/lit/ - Literature

You again?

https://youtu.be/FTUhalL92nw

I always thought not living in suburbia stole my youth

>>18083779
This?

>>18083779
>NOOOOOOO I LIVE IN A HOUSE IN A DEVELOPED COUNTRY WITH A ROOF AND CLEAN RUNNING WATER MY LIFE IS HELL

>>18083805
Do you actually read books?

>>18083827
Go back
>>>/r/eddit
>>18083779
Big cities are just as bad bro. My youth got stolen cuz I grew up in a ghetto.

>>18083805
Read “The Slaughter of Cities” by E Michael Jones instead.

>>18083827
Watch the video
>>18083810
Suburbia is social hell

At least you could hang out with friends without having to beg your parents to taxi you around all day

>>18083827
American suburbs destroyed the American youth and made the kids more cautious and cowardly. Having movement be mostly controlled by parents ability to drive kids anywhere of value prevented growth of independent decision making. In short they are the worst thing to happen to the development of American childhood.
The way that our suburbs are makes no sense at all, and forces people to drive to do anything, with no mixed use, no walk ability, no bike infrastructure, nothing other than giant roads to ferry people from segregated housing to segregated business. This causes huge traffic problems everywhere and seas of asphalt because everyone has to drive everywhere.
Cars, or the space needed to facilitate cars fuck over anything that isn't based on driving. They chew up space for parking both at home, work, the grocery store, and other locations. Suburbia lets out more carbon emissions than cities. Suburban houses use up much more energy.
Walking is what allows people to feel more connected to their community, lead healthier lives, and in general connect to the communal social units that form the basis of the fabric of society.
A ton of our social problems are caused by the social isolation that our car culture layout has forced upon American lives. The apathy, the mental driftlessness, the lack of defined purpose or future, all of these can be tied back to the fact that our car culture has pushed us into a layout of housing that isolates us from our communities. This funnels down to the kids and fucks them up even more.

>>18083827
American suburbs destroyed the American youth and made the kids more cautious and cowardly. Having movement be mostly controlled by parents ability to drive kids anywhere of value prevented growth of independent decision making. In short they are the worst thing to happen to the development of American childhood.
The way that our suburbs are makes no sense at all, and forces people to drive to do anything, with no mixed use, no walk ability, no bike infrastructure, nothing other than giant roads to ferry people from segregated housing to segregated business. This causes huge traffic problems everywhere and seas of asphalt because everyone has to drive everywhere.
Cars, or the space needed to facilitate cars fuck over anything that isn't based on driving. They chew up space for parking both at home, work, the grocery store, and other locations.
Walking is what allows people to feel more connected to their community, lead healthier lives, and in general connect to the communal social units that form the basis of the fabric of society.
A ton of our social problems are caused by the social isolation that our car culture layout has forced upon American lives. The apathy, the mental driftlessness, the lack of defined purpose or future, all of these can be tied back to the fact that our car culture has pushed us into a layout of housing that isolates us from our communities. This funnels down to the kids and fucks them up even more.

No, you squandered your own youth and now you are looking for something you can blame. You weren't going to flourish anywhere else either

>>18083899
/thread

>>18083837
both are problems of poor urban planning. all urban growth since the 50s has been suburban growth

>>18083902
>>18083899
Rigght? OP needs to listen to jocko willink and joe rogan. EXTREME ACCOUNTABILITY. Be the hero of your own fucking story.

I also grew up in a suburb. It was like living in a cage. I had to beg my parents to drive me just to go anywhere worth a shit, which they rarely did because it was so far away (30 minutes of driving just too get anywhere that wasn't a gas station). It's garbage.

Listening to my teenager complain about his parents busting ass to finance a three bedroom house surrounded by friendly, responsible neighbors and reliable utilities definitely sounds like hell.

>>18083919
Ships at harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are for.

