Sprawl

[Joe Baker]

This is easy for me. What are the things that make me less happy than I want to be?

• crime
  pollution
  noise
  traffic
  high population density
  busy-ness

Every last one of these is just plain UNBEARABLE to me in most cities. I'd prefer to live in the country, but for the sake of convenience and good quality schools, we've compromised on an unincorporated suburban neighborhood near Knoxville, TN. 30 minutes to downtown and the symphony; one hour to Great Smoky Mountains Nat'l Park.

But as soon as my son graduates High School, we'll be looking to reverse those numbers!
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Joe Baker, who hates noise, pollution, crime, and pretty much everything else about cities.

[Chuck(G)]

I'm not sure what the difference between 'burbs and boonies is. Can you clarify?

[MaryAnn]

Maybe I shoulda said burbs instead of city, because technically I'm outside of city limits. But I'm also walking distance to Target, Blockbuster, Safeway, Walgreens, etc etc. I have a 30 minute commute but it's worth it for the lack of hearing gunshots in the night, which was the case when I had a 12 minute commute. And I'm only 20 minutes from my farthest rehearsal, which is across town.

I've tried living "in the country" before when I was younger....really, really am attracted to the farm land. Then I found I spent all my time in town visiting friends. Maybe when I retire I'll try the country again.

MA, who isn't sure of the exact division between "city" and "burbs." More pics? If "city" means gunshots, burglaries, street people, solicitors at the door, then I'm burbs. But I still have traffic.

[Chuck(G)]

Here in Oregon, we have a system of land-use laws where city limits lie within a wider area called the "urban growth boundary which defines the legal limit of urban expansion, outside of which, the character of land (density, use, etc.) is regulated by a broad system of low-denisty zoning. The land use laws were passed by referendum after we looked south at the freewheeling California system of 'plant a burb anywhere". Urban growth boundaries can be expanded, but the process usually involves another referendum and oversight by the state land use board.

Since I live outside of the UG boundary, I guess I live in the boonies.

[Dylan King]

I am one block from Sony Studios, a mile in a half from the 405/10 freeway interchange, and four miles east of Venice Beach. I also live across the street from a Mcdonalds and a car wash and next door to a Jack in the Box. There are constant fights among the homeless over crack pipes and shopping cart possession, but I can walk across the street to Bally's, Best Buy, Panda Express, Radio Shaq, a 24 hour supermarket, a Kragan auto parts store, Baja Fresh, Starbucks. Quiznos, and many other fine establishments.

I am on the second floor and it would take a tank to break into my studio.

Satellite Photo...



Out my front window when the furniture factory burnt down...

[TMurphy]

I guess I have two answers.

I grew up, and permanently reside in a town in northern New Jersey, classified as "urban-suburban." What does that mean, Your guess is as good as mine. It feels like a city, looks like a city, and (much to my dismay) smells like a city. But, I guess it's not big enough, or important enough, so it is considered a suburb of New York (if you at all know where Jersey City or Hoboken are...right in that area.)

For the majority of the past 4 years, though, I've been at school. And the section of campus I am on, makes for a bit more of a suburban feel (especially in the surrounding communities). I'm glad I live where I do on campus, because if I lived on the section of campus that is actually in the city of New Brunswick, I think I'd have much more stress. As it is, I much prefer the suburban, quieter life. I do, however, enjoy the proximity to NY from my "real" home.

[TexTuba]

I was born and raised in Corpus Christi. Population about 260,000. It's a relatively ok town. Nothing really happens for music. I am moving to San Antonio in the fall and that should be exciting.






Ralph

[Leland]

I'm in a really interesting spot in DC, two blocks from the Capitol and one block from the Hart senate office building.

Go ten blocks north & east, and it gets pretty rough. Right around me, though, there are something like 7 police & security forces, so things are pretty secure. John Ashcroft used to live a block or two away (in fact, next door to one of the other apartments I was originally looking at), so there were secret service types hanging around, too.

