lifestyle that goes with it (a car for each individual over 16 living in the house). All of that for the dull, conformist, consumerist, depressing and superficial life of the suburban hellhole...
It probably wasn't, and if it was you could never tell :D
LOL! I think it was a joke. He thinks it's his neighbourhood, because they all look the same.
@@olaf9957 You sound salty.
I live in Virginia and go to Midlo a lot. It's a very ritzy area and am not surprised it got that award tbh. But when you said midlo I was like what.
I'm from west end henrico, was also surprised they came to midlo haha!
Same!
I live in Richmond
@@ross441 there's a Midlothian in Texas as well
it's not every day that rva is mentioned by the national press, so this also caught me by surprise. (i'm also originally from west end henrico, but i'm currently living in alabama.)
As a resident of Midlothian, VA, I can promise you that the majority of neighborhoods around here look exactly like Hallsley, and many new builders gravitate towards the area to build new expensive neighborhoods due to the highly awarded schools, but there’s a big catch, now that so many neighborhoods are here, all the high schools are facing overcrowding (Namely, Cosby / Midlo High. / Clover Hill). And overall, the smaller streets and roads can’t keep up with the influx. So while these families pursue beautiful neighborhoods and nice schools they’re destroying both.
Now I see why public transport is so difficult to regulate in the US.... and that's why I prefer living in europe even more ;)
Well, there is currently a movement of affluent people moving to urban areas. What you are seeing is a suburban plan which is more common on cities that were developed between the 1940's up until the 1990's.
@@mundotaku_org Now urban neighborhoods are being gentrified and pushing poorer people out farther from the city.
Europe is the most developed first world continent for public transportation
@@CatholicWeeb thanks to its geography. US is so large public transportation simply not efficient.
@@Saadlolwhy Into the suburbs, that are getting less attractive?
GTA San Andreas flashbacks
Man Grove street is my childhood
BoggoDoggo throwback
I'm searching around looking for this comment
Actually studied a semester of this in University in one of my Sociology classes. It has a lot to do with social class & economic growth as stated in the video.
(3:19) Highlighted section, "The social class of the parents..." Along with the statement at (3:32).
Now that’s the best looking suburb I’ve ever seen...
But also the farthest away from Literally Anything
@@CatholicWeeb Guess you've never been to Midlothian.
It looks awul. Every house is built of cheap wood and drywall. Not to mention the public infrastructure.
asdsdjf asdjxajiosdqw Fact
Irish Eggs midlothian is less than 10 minutes away from Richmond, VA, which is a great city and most jobs are located there. Also if you like cold weather and hot weather, central Virginia is perfect.
“if a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes”
😳 jeeesus lol
welcome to the “good ol’ days” of the 1950’s!
Is that untrue?
Isn't this the underlying, unstated, argument _against_ "gentrification", when middle class white people move into poorer, (usually) black city neighborhoods?
@@tigerburn81 actually, mixed neighborhoods with wealthier and poorer people are healthy communities. Gentrification is just rich people swarming neighborhoods until the locals are driven out.
Time has shown us that this is true
This is when they think America was great
@tigerburn81 "retain stability" and retain costability are totally different.
It must be so boring to live in a suburb...
No creativity at all
Depends on your lifestyle. I personally enjoyed Suburb.
Not really only if your town doesn’t have a developed downtown and a train station. But my suburb holds arts festivals and outdoor concerts regularly during the summer.
L.A suburbs are fun for the most part
@@Pierce1337good for family
Trawanten Media it is, when I graduate I’m leaving the suburbs and never coming back.
While suburbs have their advantages, they kind of have the same level of sterile conformity of things like school uniforms.
6:06 - that is an absolute nightmare.
I live in Austria in Graz and I think uniqueness is also great for navigation, because I think it is easier to remember unique patterns of the streets.