Growing up in a suburb was fun, you just walked outside and could play with the other kids in the neighborhood. Watching my friend's hot mom get wasted at block parties, what a great time

>>18083885
Being part of a community means a lack of freedom in ways you can't understand unless you've had both. The type of closeness you get is borderline Orwellian, in terms of community scrutiny and enforcement of social norms. Just be a little bit fucking different than the prevailing social norm and see how great your life is. You think it's smart to save money by buying your shoes at Wal-Mart instead of getting name brand athletic sneakers? Hope you like getting roasted every time you leave the house. People mocking you every time you leave your house? Hey, lighten up esse, just making some jokes. Wanna come over to my barbeque? Why the hell not? Call your boss and tell him you're sick. Hey, there goes the worker, going to his job, Mr. Responsibility thinks he's better than us. Haha, lighten up man, I'm just mocking your fundamental life values. Hey man, I'm a little short on rent this month, can you help a brotha out? Man, after I dropped off those ratty old speakers on your porch when you mentioned you were searching for a new stereo? Fuck man, give me back those speakers. Nigga you threw away perfectly good speakers? Hey man, saw you were home, thought I'd just stop by and say what's good. It was just the screen door so I didn't knock. What man, you think I'm here to rob you?

At least in the suburbs you can just drive right into your garage, shut the door, and ignore the doorbell. And if your neighbor invites you to something, the prevailing code of etiquette demands they accept any excuse you might offer to avoid it.

When you grow up and see the world, you will realize what a paradise the suburbs are.

Or were.

>>18083926
Then head out. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not easy but people can leave places with just the clothes on their back. If you can’t do that, save up money to move to a city or the countryside. It seems like you just want to bitch and not take action

Revolutionary Road

>>18083926
Aye! And yet, for some reason, the ships always return to harbor when their work is done, Captain Fuckwit of the SS Platitude.

gotta keep in mind that the definition of suburb is also quite broad. growing up in a midwestern suburb with nothing to do for miles around, I always hated the idea.

Sometime in highschool I visited old family friends who had moved to a nice area in Jersey just outside of NYC, and their suburbs were completely different- compact enough that their local school and lots of different shops were within biking distance.

>>18083958
Your repressed emotional trauma from dealing with black people in your youth is not a good argument for suburbanization.

Everyone who does something interesting with their life leaves the country. People who stay in their small home town just end up going no where and frequent the same bar their entire life

>>18083987
"If you don't like it, leave" is entirely irrelevant as a counterargument, because everyone deciding that they don't like it so they'll leave IS the social change being discussed, retard.

>>18084112
>Everyone who does something interesting with their life leaves the country
name one interesting thing people do in bugland cities.

>>18084129
Judging from recent events, burn down buildings.

>>18083937
This. As someone who had a pretty atypical childhood, living in the suburbs for a few years was the closest I got to being a normal kid, riding bikes and playing xbox with my neighborhood friends.

>>18084119
I don’t think you know what your talking about. Most people in the people who work in a city want to live in the suburbs. Most poor people in the city want to move to the suburbs. There are upsides and downsides to every living environment but I aren’t viewing things realistically. Still the question is what are you going to do about your hellish suburban life?

>>18083899
>>18083919
>>18083987
>>18084002
These. I bet you’re a retarded teenager

>>18084218
The planning & execution of built environments is a collaborative activity with the aim of combining the best of all worlds, to accommodate needs and tastes that everyone shares, as well as those that differ by generation & individual. It is a vast subject with a history long as civilization, and examples more numerous than kinds of states. Boiling it all down to a two-item menu in the matter of individual choice is only to evade the subject altogether.

>>18083779
The criticism of suburbia is ironically short-sighted.

Just as one global empire was preaching socialism and the need to make everyone the same and give everyone the same access to life's resource, the end product, an entire society of nothing but suffering and poor access to anything.

Mean while the evil global society of selfish capitalism embarks on commerical housing solutions that end up creating quality, economical homes of roughly equal amenity and access for the broadest and largest part of society. And all you have to do is hold a job and drive a car.

But everyone should live in urban towers of shared community! We have to be responsible for each other!!!

No, fuck you. Be responsible for your little rectangle of land and rectangle house. Hold the job, drive the car. Go to the movies, and drive wherever you want to get whatever you want easily on large well paved boulevards. If you cant handle that you get filtered Into the urban meat grinder.

>>18084537
Rightists are really the most brain dead retarded people on the planet

All you need to know is that cars ruined everything. Urban spaces were much better before cars.

>>18083937
Same here
Played soccer, played baseball. Had swimming pool parties. Rode my bike everywhere.
If it rained I played video games with a couple kids from my street.
It was pretty comfy

>>18083810
In suburbia the only thing to do is drugs

>>18083810
>>18085295
>>18083858
I think suburbia could be fine, it's just that you recently lived in a warlike state.

