Just be glad you don’t live in a baseball town. And doubly glad you don’t live in a 2-team baseball town. ~100 games a year, weeknights, weekends, weekdays… 40 fanny packers per train car screaming about the crowds on the train and generally making a public nuisance of themselves…

and then they get drunk.

Living in the DC Metro area and taking the Metro daily to work I would have my fair share of run-ins with tourists.  It’s aggravating, they think the Metro doors are like elevator doors, leave their bags and suitcases in the middle of the aisle and doorways.  The weirdest thing is taking pictures of themselves while riding the Metro and at the stops.  They really do not understand that people live and work in big cities, and I’ve caught members of my family doing this too. (I come from a small town in Florida.)

you know i recently moved back in to a college neighborhood, and as i wander through the campus i am consistently impressed with the inability of college students to be aware of their environment and their use of space as pedestrians. Blocking fully the walkways (like your campus, they accommodate about 8 abreast) or careening off in a new direction without looking and/or with headphones on into oncoming foot or bike traffic.
as a biker, it is maddening to try to accommodate this kind of blissful unawareness safely.

the best i can figure is these kids come from the suburbs too. and perhaps it is their families who you’re running into, amanda.

Not get all Four Yorkshiremen, but sidewalks? You were lucky.

I live just a few blocks east of you off of Manor and we just don’t have sidewalks except on the main drags and even then in some cases it’s only one side of the street. I think it’s not just suburbanites but lots of pretty close-in Austinintes who have never had any kind of proper sidewalk training.

I think it shows worst on the greenbelts and hike and bike where you have people moving at very different speeds and in different directions and you still have people who insist on walking four or five abreast at a snail’s pace.

If they were capable of sharing—and reaping the benefits thereof—they wouldn’t be suburbanites. 

I can’t help feeling like a friendly-but-snarky pamphlet or handbill might be a fun investment.

This is how New Yorkers got the reputation for being rude
Tourists forget that im going from the subway station to my job, im not an extra paid to entertain them.

Ask me how to get to Radio City, and im more then happy to help you out, but don’t stand in a herd blocking the sidewalk or ill plow right through you
Remember you’re on vacation, im not

Hmm…  What exactly is the proper etiquette when traveling on a train with a suitcase?  Generally, there’s no good place to put it.  It’s either in a seat, or in the aisle.  This is based on a small sample size, admittedly, but trains don’t seem to be designed for luggage, even when they run to the airport.

Bags and suitcases don’t go in the middle of the aisle, you keep them as close to you as possible.  I’ve seen many people do it, but there’s always someone who puts a big bag in the middle and then leave them to go sit down.  I’ve also seen people leave their bags in the doorway and go sit down.  I reported that bag to a Metro police officer. 

But if you have a lot of bags, maybe you should take a taxi. 

And yes, I’ve had tourists accuse me of being rude because they were blocking my way while I was trying to get to work.

Wait, what?  In the middle of the aisle?  Or in the door?  Yeah, I can see how that would be obnoxious.  I try to stay as out of the way as I can, of course.  Like I said, small sample size, so I’ve not yet encountered the middle of the aisle or doorway bags.  And no, I don’t think what I carry would qualify as lots of bags.  Just a laptop bag and an average-sized wheeled garment bag.

Look, all of you showered today and presumably you like each other.  You can bunch up a little more.  We urbanites do it all the time, and so far, we don’t have cooties.

This is a noticable suburban-rural/urban divide.  IME, I’ve noticed most suburban and rural classmates, friends, and co-workers tend to require more personal space around them than urbanites like myself who are used to extremely crowded conditions on public transportation and on the city sidewalks. 

Unlike most urbanites like myself who have been trained from childhood to cope with being packed in like sardines, the greater amount of available space, lower population density, and the greater dominance of car culture means that having to share sidewalk space with others was never as much of a priority because it wasn’t required as often in their suburban and rural environments. 

That’s not to say that there are urbanites who are also guilty of walking together/hanging out in ways they block/impede sidewalk traffic.  In their case, however, it is more a sign of conscious and in-your-face self-centered “we’re more important than others” attitude than personal space issues and suburban-rural cluelessness about sidewalk traffic dynamics.

I’ve seen many people do it, but there’s always someone who puts a big bag in the middle and then leave them to go sit down.  I’ve also seen people leave their bags in the doorway and go sit down.  I reported that bag to a Metro police officer.

I’ve never seen anyone leave a big bag in the middle of the aisle or in the doorway and then go sit down in the NYC subways or the Boston T during my years growing up/living in those areas.  As someone who grew up in NYC, doing this is a good way to get your bags snatched by others or lost/damaged through angry straphangers moving and or kicking/smashing said bags in anger because they’re in their way. 

Nowadays, it is also a good way to piss off the NYPD as there’s a lot of alerts to report unattended bags or parcels on the subways/bus in the wake of 9/11 and worries about terrorist attacks.  If one leaves a bag in the middle of the aisle or in a doorway and then sits down…there’s a good chance other passengers may genuinely think that bag has been left unattended….or report it as such to get back at the inconsiderate asshole who felt leaving bags in aisles/doorways was a good idea.

This is how New Yorkers got the reputation for being rude

That and the stereotypes of New Yorkers from decades of TV and Hollywood movies which often informs the perceptions of us from those who never actually been in/lived in NYC along with the fact whatever grains of truth those depictions had have been obsolete since the early 1990s. 

Moreover, if I had a nickel for everyone who told me that Bostonians are far more rude, snobbish, cold, aloof, and are worse drivers compared to New Yorkers…..I’d be set for life financially….

Maybe if we can get people to start practicing this stuff in the aisles at the grocery stores, we could curb (ahem) this kind of behaviour.

It’s really common sense.  If you have it, the we’re probably not talking about you.  Pulling the bag close to you is both more polite and more secure.  I try to have my bag close enough to set my elbow on it, or wrap my legs around it.

It’s funny.  When you’re traveling in touristy cities and doing touristy things, you can really tell the difference between the city-dwelling Americans from the suburban ones.  Part of it is how they’re dressed, of course, but it’s also that they have a sense of space and others around them.  Also, city dwellers just seem less likely to pull faces if they have to walk somewhere.

Once heard Mark Maron say this back when he hosted Morning Sedition:  “New Yorkers are really very nice.  We just have places to be.”

That’s not to say that there are urbanites who are also guilty of walking together/hanging out in ways they block/impede sidewalk traffic.  In their case, however, it is more a sign of conscious and in-your-face self-centered “we’re more important than others” attitude than personal space issues and suburban-rural cluelessness about sidewalk traffic dynamics.

Yeah, that’s often why I feel bad about getting mad at the suburbanites.  They literally don’t know any better.  They mean well, I’m sure.

That picture makes me want to go home, fire up the GIMP and play with motion blur settings.

It’s funny.  When you’re traveling in touristy cities and doing touristy things, you can really tell the difference between the city-dwelling Americans from the suburban ones.  Part of it is how they’re dressed, of course, but it’s also that they have a sense of space and others around them.

You could always spot the tourists in downtown Nashville because they were the ones wearing the cowboy hats.

All right, I confess to bouncing a little and gawking out the window when the Atlanta Metro went from being a subway to being an elevated train. I’d never ridden one alone before. Subways aren’t feasible in Memphis.

But yes, people do live and work in the city. And it took me a while to adjust to that notion when we moved to one. Before that, the City was just a place where there was crime and slums and doctors with ear-vacuums and thrift stores, all very unpleasant things.

re Hollywood stereo types of New York/cities in general

I think this is more symptom then cause
Just as a textbook that displeases the people who approve textbooks in Texas wont be viewed as a profit maker by publishers, movies must reinforce the belief that “the Real Americans” are better then us city folk to sell in “the Heartland”

When in Rome, tell the Romans that there ways suck and they should do as you do, because god forbid you believe that millions of Romans have figured out what works in Rome better then the morally superior salt of the earth types with there country wisdom

This is how New Yorkers got the reputation for being rude
Tourists forget that im going from the subway station to my job, im not an extra paid to entertain them.
Ask me how to get to Radio City, and im more then happy to help you out, but don’t stand in a herd blocking the sidewalk or ill plow right through you
Remember you’re on vacation, im not

Amen.

When I’m practically sprinting towards the subway, with headphones on, don’t jump in front of me to ask me for directions.  I know I “look” both friendly and local (I get stopped on a daily basis for directions and I can only assume it’s because I look both approachable and like I know where I’m going), but if you actually impede my ability to get where I’m going, you will know, right quick, that I was raised by natives of the south bronx, as those Children’s International idiots who jump in my path on 23rd street EVERY SINGLE TIME I WALK DOWN THE STREET, have had to learn the hard way.

But, if I’m standing on a streetcorner waiting for the light to change, or waiting for my bus, or just strolling, I will gladly give you seventeen different routes, with appropriate weekend service changes, to get to where you’re going.

My pet pedestrian complaint concerns people (suburbanites? philistine urbanites? it’s hard to tell) who brandish their umbrellas with a cavalier disregard for the eyesight of fellow sidewalk users. Lift them UP, people, ABOVE the heads of oncoming pedestrians.  Does no one teach umbrella etiquette anymore?  Those suckers are dangerous.

I wish people taught stroller etiquette. I can’t count the number of times a massive one has almost taken me out, often because the person pushing it suddenly jimmies it to the side right in front of me and I practically sprawl right over it. Or they just run it right over my toes.

when I lived in Boston/Fenway park area, I really grew to hate Red Sox fans. They peed everywhere, said rude things to women, and laughed and pointed at the hair/clothing of the Kenmore Square denizens without the slightest self-awareness that they themselves broadcast “Hi, I’m a stupid and ignorant suburban hick, please mug me” at an incredible decibel. To be honest, I thought it was a sports fan thing - because sometimes in my current neighborhood, a sidewalk full of big male football fans will just mow everyone else down like we’re invisible. I thought it happened to me because I was small, but they really just don’t seem to notice anyone else around them. It’s baffling.

<blockquote>Moreover, if I had a nickel for everyone who told me that Bostonians are far more rude, snobbish, cold, aloof, and are worse drivers compared to New Yorkers…..I’d be set for life financially….</blockqute>

And the Red Socks suck my fucking nutsack. GO YANKEES!

Whenever I am in London, I find it extremely difficult to avoid sidewalk conflict. No matter what I try, I seem to always be getting in Londoners’ way. I guess this has something to do with them driving on the wrong side of the motherfucking road.

Ah.  This reminds me of that one time in grad school where I was riding my bike on a road in campus, in the bike lane, probably coming back from the grocery store.  Then a lady in a minivan drives past me and stops the damn car in the bike lane, some 10-15 feet in front of me, cutting me off.

Why did she do that?  Well, because I’m on a bicycle, so it’s ok to stop me to ask for directions, of course.  I forget what place she was asking for (I didn’t tell her, that’s for sure!), but I like to imagine it was the undergrad dorm where her college-age child resided.

I don’t see these behaviors so much as evidence of a suburban vs urban divide but more along the lines of who was taught good manners and who just doesn’t care.

Whether it’s people yacking loudly on their phones on the train, talking through the whole movie, putting wet umbrellas on subway seats, knocking people with their backpacks on airplanes, standing in the middle of the moving sidewalk/escalator….some folks are living in their own world and don’t seem to understand that following some simple rules makes sharing space and time with other people go alot smoother.

It isn’t just sidewalks suburbanites don’t understand.  I can’t count how many times I nearly ran over some idiots on the way to school or work after rounding a corner only to find a group of walkers traveling six (or more) abreast in the middle of the goddamned street.  And, of course, they’d shoot me this glare like I’ve horribly wronged them, what with my driving a car in the road reserved for old people’s morning exercise.

It’s like living in their little social bubble prevents them from realizing that anyone other than them and theirs exist.  Not just urbanites, anyone.

It’s really common sense.  If you have it, the we’re probably not talking about you.  Pulling the bag close to you is both more polite and more secure.  I try to have my bag close enough to set my elbow on it, or wrap my legs around it.

This lack of common sense is also manifest if you observe the differences between urban and rural/suburban college students.  At nearly every college campus I’ve attended/visited, it was almost always the suburban/rural students who are more likely to leave their rooms unlocked even when they are out for several hours and leave high cost personal items like laptops unattended in public spaces like libraries, dorm for long periods of time….and they though I was “paranoid” for always leaving my dormroom locked whenever I go out and for being security conscious….a product of being raised in NYC. 

I’m still amazed at how even after campus security at urban based colleges in the Boston and NYC areas constantly emphasize how non-urban students need to lock their rooms when they go out and not leave their personal possessions unattended in public places continue to do so according to what I hear from current undergrads and from my own observations of how so many people leave personal possessions like laptops unattended for hours at a time in the libraries and various public areas around campus.

when I lived in Boston/Fenway park area, I really grew to hate Red Sox fans. They peed everywhere, said rude things to women, and laughed and pointed at the hair/clothing of the Kenmore Square denizens without the slightest self-awareness that they themselves broadcast “Hi, I’m a stupid and ignorant suburban hick, please mug me” at an incredible decibel.

Ha! I almost punched out a Red Sox fan who tried to cop a threatening entitled attitude with me for not being able to make room for him on an overjammed packed trolley on the D Branch of the Green line during the peak of the evening rush hour.  Fortunately, several fellow passengers told him to stfu and wait for the next train while shoving him off…..

“I don’t see these behaviors so much as evidence of a suburban vs urban divide but more along the lines of who was taught good manners and who just doesn’t care.”
I disagree, I think it’s the definition of “good manners” that is different between Urban (and older non white flight suburbs) vs Rural (and gated community burbs) that causes this

“Civilized behavior” originally meant “acting like people in a city do”
Good manners in a rural medieval village meant that when 2 people are walking down a street, you take the time to determines who is of higher status and the one with the lower status yields the right of way
When you have a few thousand people going back and forth from the Forum this is just impractical and good manners means speeding the traffic flow

For some reason, I have a big blinking sign over my head that is only visible to tourists. Not only do I get asked directions in NYC (which makes sense, I live here) but was asked in Philadelphia and London, both times when I was in those cities for the first time!

