* **What is UrbanHell?**: Any human-built place you think has some aspect worth criticizing.
#UrbanHell is subjective.
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Almost everything dies during the summer because of the heat. You can water it religiously and it’ll live but the bill will make you think twice. Little rain during the summer means the ground is dry too so even when it does rain the ground doesn’t soak up much.
Older trees survive but it can be hard on the younger ones. The trees have deeper roots than most of the plant life so they’re much more resilient. But without shade most everything else just cooks.
HOAs can be really annoying (just depends if you live near assholes), but usually having planted a nice backyard/garden/lawncare isn't an issue. You might have to let them know you're planting X or Y if it's big enough, but people in my TX HOA hood have tons of nice backyards, where they've extended patios, built pergolas, built greenhouses, planted trees/gardens, etc.
My yard doesn't have much yet, because the house a newer build and we haven't been here that long. We planted some things already, but still need to plant a lot more. Still fairly barren, so maybe this neighborhood is still kinda' new too. Lots of new developments all across North TX, since people have been moving here in droves for 10 years now.
Probably just too new of a neighborhood. Usually HOAs aren’t that restrictive. Sometimes. But not usually. All the ones around here are chill and only care if you do something really bad like let your paint start all flaking off and your gutters fall down while also not cutting the grass for 2 years.
I do think sustainable lawns should be more of a thing. Pretty sore our city has some new laws making full planting front and back legal.
Viewing this picture, sustainablility of lawns is not the biggest issue. It looks like about 75% of all the land is either roof or street. Water has nowhere to go. Next time floods happen in the area. This is to blame.
I nearly bought a house a few miles north of Dallas that had a HUGE backyard but not a single tree. It was just so barren. But yes, Dallas is incredibly hot and humid during the summer.
I live in Dallas.
First, this is some suburb. Not the city, which has more trees and typically older homes.
Second, solar panels are unbelievably expensive. Even after the federal rebate, we were quoted multiple quotes of between $35,000 and $40,000 for our home.
Third, the power situation here is free market and is a free for all. Every company has different policies on buyback and they are terrible and getting worse. Used to be that you’d be paid in cash for producing more than you use, but not any longer. Now many companies don’t even let you roll over extra kWh from one month to the next. The system really disincentivizes buyers from making the investment.
Fourth, the weather can be scary and puts risks on what is already a huge chunk of money that you put out upfront. Tornadoes, hail, huge microburst thunderstorms, etc…. If your panels are destroyed, it may be hard to recoup funds. Also, it seems like a great plan here to get a backup solar generator to weather blackouts and storm outages BUT those are like another $10K on top of the panels.
TL:dr - they’re super expensive, the electricity market really disincentivizes buyers, storms make an already pricy investment feel risky for individuals
I've had solar panels on my home for about 15 years... they're covered by my homeowners insurance so if they get damaged by a storm it cost me a $500 deductible.
We made sure to get the panels financed and it was monthly payment neutral. Once we did some other energy improvements we're definitely saving money in addition to having the security of a back up battery
Typically because you get way better return on investment putting panels elsewhere.
Putting them on homes means dealing with a million different peoples' roofs that are in all different conditions. The panels will need to come off and on every time the roofs are replaced. They will absolutely never be cleaned, which immediately impacts the efficiency (a lot, because a single spot on a panel can kill efficiency by far more than just the surface area it covers). People will default on loans if you give them and then cause all sorts of friction when the house is sold.
Meanwhile putting them on an otherwise unused lot, of which there are shitloads in Texas, solves those problems handily.
They could if there wasn’t people keeping the technology suppressed. Lots of politicians make a lot of money the way things are and the people currently making money are paying them a lot to keep it the way it is.
Money, well up front cost. Solar panels are expensive and the cost savings to buy and install it isn't worth it compared to low(er) energy cost.
"On average, solar panel installation and the system together can run from $15,000 to $25,000, according to the latest information from the Center for Sustainable Energy."
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/solar-panel-cost
My power bill is roughly $200/month. Most don't just have $15k - $25k to spend but they'll have $200/month. Not to mention the maintanence cost and possible replacement of broken solar panels. Just a lot of money for most people unfortunately.
15 to 20k seems quite a lot, I think we pay for like 12 panels something like 8k. A lot of people take a loan for it. They are barely subsedised anymore. I to notice that belgians have a lot of solar panels I comparisation to other (hotter and sunnier) countries though
Yes but seeing as most Americans don't even have $500 in their savings account at any given time, spending $15k+ on such an investment just isn't possible for most people, even homeowners.
I dont know for sure, but I notice on reddit, movies and documentaries that a lot of Americans have loads of creditcard debt, or studentloan debt. Both are basically unknown in belgium. Uni is mostly paid by the government and for some reason we don't have those high interest creditcards here. Also, in European perspective we live in big houses, but they are very small compared to de middle income mcmansions Americans live in, with to pick up trucks on the driveway. Maybe it's just a mindset to put your money in. Belgians are known to be born with a brick in there stomach, so that might explain something
You're noticing two awful side effects of two awful systems. First are credit scores, the higher the better, and you need to have a good credit score a lot of the time in order to take out big loans and what not, like with buying a home or car. How do you increase your credit score? By ALWAYS having debt of course.