Now that war is being fazed out, certain types of people (ie the brutes, athletes) will be fazed out and suburbia will be much better once intellectuals are encouraged.

>>18083958
community is a monoculture. living around strangers is the same as living in the suburbs.

>>18083827
>>18083899
>>18083919
>>18083937
>>18083964
>>18084537
NO GOYIM, YOU'RE GROWING TOO STRONG, STOP IT

>>18083837
Same, grew up in a shithole. Fuck the big city. Honestly wish I grew up in the suburb. It’s not like they’re all like in OP’s pic.

>>18084537
Kys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZFmaMbkUD4
>>18083779
>Just realized how suburbia stole my youth.
How, what did you miss out?
I grew up in a central European suburb and I wish I had a greater area to explore. The vastness of NA is something I envy a lot, wish I was born there.

>>18083885
Good first half, but I don't agree with
>Walking is what allows people to feel more connected to their community
Go to Europe and you will see, that it doesn't make people feel connected to their community per default.
Same for
>The apathy, the mental driftlessness, the lack of defined purpose or future, all of these can be tied back to the fact that our car culture has pushed us into a layout of housing that isolates us from our communities.

More or less all old and also some new quarters in Europe are ideal for people to walk around but we have the same problems you describe in the US. However there are less overweight people and these are less overweight as well. Not gonna lie, architecture is very influential on the people but the problems you describe aren't caused by the suburbs, rather by more factors.

Reminder suburbs were used as an ethic cleansing program.

Hating suburbs is so cliche that it's not even interesting. You likely suffer from having some kind of idealized conception of youth that you would have never experienced anywhere else.

>>18083885
Do you honestly think you can't walk or rode a bike in the suburbs?

>>18083810
Honestly this, you can go on and on about how suburbia is a hellscape but being able to grow up with other kids your age to play with is much better than living miles away from anyone else. Of course now that I'm an adult I'd prefer to live far away from peolle but as a kid you want to have fun with other kids.

Is this another episode of people blaming their personal failures on anything but themselves?

As though EVERY KID who grew up in the suburbs turned into some shut-in who lacked social interaction growing up.

>>18086163
to get to work, to groceries, do errands, go to fun places? usually know. most people are driving to those things because they are too far to walk to.

Growing up in the burbs made me hate them so much that it's my life's mission to ensure they burn.

>>18086138
It's a cliche because any sane person hates the suburbs. They aren't meant for humans.

>>18086163
to get to work, do groceries, do errands, go to fun places? usually no. most people are driving to those things because they are too far to walk to.

>>18086193
I don’t think so. These communities aren’t perfect, but to pretend they’re some sort of hell’s ape is just being dramatic or, in the case of the guy who thinks you can’t walk or ride bikes in the suburbs, delusional.

>>18086163
Was hit by car in the burbs because cunt ran a stop sign doing 35 in a 25. Pedestrian and cyclist safety measures are p much nonexistant, as the infrastructure does nothing to mitigate the inattentive incompetence of cager fucks.

>>18086207
No but you can do them just to engage with your community or just for the sake of doing them, which is even better. I think your problem with the suburbs is that it allows for a degree of freedom that makes such a thing possible. You yearn to be a cog in the machine, for everything you do to be some part of some process. I typically don’t mind criticism of suburbia, but your particular ones seem to come from you being uniquely pathetic.

>>18086210
>no one is ever hit by cars in cities
I’m sorry but your personal experience doesn’t make these activities impossible within suburban spaces.

>>18086228
Meant to respond to >>18086199

>>18086207
they are a social hell, they make children too dependent, they force you to drive death machines (cars), they decimate the environment, they are a wasteland, etc etc etc. suburbs are just objectively bad.

>>18086228
>it allows for a degree of freedom that makes such a thing possible
suburbs are a prison
>You yearn to be a cog in the machine
you are not older than 18

>>18083827
A prison cell isn't quite a house, but has running water, a roof, electricity and heating, also books. Some even have TVs, so I heard.

>>18086266
>suburbs are a prison
I had plenty of space to move around.
> you are not older than 18
From the content of your replies, I’d wager that I’m older you. I’m not the one complaining that the suburbs are bad because they don’t allow me to walk to stores or something or because they stopped me from participating in commerce as a child.
There’s something particularly immature about your worldview. Get help.