I also keep threatening to get cattle prods for the wandering packs of tourists who persist in taking up too much room, forcing me into the street, but that would probably mark me as a “rude New Yorker”

We live in a college town, close to campus and pretty close to the coliseum, and all of our problems seem to be caused by our neighbors, the students.  They throw trash in our yard and by the side of the street.  (Through with that Mickey D meal?  Throw the leftovers out the window.)

They steal stuff out of our yard and pull the pickets off our fence for their (illegal) bonfires.  When we had a woodshed, and firewood, my husband surprised a party goer from next door, peeing on our wood.  They have tried to steal bicycles off our porch, and been drunkenly surprised that they were locked to the porch posts.

And in our area, the people who don’t know how to use sidewalks are the students, who will often stroll down the middle of the street, rather than use the sidewalk to get to their car—presumably because it would be so much trouble to have to walk around the car to the driver’s side when they got there.

The university has a lot to offer, but the students are not among the amenities.  Yes, they are our neighbors, but they are far from neighborly.

It’s an unsecured entitlement thing.  Some of these guys can’t help but try to establish dominance in circumstances uncomfortable to them.  What’s easier than being antisocial to presumed liberals?

exholt @28: The flip of that is the over the top security in suburban areas.  Most city dwellers I know have a lock. But then you go to the ‘burbs, and it’s like 3 locks and a security system.

Wow. I guess growing up in San Francisco, which even though it has pro football and baseball team that bring in suburbanites, it never occurred to me that sharing the sidewalk could be such a problem. Oh except the occasional drunken frat boys who came in from SoCal to partay in “Frisco” (no one who lives in SF or the Bay Area ever calls it that so it’s a dead giveaway that they’re from way, way, way out of town.) Oh they’re generally Michael Savage listeners so I always wonder why they, like Savage, would want to come to SF anyway if it’s such a “freak show.” But generally, even tourists in SF know how to use the sidewalk.
Thank you for the post that shows, once again, how entitled, mostly white middle class, suburbanites can be. I’m not saying that white, middle class urbanites aren’t also inflicted with this disease, just not as often and are generally better at hiding their feelings of entitlement.  For example, in the Bay Area we cannot get BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) built into Marin County, even though it’s desperately needed, because of white, upper middle class urbanites/suburbanites who swear it cannot possibly ever be done without ruining the environment even with the help of the best Environmental Engineers. But really they think they’re entitled to keep the public transportation out of their neighborhoods.

IME, I’ve noticed most suburban and rural classmates, friends, and co-workers tend to require more personal space around them than urbanites like myself who are used to extremely crowded conditions on public transportation and on the city sidewalks.

I’ve always wondered if personal space disparities are about ethic culture or urban culture or both. We moved to SF when I was a little girl. I noticed that when waiting for the bus practically everyone bunches up regardless of ethnicity. But while standing in line, having a short conversation or other interactions with strangers or casual acquaintances Americans of most ethnicities give and expect more personal space than Asian and Hispanic immigrants. This is, of course, completely anecdotal but as a dedicated and introverted people watcher it has made me curious.

God, thank you for this.  It’s a festival AND a football game here and the self-hating, narcissistic heteros dragging their screaming, tired 2.5 kids along while pushing a hummer of a stroller with bags and bags and bags of overpriced, gaudy knitted crap made by deluded christofascist church women and their 14 kids have completely taken over the town.  On the other hand, my newest least favorite category of person is the self-satisfied hipster men carrying babies who smugly make eye contact with me like they expect me to compliment their ability to have an orgasm.

I’m misanthropic today.

I think the suburbanites just serve as a living reminder of what decisions to avoid making.  Having kids being the main one that seems important, but I think highlighting your short, boring hair, using a blow dryer, and marrying a man who completely blends in with the background no matter where you go is also important.  I would hate my life if I turned into those people.

Count my vote with those talking about class and entitlement rather than locale.

A rude bastard is not a location-specific thing.
A douchetastic student who figures that the whole town is their fucking playpen with no rules and no consequences is not a location-specific thing.  (Have you ever seen an arrested student?  High dudgeon that some sweaty prole is getting in the way of their harmless fun!)

I generally find that the best key is upbringing.  People brought up to be polite and think about their neighbours don’t do these things.  People brought up as entitled little princes and princesses who never get punished for malfeasance DO grow up to do these things.

I’m not saying that Rachel,II is wrong.  I am saying that she needs a nice cup of tea.

A 10-minute walk to the library involved walking past the stadium and the festival.  It turned into a 45-minute meandering shuffle where not one, not two, but three different strollers were bumped into me or rolled over my foot and then I was given a dirty look when I hissed “Fuck!”  Because Caylee and Jayson live with passive aggressive language and can’t handle pure meanness.

Which is to say:  yes, Seeker, good call.  A nice hit of valerian root will be good for my nerves.

My wife and I have this same damned conversation every few days. We live in Chicago; she was born in an apartment in the city; I’m a transplant of about eight years. We love it here. Unfortunately, it’s being taken over by the worst kinds of suburbanites: rich, entitled, scum sucking, swine. Our neighborhood has been invaded: historic buildings torn down to accommodate noxious McMansions, the roads clogged with SUVs, the schools forced to cater to hordes of little “gifted” monsters.

We constantly have to move aside for them on the sidewalk. They apparently don’t know how to walk.

I could have written this entire post about tourists in NYC.  Obviously I love living in a huge city that people from all over the world travel to visit.  And I definitely love getting to see some of the landmarks on a daily basis that people all over the world dream of seeing just once*.  But seriously, yall, this is a city.  People live here.  If you’re not interested in dealing with that, please go to Disney World or Club Med or maybe Vegas on your next vacation.

*I’m most specifically referring to the fact that my commute to work takes me over the Brooklyn Bridge, but there are plenty of other examples.  That’s just the one that brings up most of the feelings that Amanda describes.

I don’t see these behaviors so much as evidence of a suburban vs urban divide but more along the lines of who was taught good manners and who just doesn’t care.

As someone who moved from a rural area to an urban area as an adult and had to make the adaptation, I am pretty sure that it’s not about manners and really is about the social mores of different kinds of landscapes.  My parents raised me right in most regards.  Hell, we even spent a fair amount of time taking weekend trips to the nearest thing that passed for a city, so I grew up knowing all about walking places and not gawking at drag queens and all that sort of thing.  I still had to learn the ropes of New York for a few months when I moved here.  You don’t stop in the middle of the sidewalk.  You keep your metrocard in a convenient place so you don’t have to dig for it at the turnstile.  You respect signage and road markings and other infrastructure meant to keep pedestrian traffic moving along. 

I would imagine (especially hearing city friends talk about visiting the country) that there are similar adaptations that need to be learned when a city person moves to a rural area.  People talk slow.  Wildlife exists.  Bars only have 2 or 3 kinds of beer on tap.  Tastes are simple and standards are laid back.  The assumption is that people go to church, and rural life is often set up with that assumption in mind.  There’s no way to really grok this stuff unless you’ve experienced it, and it’s not about “manners” or lack thereof.

Though, of course, there is a way to be cool about this sort of thing and blend in as best you can, and a way to be a gigantic dick about it.  And that’s true in both transplant scenarios.

Hi, Rachel,II. Is short hair okay if it’s not highlighted, and not boring if it gets me compared to Isabella Rossilini?

I found New Yorkers to be friendly, efficient and speak their minds. It’s a refreshing change to have a server tell you what NOT to order from the menu, because it isn’t very fresh or they have a new cook who doesn’t do it right.
But I know how to walk with traffic, and the real lessons I had in it were from my parents who were hikers. On narrow dirt trails, etiquette isn’t optional. Try the Grand Canyon, where there will be mules on some trails and you need to step to the side and stop so you won’t spook the animal into falling off a cliff. I guess what I’m saying is consideration for others is a trait that can be learned in many places, so I don’t think suburbanites have an excuse.

You guys should all move to Phoenix. No such thing as a suburban pedestrian here. If you see anyone walking, they are either under the driving age or homeless.

On my first trip on the new light rail, I was sitting next to a couple of women who spent the whole trip talking about how poorly designed the train cars were because there weren’t enough seats for everybody and you had to stand right next to people you didn’t even know. I think there are people here now who are entire generations removed from the concept that they are not the only people in the world.

When I lived in Ann Arbor, there was a running joke in town about the fact that students NEVER looked before crossing the street, and if they did they still did not follow the rules of the road. Jaywalking & generally walking against traffic was a regular occurrence.

When one of our performers at the comedy club I worked at came in shaken up because he had accidentally hit a student (not hard enough for anyone to be hurt), we all told him he should put the story into his act.  It never failed to get big cheers from the mostly townie audience.

shakahi:  “...the occasional drunken frat boys who came in from SoCal to partay in “Frisco” (no one who lives in SF or the Bay Area ever calls it that so it’s a dead giveaway that they’re from way, way, way out of town.) “

My neighborhood is an urban party zone with dozens of bars.  The suburban kids call it by a shortened name that no one here uses.  When someone talks about it “familiarly” like that, I know they’re not a local.

That, and the public urination, walking in the street, walking several abreast (I just keep going and let them figure it out), shouting to each other from a block away as if the rest of us really care what they think about Jimmy and Jared, and even standing in a parking space and giving me the evil eye should I actually want to, you know, *park* in it.

And someone explain to me why a certain kind of person steps out into the street from a bar and can’t help yelling “WHOOOOO!!!!!”

On the other hand, I almost stopped my car and kissed the drunken young man who realized, while figuring out his fare with the driver (from the passenger side), the cab in the only through lane of the street, that it was blocking traffic.  He GOT BACK IN and had the cab driver pull up to an area where they’d be out of the way.  People can learn.

I guess what I’m saying is consideration for others is a trait that can be learned in many places, so I don’t think suburbanites have an excuse.

And I guess what I’m staying is that there’s basic consideration for others (with perhaps a dash of quick thinking or good logic skills), and there’s being in a landscape you’ve never had to deal with before, and honestly not knowing the rules of that landscape.  Consideration and quick thinking will do most people just fine in any situation where they’re an outsider, because honestly I don’t need you to know ins and outs of NYC bike culture, I just need you to know that the lane with the big painted icon of a bicycle IS A BIKE LANE, NOT A PHOTO OP LANE.  And in the country, I don’t need you to know the subtle differences between a Shiner Bock drinker and a Coors Lite drinker, I just need you not to bitch and moan that they don’t serve Chimay.

But, yeah, there is something to be said for cultural differences between city and country/suburb.

Linnaeus, that happened to the town I went to high school in, sometime in the decade between graduation and my reunion.  I have great memories of it being a charming little town with a strong undertone of real life southern charm.  In the intervening decade it’s become an over-priced theme park of itself full of entitled exurbanites who are there to get Southern Charm (tm) on command.  They barely have a supermarket, but there are at least 5 Gift Shoppes on a 2 block stretch downtown. 

But that’s another rant for another post - the problems there go way beyond ZOMG stupid yuppies.

It’s amazing how much acidic micro-trouble is caused by people forgetting simple rules:

3. Do be aware of people and events around you.
2. Do be courteous to those around you.

...and, if you can’t really manage 3 or 2, that leaves to go-to rule:

1. Don’t be a dick.

There’s an awful lot of people who like being dicks, though.  Fifty years ago it was accepted that a certain level of micro-violence was socially acceptable to rein in antisocial swine who wouldn’t obey even the most rudimentary rules of interpersonal conduct, but that’s long gone.  That loss, combined with the entitlement fetish of most North Americans creates a situation where jerks spread like cockroaches. 

I’m not at all convinced that solving a minor social problem with a minor physical blow is a rational or effective solution, but I am convinced that there’s an awful lot of people being total dicks because they know that no matter how badly they act, no matter how miserable they make the people around them, they are safe as houses from ending up on their backs with a broken noise and somebody saying, “don’t do that again”.

I think another part of it is that a certain brand of suburban experience was basically created to facilitate dickishness.  You create a bubble that allows you to be the biggest most entitled asshole on the planet, down to the Caribbean honeymoon resorts that don’t allow gay couples.

When people who have chosen that sort of life for themselves decide to leave the bubble and visit places where the world isn’t so carefully sanitized to their specifications, they get disoriented and have trouble functioning.  Their response is often to try to make the new environment work the way their bubble works, by hook or by crook, and when that causes locals to be rude to them, well then it must be the rude locals’ fault.

Let’s never talk about the time my aunt came to visit from Houston and decided it was necessary to A) rent a car, B) let that car be an SUV, and C) drive same to Little Italy for dinner.  I love my aunt and really don’t want to call her a dick, but damn.

“Consideration and quick thinking will do most people just fine in any situation where they’re an outsider,”

YES

When you leave the subway at Grand Central, there is an 2 person wide escalator.
A long line of people are marching twords this escalator, when they get there, those who stand go to the right while those who walk up go to the left side.  You cant avoid noticing, it aint rocket science.

If you dont want to walk up the escalator, go to the right, dont block the left. its no excuse that you were not born in the 5 boroughs

Well, if you drive anywhere, when would you interact with other people in a getting-from-A-to-B situation? And suburban supermarkets have such effing wide aisles it’s ridiculous.

When I lived in New York, sometimes I would respond to the jerkwads simply by ignoring their existence. For example, no one could possibly be standing right in front of a subway door when there are obviously dozens of people waiting to get out. And if no one is standing there, then obviously I’m just hallucinating and there will be not problem if I walk through the space where a person couldn’t possibly be.

