they are all suburbs! any archinecters living in these places? would you put them on a best places to live list? i've been to naperville; it's one big strip mall and car dealership. i found the place utterly depressing.. i've heard the lastest trend is people are moving to medium sized cities, between 100k-250k. most of the towns on this list have populations of under 100k.
i spent my teen years in no. 69 chino hills, and my parents are still living there. what a nightmare. it contains the worst possible mix of human beings that could be fostered; uber religious christian republicans, MTV trendoids and upper-middle class teens with identity crises (am i goth? wiccan? punk?). and you really haven't seen a huge strip mall until you've been here, and it's still growing like a disease. the only redeeming quality is that they city is nicely landscaped, and the hills on the borders or the city remain undeveloped. but that's only because the neighboring cities own the land.
i find it funny that there are 44 libraries listed in the area. i know of one, and it's practically a shack with old Goosebumps and Stephen King novels. they must have meant 44 churches -- they are on every corner.
I spent most of my childhood in #70, and my girlfriend grew up in #50, and both of them would fit closely to the sububran description given above by morningbell...
sorry, but no. 35 = Scottsdale?!?!?!?!?????
people from Phoenix laugh at people from Scottsdale- it's the Beverly Hills of AZ. Somehow they all have money, go to better schools, but still live in bloody tract houses, and they're kids act like they've got such problems, but they're only problems are whether or not they can get into the expensive colleges that mommy and daddy want them to go to. Sorry, I'm a bit bitter towards the area- they have everything, but definitely don't act like it.
If they had to throw an AZ town in there, what about Sedona? WAY better than any of the Phx. suburbs.
i don't know i have to disagree with you there, rationalist. scottsdale, despite the stereotypes it carries, is way more cultured and less touristy than Sedona. besides, there's a deceivingly large population these types of people in Sedona. anyway, if you want to see the REAL best towns list check out the most recent issue of Outside Magazine. i think this is probably more in line with the thinking of archinecters.
I've just never met someone from Scottsdale that felt like a real person to me (unless someone here who I've already connected with is a Scotts without my knowing it), and I'll almost always take a self-supporting 'local' feeling place over a suburb where people drive to the next 'burb over, or into "the city" for work every day. Plus, Sedona's just freakin beautiful.
well, i agree that there's a lot of retards in scottsdale, and that sedona is beautiful [particularly if you drive from flag through the switchbacks] but come on, scottsdale has the smoca. that must count for something, at least in arizona. yes, there are a lot of boob jobs in scottsdale.
I grew up in the suburbs, and I absolutely hated it. I'd much rather live in a city where I can walk around rather than in some sprawled out place in the middle of nowhere. either that or on a beach.
louisville, co at #5. ugh... that place is terrible.
west linn, or at #44. white white white rich suburb. you'd have to pay me to live there. terrible.
Naperville is a $350,000 home living, strip-mall shopping, Ford excursion driving, whitebread nightmare.
The only common denominator I can see on this list is that all of these places are safe areas for scared white people to hide from the rest of the world.
everyone needs to just go ahead and by themselves an atomic submarine with a satelite connection and conviction, and sit aroud drinking budlight watching the simple life... THAT'S a life-STYLE.
I'm with you ODR... NoHo is a lovely oasis out here in Western MA. But seeing how Springfield is the next closest city, thats gotta be a huge mark against it...
I'm near #3 Naperville right now - I watched it get built during the 80's from practicly nothing. Some of the new home developments are the same old formula but better appointed than most places in the country but the success of that town is its proximity to Chicago via Metra trains, and the successfull integration of the old midwest river-town downtown into a modern technoburbia setting. Its sits right in the Illinois research and development corridor and has some serious corporate giants around it. Plus anyone notice the new Calomos building out there? Badd Asss.
Jul 12, 05 2:51 pm ·
·
I actually grew up in #1, Moorestown, NJ. I have to say, it was kind of nice to see the article after taking shit my entire life for being from NJ. ("I swear, it's a nice place to live! you're just thinking of north jersey!") Plus, one of the images that was in the article showed the main st. firehouse, which was designed by the first firm I worked at, which was nice.