>>18083885
>you can't walk or ride bikes in the suburbs
You are delusional, seek medical help

>>18086414
Everyone in the suburbs is driving to get to places. You are just plain wrong.

>>18086414
Also bike infrastructure in America is awful and a lot of people are getting killed in accidents.

>meanwhile amidst real urbanism

Segregating buildings by usage was perhaps one of the greatest errors of mankind.

People only think the suburbs are bad because the cities had been becoming more and more safe for a generation. Most millenials and zoomers can't remember a time when NYC had 2000+ murders a year. There was a reason you parents moved out of the cities. Now with the new woke movement, which is really just a rerun of the 60s radical identity politics, we will see crime start to climb for a generation like it did from 1970 to 1990, and suddenly the suburbs won't look so bad. Then some Joe Biden and Bill Clinton types will come in and pass a bunch of tough anti-crime laws, and crime will recede again, and the cycle of history will continue.

>>18086456
The sun rises in the east

>>18086489

A city without crime is a thousand times better than a suburb without crime though, and these have historically been the norm. Crime-free cities in North America will re-emerge, though it might take a couple of hundred years.

>>18083843
Thanks for the recommendation. I avoid reading books written by women; especially non-fiction.

>>18083843
>Read “The Slaughter of Cities” by E Michael Jones instead.

Good book, but didn't it get banned from Amazon? Where do you even go to buy it?

>>18084103
Why did you admittedly associate it with race? Kind of weird.
Go ask anyone in any American ghetto or hood if they’d like to live in the suburbs, black or white.

>>18086428
I rode bikes around every day as a kid in the suburbs. You are delusional. I reiterate, seek medical help.

>>18086333
You can tell that all these people that complain about the suburbs are spoiled children that don’t know how good they have it. Antifa punks really think anyone except them is interested in restoring primitive life.

>>18083779
Only problem with American suburbs is how car-centric and debt-built they are but no one has any solutions. City planners? Spare me. They’re the people who designed it the way it is. First of all, stop being so damn dramatic. Stole my youth? No they didn’t. Could’ve been better though. Second, let’s get back to solutions. No one has any. Suburbs are supposed to be something that organically grows out from the city, where people, especially young people, also live. You don’t have that though. You have derelict delapitated cities that cater mainly to undesirables and free riders, so no one wants to live there and everyone pushes out of the city until these big sprawling suburbs are almost a civilization in themselves, and one that necessarily runs on cars to connect everything. If the cities weren’t such a disaster, the suburbs would be fine. And you can see this perfectly over in Asia, where even enormously dense cities are highly livable and the suburbs grow out around them almost organically, as one big community, not a series of individual households just desperate to not live among Dominican street crime.

>>18083885
I don't disagree with this analysis but I feel like we don't see the same phenomenon is idyllic rural life growing up on a farm or just having land to explore. They are even more isolated from the social milieu but don't seem to suffer the same neurosis. I grew up in suburbs that were in a wooded area so even then just being able to disappear on a bicycle into the woods and explore mitigated a lot of the imprisoning effects I think.

>>18086903
He has a site. Forget the link it’s easy to find though.

>>18083919
>boomer mindset

your kids will be retarded anyway

>>18087679
I don't really know if his points about dependence and its effects on youth hold any water. The points about the suburbs and car culture are perfectly legitimate, but they're undercut by his whining.

>>18086467
it did a lot of good for public health...people were opening up pulp mills beside residential units and shit like that .

the way they are now is very stupid though (pic related)

>The difference is evident. There is a lot more green. That is because Japanese do not impose one or two exclusive uses for every zone. They tend to view things more as the maximum nuisance level to tolerate in each zone, but every use that is considered to be less of a nuisance is still allowed. So low-nuisance uses are allowed essentially everywhere. That means that almost all Japanese zones allow mixed use developments, which is far from true in North American zoning. Euclidean zones CAN allow mixed uses... but in practice, it is very rare that they do so.

http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

yeah japan cool meme

>>18083885
You’re right and the anons saying “you can bike in suburbs” have no clue how far a 10-20 minute bike ride can get you in a real well-designed city. As opposed to 10 minutes just to exit your tiny community and bike alongside massive roads breathing in smog, passing only concrete floors and walls along the way.