But that was only on bad days. Usually it was more fun to regard tourists as slalom obstacles. And even after almost 10 years in the sticks I still accelerate when someone looks like they’re stepping forward to ask a question.

Hey Sophronia, I live in Phoenix - well, Tempe, and Mill Ave during sports events is pretty bad in terms of out of town pedestrians. I avoid that neighborhood now for just that reason.

But yes, I’ve heard lots of fearful speculations and stories about the Light Rail and the adventure of sharing transportation with other people. Mostly from people who’ve had DUI’s and are using public transport for the first time.  The proximity to strangers seems to cause the most discomfort.

For example, no one could possibly be standing right in front of a subway door when there are obviously dozens of people waiting to get out. And if no one is standing there, then obviously I’m just hallucinating and there will be not problem if I walk through the space where a person couldn’t possibly be.

I will now get my card for the paul fan club.

In Montreal the people who monopolize the sidewalk are usualy locals. It’s not rare to see people put-up chairs in front of their appartment, right on the sidewalk. It’s usualy either white trash or hipsters.

Actually, Paul?  In Boston it is the visible New Yorkers who are usually the ones blocking the subway doors and keeping people from getting out.  hello!  Can’t get on until people get off!  Move it!

And Rachel?  Having kids and living in the suburbs are not entirely connected.  I know the type of person who thinks that they are is also the type of person with an SUV double Jumbo super stroller that never goes outside the car or the mall ... but there are plenty of kids being raised in the city who walk.  Only their parents are derided for spending substantial amounts of money on a really good stroller that lasts well and actually fits on the sidewalk and through doors, even though they have no car or a small car of uncertain vintage.

I don’t think I saw a child older than 3 if not 2 in a stroller in Ireland.  Those are for babies.

I blame shopping malls on all counts for atrocious walking habits of suburbanites in general and the need to wheel a large child everywhere in a luxury shopping trolley.

Kate, city parents are the best and their kids are usually the only ones I can stand to be around.  Those kids are also usually the ones who don’t stare at me like I’m the freak for my hair.  Seriously, being stared at like that because the suburban 3 year old has never seen a woman not wearing make up or whatever is yet another argument for outlawing suburbs.  I have no idea how that would work, but I’m working on it.

At any rate, I know you know what I’m talking about.  The main difference is whether I have to get out of their way.  Parents who are used to walking with kids know how to maneuver a stroller properly and since I’ve seen it happen often enough, I’m perfectly content hating on people who leave their suburban bubble.

I’m just saying, in general, having kids may not be a sufficient part to turning into a suburbanite who hates her life, but it is a necessary part and once you have kids, you’d have to fight against it every step of the way.

So this explains why people without kids never suicide, etc.  Sorry, not buying it.

I don’t think I saw a child older than 3 if not 2 in a stroller in Ireland.  Those are for babies.

Yeah, can someone explain that to me?  When I was a kid, you didn’t ride in a stroller anymore past that age.  Now I commonly see 7- or 8-year-olds riding around in strollers, and sometimes older.  I can’t find it now, but I saw a story a few months ago about able-bodied people who rent electric scooters at places like Disney World because they don’t want to be tired at the end of the day.  WTF is up with that?  It’s like watching WALL-E come true right in front of my eyes.

exholt @28: The flip of that is the over the top security in suburban areas.  Most city dwellers I know have a lock. But then you go to the ‘burbs, and it’s like 3 locks and a security system.

Amanda,

Most NYC apartments I’ve lived/visited had at least 2-3 locks, a chain, and in the cases of some wealthy New Yorkers…a security system.  An artifact of New York’s recent past when it was overridden with crime in the 1980’s and before. 

As for over-the-top security in suburban areas, the only ones where I’ve observed this were in some upper/middle class suburbs in NJ and Long Island…and they were usually prompted by the surprisingly high incidents of burglaries/break-ins made easier by the fact residents lived in their own complacent bubbles and thus, did not look out for each others’ property. 

Didn’t see as much of this in the Boston area suburbs nor in rural Ohio…though the latter case may be due more to the fact my college town was located in one of the poorest counties in NE Ohio.

What are you talking about Kate?  All I’m saying is that seeing first hand how much suburbanites suck at life and, from my mother and her “friends,” how soulless, boring, and apathetic their existence is, I never ever want to be like that.  Since I’ve never come across a child-free suburbanite who hates her life, it’s safe to say kids are the necessary component to hating yourself in the suburbs.  After that, my happiness is my own responsibility and I can maintain that by staying in urban areas 99% of the time and swallowing enough Xanax when I visit my mother so that I can avoid going crazy, just like everyone else in the neighborhood.

When I was a kid, you didn’t ride in a stroller anymore past that age.  Now I commonly see 7- or 8-year-olds riding around in strollers, and sometimes older.

WTF?!! As a 7 year old, my friends and I went to and from school, softball, and some afterschool programs unaccompanied by our parents….and some of those programs were 5-6 blocks away during the 1980’s when NYC actually had a serious crime epidemic and where the parks and streets we played in/walked were littered with drug paraphernalia.  As an 8 year old visiting older relatives in a Boston suburb, an uncle accompanied me on a 1 mile walk….all done with our feet because he felt I needed some exercise… 

And kids older than 8 are STILL riding strollers?!!! Barring some medical condition or physical disability, how is this not considered a sign of extreme infantilization and coddling by overprotective parents?!!

Re: “using a blow dryer” being a “decision to avoid making”: Within a suburban context, perhaps it could be viewed as a pretentious waste of time and electricity, but if you live in a city where it’s winter 10 months out of the year, your shitty apartment has weak heat that doesn’t get turned on until November, and you have to walk/take public transit a lot, it’s called a “pneumonia prevention machine” and it’s a pretty good investment.

Personal gripe: There are people in my city who generally have the “move over to avoid oncoming traffic” thing down, except they move left. o.O

Also, Mnemosyne, is that phenomenon an LA/California phenomenon? I have not seen this in Boston/NYC and their surrounding suburbs. 

Since I’ve never come across a child-free suburbanite who hates her life, it’s safe to say kids are the necessary component to hating yourself in the suburbs.

I’ve met plenty of child-free suburbanites who hated their lives in the Greater Boston area, but the skyrocketing rents/housing prices, the fact their jobs were located in suburban office parks, and parking is extremely limited within the Boston/Cambridge limits meant they were stuck in living in their “dead” areas.

Rachel, I think you should differentiate between “that which would make Rachel’s life suck for Rachel” and “things that make everybody’s life suck”.

Those are very different things.  Your overgeneralizations are on the order of the “how can you be happy and fulfilled as a woman until you get married and bounce out babies” wingnut bromides.  You can’t see how that can be fulfiling, and they can’t see how being single in the city could be anything but trouble and woe. 

Best stick to the first person on this.  Please.

Exholt, I don’t know about 7 or 8 year olds, but I live in the Boston area and if you walk by the Museum of Science or the Aquarium you will see 4 and 5 and even 6 year olds in strollers, usually the giant double blocking type. 

On the buses that serve the non affluent areas, little umbrella strollers are typical - and that only up to age 3 or so!

It does work both ways.  I live in New Orleans, and the French Quarter is terrible - always chock full of tourists, and to top it all off they’re all plastered, and stopping constantly in the middle of the sidewalk to gawk at colorful locals or cheesy gift shops.  Just let me through!

But when I lived out in rural Marin County, I could always identify the city folk on the trails.  Not only did they have the fancy Patagonia matching outfits, they also spent the entire time talking, at the top of their voices, often on their cell phones, ruining the peaceful day for anyone within 50 feet. 

I agree with others - it comes down to manners, not locale.  Situational awareness, people!!

I second the above escalator comment.  Come on, people, did you really think it was a coincidence that everyone in front of you is standing on the right?  Yeah, they all really wanted to get a close look at those new Starbucks posters.

Also annoying—people who drive in from the suburbs freaking out about the fact that people walk in the city.  This past Fourth of July, I had a driver start screaming insults at me because I, along with several thousand other New Yorkers, were walking on the sidewalk towards the subway, in front of the parking garage.  Goodness me!  People walking on a sidewalk!  Who do they think they are?  Don’t they know that I am a driver—my needs outweigh hundreds of mere pedestrians!  Maybe if I honk and scream at them, I will earn their goodwill, and they’ll all simultaneously stop and move out of my way!

Just today (as on many other occasions), I saw some d-bag in an SUV block the box, miss his light, then start driving into a crosswalk full of people.  Really, what is it about steering wheels that seems to turn people into sociopaths?

The suburbs suck and they suck for all humans.  Living in such fear of difference, of walking, of paranoia, of valuing only that your neighbors see that you just bought the shiniest new cheap crap from Wal-Mart is not good for anyone.  I mean, have you people seriously never walked around an actual subdivision in an actual suburb where every man looks like every other man and every woman looks like every other woman and you’re amazed that kids can differentiate their parents from the others?

Exholt, point taken on the child-free suburbanites, though it does support my insistence that the suburbs suck for everyone.

The other day I had a little epiphany about strollers, fwiw. For urban people, strollers are carseats. That is to say, they serve to contain as well as to transport. So if you’re moving the kid any significant distance through the city by foot and want to arrive at the other end, stroller is an attractive option.

Now, that said, adult urban walking distances in cities are also probably further than kids should generally walk on pavement (just as scaled adult backpack capacities are more than kids should carry). My manhattan walking quotient was typically 4-5 miles on a weekday, more on weekends, and if you subjected a young kid to that on a regular basis you could be doing serious damage to their joints. (I still remember the time we went to DC when I was about 8 or 10, spent the whole day walking to/from/through museums, spent about an hour that evening with tears in my eyes until the pain receded.)

But mostly, I think, the path of least resistance.

rural Marin County?

West Marin is rural, in that ‘you’re-never-further-than-an-hour-drive-from-San-Francisco’ way.  I wouldn’t call people from Tiburon “city folk,” though.

Unless, Kate, you’re upset about my characterization as children as the driving force that ruins people’s happiness?  In which case, you’re a public health professional, right?  Maybe you should spearhead some campaign to encourage parents to pretend to be happy in public so that people don’t see such a clear and obvious connection between the sheer lack of hope and happiness that radiates from a person’s hunched shoulders and tightly knitted brow, the spouse next to them with the same vibe, the ten foot radius around them that you can’t walk through because the tension between them forces people away, and the 2.5 kids they’re pushing along in the Double Jumbo Happy Child Deluxe Hummer stroller.

“6 year olds in strollers”

I would have been beaten up every day a school if my friends ever saw me in a stroller when i was in first grade

ditto going trick-or-treating in the daylight with my parents

not saying that that part of kid culture was a good thing, but jeasus christ dont these kids have ANY pride?

In Montreal the people who monopolize the sidewalk are usualy locals. It’s not rare to see people put-up chairs in front of their appartment, right on the sidewalk. It’s usualy either white trash or hipsters.

Not to mention that common sight in Montreal of herds of pedestrians (all locals) just crossing the street without regard to traffic signalisation. At all.

Re the 6 year olds in strollers thing:

Huh.  When I was almost two, my mom had another baby.  We had one stroller, with one seat.  The newborn pretty much got dibs.  (OK, for the sake of full disclosure we also had one of those snuggli things and I’m sure my kid brother rode around in that for a while, so I probably got an extra few months out of the stroller.) 

I do see people in the city with kids older than 2 or 3 in strollers, though usually not older than 4.  I also see a lot more parents and small kids on buses, which stop much more often than the subway.  It must take a lot longer to get places when you have a 4 year old in tow…

I’m also wondering if the thing is that an overgrown 3 or 4 year old often looks older, like 6 or 7.  That’s kind of a stretch, though.  For some reason tourists and their offspring tend to look big to me; not fat necessarily, just physically on a different scale.

This times 6 billion for downtown Seattle.
Also why I avoid Pike Place Market like the plauge from roughly April to October.
Speaking of suburbanites - they all made the trek from Bellevue today to some bullshit event @ Safece field for freaking Glenn Beck. $&^#$
Jagoffs.

The suburbs suck and they suck for all humans.  Living in such fear of difference, of walking, of paranoia, of valuing only that your neighbors see that you just bought the shiniest new cheap crap from Wal-Mart is not good for anyone.  I mean, have you people seriously never walked around an actual subdivision in an actual suburb where every man looks like every other man and every woman looks like every other woman and you’re amazed that kids can differentiate their parents from the others?

i guess i must not actually live in the suburbs then, because this bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to my life.

or, you know, you are talking out your ass…

Seconding sophiefair. I’ve certainly been in suburbs that resemble what Rachel,II is describing, but then again, I’ve seen city neighborhoods that resemble the burned-out crime-ridden nightmares that the fearful think characterize cities. We’ve always lived in older suburbs, and they tend to acquire more distinctive character over time. The suburb I grew up in was more than 80 years old (the oldest neighborhood association in the US), and was certainly as full of character and variety as any city neighborhood I’ve ever been in.

Comment #75: Rachel,II on 09/26 at 10:39 PM

I am so very happy that urban life seems to be the one you find to your liking. I suggest you spend as much time there as you can, and avoid the rural areas. These trees and lakes and mountains out here are so terribly un-hip.

I would say, then, that you don’t live in the suburbs, Sophie.  Or else we have a connotation issue where you’re defining suburbs the same way they were defined in the 40s/50s and I’m defining them as what I lived in during my childhood which perfectly resemble the setting of Weeds (before it jumped the shark).

Wow, Ayutokamina.  Way to complete confuse “I hate the suburbs and will never leave urban areas” with “rural areas suck”.  Guess what, I also lived in rural areas growing up.  I don’t prefer them to cities, but I didn’t experience the same same hatred of one’s existence in rural areas that I do in suburbs. 