In Sydney we have a similar problem, it just sprawls out paving over creeks and billabongs instead of affordable apartments, makes me so sad
At least there are a lot of older houses which have variety
I live in a Latin American city that has a mix of both layouts: the eastern older part of town follow grid pattern; now to the west and mainly inside neighborhoods it adjusts to topography, still the areas are relatively small, dense and walkable (but no one likes to walk unless they're forced to) and you can reach a main avenue within 1 km
In some areas, suburbs destroyed once vibrant cities.
@I HATE TOUCANS this are the people that have gun violence in school and instead of solving the social political issues they turn the schools into a prison like architecture
@I HATE TOUCANS lol, what else do you expect us to do? It's the corrupt politicians that either create or does nothing about problems.
They also completely forgot about orientation of sections to allow the longest side to face north or south if you are in the us, to allow the largest side of any built home to collect the winter sun and reduce to much heating in summer.
So not only are we dependent on car's to get around but air-conditioning and heating are must haves to.
Completely right, in the Philippines, we have to much sunlight for us in any of the directions.
Check out city beautiful's video on this too.
Why
Great minds think alike
This is too coincidental!
Body By PT not really. I mean city beautiful is a city planning channel and so is vox almanac
Released within a day of each other. Too weird.
The thing about the suburbs, at least here in the US, is that on paper they seem like pleasant places to live but once you live there they are actually depressing and lifeless.
Can't believe I'm watching a video 20 seconds after it was posted
Lima Funla yeah
Don't expect a medal for your accomplishment
Oh the dark secrets hidden behind the veneer of the American suburb.
The same people who live in those places say soviet suburbs look depressing
Yup!!
You got the wrong neighborhood fool
Cj
Ey ey its me, its me chill
cj? OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Ah, man of culture
Ah, a cultured individual
Id love to live in a neighbourhood with 1:16 layout. Most of our communities centralize around cars instead of pedestrian.
I grew up in the Southern Suburbs of Chicago, and I can agree, our streets go 🔄↖️⬆️⬇️↘️➡️↩️
We started getting suburbs like this in some places in Australia and they're generally just for first home-owners who aren't expected to live there for longer than a few years, so they're built as quickly and cheaply as possible, they're not terribly popular, they're just a cheap option.
When I was a kid, we lived on a dead end street behind a suburb, in a little mobile home. We’d call those suburbs the “rich neighborhood.”
It always took so long for the water to drain so we’d ask if we could ride our bikes in the rich neighborhood.
America's car-centrism really infuriates me, more so since returning from studying abroad in Chile, where public transportation and walking got me pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. Here at home in the U.S., the nearest grocery store is a forty-minute walk away from my house - that time gets cut to ten or fifteen minutes if you're on a bike, but then there's the issue of returning and having to go uphill the whole way back. To get beyond the residential sprawl and into the next zoning type, you have to drive a minimum of twenty minutes. For my thesis I'm thinking of investigating what it would take to make suburbs more adaptable and resilient, as I took a class on Architecture and the Environment and the idea of mixed-use and pedestrian-focused developments just made so much sense to me. I'll look into more videos like this one!
Just move to a city if you want closer walking distances. Problem solved
I’ve lived in Florida my whole life. I enjoy walking down the streets, it’s my favorite part of visiting other other countries. It’s really hard to walk around in America. Especially if you live in the suburbs, which I do. In my neighborhood, only the main roads have sidewalks, and to catch a bus I have to walk a couple of miles. I love visiting bigger cities and walking around/ taking public transportation. I hate how the suburban sprawl makes it so hard.
Then you should have live in the city problem solve 😂👏
Imagine living in a place where you can hear your neighbors through the walls and breathe in smog with every breath
I live super close to Midlothian, Virginia and what holds true across the US is that the Suburbs don't lead anywhere. At the entrance of each neighborhood is an unsafe main road far from any stores or buildings.
5:17 That McMansion needs more gables and dormers!
Vox takes shower thoughts to a whole new level
You know what we do in the suburbs when there's a blackout?