As for life there, interestingly, a lot of people, including myself, feel as though the town has gone downhill since the arrival of Toll Brothers and 3 HUGE developments about 6 years ago. The schools have gotten more crowded, traffic is worse, and, well, the town has a lot of McMansions now. The center of the old town has some absolutely beautiful 100-year-old-plus homes in it, though, and there has been some really nice new construction in parts. And the schools are really good - we had 40 national merit scholars in my graduating class of 200, which I figure is not bad for a non-magnet, public high school. We used to complain that it was boring there in HS, but that probably had as much to do with NJ's driving age being 17 as anything else. I mean, it is close enough to Philly that I commuted from my parents' house for the first semester of my M. Arch at Penn.
Uhoh, rationalist, will you hate me if I spill that I grew up in Scottsdale? It was a bit different 20 years ago, but my high school had a few kids who drove Porsches and at least half the student body was addicted to coke - I am certain that its just gotten worse.
See that to me is the problem with the overwhelmingly suburban, affluent communities on the list - bored teenagers, learning that consumption adds value to life, getting older and moving to the newest suburban, affluent community and breeding more bored rich teenagers who learn that consumption is value....
I've lived at #4, near #8, #33, near #35 (Chandler).
All were VERY similar. Upper middle class, get the largest (or largest looking) house you can afford, drive big SUVs, conservative, etc.
I'm from a military family, so there wasn't much say as to where we lived. All four of those have strikingly similar characteristics. All stip mall based, commute outside of the area to work, horrible traffic, suburbs.
Jul 13, 05 2:19 am ·
·
betadinesutures -
Haddonfield is great if you have a family. Beautiful town, great main street/commercial district, excellent schools, big architectural presence (lots of architects reside there from the city, some penn architecture professors, plus 3 of my former bosses). Plus there is a PATCO high-speed line train station to Philadelphia in town.
Collingswood is getting big. Used to be blue-collar, but lots and lots of exciting development going on. Also has a PATCO stop. Not great schools, but a lot of young people.
Camden, which used to be the urban equivilent of Philadelphia taking a crap into New Jersey, is actually cleaning up a lot - there are some interesting development projects going on. If you're feeling adventurous, you might want to look.
And actually, a lot of young people reverse-commute from Philadelphia. I worked in Voorhees last summer, and it was pretty easy, if you have a car. There is a train stop in voorhees, i believe, but not near where I worked.
#73 - Rochester MN isn't a suburb and a very nice city. Done some work down there and always have been impressed with how nice of city it is (at least away from the highway strip mall corridor). The city is quite wealthy though with it being the home of the Mayo Clinic.
#16 is a very far flung suburb of Minneapolis. High income and overpriced McMansion land. I think it's also where the rock star Price (or whatever he goes by today) has some Neverland Ranch-esque hideaway. If that town got as high as it did they didn't factor in commute times. Have a friend that lives there and daily spends over 2 hours in the car trying to get in and out of Minneapolis.
And where was Gary Indiana on that list? I'm really cheering for that town to make it someday.
despite that suburbs are understood as a somewhat negative phenomenon by most people on this site [and most anyone whose thought somewhat deeply about the purpose of cities and the manner in which they function] suburbs are, very generally, the american version of utopia. think about it. of course all the a-list places would be suburbs according to the editors of cnn money, and their respective readers.
Naperville as #3... wow. My mom is the school nurse at naperville central high school. The stories she has about insane parents and spoiled kids are as hilarious as they are disturbing. Naperville is where "scared white people" (my new favorits phrase) go when they wish they lived in a small town; "Downtown" Naperville is a plenty-of-parking reproduction is some idyllic "small town in the heartland", complete with faux gas lights. Oh yeah, and once you drop half a million dollars on your 6 bedroom McMansion, you must get some kind of coupon for your choice of grossly oversized "champagne colored" SUV: I've never seen so many Navigators, Escalades, and Suburbans in my entire life. Naperville is truly an affluent ghetto, in the sense that the people there are basically an isolated, homogeneous blob. What a piece of shit town.