(Yes, I moved a lot, to the point where I never had/don’t have an answer when people asked where I was from.  Mostly suburban hell but high school was in a farm town.)

I’m sorry to put a damper on your privilege, but - I find this type of urban-centric bile particularly problematic because it’s absolutely silencing and erasing to people of different backgrounds.  I never had the privilege to live in a hip urban environment, sorry, but my family have been farmers for generations, and that’s the life I inherited.  Yep - I grew up queer in a very small town, and feminist, and went to my state university on scholarship, and I’m not the only one.  It’s nice to know though that my liberalism and political activism are invisible to you, and that I (and those like me) are not welcome in your cities. 

You know, while you’re busy congratulating yourselves on how hip you are to live near universities, and how awful the rest of us are for our ways of life, I’ll be working on real activism.

These kinds of stereotypes about people (in this case, non-urban of any variety) are just as poisonous as any other.  You might pause to think about that next time you erase someone’s value because of their geographic location.

This has always been about the white flight sub- and exurbanites. 

Those fuckers will threaten you with their vehicles if they are pissed at you actually using the sidewalks.

It makes for a much more fun thread, but we’re talking about different groups of people and different aspects of good and bad behavior, so it can get confusing about what or who is condemned.  However, the sort of people Amanda originally talked about do exist as an acculturated and distinct group.  It just segued into general problems with conflicts between people of different backgrounds, what is good, bad, whatever…

Hey Belleabsente, maybe if the topic doesn’t include you, then we’re not actually talking about you?  Maybe?  Or does your narcissism prevent you from entertaining that as an option?

Also, Mnemosyne, is that phenomenon an LA/California phenomenon? I have not seen this in Boston/NYC and their surrounding suburbs.

That may have something to do with it—only a nobody walks in LA, you know.   

I was talking to G. about it over dinner and I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, in many ways, we expect kids to conform to the schedules of parents now more than when I was a kid since you’re not supposed to let the kid out of your sight until s/he’s at least 18.  If you have to get from one place to another in X amount of time, it would be easier to just push the kid in his/her stroller than to try and make their little legs move at the speed you need.

But it also reminds me of my niece, who could read when she was 4 years old but didn’t know how to use a fork because my (now ex-) sister-in-law insisted on feeding her because it was so much faster than letting her try to do it herself.

As for people who can’t walk on sidewalks—I have been known to be oblivious to them, and I have the build of an offensive lineman.  When they run into me, they are the ones that fall over…

Trains used to have carts and slots for baggage.  And more slots for bicycles.  When the old trains, which in peak times were full up on bicycles were replaced with newer trains without luggage bins and a quarter the bike racks, I asked them why they purchased a new train car that did not meet current needs.

Their answer was a non-sequitur ‘The new train cars are not designed to be coupled and uncoupled’.

Also, sidewalks.  Here’s the Pitt-burgh police practicing their riot intimidation techniques on random people attracted by the sights and sounds of police wandering around the city, herding protestors’ with cameras.

It’s unlawful to ‘gather’ to watch the police pretend they’re a marching band?

I HATE what football does to otherwise quiet university towns. Do I want live bands to wake me up at 8 am on a Saturday? No. Do I want tailgaters pissing in my lawn? No. Do I want to be caught in a snarl of traffic? No. That’s why I live several miles from the stadium, even though it makes me terminally unhip.

You know, I’m willing to bet it’s the suburban people Amanda is talking about that are obnoxious in both the city AND the country. The suburbs are distinct from both urban America and small town America, I think.

There’s nothing wrong with living in a suburb if that’s where you want to be. There is something wrong with shutting yourself off from human contact to the point where being in the same train car as a non-family member is distressing to you.

On the original topic of annoyingly clueless pedestrians, I would like to give a shout-out to the entire sorority (complete with matching sorority T-shirts) that I saw on the light rail tonight, and the way they decided they all needed to get on the train car first, thus forcing all the people attempting to get off to squeeze out around them and be nearly battered to death by their giant purses. Thanks for proving the point, ladies!

I live in Atlanta and ride the train to work and class. Baseball days suck for all the reasons that have been exhaustively discussed in this thread already. There’s always some bro-magnon frat boy bitching to his friends about how he’s going to get an STD from the seat. I guess he can’t bear the thought of putting his ass where a poor person’s ass has been.

Also, after the suburbanites finish spending 15 minutes figuring out the fare machine, they proceed directly to the handicapped gate, whether they need to or not. I have a bicycle, so I need to use the handicapped, and I’m more than happy to wait behind someone in a wheelchair or something, but I do not appreciate waiting behind behind who couldn’t be bothered to walk two more steps to the regular gates.

Hey Belleabsente, maybe if the topic doesn’t include you, then we’re not actually talking about you?  Maybe?  Or does your narcissism prevent you from entertaining that as an option?

Good to know you aren’t the kind of person to try and silences or erase someone from a different background.

@#97 The new gates are a bit disconcerting.  I had to stop and stare at it a bit to figure it out.  That’s why they print instructions on them, after all.  Of course, the station was empty the first time I encountered those gates, or it would have been easy enough to figure out from watching the locals do it.

Having grown up in many tourist locations all over the world, I would posit this is a TOURIST phenomenon, not simply urban vs. suburban.  Everyone knew who the American tourists were when I was living overseas.  American tourists are loud and obnoxious and refuse to try to emulate local customs or even just have general good manners.  We were taught to always be polite, move to the right, say please and thank you, and ask questions nicely when unsure how to do something (or, horrors, stand back and watch until you figure it out.  I’m talking to YOU, people who can’t figure out a turnstile).  It seems most Americans missed these lessons, and even in a foreign country where their rights and privileges are most certainly NOT favored, this kind of American tried to force people to bend to his or her will.  I cite ice in sodas as the prime and most common example.  Americans got IRATE over the lack of ice in glasses, as though it was a personal affront to them.  Like the Germans sat around and planned that shit just to piss the American off.

Here in the States, I think this attitude is most commonly observed on highways.  If you aren’t in the process of passing a car, please move to the right-hand lane.  You are impeding the flow of traffic and making traffic unsafe around you since people WILL move around, regardless of how smug you feel playing traffic cop.

And, no, pacing a car in the lane next to you does NOT equal passing.  It equals being a dick.

On the other hand, my newest least favorite category of person is the self-satisfied hipster men carrying babies who smugly make eye contact with me like they expect me to compliment their ability to have an orgasm.

Heh, I hate that, too.  My working theory on those men is that they’re so used to women gawking at them in admiration because they actually take care of their own children that they expect it from every woman they pass.  They probably don’t even notice that you’re not gazing at them in adoration.  My local grocery store is kid-heavy, and I’d say that the percentage of small children I see being carted by fathers instead of mothers is no more than 5% of small children.  So these guys carrying their babies around know they’re unique specimens.

Those kids are also usually the ones who don’t stare at me like I’m the freak for my hair.

Living in even a remotely diverse city demonstrates that parents who claim that kids are born with all their prejudices are full of shit. I’ve seen plenty of kids not bat an eyelash when they say gay couples holding hands, people covered with tattoos, etc.

I’m sorry to put a damper on your privilege, but - I find this type of urban-centric bile particularly problematic because it’s absolutely silencing and erasing to people of different backgrounds.  I never had the privilege to live in a hip urban environment, sorry, but my family have been farmers for generations, and that’s the life I inherited.

Yeah, I know, I have to roll over and be quiet because some people are very, very, very sensitive.  Sorry, but that would literally put an end to blogging as we know it.  Someone, somewhere, will take something out of context and get offended.

For what it’s worth, I’ve found that people from genuinely small towns in the country tend to roll with urban living a lot more easily than suburbanites, mostly because small towns have a) sidewalks and b) small, local businesses and so they know that it’s not so scary to live outside of the corporate bubble.  Growing up in a small town, I can safely say that I’m—-wait for it—-privileged to know the major drawbacks, the main one being that small towns can turn one very narrow minded very quickly.  But at least you do get used to the idea that people around you matter and have to be taken into consideration. 

Believe me, because you were busy congratulating yourself on how much better you are than people who live in cities and like it, you didn’t do your basic research to find out that I grew up in the boondocks.  When you’re driving out to where I’m from, forget cell phone reception, or radio, for that matter.  There’s 100 mile stretches, easily, where you’re looking at having neither.  Everyone kept two gallons of water in their car, because if you broke down in the wrong place, you were in serious danger of waiting a very long time before you were rescued, because it’s that sparse and rural.

So, obviously I have no idea what it’s like to live in the country.  That was all erased with a solid dose of self-righteousness, the all-powerful leftist tonic.

But keep congratulating yourself on how much better you are than me!  I singled out a specific behavior, but you singled out my entire life as less worthy.  But it’s okay, because you said I have privilege, and you win.

I HATE what football does to otherwise quiet university towns.

To be fair, as I pointed out in the post, this isn’t a quiet university town.  Unlike a lot of enormous land grant universities, UT is in the middle of a medium-sized city that’s known for its live music/party scene.  We are not a quiet people.  And that’s fine; that’s why we live here.  If someone prefers the quiet, they should live somewhere else. 

The only time the noise ever really got to me was after UT won the national championship.  Sure, they were way out in California when they did that, but the neighborhood basically exploded in celebration.  I had to go to work the next day, and it sucked because it was so fucking loud until like 2 or 3 in the morning.  The game is perfectly scheduled, too, to be right when the kids are back from Christmas break, but they don’t have classes, so an all-night party on a Sunday night is no thing.  Luckily, I worked at UT, so they were forgiving of the fact that I was weary the next day.

Anyway, so UT is perfectly situated as far as all that’s concerned, because the stadium is just a little more than a mile past downtown.  People who live in this area are used to activity and noise.  We don’t mind.

But people catching flies and blocking up the sidewalk?  That shit is insufferable.

Rachel, you are obviously not a scientist.  But that’s okay too - just refrain from the generalizations unless you want Karma the Female Dog to send you a persistent fundamentalist with a “how can you be happy without children?” and “your avoiding children so you don’t have to have grown up responsibility” mentality.  Equally distorted worldview, IMHO.

Tired and challenged does not mean miserable or defeated or soul sucked, and I don’t trust your ability to “see” happy parents anyway. Believe me, happy suburban people who love children do exist - and they often run kickass daycare centers and teach school, and otherwise circulate outside your rarefied special world of perfect existence for everybody if they would just listen to your perfectness - just like miserable suburbanites of all childbearing status. Do what makes you happy - just don’t generalize it to the world.

Another pet peeve as a cyclist - suburbanites who come into the city and DONT KNOW WHAT A FUCKING BIKE LANE IS.

Like, the ones with New Hampshire plates.  Or the Cambridge Police report from a woman from Leominster (an exurb and ancient manufacturing city to the west) who reported that she was in the right lane of Hampshire street and trying to get a cyclist to move out of the way when the cyclist attacked her car and left multiple dents and scratches in the hood.

Hampshire Street does not have a right lane.

For what it’s worth, I’ve found that people from genuinely small towns in the country tend to roll with urban living a lot more easily than suburbanites, mostly because small towns have a) sidewalks and b) small, local businesses and so they know that it’s not so scary to live outside of the corporate bubble.  Growing up in a small town, I can safely say that I’m—-wait for it—-privileged to know the major drawbacks, the main one being that small towns can turn one very narrow minded very quickly.  But at least you do get used to the idea that people around you matter and have to be taken into consideration.

Quoted for truth.

Part of the problem with the suburban mindset is that people actually believe that they are living in the country.  They are not.  I spent much of my childhood in rural areas and, when we moved to the suburbs of Portland, I was on the bus by age 13 going downtown as often as I could manage.

Some would call where I live now “suburban”, but that’s pretty laughable.  I have a nice view of the Back Bay as I type, even with the cloud cover.  The community is about the 55th most dense in the nation (as dense or more densly populated than my father’s urban neighborhood), and I can bike to work in a 36 story office tower on the far side of downtown.  My kids take the MBTA to meet me after work or head to nearby Davis Square, Somerville (college zone for Tufts University).

The only time the noise ever really got to me was after UT won the national championship.  Sure, they were way out in California when they did that,

Wow…  If it was that loud in Austin, think of how loud it must have been in Yuma, Arizona!

but the neighborhood basically exploded in celebration.

Oh.  Never mind…

I had to go to work the next day, and it sucked because it was so fucking loud until like 2 or 3 in the morning.  The game is perfectly scheduled, too, to be right when the kids are back from Christmas break, but they don’t have classes, so an all-night party on a Sunday night is no thing.  Luckily, I worked at UT, so they were forgiving of the fact that I was weary the next day.

I am surprised that UT even had you come in for work (unless you work in an essential public safety role) as I would have expected a partial shutdown to celebrate.  I know that when my alma mater won a national title they canceled classes for the day, and ran other services on reduced staff.

Then again, perhaps you had it lucky, I had read that when North Carolina won their basketball title, they burned private automobiles on Franklin Street.

And, no, pacing a car in the lane next to you does NOT equal passing.  It equals being a dick.

Although I get equally annoyed when I’m doing the speed limit and some jerk behind me thinks he has a God given right to force me to violate the law.  Terrorist.

What’s really funny about the attempt to use the word “privilege” to silence me is that by and large, the people I’m botching about make a lot more than me. A lot. I can’t afford a luxury SUV, a McMansion, or season tickets to the Longhorns.

You know what’s funny ... I grew up in a small town, and yet I have more sense of how to exist in a big city than the 11 million people who live in my “city.”  Yeah.  What’s up with that? 