>>18086101
>I grew up in a central European suburb and I wish I had a greater area to explore. The vastness of NA is something I envy a lot, wish I was born there.
You don’t actually have that much to explore. At least not usually. I have fond memories of playing manhunt in our neighborhood but you’re still pretty much restricted to your neighborhood.

>>18087912
Andres Duany has some great lectures, he’s funny too so not dry to listen to.

>>18088169
>the value of biking is only it’s ability to get you to a place for commercial activity
I think the environment of the suburbs enhances the experience of biking for the very reason you describe. The suburbs encourage you to enjoy biking in and of itself as an activist while urban spaces encourage you to use it as a means of transportation and nothing more. You guys are really yearning to be cogs in a machine and are inadvertently proving the unique inferiority of urban communities.

>>18086179
NO I'M A LOSER BECAUSE THE CORNER STORE WAS TOO FAR AWAY TO WALK TO, I COULD'VE GOTTEN A SUNBURN!

>>18083810
Suburbia was great to grow up in because I could ride bikes with my friends, go skateboarding anywhere, there were parks, trails, hiking, etc. all nearby. Everyone in my school was white and all my friends were white and I never once dealt with crime or joggers being violent.
That being said, I really wish I lived in a city during my 20s because there's stuff to do, places to go and it's different and there's opportunity.

>>18087912
Mixing your residential into the industrial seems a step too far.

Why is it that small towns are based, but large suburbs are cringe?

>>18088331
>Mixing your residential into the industrial seems a step too far.

If some starving artist wants to live amidst factories because the price is dirt-cheap, I say let him.

As for the other scenario, many industrial usages make no sense in mostly residential or commercial area because of land cost.

Another thing to consider is light industry. Are washing machines considered industrial. Would a CNC machine be considered industrial? Some people want to banish industrial usages thinking these are all chemical plants or tailing ponds, but a lot of innocuous stuff falls into this category.

>Want to sell fish in the suburbs
>It's illegal

Why?

>>18088344
Because small towns are based on foot traffic and a centralized place to hang out, run a community, buy things, eat with your bros, sue someone etc.
>be a big ass area of land
>oh shit people are farming on me oh fuck
>oh fuck oh shit there's some people who aren't farming on me and are meeting up in a centralized place within me
>oh god they are all building shops and court houses and churches next to each other right in the middle of me
>oh fuck these guys in the middle are bringing in large amounts of food and goods
>so much shit that people are leaving their farms of fuck more people are living in the middle of me oh shit.
>oh god they freed the blacks
>the whites, they are in flight but they forgot how to farm but they idealize the people who could farm and they are building little rows of houses that are on their own plots of land and they keep planting grass that requires a bunch of water
>oh shit they shops in the middle of town are fucking falling apart, my insides, they are rotting away!
>oh shit why are there so many cars.
>so many cars
>wait now they built one giant building out near all the rows of plots of houses
>they keep going to this giant building like they used to go to my middle but they aren't participating in civic life, they are just buying consumer goods
>oh shit they don't even go to the big building anymore, they build giant rows of big buildings and most of me is now parking lots
>oh shit those are now falling apart too, so many delivery trucks to these little homes on my outskirts
>these people aren't even leaving their cars or homes anymore oh god what is going on
>everything is falling apart and people are killing themselves and getting in massive amounts of debt so they don't live on the street and nothing is working like it should anymore
>kill me, please.

>>18088331
Housing in F Zones (according to that pic) would likely be dirt cheap compared to Zone A housing as >>18088358 mentions. It's a good way to have affordable housing built.

pic related is the real zoning of japan

>>18088401
This zoning is better. Still won't solve every problem though. "Building affordable houses" is just building slums. There is no direct way to build affordable housing. Builders can make a profit building fancy new houses, which fancy people will move into and leave their used (kind of) fancy house for poorer people to (kind of) enjoy living in.

>>18088358
Yes, what's needed is a heavy industry exclusive zone (and karaoke) as above.

>>18083885
God, you're retarded.

>>18083885
I grew up in suburbia (granted, probably different from the ones they got in the U.S.) and i saw other kids walking to school and playing out on the streets everyday. They were all usually from low class households too poor to buy smartphones and that shit. They'd just yell "car" and move out whenever a car came close.