-andrew
PS. If you plan on making a visit, ladies, don't forget the flower-print skirt, and gentlemen a blue oxford and khaki pants are de rigeur.
hilarious, rabbits - your description is exactly right, and utterly terrifying.
And I can't believe Chandler, AZ made it on the list - it used to be a poor industrial wasteland with a landing strip, now it's the exact definition of "There isn't any there there."
OK- Im going to get shit for this but Rabbits, move to 63rd and Halstead and show us your not a scared white person. For christs sake, the reverse racism is here is absurd. Its a free fu**ng country and if that means a bunch white corn fed law abiding middle-management midwesterner types want to live in a town 70% white ( 30% other you know) in houses that look the same then WHO THE F*CK ARE YOU TO TELL THEM OTHERWISE? This is why people dont like architects, its like you think its lisence to be pompous, opinionated assholes.
I love L.A., In-N-Out Burger joints everywhere, Sushi 24hrs a day. Oh yeah, the Beach, the Mountains. Plus, as the guy said in that dumb movie, "Roger Rabbit': "L.A's got the best transit system in the country."
Either L.A., or St. Augustine, FLA ('cept for all ofthem dumb Ultra-Con Golf-goobers & Yankee tourists).
Best Places to Live
they are all suburbs! any archinecters living in these places? would you put them on a best places to live list? i've been to naperville; it's one big strip mall and car dealership. i found the place utterly depressing.. i've heard the lastest trend is people are moving to medium sized cities, between 100k-250k. most of the towns on this list have populations of under 100k.
i spent my teen years in no. 69 chino hills, and my parents are still living there. what a nightmare. it contains the worst possible mix of human beings that could be fostered; uber religious christian republicans, MTV trendoids and upper-middle class teens with identity crises (am i goth? wiccan? punk?). and you really haven't seen a huge strip mall until you've been here, and it's still growing like a disease. the only redeeming quality is that they city is nicely landscaped, and the hills on the borders or the city remain undeveloped. but that's only because the neighboring cities own the land.
i find it funny that there are 44 libraries listed in the area. i know of one, and it's practically a shack with old Goosebumps and Stephen King novels. they must have meant 44 churches -- they are on every corner.
the number one place to live, according to that site, is in NEW JERSEY.
shyea, as if.
well...
I spent most of my childhood in #70, and my girlfriend grew up in #50, and both of them would fit closely to the sububran description given above by morningbell...
sorry, but no. 35 = Scottsdale?!?!?!?!?????
people from Phoenix laugh at people from Scottsdale- it's the Beverly Hills of AZ. Somehow they all have money, go to better schools, but still live in bloody tract houses, and they're kids act like they've got such problems, but they're only problems are whether or not they can get into the expensive colleges that mommy and daddy want them to go to. Sorry, I'm a bit bitter towards the area- they have everything, but definitely don't act like it.
If they had to throw an AZ town in there, what about Sedona? WAY better than any of the Phx. suburbs.
i don't know i have to disagree with you there, rationalist. scottsdale, despite the stereotypes it carries, is way more cultured and less touristy than Sedona. besides, there's a deceivingly large population these types of people in Sedona. anyway, if you want to see the REAL best towns list check out the most recent issue of Outside Magazine. i think this is probably more in line with the thinking of archinecters.
http://outside.away.com/outside/toc/200408.html
I've just never met someone from Scottsdale that felt like a real person to me (unless someone here who I've already connected with is a Scotts without my knowing it), and I'll almost always take a self-supporting 'local' feeling place over a suburb where people drive to the next 'burb over, or into "the city" for work every day. Plus, Sedona's just freakin beautiful.
well, i agree that there's a lot of retards in scottsdale, and that sedona is beautiful [particularly if you drive from flag through the switchbacks] but come on, scottsdale has the smoca. that must count for something, at least in arizona. yes, there are a lot of boob jobs in scottsdale.
Moorestown (the first on the list) bans alcohol.
OOOh, but they have a Target, a must for any town to be liveable!
the only common denominator i see, judging from the few that i know of, is the suburban locale and presence of vast moneys.