So I routinely get annoyed by people who just stand in the middle of busy sidewalks, text while riding their bicycles (I nearly got run over the other day by a guy busy on his phone while riding his bike), walk the direction they’re looking (and they’re NEVER looking straight ahead), who read while walking, who use their phones while walking up and down stairs in the train station, who stand in the doorway of the train even though there are plenty of places to sit AND stand, who never look both ways, who look the opposite direction when they turn a corner but don’t look to see if someone is where they’re walking, who back up without looking, who stand in the middle of aisles with giant bags sticking out behind them so no one can get through, who don’t hear you at all if you say “excuse me” because they’re too busy looking at something ... and so on.  Carrying something big and awkward?  Excuse me while I walk 4 across with my bffs a meter a minute so that you can’t get through.  Or worse, they don’t SEE anything you are carrying and bump into you even though it’s big and obvious.

But the tourists are worse.  Just the Chinese ones, however.  Everyone else is fine.  But the Chinese tourists make me let out an exasperated sigh that can be heard round the world.  I used to live near a hotel that often had groups of Chinese tourists, so they were always hanging out outside or going to a nearby convenience store.  They would just stand in groups of 10-15 and see me approaching but I guess ... assumed I could fly over them or something.  And if the Japanese people stand around and stare at things on a daily basis as if the products and displays around them were beamed down from Mars, Chinese people in Tokyo are about 10x as bad.  “HEY LOOK!  JAPANESE PRODUCTS BEAMED DOWN FROM MARS!”  Man, China has more people!  If they’re all like this I never ever ever want to go there.  Living in Japan is bad enough.

I often feel like an idiot for being considerate, moving over for people, giving people room to pass, looking both ways, etc. etc.  It is so so so so so rare that anyone ever returns the favor, because that’s just not the culture.  And everyone is so “whatever” about it, so why change?

I do not like driving, but due to simple factors (the city yanked out our bus line. jacked up transit rates to the highest in the US, and the light rail line a half-mile away is safe only during weekday rush hours - ask me how I know this, it ain’t pretty), so I often must drive and am faced with waves of pedestrians walking everywhere (sidewalks, main streets, etc.) and also jaywalking in traffic after an event. Somehow, I’m not really bothered too much by that, except the rudeness of some of the pedestrians. I’m usually just trying to get somewhere and I have enough patience (and foresight to start early) to wait for them. Of course when the beat on my hood in high spirits, I’d really love to show them how hard a car really is.

Bicyclists are a different matter. When I ride a bike, I follow the traffic laws. Others mostly ride as thought there’s no such thing as traffic laws (and it appears they never get ticketed, either), blowing through stop signs and red lights, never signaling, never staying in their designated lane and even driving on the sidewalk. I don’t get it. I’ve almost hit a few who were speeding and crossing a stop sign in front of me. When I was in San Francisco one Friday (IIRC) some years back, I missed my Amtrak connection due to a lovely group known as Critical Mass, blocking my trolleybus for a good half hour. Never seen anything like it in my life. Mass obnoxiousness. It was probably the only time in my life when I wanted to see a group of unprotected people flattened and hospitalized.

When I was a youngster, it was drilled into us NEVER to challenge a car, just for our own safety. Whatever happened to that bit of good advice? Nobody seems to follow it anymore.

American tourists are loud and obnoxious and refuse to try to emulate local customs or even just have general good manners.

I think there’s been some misunderstanding.  That was the British tourists you noticed.  Americans don’t travel abroad enough to really be noticed as a demographic. 

Traveling overseas, in fact, was where I noticed that this very much is not confined to Americans.  Brits, Australians, and Israelis are just as bad overseas as Americans are in our own country.  I’m not sure if one could peg that down to urban/suburban/rural cultural divides, of if it’s simply the issue of at least trying to be considerate (and using your head) when you find yourself in a situation wherein you are an outsider who doesn’t know all the cultural mores.

I missed my Amtrak connection due to a lovely group known as Critical Mass, blocking my trolleybus for a good half hour.

I have frequently missed connections because of a lovely group known as Rush Hour blocking my bus for a good half hour with people in cars all trying to use the same road at once.

Critical mass is simply a traffic jam of cyclists.  Only, much less space taken than solo drivers in cars.  This is a matter of established case law, BTW.

So I routinely get annoyed by people who just stand in the middle of busy sidewalks, text while riding their bicycles (I nearly got run over the other day by a guy busy on his phone while riding his bike), walk the direction they’re looking (and they’re NEVER looking straight ahead), who read while walking, who use their phones while walking up and down stairs in the train station,

The time that I have been a bike commuter has taught me that cell phone use should not simply be outlawed while driving, it should be outlawed during any non-stationary transit-oriented activity.  About once a week I almost hit a pedestrian jaywalking across a busy street while texting.  Which usually results in me being the one to fall off my bike, since I’m horrified at the thought of hitting a pedestrian at any real speed.

When I was a youngster, it was drilled into us NEVER to challenge a car, just for our own safety. Whatever happened to that bit of good advice? Nobody seems to follow it anymore.

Car privilege.  It does not exist.  Sorry, but it does not exist.  If you are driving, you have a responsibility to share the road with other vehicles, not a right to do whatever, whenever, and get away with it because you are special.

Perhaps you should refresh your knowledge of road rules now that you are in the big city.

Oh, God, the bike lanes.  As a cyclist in NYC, nothing brings out the rage in me like pedestrians who use the bike lanes for sidewalks or for lanes in which to stand while you wait to cross the street.  I have had people blindly run out into the bike lanes from the sidewalk in the middle of a block, I’ve slammed on my brakes and flown over the handlebars (I’ve gotten very good at the graceful forward leap over the bike while still holding the handlebars - I can usually land on my feet) and of course gotten bitched at by said pedestrian.  I just the other day got a perfect Sopranos-accented “Fuck you, asshole!” when I passed a guy walking in the direction of traffic directly in the middle of the bike lane.  I suppose it was my own fault for not realizing that he has special privilege and I’m supposed to get out of his way no matter what.

bon appetit, I don’t find the Chinese tourists any more obnoxious than typical Bostonians - neither understands the concept of making a line, neither understands staying to one side to let others pass, etc.  Of course I’m the obnoxious one because I think that throwing trash all over the place is unacceptable and not making lines is pathetic.

Also, yeah, the idea that Critical Mass causes traffic jams is frakking laughable. 

1.  I can’t speak for every city with a Critical Mass ride, but here in New York they start at 7pm in the heart of Manhattan.  I.e. not rush hour.  By 7pm, even in ambitious, driven, workaholic New York, the population has officially moved from Midtown and Financial District offices to the various party areas (village, lower east side, williamsburg, etc).  Bars are packed, all the good movie tickets are sold out, and dinner plans are being made (good luck getting a table anywhere impressive if you left it till now; shit, good luck getting a slice of pizza without standing in a 20 person line).  Only the saddest stragglers are still caught in traffic headed out to the ‘burbs. 

1a.  Any time when cars are on the road cannot automatically be considered ‘rush hour’.  It doesn’t work that way. 

2.  These ‘traffic jams’ which are associated with Critical Mass were caused by cars.  The cyclists are simply caught in the same traffic jam you’re in.  They’re just having a lot more fun than you are.

I’m convinced that people hate Critical Mass because it reminds them that driving = being imprisoned in a metal box.  Not because Critical Mass causes traffic jams, which it doesn’t.  Though I am genuinely apologetic that any American city has traffic bad enough to cause someone to miss their plane/train/whatever.

Exactly Opoponax - every cyclist in a Critical Mass ride is taking up a mere fraction of the space taken by a solo driver.  The only vehicle I can think of that takes up less space is my small minivan with seven people in it.

How do bikes cause traffic jams again?  Um, they don’t.  Cars cause traffic jams.

Same stupidity when suburanites start braying and whining that the HOV lanes are moving and everything else is jammed up THEREFORE THERE SHOULD BE NO HOV LANE.  They are too selfish to understand that HOV lanes carry 3X the PEOPLE into the city even if they carry half the vehicles.  To them, vehicle=person.  A car is not a person, sorry.

Ooooh, now there’s a thought: cyclists using or renting cars for the day and leaving work all at once.  Think critical mass blocks things up?  What would happen if all those cyclists septupled their space use.

When I ride a bike, I follow the traffic laws. Others mostly ride as thought there’s no such thing as traffic laws (and it appears they never get ticketed, either), blowing through stop signs and red lights, never signaling, never staying in their designated lane and even driving on the sidewalk.

Shhh.  Ms Kate likes to pretend that all cyclists always follow the rules of the road, and if cyclists don’t it’s the fault of the people in cars, so any complaints about cyclists at all are considered a personal attack on her.

Never mind how many people I’ve seen riding on sidewalks or going the wrong way down the street—they don’t exist, or if they do, it’s the fault of the motorists.  I still haven’t figured out how, but that seems to be her conviction.

Car privilege or not, getting crushed by a car isn’t a real good idea.  Yes, I had the right of way trying to cross the street coming back from lunch on Friday.  And yet, I stopped when the asshole in the Mustang gunned his engine and raced through the intersection.  Yes, had we collided he would have likely been cited for his infraction.  Probably had his insurance go up and maybe had a repair bill for his front bumper.  But I would have been injured, perhaps seriously, or even killed.  Not a good trade, even if I’m in the right.

Mnemosyne, the cyclists who don’t obey the rules are far more of a danger to themselves (and other cyclists) than they are to anybody in a car.

But go ahead and live in your fantasy land of perfect motorists.  Maybe you live somewhere where motorists obey the rules, but I see far more dangerous behavior by the privileged pilots of heavy equipment known as “cars” than I see truly dangerous behavior by cyclists.

You know, wingnuts are another class of people who are seriously inconvenienced by the rights of others.

and it appears they never get ticketed, either

Not true.  In fact, in a lot of American cities it’s much easier to get a ticket for a very minor bike infraction than it is to be charged with vehicular manslaughter if you KILL SOMEONE with your car. 

blowing through stop signs and red lights,

I’m unaware how anyone can “blow through” anything at 5 mph.  It’s true, cyclists don’t always stop at intersections and wait either until they have the green light and/or “indefinitely” in the case of stop signs*.  There is a long list of reasons for this, which I can go into for you if you’re curious.  Many of those reasons are actually a convenience for drivers.  However, I have to say that, as a cyclist, I see drivers stop at stop signs approximately, oh, I dunno, NEVER.  I don’t think I have ever seen Midtown Manhattan not in complete gridlock at rush hour because drivers refuse to actually stop at the line but must drive directly into the middle of the intersection.  As if being one or two car lengths ahead is going to make a huge difference in their drive time. 

I will start patiently obeying all traffic laws to the letter when cars do.

When I was a youngster, it was drilled into us NEVER to challenge a car, just for our own safety.

You were taught wrong, then.  The law is that pedestrians have the right of way and are to be yielded to, in almost any traffic situation that exists, in just about every jurisdiction in America.  I’m sorry that you were deprived of this very basic piece of information, but it doesn’t give you the right to be a dick with your car. 

Re bikes, while we don’t have the right of way automatically like peds do, we are to be considered vehicles which are part of traffic.  Our mere existence on the road does not constitute a “challenge” to cars.  When driving in the presence of cyclists, you are to behave the exact same way that you behave when driving in the presence of other cars.  You treat us and our vehicles with respect, follow the laws (as we generally try to do), and, yes, if something potentially dangerous happens, you attempt NOT to cause death and dismemberment to others.  Which is another thing I don’t understand about the bike/car conflict—if another driver did something annoying or unpredictable in traffic, you would react by attempting to reduce the potential for harm.  When a cyclist does something annoying or unpredictable in traffic, drivers tend to get all verklempt and often act by attempting to cause death to the cyclist.

*this is one of my biggest bike pet peeves.  On a bicycle, I am able to stop my bike for the purposes of ascertaining whether it is safe to proceed without any driver ever noticing that I actually came to a complete stop.  I only really have to stop for a second or two, and may not need to put my foot on the ground or dismount the bike unless the traffic is particularly heavy (in which case I would never have been able to “blow through” the intersection, because I’m not actually suicidal).  I’m not really sure what drivers expect me to do, though it seems to me that the reason for the “blowing through stop signs, ohnoez!” is that what the drivers really wish I would do is go away.

Oh, and you are not required to say in a bike lane.  Particularly when a car is using it as “special 10 minute douchbag parking” or “extra small lane to use to cut around traffic on the right”.

As for cyclists on the sidewalk, a good solid hip check does wonders.

Exactly, opoponax - I can balance my bike at a complete standstill and often do.  Sometimes I only put my foot down as a signal to other road users that I really do intend to stay stopped and they may proceed with the right-of-way.

Never mind how many people I’ve seen riding on sidewalks or going the wrong way down the street—they don’t exist, or if they do, it’s the fault of the motorists.

Oh, these people exist, and there is a special circle of hell for them.  Especially the frakking salmon.  One day I am going to snap and throw something at the dicks riding the wrong way in the bike lane in heavy traffic listening to their iPods.  Especially the ones who do this even though there is another bike lane a block away going in the direction they want.  Someone is going to die because this moron couldn’t be bothered to make the block. 

My other favorite is people in lycra riding $3000 bikes with clipless pedals on the sidewalk.  Really?  Really?  REALLY?

Opoponax, next time I take my Bike Friday to NYC, we’ll have to meet up and go for a ride.

Definitely!  Do you ride a Bike Friday, or is that just your pet name for your whip?

We’ve got Critical Mass here.  I’ve seen them and I’ve heard the complaints.  I have to say that the complaints way outstrip any kind of behavior I’ve seen.  They do hold up traffic, but usually less than someone making a left turn downtown.

And I appreciate that they increase bicyclist visibility.  And they do look like they’re having fun.  I don’t resent them, though, because whenever I see them, I’m usually walking or bicycling myself, and so am not stuck in a car feeling sorry for myself.