We lock the doors and windows
Really? In my place we usually sit on the porch with candles so the whole street stay "bright" and spend our time with neigbhors, having barbeque and various outdoor activities, and the males wouldn't go to sleep until the electricity is back on.
Alex Shuysky kinda missed the joke there
Alex Shuysky Our blackouts usually occur during hurricanes, so we don't spend a lot of time outdoors.
* black out
"If it's good for GM, it's good for America!"
Laying under a tree outside my "golf course culde-sac" home right now.
Sounds lovely till u have to deal with an Association.
I was fined for my "rustic grass" planted in my landscaping...
Complaints they "looked like weeds"
Rural people and city people can agree. Suburbs are terrible.
Generic TH-cam Account Yep
so can the suburban people :,(
Agree. Personally as long as city people stay in the burbs I'm happy.
Ghetto people can also agree suburbs are terrible, they are basically dying over there
@@mikemicha8607 wym
I live in the “suburbs” in the UK, we’re in walking distance of the school (20mins) shops (10mins) and other services, we have frequent busses into the larger town and then into the nearby city, i’m not sure where america went wrong with this one
3:08 I don’t don’t why but, the word Asbestos always makes me laugh. I’m soo sorry 😂
Worst part about a suburb that you aren’t familiar with is if you’re driving in the direction you think you should be going, you might be on the wrong street at the end.
I do prefer main streets connecting to small streets with arms of even smaller streets over a huge grid pattern, and if you can incorporate shopping centers or mini-outlet type destinations every quarter mile or so, you can make the suburban layout much easier on the mind.
The same folks who call Soviet flats to be boring - while they are actually more efficient compared to suburbs.
Alright! I can say that I've really enjoyed your videos on the design of communities and stuff! More interesting and enlightening than I thought they'd be. It's cool to compare planned communities versus the unplanned ones near me 🤷♂️
I love the bradburn design allowing both pedestrians and cars to more throughout the community
the usa looks the same anywhere
Derran Lawston go to Hawaii then go to Alaska 😂
Not true, actually.
Ian Quiñones exactly, Hawaii landscapes, yards, houses, etc look wayyyy different than the houses of Alaska. There’s some houses in Hawaii that have gaps between the floor boards and walls. You’d never see that in Alaska
@@midnightmushrooms1141 Because a lot of Africans still dont have electricity, and even if they do, they cant afford to run aircon?
My friend you have a LOT to learn about the states
One thing I've always loved about my hometown is how I can walk from one end to the other if I had to, but I don't have to. Everything you need is within walking distance - it's the perfect SimCity. I always say now that I can't imagine living somewhere where a church, bar, party store, gas station, mechanic, hair/tan/nails, laundromat, 2 fast foods, 2 good restaurants, and 2 small businesses aren't every 8 blocks. Each neighborhood is distinct, but they're all cohesive. It is easy to navigate, built on a grid design. The transit is convenient. The parks and rec are excellent and equitably dispersed. Each side of the river has their own version of their needed staples mirroring the other side's. It is urban with a suburban feel, and five minutes later, you can be rural. It is (my) perfect city.
I’ve been loving the urban planning and design videos Vox has been publishing lately. I’m going to school for this right now and it’s been great to share these
Lol in south korea most of us lives in 10 to 20 storey apartments. Even if there are private owned houses, the dont have th suburbs that american houses have
South Korea is a tiny mass of land compared to the US. They can't adapt the US urban planning even if they wanted to.
i like these kinds of episodes on urban planning
A slow death living in a suburb.
I live half of the time in downtown Toronto and half of the time into the suburbs. I can very clearly see the advantages and disadvantages of both and the clear objectives between the two distinct styles of city layouts. One is very loud, straight, but navigable. And the other is quiet, curvey and car-oriented with navigability not a priority.
vox’s videos are always so well made, this is no exception!
its a shame that a lot of their videos contain political biases, cause their graphics and production video value are unmatched on youtube. their content can range from informative videos like this, to saying cameras are racist to black people and tourist visiting brazil should visit the crime ridden favelas as 'theyre not that bad'
much of the non linear suburbs in the uk are ~ 10 min walk from a main/high street with public transport going through (with pavements too)
Vox surprises me every time.