I grew up in the suburbs, and I absolutely hated it. I'd much rather live in a city where I can walk around rather than in some sprawled out place in the middle of nowhere. either that or on a beach.
LA
louisville, co at #5. ugh... that place is terrible.
west linn, or at #44. white white white rich suburb. you'd have to pay me to live there. terrible.
anywhere but LA.
i agree with northampton ma... other than that the only other cities i recognized are yuppy villes.
Isabelle, c'mon now! Don't be playa hatin.
i tend to disagree....where is st. petersburg, florida....love this town
Naperville is a $350,000 home living, strip-mall shopping, Ford excursion driving, whitebread nightmare.
The only common denominator I can see on this list is that all of these places are safe areas for scared white people to hide from the rest of the world.
.mm
everyone needs to just go ahead and by themselves an atomic submarine with a satelite connection and conviction, and sit aroud drinking budlight watching the simple life... THAT'S a life-STYLE.
i don't know exactly how much i'm kidding here...
I'm with you ODR... NoHo is a lovely oasis out here in Western MA. But seeing how Springfield is the next closest city, thats gotta be a huge mark against it...
sorry tectonic. i like LA except for the people. oops.
Scottsdale is on a path to self destruction...
Outside magazine - Pasadena (that is where I live and it is great)
yes MM, I think you hit it on the head
I'm near #3 Naperville right now - I watched it get built during the 80's from practicly nothing. Some of the new home developments are the same old formula but better appointed than most places in the country but the success of that town is its proximity to Chicago via Metra trains, and the successfull integration of the old midwest river-town downtown into a modern technoburbia setting. Its sits right in the Illinois research and development corridor and has some serious corporate giants around it. Plus anyone notice the new Calomos building out there? Badd Asss.
I actually grew up in #1, Moorestown, NJ. I have to say, it was kind of nice to see the article after taking shit my entire life for being from NJ. ("I swear, it's a nice place to live! you're just thinking of north jersey!") Plus, one of the images that was in the article showed the main st. firehouse, which was designed by the first firm I worked at, which was nice.
As for life there, interestingly, a lot of people, including myself, feel as though the town has gone downhill since the arrival of Toll Brothers and 3 HUGE developments about 6 years ago. The schools have gotten more crowded, traffic is worse, and, well, the town has a lot of McMansions now. The center of the old town has some absolutely beautiful 100-year-old-plus homes in it, though, and there has been some really nice new construction in parts. And the schools are really good - we had 40 national merit scholars in my graduating class of 200, which I figure is not bad for a non-magnet, public high school. We used to complain that it was boring there in HS, but that probably had as much to do with NJ's driving age being 17 as anything else. I mean, it is close enough to Philly that I commuted from my parents' house for the first semester of my M. Arch at Penn.
hey stabmaster, my new job will put me in Voorhees. can you recommend any place to move to in the area?
Uhoh, rationalist, will you hate me if I spill that I grew up in Scottsdale? It was a bit different 20 years ago, but my high school had a few kids who drove Porsches and at least half the student body was addicted to coke - I am certain that its just gotten worse.
See that to me is the problem with the overwhelmingly suburban, affluent communities on the list - bored teenagers, learning that consumption adds value to life, getting older and moving to the newest suburban, affluent community and breeding more bored rich teenagers who learn that consumption is value....
I couldn't get out of Scottsdale fast enough.
I've lived at #4, near #8, #33, near #35 (Chandler).
All were VERY similar. Upper middle class, get the largest (or largest looking) house you can afford, drive big SUVs, conservative, etc.
I'm from a military family, so there wasn't much say as to where we lived. All four of those have strikingly similar characteristics. All stip mall based, commute outside of the area to work, horrible traffic, suburbs.
betadinesutures -
Haddonfield is great if you have a family. Beautiful town, great main street/commercial district, excellent schools, big architectural presence (lots of architects reside there from the city, some penn architecture professors, plus 3 of my former bosses). Plus there is a PATCO high-speed line train station to Philadelphia in town.
Collingswood is getting big. Used to be blue-collar, but lots and lots of exciting development going on. Also has a PATCO stop. Not great schools, but a lot of young people.