“The suburbs suck and they suck for all humans.  Living in such fear of difference, of walking, of paranoia, of valuing only that your neighbors see that you just bought the shiniest new cheap crap from Wal-Mart is not good for anyone.  I mean, have you people seriously never walked around an actual subdivision in an actual suburb where every man looks like every other man and every woman looks like every other woman and you’re amazed that kids can differentiate their parents from the others?

Exholt, point taken on the child-free suburbanites, though it does support my insistence that the suburbs suck for everyone. “

You know, as a liberal feminist Buddhist who lives in the suburbs and knows her way around the cities here, I find this some of the most bigoted hate speech I’ve read in some time. And I mean that very seriously. People here have given you several graceful outs to take responsibility for owning your views as applying to yourself, and not to an entire class of people, and just like the boors who plow through or block others on the sidewalk, you have ignored the opportunity to acknowledge the rights and individuality of others.

I rarely comment here, and totally agreed with what I read in Amanda’s post.  Pandagon is one of my daily ‘must reads’. But being falsely categorized, and then dismissed as subhuman is not what I expect of either this site, or of the readers here. Yeah, I blow dry my bangs. I fit in my environment exactly the way that you do in your incredibly hip one. I completely respect your right to live your life in any way you choose that brings you maximum fulfillment, as long as it harms no one. But to make assumptions about me, my lifestyle, my motivations, and my inner life based on where I live is, yes, bigotted. And no, I have never, and never will, own an SUV, and I boycott Walmart. Just sayin.

I have to go to a meeting soon, and will return in the afternoon, to see the response, if any. I apologize for not being able to stay. I just felt moved to write, because I felt so much anger at the injustice, and continued refusal to acknowledge my humanity, and that of my loved ones, including my two fantastic feminist, liberal teen girls, who also love Pandagon. Geez.

As a resident of Washington, DC, I hear ya. Tourists are the bane of our existence. They do treat Metro as a Disney Monorail. And walk six abreast on all the sidewalks. There’s two kinds of jaywalking: city dwellers who gauge the traffic and if the coast is clear, cross a narrow street. Then there’s tourist jaywalking: I’m on vacation so I’m in a protective bubble where nothing can hurt me so I’ll step into traffic. It’s also the obliviousness that leads to standing on the left on the escalator, stopping immediately in front of the escalator before getting on or just after getting off, blocking the doors rather than moving to the middle of a Metro car, pole hugging, etc, etc.

And then there’s the suburbanite drivers, who will turn right even with pedestrians crossing in front of them, or impatiently blow their horn if another car cedes right of way to walkers. Or roll into the crosswalk, blocking it. And as a runner/biker on the trails, I don’t know how many times I’ve had trouble with walkers who stroll along three abreast as if no one else is using the trail. I hate to say this about my own gender, but they’re usually female. Maybe men don’t walk for exercise.

I know cyclists don’t often follow the rules of the road (I generally do, mainly out of fear for my life), but I’m generally going to take their side anyway. A cyclist who runs a red light or stop sign is likely only putting his own life in danger (people have died getting hit by bikes, but not often), whereas a car running a stop sign or red light is putting a lot of other people’s lives in danger.

On the other hand, cyclists on the sidewalk do annoy me. I see this a lot on the way to class. Back when I lived in campus housing (glad that’s over), I didn’t bother with my bike for the one-mile walk to the main campus, but some students did, and they weren’t regular cyclists which meant they were too scared to ride on the road and figured it’d be a better idea to push through the crowd on the sidewalk.

Having kids doesn’t make your life suck, rigidity does. Guess what Rachel and the suburbanites she detests have in common?

only a nobody walks in LA, you know.

I had a girlfriend whose sister and brother-in-law had a house in Studio City as well as property on Lankershim Blvd nearby.

There were no sidewalks, just a curb between the lawn and the street.  They lived only a couple of blocks from a large arterial street, but there was no idea that people would walk to go anywhere outside the house. 

The one thing I found interesting about the pedestrian traffic in NYC in 1971 were the walkers who darted across the street against the light. 

I didn’t perceive them as arrogant, snotty, etc., but as regular friendly American types for example: we left some post cards on the subway and later found that someone had mailed them for us.

When you’re driving out to where I’m from, forget cell phone reception, or radio, for that matter.  There’s 100 mile stretches, easily, where you’re looking at having neither.

No AM reception, Amanda?  FM I could understand

There are a few places not in the foothills or Sierra Nevada that have problems with cell phone service, usually where the population density is low and the most ‘rural’ areas between cities.

Mnemosyne, the cyclists who don’t obey the rules are far more of a danger to themselves (and other cyclists) than they are to anybody in a car.

My wife collided with a bicyclist who went around a blind curve and hit her head-on(very unlikely under urban conditions, I agree) and fortunately had no serious injuries, but he totaled the car because it was so old and the amount of damage that he caused.

Also, there haven’t been accidents because of a motorist avoiding hitting a bicylist doing something stupid?

Oh, I forgot, they don’t exist in Ms. Kate’s world.

As for your scientist crack, as someone with a BA in Biology, you’re not bringing much credit to the profession, as scientist, last that I checked, still doesn’t equal “expert on everything”, unless you’re staking a claim to be Pandagons’ version of Professor Irwin Corey.

Men do walk for exercise, louC.  My father and I are both among them (though I’ve been slacking).

The truly incomprehensible one to me is people who stop at the top of escalators.  I know that some of the readers here go to Dragon*Con, and that is escalator stupidity central, since so many people want to gawk at costumes or take pictures.  Just, ya know, not at the top of the escalator.  There are another 50 people on the escalator right now who literally cannot stop just because you need to stop and gawk at something.

I’m going to give a shout-out to the suburban warriors out there - the people who go to suburbia, stay civilized, and make the landscape work for THEM.  They drive a normal sized car, patronize local businesses, walk, befriend the neighbors, have kids or don’t per how they actually want to live their lives, and pursue the interests and maintain the appearance that they want regardless of whose nose is out of joint about it. 

It’s a hard line to walk, and they really don’t deserve to be lumped in with the braying hordes.  As my small southern hometown has grown into a shitty soulless exurb, I’ve seen which friends and family members have drunk the McMansion koolaid and which have stuck it out making a life that works for them.  And it’s certainly not always easy for the latter group.

Although I get equally annoyed when I’m doing the speed limit and some jerk behind me thinks he has a God given right to force me to violate the law.

Your problem is easy enough to solve, Ms. Kate.  Get out of the passing lane if you’re not passing.  Get out of the passing lane if the car behind you is going faster than you.

The number of passive-aggressive problem-causers in the passing lane is really startling.  “Oh, I’m going the speed limit!”  “Oh, I’m passing, albeit at 0.12mph faster than the car that I’m passing.  I’m sure I’ll be past him in forty or so miles, so what’s your problem?”

I live in Atlanta and ride the train to work and class. Baseball days suck for all the reasons that have been exhaustively discussed in this thread already.

That and the trains are full of Braves fans, which pretty much means that they are effectively collecting all the fools, antisocials, inbreds and developmentally challenged folks all in one place.

I find this some of the most bigoted hate speech I’ve read in some time.

Really?  I suggest reading the next post then, because it’s a nice, palate-cleansing refresher on what serious bigotry and hate speech looks like.  Hint: rants about soulless suburbia, however mean-spirited, are certainly not a real threat in the way that racism, sexism, and homobigotry are.  Suburbanites suffer the indignity of being laughed at by hipsters, mocked on “Weeds”, and inculcating the Republican party.  But victims of sexism, racism, and homophobia face rape, job discrimination, poverty, and hate crime. 

You can bristle at being laughed at, and offer a serious defense of your particular suburb.  But have some perspective, seriously. Blowing things out of proportion is a nasty attempt at shutting down a discussion.  Wielding the words “hate speech” and “privilege” when they don’t apply is not constructive.

bon appetit, I don’t find the Chinese tourists any more obnoxious than typical Bostonians - neither understands the concept of making a line, neither understands staying to one side to let others pass, etc.

Ms. Kate & Bon appetit,

You should have seen some of the American(Yes, American) tourists I’ve witnessed in Beijing in the late 1990s.  They were not only unable to do the above, but also felt entitled to scream and yell at the top of their lungs if they didn’t get their way ASAP.  If this was delayed because of their non-existant/piss-poor Mandarin skills, their answer was to just scream and yell louder…rinse and repeat. 

fortunately had no serious injuries, but he totaled the car because it was so old and the amount of damage that he caused.

This is another one that really chafes.  Totaled car = damage to STUFF.  Not a person.  Not a life.  Just stuff.  Important stuff, maybe.  And yeah, it sucks when important expensive stuff gets damaged.  But it’s just not fucking equivalent to a person being hurt or killed.  At all. 

The cops around here have this annoying habit of not charging drivers who kill pedestrians and cyclists, but instead charging pedestrians and cyclists who cause damage, even very minor or imaginary damage, to cars.  Not drivers of cars, but the cars themselves.  To me this is a sign of an extremely fucked up society. 

Cars are not people.  Repeat after me, yall.  It’s not that hard.  Big metal box = OBJECT.  Human being = PERSON.  See how simple that breaks down?

Actually, Paul?  In Boston it is the visible New Yorkers who are usually the ones blocking the subway doors and keeping people from getting out.  hello!  Can’t get on until people get off!  Move it!

This.  But it even happens in nice, polite Toronto, too.

Still, it can result in unintentional fun.  I once couldn’t even step off the subway because of a crowd pressing in.  Fortunately I was in a foul, foul, foul, foul semi-psychotic mood that day.  I just yelled “GET <b>BACK<>!!!!” at the top of my lungs (and man, am I loud when I want to be).  Watching rude people leap backwards like gazelles to make way for the crazy person is a memory that still warms me.

And that wasn’t in any way meant to diss your life choices or anything like that.  Just that perspective is important.  I can’t fault someone for a solid, angry rant about the suburbs, especially when they live in Austin.  We are surrounded by Bible Thumpy Land.  A little hyperbole makes sense, and while your annoyance is legitimate, it’s not the same as being oppressed.

“Having kids doesn’t make your life suck, rigidity does. Guess what Rachel and the suburbanites she detests have in common? “

In a nutshell. Bravo.

But it’s just not fucking equivalent to a person being hurt or killed.  At all.

Luckily, he wasn’t knocked unconscious, and if he’d hit the windshield with more momentum, he could’ve seriously hurt my wife as well.

I was responding to Ms. Kate’s remark how the bicyclist only cause harm to themselves and not others.

I’m sorry that you have no idea the problems it causes when ones’  commuting car gets totaled by some young nitwit who decided to go biking on a public hillside road with no bike lanes one fine Summer morning before it gets too hot.

Oh, and I should explain that I mean ‘totalled’ in the sense that the insurance paid the claim off but that was it, it wasn’t worth anything financially speaking, which is more complicated than if the car had been rendered hors de combat physically and gotten towed away.

I bike on the sidewalk.

a)  Biking on the streets of suburbian Atlanta is not a risk free endeavor.  To put it mildly.

b)  Nobody *walks* on these sidewalks other than the odd jogger.  It’s pretty easy to bike safely for all concerned with minimal problems.

Of course, transferring this attitude to busy city sidewalks would not be a good idea…

Hi Amanda,

I was able to stay a short while, and I first want to thank you for a fantastic blog. I really do read you every day! I also want to point out that bigotry is basically about characterizing any group in stereotypical ways.

I also said nothing about privilege, because I would be a fool to deny that mine is an extremely privileged existence. I am blessed, and thankful for that every day.

OTOH, I have lived through the times when my existence as a woman meant that I was denied many privileges and jobs automatically, as well as referred to as “girl” by the “men” around me in my graduate department. So it hasn’t been all beer and skittles.

I suppose I just get intolerant of intolerance; it really pisses me off, in any form. And Rachel seems to have a thing about hair, like that’s a measure of anything. I mean, my kids don’t have blow-dried highlighted hair, either. I assumed it was because they were young, not urban hipsters. I’m hopelessly middle aged. Nothing I can do about that. I like to knit, too. Ack!

Your post was about boorish behavior. There are all types. People who are given the opportunity to back off a bit and benefit from the fact that others’ perspectives are different and of value, as well, and then don’t, are, as another poster commented, rigid.

So I posted before in the heat of the moment. But no one likes to be dumped on repeatedly, especially when they constantly support and stand up for those around them.

Does anyone think there are no gay kids of fundamentalist crazies in the suburbs that need an accepting, comforting place to hang out where they can be themselves? My straight youngest daughter belongs to her HS gay-straight alliance, and brings home her friends that need a space.  Does anyone think there aren’t neglected kids here that could use a home-cooked family meal, and a place to talk? My home is full, and open. To kids and to the future.

I would welcome Rachel, and offer her a meal made of fresh produce from our local farmer’s market. I would like to be acknowledged as human in return. That’s all.

Sorry about the flaming. I do very much appreciate this blog, which I find very in tune with my perspective on the world.

“Bicyclists are a different matter. When I ride a bike, I follow the traffic laws. Others mostly ride as thought there’s no such thing as traffic laws (and it appears they never get ticketed, either)...

I went on a long, long haul through some bike blogs about this time last year.  One of the biggest complaints that the cyclists had was that they always seemed to be ticketed for revenue and to make a point rather than for safety issues.  A huge thread was about some one-block one-way street in DC that, due to traffic flows, had almost no traffic on it.  And, due to the routing, it was perfect for bicyclists to get where they were going (wrong-way, unfortunately) without passing through one of those hellish, psychotic, too-many-roads intersections in DC.  The cops just assigned a ton of uniformed officers to stand there and hand out one ticket after another to the cyclists.  (You may have seen this debate when it got onto, I believe, Yglesias’ blog.)