I've been getting interested in 3D modeling and city design and this is really interesting. I initially started making a grid design but I'm totally applying this to the most far away zones :O
It's also super choking to see SO MANY houses. I only see houses in towns (cheaper ones are either old (like the family has always lived there) or very small) and the outside of the cities, and these are usually very expensive
This is why I love living in nyc and will never move to places like this
The worst thing about suburbs isn't that you have to drive everywhere. Its that you only have boring places to go to like franchise restaurants in malls.
You should do a video on how the FHA intentionally declined to underwrite housing for black Americans during the post-war boom.
People in the comments are already having heart attacks with the small scratch the surface bit they did here. They couldn't handle the truth! It's a shame people get upset over historical facts
Yes! Vox should tackle that issue.
As if.
@@TheSultan1470 no it’s true. The US gov handed out GI loans to ww2 soldiers for them to buy houses. Except they made it VERY hard for black vets to collect their benefits and that’s partially why there was such a big housing disparity
And you've answered the question that has been in my mind for decades of why US and Indian neighbourhoods are so different.
I could tell you a lot of reasons for why those two would be so different not really a topic to spend decades trying to figure out sorry
@@CeruleanStallion The thing is I never exactly tried to find out, it was just something I wondered about and tbh anyone can find out the surface reasons of something by a simple google search but the in-depth reasons are always fun to wonder about. No offence though.
@Hernando Malinche Older cities are certainly beautiful
I actually love the Suburbs. Arcade Fire are great.
British person here...It seems a shame to have all that space in front of houses, only to have a perfected manicured lawn. Why not plant some nice shrubs and flowers to look at?
Hey, thanks for visiting Midlo!
Look at the sheer size of property you have in a suburb! I think that is also a letdown for communication among the residents. I live in Germany and the property I'm living on is 10 meters wide. In our garden we "only" have a simple fence that keeps us away from our neighbours. Not that this is a bad thing. In contrary, it gets us to talk.
As a result of that, the whole street I live in does an annual little party in summer with a tent and food and everything. Just because everybody knows anybody else.
If you have a property that is wide with like 40 meters and more and cheap on top. Good for you.
But you isolate yourself the more land you own around you.
I feel like suburbs in the US feel so lonely and just houses and houses... No one walks in the streets...
European here. Why do you all build your houses out of cheap wood and drywall? They looks big but also so tacky and cheap.
Because every nation on earth builds houses out of wood when they have an abudance of it (Canada, Finland, Sweden etc). They don't "look big" they are big. Your concept of tacky and cheap is subjective, I can't help you with that
I’ve always lived in a townhouse-like neighborhood (the houses are all connected side to side) so it feels weird that houses even have windows and rooms at the sides of the house
I live in the lesser-developed part of town and for that I am grateful. Our houses are different sizes, materials and colors. In the center there's an elementary school in which the neighboring kids attend. After class families come to play on the playgrounds whilst church-led baseball teams use the field. Our streets might be cracked but they're well used:)
Little boxes, little boxes, on the hill-side, and they're all made from ticky-tacky~!
america: communism bad!
also america: proceeds to make all houses the same and expensive
Not even that expensive but ok
They aren't expensive. Houses here are way cheaper than most other developed countries. Also, not every american city is a suburb. There are plenty of walkable american cities.
Neat, City Beautiful also did a video on this topic.
Infrastructure and civil design is endlessly fascinating.
The standard culdesac subdivision design is also the most efficient way to place lots for developers. More Lots = More Houses = More Return for investment. Zoning bylaws held by towns and septic regulations also play a huge role in maintaining this model.
Shaker Heights is so strange but awesome. Wish somebody would make a video about this enigmatic suburb.
So you have no problem getting lost when drunk 😀