With the zoning here, plus my neighborhood being listed as a historical district, the streets are still narrow and the buildings are still small. It's actually pretty quiet, and I've got a supermarket and a few nice restaurants on the next block.

[ThomasDodd]

I'd call it more a burb than the country, but you guys wouldn't agree.

10 minutes from town, by several neighbors. Smaller than the neighborhood I grew up in, but this is much larger town. Current population is 23,000 but I'm not sure that includes the university. Still the twon I grew up closest too now has 2,000 people, and the town where I went to high school (20 minutes away) now has just over 7,000.

So this is a big place to me
Now I did live in Memphis,TN for a while, and Houston, TX, but still 20,000 in this small place feels crowded.

Country to me means no neighbors within shout'n distance, usually not in sight either (unless you are up high in a tree or fire tower, and can see a mile or so.)

[Chuck(G)]

Country to me means no neighbors within shout'n distance, usually not in sight either (unless you are up high in a tree or fire tower, and can see a mile or so.)

Wonder if there's a special term for Noth Dakota...

[Joe Baker]

Thomas, I agree completely. My house is definitely in a subdivision, but the lots are good sized -- I've got somewhere around a half acre or so -- and it's still more crowded than I'd like. I'll take 3-5 acres, at least half of that in trees (I don't particularly want to farm for more than my own use and a little extra for family and friends, so 3 acres would be "enough").

Joe's Place (outlined in red):


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Joe Baker, who got claustrophobic willies just looking at Bloke's picture of a "suburb"

[TMurphy]

Since we're playing this game....

The neighborhood I grew up in....

[Ames0325]

This is where I grew up. My folks currently live in a town 8 times this size and I am going to school in a small city ( 130,000 or so)
Amy

[Leland]

Cool, didn't know Google could do that.

Where I grew up, and where I am now, respectively:

[MaryAnn]

How are you guys posting these pictures? And where are you finding them?
MA, who can program the damn things for specific purposes but posting pics is not one of them.

[TubaRay]

I don't know about everyone else, but I know I have been overwhelming informed, here. Those photos absolutely have nailed it down for me. I now know exactly where these guy live(d).

Wow! I can't seem to get over how impressive this is!

[Joe Baker]

MA, you can go to http://maps.google.com to bring up a map in your browser. Edit: Once there, enter your address in the search box, and press search. When the map displays, click on "Satellite" in the upper right corner. Once you've got the image as you want it, there are several ways to get that picture into a file, but since some sites do some funky things with the image files I usually do an 'alt-print' to cut the entire window to the paste buffer, then open MSPaint and paste it in, edit if desired, then save as a JPEG.

Once you've got the JPEG, you have to get it hosted on a website. I actually just upload mine to my personal webspace. If you don't have any personal webspace (or don't know how to load and use it) there are several free hosting services available -- plug "free image hosting" into google and you'll find plenty. I've tried several, and they all work okay.
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Joe Baker, who notes that a lot of the pics are fairly old and may not include changes in the last five years or so.

[ThomasDodd]

How are you guys posting these pictures? And where are you finding them?
MA, who can program the damn things for specific purposes but posting pics is not one of them.

It's all a trick... Often you need to right click and save the image to post it later.
Sometime you need other tricks, like the "Page Info" dialog in mozilla/firefox, and the "Media"
tab there to get the actuall image.

My problem is none of the arial/sat sites go detaled enough to find me. And the images tend to be old and outdated as well.

Try, look for Artesia Rd, in Starkville, MS.
Half the time I cannot find the cemetary across the road in the image. and most are 10 years old. A lot has changed. The placeI live was just a field then.

[Leland]

I got mine up with Google, then pressed command-shift-4, then slected the area I wanted a picture of (or, "selected the area of which I wanted a picture."). Click & hold, drag, release, done.

It was saved as a .pdf, so I opened it in Preview and exported it as a jpeg. Hosted it on Photobucket, and there you see it.

Of course, this was on a Mac, too.

[Rick F]

If Google doesn't work for you (it doesn't for me for some reason), you can use:

http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/