One of the things most guaranteed to make ordinary people hate ordinary cops is when the Gotcha factor comes into play.  And people aren’t stupid.  They know that every cop writing a ticket is a cop that isn’t chasing a mugger or giving safety lectures to schoolchildren or something arguably far more important.  It’s an argument that I heard once between a detective (arguing for a higher police budget) and a defence counsel.  IMHO defence counsel one the argument with the acidic line, “and yet, no matter how much money you lack there’s always more than enough officers to be total dicks over shit that doesn’t matter”.

If we dropped the pretence that traffic tickets were about safety and admit that they are about (a) revenue and (b) finding work for the laziest 20% of the police force and (c) a convenient way for cops to win any argument that they want because, truth be told, one can barely live in a city without violating some law or by-law or other, then we might move the debate towards functional solutions.

Or roll into the crosswalk, blocking it. And as a runner/biker on the trails, I don’t know how many times I’ve had trouble with walkers who stroll along three abreast as if no one else is using the trail. I hate to say this about my own gender, but they’re usually female. Maybe men don’t walk for exercise.

IME, multiple walkers walking abreast as if no one else is using a given pedestrian walkway or sidewalk is not strictly a female phenomenon.  Seen 5-6 men do it at various sporting events in the Boston area or in many parts of NYC.  Just last night, I passed by a group of 4 male teens who were walking abreast on a city sidewalk because they were chatting during one of my 1-2 mile late evening strolls. 

Whether it is a group of female college students chatting together on the way to a Village night club or a group of college dudes walking out of an Apple Store/Best Buy, they are equally annoying to others sharing the same sidewalk. 

As for the last sentence, that doesn’t seem to be the case in most areas I’ve lived in…though that is NYC and the Boston area so YMMV.

The cops around here have this annoying habit of not charging drivers who kill pedestrians and cyclists, but instead charging pedestrians and cyclists who cause damage, even very minor or imaginary damage, to cars.  Not drivers of cars, but the cars themselves.  To me this is a sign of an extremely fucked up society.

Weimar Germany had a phrase for that Opoponax, in describing its judiciary: “blind in the right eye”.

Never mind how many people I’ve seen riding on sidewalks or going the wrong way down the street—they don’t exist, or if they do, it’s the fault of the motorists.  I still haven’t figured out how, but that seems to be her conviction.

This. I’m fucking sick of some bicyclists whinging about how “noone sees them” when they blow through crosswalks of pedestrians walking with a walk light, ride on the sidewalks forcing pedestrians out of their way while talking on cellphones etc. (oh for a nice broomhandle to the spokes sometimes)
To be honest it seems like these are the neuvo bikers who are going to force their eco superiority on everyone. I always see bike messengers doing it right while being fierce. I think that bike messengers could give a great course to all the dickweeds who think that all the city is just theirs to ride about like 5 years old on a hot wheels. 
I think that there are a lot of cars that do dick shit too - like not giving bikers 3 feet - even when there are painted bike lanes that are clearly visible. However, I experience far more annoyances on a daily basis with newly minted bicyclists and sometimes pedestrian/tourists. However, I usually take the back way into work and avoid the busy shopping streets so I avoid the majority of thoughtless aholes. It doesn’t make my walk to and from the busstop any longer so it’s fine for me.

I was responding to Ms. Kate’s remark how the bicyclist only cause harm to themselves and not others.

I don’t think she meant it as axiomatic.  Yes, sometimes thoughtless bicyclists hurt others.  I see clueless assholes on bikes do dangerous things that not only put their own well-being at risk, but also create needless risks for others. 

However, the people who are usually not put in danger by this behavior are drivers, unless you try really hard to change the metric for what constitutes “danger” to a person in a car.  It’s true that a thoughtless cyclist can damage a driver’s car.  A thoughtless cyclist could also cause a driver to behave erratically, thus causing an accident that might cause the driver’s insurance rates to go up, or for them to get points on their license, or for witnesses to think less of the driver, or for the driver’s feelings to be hurt.  None of those are even close to the same ballpark as the danger that thoughtless cyclist is causing him/herself or other cyclists and pedestrians. 

It just really rubs me the wrong way when “that cyclist scared me!” and “that cyclist scratched my car!” are considered to be equivalent to a cyclist or other pedestrian being maimed or killed.

Maybe I’m a monster but I’m ambivalent about biking on sidewalks.  I live in London ON and often bike slowly on the sidewalk.  There are a number of reasons for this:
* Drivers are both poorer trained and more distracted than they ever used to be.
* There are more cars on the road. 
* Drivers are more impatient and angry than they used to be.
* In Canada that portion of the roads at or near where the road meets the sidewalk is often the part of the road in worst condition (joins = seepage = frost/thaw = holes) and the most poorly maintained (because holes in the car parts of the road get fixed far quicker).

I figure that as long as I’m on the road as often as I can be, act as a guest while on the sidewalk, always defer to pedestrians, and move at a pace no faster than a jogger then I’m okay and so are the pedestrians.  My own view is that if I’m going to share the road with exponentially increased danger then it’s up the City the cops and the drivers to make my ride just a little less fraught.

Oddly enough, the cops seem to agree.  The general rule of thumb in London is that they won’t ticket cyclists for being on the sidewalk unless the cyclist is acting badly.

Heh. Rachel,II—I live in a nice suburban development. I know most of my neighbors. We have the equivalent of urban block parties—someone will invite the whole cul-de-sac to an outdoor brunch; at Halloween, someone puts a portable fire-pit in the center of the cul-de-sac, the chairs appear, the beer, and buckets of candy. People come from miles around for the party.  All summer children play outside and ride bikes fearlessly for miles. The early evening is dog-walking time—almost all the women come out to chat. A colleague said we live in a Jane Austen village. I know 4 people I can count on to feed the cat when the wife and I go on research trips. The area largely votes Republican, yes. It also really likes the gay couple who fixed up one of the uglier, more neglected houses. People are complicated.

I’ve seen those soulless developments that you think are all of suburbia, everywhere. Maybe they are in fact more the norm. I’ve also lived in urban neighborhoods that were pretty much the same thing, just with greater density. I suspect those are more representative than anyone cares to acknowledge.

So you can take your smugness and shove it, really. Fortunately, most urbanites I know are not so presumptuous about life and whose is teh suck whose isn’t. It’s a big wide, diverse world, and it will always surprise you, if you’d only bother to pay attention.

To be honest it seems like these are the neuvo bikers who are going to force their eco superiority on everyone.

Yeah, it does often seem to be the n00bs, or the casual cyclists who are afraid to really ride in traffic* and are really just making a beeline for the park.  With the massive influx of new cyclists, some of the local advocacy groups are trying to come up with good ways to educate everyone on the rules of the road as they pertain to bicycles.  So far it seems to mean doling out little booklets at bike-related events, commissioning PSA’s, and encouraging people who are already used to cycling to be good apples because the n00bs learn from what they see experienced cyclists doing. 

Then again, I’m pretty new at this and picked up the rudiments of safe cycling pretty quickly.  You are a vehicle.  You go WITH the flow of traffic.  At intersections, you do pretty much the same thing you’d do if you were driving a car**, with the exception that you are allowed to wait at the front of the car traffic so you can be easily seen by drivers and don’t get in the way of people who are turning.  If that seems daunting, you get off the bike and use the intersection as if you were a pedestrian. 

* no duh you don’t feel safe riding in traffic; you’re breaking every traffic law in the book!  I’d feel unsafe too if I was going the wrong way down a one-way street, couldn’t use signals and the flow of traffic to guide me, and was pretty sure that drivers wouldn’t be looking out for me.  If you use the roads properly, they are perfectly safe.  If you can’t use the roads properly but want to take your bike to the park, kindly walk it along the sidewalk like a nice pedestrian.

** in New York, the big problem seems to be people who are experimenting with cycling who don’t usually drive.  They have a really hard time getting into the “I am a vehicle” mindset and instead transplant their concepts of life as a pedestrian into the street (these are probably the “why don’t the drivers see me?!” folks).  This is very bad, and very dangerous.  And goes right along with the main topic of this post - people who are cemented into their approach to the world and refuse to be considerate of others.

The Critical Mass folks deserve huge thanks for one thing that they do: they highlight police misconduct, occasional brutality and frequent shocking perjury.  Critical Mass is, in its own incidental way, a civil rights publicity stunt as much as a bicycling one.

However, I experience far more annoyances on a daily basis with newly minted bicyclists and sometimes pedestrian/tourists.

This cannot possibly be true, or at least it can’t possibly be as annoying for you dealing with n00b cyclists on a daily basis as it is for cyclists dealing with ordinary everyday drivers on a daily basis.  As a driver, I see someone doing something dangerous on a bike maybe once a week.  Every single morning and evening when I ride to and from work, I have at least 5 cars cut me off by not stopping at stop signs.  Let’s not even discuss double parking and speeding, we’ll be here into next week. 

The street I take to the Brooklyn Bridge seems to have a particularly heavy contingent of road raged assholes who are a hair-trigger away from killing someone: my favorite is when they honk and yell and cut me off with inches to spare, only to stop at a red light all of 20 feet in front of me.  This might be why drivers accuse cyclists of “blowing through lights” - you threaten my life for the sake of 2 car lengths, which makes me much more inclined to try to get the fuck out of this intersection ASAP before you actually succeed in killing me.  So instead of waiting out the whole light, I go as soon as there is a break in traffic.  If you cut down on the road rage, I might be more interested in chillaxing till we can both share the right of way ahead.  As it stands now I’m generally more interested in self preservation, and treating a red light as a stop sign accomplishes that nicely.

I’ll hop on the sidewalk if I’m going the wrong way down a one-way street, or if the traffic’s at a standstill. But even leaving aside consideration and laws, most of the roads I bike down are in better condition than the sidewalks that run alongside them, so my inner tubes tend to appreciate it.

Then again, I’m pretty new at this and picked up the rudiments of safe cycling pretty quickly.  You are a vehicle.  You go WITH the flow of traffic.  At intersections, you do pretty much the same thing you’d do if you were driving a car**, with the exception that you are allowed to wait at the front of the car traffic so you can be easily seen by drivers and don’t get in the way of people who are turning.  If that seems daunting, you get off the bike and use the intersection as if you were a pedestrian.

Yeah, it’s actually pretty basic. I got the hang of riding in traffic by just acting like a slow car, ie, staying to the right (except when turning left, obviously) and letting people pass me whenever possible.

o/t but YAAAY!  Roman Polanski just got arrested!
http://thestar.com/news/world/article/701739

I do hate the use of the phrasing that the judge “reneged” on a plea deal.  Prosecutorial misconduct aside the judge can’t “reneg” on a deal that he’s not part of: he’s the one that approves or disapproves it and he’s not bound by it.

If we’re discussing “privilege”, how about a child rapist who feels aggrieved that a pissant 42 days is a gross violation of his civil rights and feels that the judge (!) is the person least entitled to have a say in a courtroom.

/threadjack

Dark Avenger, let’s tally up the number of deaths by drivers mowing down pedestrians.  If we stick to the driver over age 75 category, we have about six people maimed or killed in the past six months alone.  This includes a child killed while at school when somebody mowed into a group of kids headed into their classes ON A SCHOOL SIDEWALK.

Sorry, but bikes cause far less problem then heavy equipment that is poorly operated and highly overprivileged. As for the data on cycling damage vs. automotive mayhem to pedestrians, the statistics are VERY MUCH against your contention that cyclists are a threat to liberty, fraternity, and safety, etc. sorry!

I think we could probably profitably characterize suburbs by their lot size. Quarter and half-acre lots, appropriately laid out, and you’re going to have no trouble getting to know your neighbors. If zoning doesn’t forbid it, local businesses might even do fine. One, two, four, five, 10? No way, unless the lots are laid out like strips of spaghetti along the road. My aunt lived in a 2-4-acre suburb for 50 years and got to know about half a dozen neighbors.

It’s great that you try to make the suburbs a better place to live, means, but I’m afraid that Kate Gosselin’s hair really does suck 15 ways to Sunday.  It’s a valuable skill to learn how to hear aesthetic judgments of a negative nature expressed forcefully about things you like, and to be able to roll with it.  Those of us with minority tastes manage to do it all the time.  I’ve heard that my music is noise, modern art could be painted by 5-year-olds, yadda yadda.  And I’ll happily argue back, but I’m not being oppressed or anything.  My very own friends and boyfriend are not averse to making fun of my shoes.  I just shrug it off. It’s not like being the victim of racism.

And I will say that the people touting their suburban homes: Good for you!  But I do caution against thinking that it’s self-evident that a few flourishes should make up for what drives the urban yuppie types away.    I lived on the border between the city and a suburb, and while we had those neighborhood BBQs and a few funky touches, there still weren’t sidewalks, and there were still crazed people so obsessed with perceived slights against their property values that they sat by their window to make sure that anyone having guests over was watched like a hawk to make sure they didn’t cough too loudly, so they could get a demerit from the HOA.  I was like, never again.  I’ll take all night parties next door on a regular basis over that. 

But obviously, people have different priorities.  Living next to majority Republicans is easier, for instance, if you blend well.  But not everyone does.

You know, I’m not sure exactly how I can make this clearer.  I see people who are very obviously from the suburbs who emit a vibe of absolute self-hatred and I decide that if my life resembled theirs in any way, I would consider myself a failure.  I don’t attend festivals looking for these people, but when I’m at my city’s festivals and I’m suddenly breathing in smog from all the cars that aren’t usually there and risking my safety trying to look around an SUV parked on the corner and then I get to the festival itself and instead of happy parents playing with their kids or whatever, it’s the giant stroller, lack of basic manners, and the utter vibe of an impending divorce, I try to isolate the exact variables that turn people into that so that I can avoid it.  Ergo, I won’t have kids and I make sure I live in places that foster racial, sexual, and economic diversity. 