Camden, which used to be the urban equivilent of Philadelphia taking a crap into New Jersey, is actually cleaning up a lot - there are some interesting development projects going on. If you're feeling adventurous, you might want to look.
And actually, a lot of young people reverse-commute from Philadelphia. I worked in Voorhees last summer, and it was pretty easy, if you have a car. There is a train stop in voorhees, i believe, but not near where I worked.
Out of curiousity, what firm are you working for?
#73 - Rochester MN isn't a suburb and a very nice city. Done some work down there and always have been impressed with how nice of city it is (at least away from the highway strip mall corridor). The city is quite wealthy though with it being the home of the Mayo Clinic.
#16 is a very far flung suburb of Minneapolis. High income and overpriced McMansion land. I think it's also where the rock star Price (or whatever he goes by today) has some Neverland Ranch-esque hideaway. If that town got as high as it did they didn't factor in commute times. Have a friend that lives there and daily spends over 2 hours in the car trying to get in and out of Minneapolis.
And where was Gary Indiana on that list? I'm really cheering for that town to make it someday.
If Gary expands that airport, they will come.
If Gary expands that airport, they will come.
LA
despite that suburbs are understood as a somewhat negative phenomenon by most people on this site [and most anyone whose thought somewhat deeply about the purpose of cities and the manner in which they function] suburbs are, very generally, the american version of utopia. think about it. of course all the a-list places would be suburbs according to the editors of cnn money, and their respective readers.
Naperville as #3... wow. My mom is the school nurse at naperville central high school. The stories she has about insane parents and spoiled kids are as hilarious as they are disturbing. Naperville is where "scared white people" (my new favorits phrase) go when they wish they lived in a small town; "Downtown" Naperville is a plenty-of-parking reproduction is some idyllic "small town in the heartland", complete with faux gas lights. Oh yeah, and once you drop half a million dollars on your 6 bedroom McMansion, you must get some kind of coupon for your choice of grossly oversized "champagne colored" SUV: I've never seen so many Navigators, Escalades, and Suburbans in my entire life. Naperville is truly an affluent ghetto, in the sense that the people there are basically an isolated, homogeneous blob. What a piece of shit town.
-andrew
PS. If you plan on making a visit, ladies, don't forget the flower-print skirt, and gentlemen a blue oxford and khaki pants are de rigeur.
Gary can't make it on Hooters alone.
hilarious, rabbits - your description is exactly right, and utterly terrifying.
And I can't believe Chandler, AZ made it on the list - it used to be a poor industrial wasteland with a landing strip, now it's the exact definition of "There isn't any there there."
OK- Im going to get shit for this but Rabbits, move to 63rd and Halstead and show us your not a scared white person. For christs sake, the reverse racism is here is absurd. Its a free fu**ng country and if that means a bunch white corn fed law abiding middle-management midwesterner types want to live in a town 70% white ( 30% other you know) in houses that look the same then WHO THE F*CK ARE YOU TO TELL THEM OTHERWISE? This is why people dont like architects, its like you think its lisence to be pompous, opinionated assholes.
chandler is probably now the largest suburb on the south side of phx. i think its proximity to the awhataukee foothills is what puts it on the list.
wait, where was Chandler? There are definitely better towns in AZ (much less the rest of America) than Chandler! This is a wierd little list.
that it is
i suspect they include chandler because of all the new construction, even moreso than everywhere else in the valley.
scary biscuits!
I love L.A., In-N-Out Burger joints everywhere, Sushi 24hrs a day. Oh yeah, the Beach, the Mountains. Plus, as the guy said in that dumb movie, "Roger Rabbit': "L.A's got the best transit system in the country."
Either L.A., or St. Augustine, FLA ('cept for all ofthem dumb Ultra-Con Golf-goobers & Yankee tourists).
i've been thinking about moving to la. i miss in and out.
what about Baja Fresh???
oh geez i miss that too. but there is one in royal oak.
What the hell is a Baja Fresh? I'm moving to Royal Oak in a month.
ether my friend, you haven't experienced baja?
nope.
baja fresh exists in other locales as well.
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