But nevertheless i was still fucking sheltered at home and never allowed to go out because my parents were extremely paranoid due to the news of kidnapped children and car accidents, and thus actually believed letting the fucking internet raise me was a good alternative. The true problem is the media + parents giving their kids iphones from fucking age 6. It's man-made autism.

>>18083908
Based n wrathofgnon pilled

>>18083779
I thought this was one of those magic eye things and now I have a headache

>>18088861
North American suburbs are totally different

>>18083779
>Power Broker
Book about Robert Moses who is almost entirely responsible for how awful both the suburbs and the cities in America are.

ITT: upper middle class white boys from developed countries joining to complain about how life is hell because of the minor inconviniences of living in a sheltered community

>>18083825
Snow Crash and RPO ruin this list because of how awful they are independently, and how little they fit into a list about BurgerBurbs. Convenience Store Woman is one of my favorite books of all time, desu, but doesn't have any place on this list either.

>>18083827
You forgot everyone here is a spoiled autistic kid.

>>18083958
This is the most idiotic post I've read all month. Congratulations retard.

>>18086311
The fact that you compare living in a middle class comunity to a prision just shows how little grasp you have of reality. Man, the fact that all these people in this site are actually just spoiled brats explains everything really

>>18086414
You can only do those things for their own sake, not as actual mode of transportation to a destination. That's the point you mong.

>>18089707
t. Tyrone biggums

>>18083810
There are good suburbs and shit suburbs. If you’re American it’s mostly shit suburbs

>>18088196
You can bike in the city too you fucking retard there are a bunch of nice parks to bike in the point is if you want to actually get anywhere while living in the suburbs you are dependent on your car. And most suburbs are wastelands and are ugly and bland places to bike in.

>>18088196
oh and cities usually have bike infrastructure. something non-existent in american suburbs.

>>18088196
oh and cities actually have bike infrastructure. something non-existent in american suburbs.

>>18083779

>>18090149
Ballard definitely fits the OP brief but surely there's a more apt work?

>>18083885
Do Americans really not have public buses?

>>18090655
not in suburbs

>>18089752
I also have this.

>>18090108
You could bike on the 45mph road with a narrow, dirty shoulder and the drivers that have zero expectation of ever seeing a bike. What could be unpleasant or dangerous about that? At least you might actually get there, instead of lost in the endless cul-du-sacs with identical houses.

>>18089814
>>18090108

Even the best equipped cities will demand the constant stoppage that stops you from ever really being able to enjoying it in and of itself. And the type of bike infrastructure you talk about only has to exist in cities because they are designed in a way that is hostile to biking. The suburbs allow for activities in which can be done as an ends in themselves rather than as means for commercial activities. Something about your body existing and not being used to such ends really seems to be causing you a great deal of dread, and your insistence on the importance of "going anywhere" really speaks volumes. Why is nothing worthile unless you are going "somewhere?."

>>18083837
>>18086056
Same here, bros. Fuck the goddamn city. All these faggots complaining that they didn't get to see schizophrenic homeless people's hostile ramblings, needles and used rubbers on the ground, guys getting jumped, b&es, gangsters and pimps, hear gunshots outside while at home, scumbag businessmen, gay ass hipsters (and faggotry in general), and the most vile whores you'll ever meet must be retarded. Their privilege has given them blindspots they don't even know they have.

>>18083779
Are there any books on anons making the same thread? Both non-fiction and fiction are fine. Just realized how gay you are.

>>18090632
I love TUDF and it's the most suburban book I've read of his.

>>18090655
They do, but it's a bit of a longer walk depending on which suburb you're in. You must remember, Americans are immobile shits who can't walk for two extra minutes, and God forbid you tell them to get good at cardio.

>>18083779
>suburban hell
Literally first world problems.

>>18089752
RPO is a shitty book, but it’s unaware in a way that makes it peak hurgerpunk

Bike faggots gtfo, we own the roads

>>18091034
>Why is nothing worthile unless you are going "somewhere?."
We're talking about practicality here kid. Not everyone is a pampered little priss like you.

>>18091818
Sure, but I haven't seen any reasons that the places the he's trying to get to are all important or necessary for decent childhood. Obviously we have to go someplace, and the critiques of cars and suburban infrastructure are the only decent points he's making, but acting like it's the cause of some sort great spiritual crisis or childhood misery is beyond silly.