To be fair, you’re all right.  I look at their lives as something fearful to avoid emulating and they look at mine the same way.  I’m sure they’re all extremely happy people when they meet up at Applebee’s whereas they would see me emitting the vibe of despair and hopelessness at what life looks like when you prefer food that tastes like cardboard without all the flavor because you’re afraid that adding a bit of spice would turn you into a foreign terrorist. 

Maybe suburbanites should start hosting their own festivals and ballgames and events so they can stay away from the scary cities with the scary people.  I promise that it wouldn’t even occur to me to show up with my judgmental urban ways.

Thank you Amanda, I’ve been trying to think of famous suburban hair I could use as a descriptor for this ubiquitous style I’ve seen on all the housewives where my mom lives.  To be fair, they aren’t quite up to Kate Gosselin-level of “why did you do that?” but it works.

And yes, everyone, I’m calling a famous woman’s hair ugly as though the only thing that matters is how she looks.  Of course, I’m not sure what matters about her besides what she looks like and how she raises her kids, both of which are taboo to judge women for, but whatever.  I’m still fiercely on Team Kate when it comes to rooting for them on their tv show.

And I will say that the people touting their suburban homes: Good for you!  But I do caution against thinking that it’s self-evident that a few flourishes should make up for what drives the urban yuppie types away.

Especially when many of us urbanites do have relatives, friends, and acquaintances who do live in the “better suburbs” and have experienced an exclusionary/patronizing attitude once they discover that 1.) You’re from “the city”, 2.) You’re from/perceived to be from a lower socioeconomic class, and 3.) “How DID you survive living in the city with the horrible public schools and high crime?!!”

I also got quite a bit of the fact that urbanites along with anyone who didn’t fit the ideal suburban/rural small town ideal weren’t “real Americans” from the more conservative suburbanites and the residents of the rural town where I did my undergrad…..

I know it’s unlikely, but can we try to agree on what a suburb is? Because my grandfather lived in a suburb of New York City, where he could walk to the train station, my grandmother could walk to the grocery store if she chose, and houses were smaller and closer together than in the “urban” setting I grew up in.

Maybe in addition to exurb, which is mostly a geographical specifier, there should be some kind of word like “antiurb” to describe the places that have set themselves up in opposition to everything that urban/urbane living stands for, where even neighbors are barely in walking distance, sidewalks are considered a communist ploy, and all businesses are banished to a distant side of the nearest expressway.

Eh, I’ve lived in everything from a very rural small town to suburbs to cities (and on both coasts and several places in between).  I currently live in a suburb (which is a very imprecise term) in the sense that I am in the east coast sprawl that is urbia.  I live here because I have a job here and my line of work is not really geographically flexible, though I suppose I could commute an hour each way.  I’ve heard about “insignificant flyover states” full of rubes and assholes and I’ve heard about elitist city-dwellers and stuck-up suburbanites.  It seems to me that people are rude in their own peculiar ways all over.

Haha, seeker6079, I just wanted to chime in and say I live in London, ON right now too and I also totally bike slowly on the sidewalks.  This city is TERRIBLE for cyclists and I’d rather bike at a snail’s pace on the sidewalks than face the crazy drivers and complete lack of bike lanes. 

your contention that cyclists are a threat to liberty, fraternity, and safety, etc. sorry!

Sorry, I never made that “my contention”, i just pointed out that a cyclist in “A non-urban setting”(did you overlook that part) did do some damage aside from himself and his bike because of his careless action, and, yes, more people get killed by heavy vehicles going at double-digit speeds vs. lightweight people-propelled vehicles that don’t go fast.

Thanks for the constructive criticism.

I’m not sure why it’s so hard for some people to acknowledge that, although suburbs are probably a bad thing (and evidence of several other bad things), and their days are most likely numbered, the people who live there aren’t just a clot of assholes feeding off a major city.  People make the best choices for themselves in their own situations, and sometimes that means living in a geographical area that probably shouldn’t exist.  Apparently that makes people who do what’s best for themselves and choose the suburbs evil and boring, while it makes people who choose what’s best for themselves and live in the city or country awesome and special.  Why is a question that’s possible to answer only if you’re willing to make nasty generalizations about people you probably haven’t met.  Extending this judgment to people who were raised there is especially obnoxious, since they haven’t actually made any selfish, conformist choices about where to live—at worst, their parents have.  It dismisses certain people out of hand for their background, not their tastes, which isn’t a distinction I see made often enough in this discussion.

It’s weird that you’d choose to defend this kind of nastiness, Amanda, in the comments to a post that was actually pretty accurate and entertaining.  When I lived in a college town, the weekends when people’s parents came were always the worst.  A disproportionate number of our students were from the suburbs.  I can only assume this was why so many of their parents couldn’t seem to handle driving in a busy pedestrian area, or walking pretty much anywhere.

But many people who did live and work in the area also didn’t understand the difference between bike paths and sidewalks (pedestrians and cyclists were both guilty, and many were so uninformed my roommate thought it was illegal to ride your bike in the street), or how to use public spaces in a considerate way.  The ones I knew, including the roommate, were often not from the suburbs.  As for the others, I don’t know since I didn’t stop them and ask where they were from, the better to judge them.  I don’t think it’s always as obvious where people are from as some like to think, and in those situations the bottom line was that the person was being a jerk.  Knowing where this particular jerk was from wouldn’t have helped me, since I was annoyed by their behavior and not their hometown.

Wow, guess I’m really not communicating. My aesthetic choices get made fun of all the time, and I laugh right along. I didn’t recognize Kate Gosselin’s name was until I Googled her; I certainly won’t defend *her* hair.

My objection was about being called soulless, paranoid, and blindly materialistic based on my (modest) house’s location.

So, guess I should just have said that the poster at that time sounded snotty, and like she was projecting, and left it at that. She’s walked it back a bit since then.

I appreciate what you wrote about clueless suburbanites, because I’ve lived in town near a big University, and remember planning my research days around University of Tennessee ballgame days, so as to avoid being trapped in my office near the stadium. And I remember the rather amusing and drunken (orange dressed) human tide partying on the streets until the early morning.

I also still sigh at the clueless people who don’t know to leave the left side of the escalator free on San Francisco BART. I’m sure I look out of place to those who live in the city, but I try to be aware and respectful there, and teach my kids the same.

The sidewalks of Chicago are full of clueless suburbanites all the time. The worst ones I find tend to be the large groups of people attending christian conventions, usually about 70 or more people wearing the same t-shirt saying something like, leadership conference chicago ‘09, jesus loves you, etc. You can’t walk around them because you’ll get hit by a cab, you ask them politely to move and they ignore you, so you push through the crowd and they get pissy and call you a fag.

Oh, and when I went to college, the suburbanites would try to park their cars in my driveway, blocking in my car. How do they not understand the concept of driveways not being a public parking space?

My flatmate and I got a van towed for that, and could barely keep a straight face when we met a forlorn guy asking us if we’d seen his vehicle being stolen.  The towies must have ratted us out because the next night he came back, parked even more over our driveway than before, and blasted obnoxious music at us for ages. It just so happened that it was the British Commonwealth’s favourite anti-Catholic holiday at the time so we had plenty of fireworks to shoot menacingly over our fortress-like fence. (Nothing hit his car, we weren’t quite that horrible.)

I do find that tourists/ out of towners are more likely not to follow city etiquette (I actually find this true of most big groups though—even the Red Sox fans who are obviously from the city walk in the street after a game).
On the other hand (in Boston at least), it’s the long term residents who are much more likely to:

not stop for pedestrians at crosswalks (true for cars, even more true for bicyclists);

walk against the light/ in the middle of the block (if no car is coming and the person is waiting to cross, it’s probably someone from outside the city);

not stop for lights: cars usually stop for red lights if they’re going straight (although they push it) but treat right turns as if they have a green if no cars are coming (bikes, pedestrians don’t matter), while bikes go through unless cars are coming (I have been yelled at by bicyclists for walking in the crosswalk when the light was red for the biker and I had a cross signal).

Also, as others have stated, this goes both ways. City dwellers don’t seem to get that you don’t always have to be in a hurry: if the person in front of you talks to the clerk causing you to be delayed for 30 seconds in a small town, it’s not the end of the world—some people actually like to interact with other people.

It’s fine to point the differences between people and some of the tensions that result when people from different social environments mix and even criticize people for how they behave in those situations.  That shouldn’t, however, be grounds for making sweeping generalizations about huge groups of people.

Yeah, I grew up in a suburb.  It had the usual drawbacks of most suburbs, but life there could have been a whole, whole lot worse.  It’s not like I had a choice in the matter anyway.  When I visit my family, I stay with my dad, who still lives in the house I grew up in.  And why not?  It’s paid for, he has nowhere else to go, and he probably couldn’t sell it even if he wanted to, given the state of the local housing market.
Comment #93: Linnaeus on 09/27 at 01:27 AM

This and other comments sound so very much like second-stage anti-feminist males, those who admit that there may be problems with the patriarchy, “but I don’t try to oppress women and I’m a nice guy, so why are you blaming me?  It’s not my fault I was born male in a patriarchy.”

With suburbs, it’s the system of suburbia that is the problem.  People who grow up in the suburbs tend to reflect the problems of suburbs, whether they know it or not—self-absorption, exclusion of others based on economic class, unexamined privilege, belief in one’s own superiority, belief that one’s advantages are somehow earned, belief that one’s lifestyle is the norm because it is reflected in popular culture that way, fear of “the other” and “dirt” and old things. 

You know.  Pre-libertarianism.

Wherever you push against the norms of the suburbs you’re doing well, but it’s still built on a particular view that you want to get away from “those people” for safety and economic reasons.  Unless a suburb has low-income housing whose residents are treated as equals and not just trundled onto the bus after they’re done cleaning houses and mowing lawns, there’s a huge part of actual life that’s missing.

It doesn’t mean a person who grew up in the burbs was born without a soul.  Just that they’re privileged, and should examine said privilege rather than just bleating about how they couldn’t help it.  I have no idea where you, Linnaeus, are on that continuum, though I suspect it’s way on the informed end, so no personal animus intended to you or your father.  As they say, if I’m not talking about you, I’m not talking about you. 

I can’t speak for Rachel’s opinions on this, of course, but I think this is what fuels a lot of the crosstalk here.  There’s a difference between hating the suburbs and hating my friends who live there.  Some are hip to it, some are not.  And people can learn.

Ehh, I wouldn’t blame out-of-towners for all of that behaviour, I mean, I’m sure it’s sometimes true. At the University I go to, it’s always crowded everywhere, everyone’s used to it, and people still walk five abreast down the hallway at a snail’s pace, or all try to cram through whichever of the five doors into a building happens to be open instead of stopping for three seconds to open the one right next to it. I wish these people were strangers to the idea of walking, or using hallways in crowded urban places, but that’s not true, they’re just jerks.

I think it’s important to remember, also, that roughly half of America actually lives in suburbs these days. It’s not as easy to make generalizations about suburbs as you’d think - hell, even the term suburb is imprecise.

I think the suburbanites just serve as a living reminder of what decisions to avoid making.  Having kids being the main one that seems important, but I think highlighting your short, boring hair, using a blow dryer, and marrying a man who completely blends in with the background no matter where you go is also important.  I would hate my life if I turned into those people.

See, now this is exactly how I feel about Texas and Texans.  Except it’s big, boring hair instead of short, boring hair.  Now, I’ve been told parts of Texas are different.  But I just tell those people, well, you must come from some place in Texas that I wouldn’t consider Texas because I know “how soulless, boring and apathetic their existence is.”

phinky (2):

They really do not understand that people live and work in big cities, and I’ve caught members of my family doing this too. (I come from a small town in Florida.)

My partner calls it New York Land, people from less urban places who treat the city like a theme park. I used to work a Sunday morning shift at a radio newsroom in Times Square, and I dreaded the trek back to the train when I was done.

CParis (26):

I don’t see these behaviors so much as evidence of a suburban vs urban divide but more along the lines of who was taught good manners and who just doesn’t care

In Suburbia, though, it’s easier to get away with not caring. Libertarians, who are suburbanites no matter where they live, always say “your rights stop where my nose begins”; well, in cites my nose begins right fucking next to you. And my tolerance for/indulgence of your rudeness is correspondingly cicumscribed.

seeker (40):

A rude bastard is not a location-specific thing.

Not directly, but it’s easier to get away with it when you and your neighbors can isolate yourselves in widely spaced boxes to live and travel in. It’s easier to be rude in your car than on the subway.

Now, that level of isolation costs a pretty penny, of course, and it’s also easier to be rude to people who make less money than you do. So the two reinforce each other. But don’t overlook location entirely.

Note for the hypersensitive: I’m not saying every suburbanite is rude, only that (a certain type of) rudeness is incubated in the suburbs in a way it isn’t in urban or, I guess, rural areas

Opoponax (45):

I definitely love getting to see some of the landmarks on a daily basis that people all over the world dream of seeing just once*.  But seriously, yall, this is a city.  People live here

QFT. I’ve worked in the Empire State Building. I must be in more tourists’ photographs….

Dark Avenger (149):

I was responding to Ms. Kate’s remark how the bicyclist only cause harm to themselves and not others

Except your example didn’t illustrate a bicyclist harming another person.

Rachel (170):

I make sure I live in places that foster racial, sexual, and economic diversity.

For everything everyone’s said, this is far more inportant to me than living in a city rather than a suburb. It just tends to correlate more with cities than with suburbs. I’m sure there are perfectly nice suburban areas, but people who value conformity and blandness shun cities. I’m more likely to find myself surrounded by dreadful people living dreadful lives in the suburbs, even if that’s far from inevitable.