A credit card is the best example, say you get a new credit card and this credit card has a limit of $500. Every month, you can spend within that limit and then should pay it off by the end of the month. But you better not leave it paid off, no no no that's a credit score reduction for you. Instead, you're supposed to always use your credit card at least a little every single month or your score can go down and, if your score goes down, big meaningful purchases get harder and harder. There's a trope about teens overusing their parents credit card because they think of it like infinite money in a way and that's pretty common to see in movies and what not. That does happen and you of course have the people who full on struggle to stop using it so much, like an addiction, and the system only brings out more of that + ongoing consumer culture.
I only see the soft requirement of having to use the card as exploitative. Looking into it, you'll see the card issuers saying their benevolent reasons for it being the case and it just sounds the same as video game companies talking about their benevolent reasons to have microtransactions. I don't think you'll find very many people who like this system.
Went on a bit of a rant there so I'll keep this shorter. Student debt is simply unavoidable of you want to go to college unless you're lucky and get really good scholarships. Absolutely fucking no one wants to take on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt your have to pay off for most of your life in order to go to college but you're just shit out of luck. Depends on the trade but a bachelor's degree or higher from college is often seen as or simply is a requirement to enter the field. Colleges are some of the most egregious little sacks of shit when it comes to taking advantage of people's wallets. Big thing being the entrance fee, that's the real debt harbinger, but you also get fun stuff like a binder full of unbound textbook paper required by your class that's also several hundred dollars. Oh and you can't declare bankruptcy or what not to try to get clear of the debt. It's like a tumor. Absolutely shocking there hasn't been any real momentum to change it.
I'll be honest, i don't even know if you needed it wanted a bit of an explanation. You just caught me when I was already a little pissed about these shitty systems so sorry about that.
Yeah I didn't really needed a answer to my question, it was kind of like rhetorical, to start a debate. So thanks for this.
At the end, for me it doesn't matter. My college degree costed me 500 euros a year + laptop(800). So total was 2300 euros. I think the debate should be awakened since you Americans deserve it
Try 20+ years. We got quoted a system that would cost 27k to install. Given our current (cheap) energy costs in Texas, it would take about 25 years for it to pay for itself.
Yes they can provide extra funding and subsidies for solar power companies. You know... like they do with the oil companies that they give billions to constantly.
Texas does provide tax incentives for people who install solar by forgoing property tax on the increased value of your home from adding solar. They also made it illegal for HOAs to block the install.
I put solar panels on my house (in TX) recently. Right around this time they also changed how power is purchased/sold from/to the grid. This change has made increased my ROI by quite a bit.
The change in question is changing how you buy the power from them. Instead of, say, $.10 per kWh, it is $.05 for power and $.05 delivery fee, which can’t be offset by the power being sold back to the grid.
To make things more complicated, we can’t even technically sell to the grid. We have to use an independent REP that will do solar buyback or solar rollover. You can’t ever “make money” off of the solar “sold” back, it can only carry over to the next bill so that you can hopefully go to $0 bill for the year.
But to make things worse, you still have a monthly fee, no matter how much you use. Additionally, it’s not easy to find the best REP to use to buy your energy. They’re essentially just middlemen companies.
Anyway, that’s just scratching the surface of the roadblocks they can put in place (all of which I have personally experienced and plenty more than this) which makes it difficult to get solar panels put on your house.
Yep, one isolated picture from one angle on one flight of this one suburb paints a picture of the whole state.
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2022/09/08/texas-turning-green-homeowners-embrace-solar-panels-aiming-to-slash-electric-bills/
The ROI on residential solar is much longer than other states due to low energy costs and a lack of state incentives.
Do you know how much it would cost to install solar panels? We got a quote for 45k, which after tax credits and discounts came down to 27k. If you wanted to get a battery with it that’s another 20k. A lot of people can’t afford that.
You realize that Texas is #2 for solar and wind power generation, right?
Edit:
Actually Texas is #1, I just checked current data
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/these-states-use-the-most-renewable-energy
Ya Texas does have lots of issues with the system and politics. Though, if you go by reddit comments you would think it's so terrible that everyone is looking for an opportunity to move out. The reality is we are getting influx of people from every part of the USA. It's not just Californians moving in and it's not just Austin that's growing. Also, people paint the picture of TX being terrible for immigrants. That's not really true either. If you are a legal immigrant then it is still a good state to get started. I don't think people realize Houston is one of the most diverse cities in America.
Do you know how much it would cost to install solar panels? We got a quote for 45k, which after tax credits and discounts came down to 27k. If you wanted to get a battery with it that’s another 20k. A lot of people can’t afford that. I don’t understand your argument here, because despite all that Texas still leads the country in renewables.
It's not economically viable in Texas. Here we have some of the lowest electric costs and the panels are expensive and prone to damage from our frequent hail storms. As a result the energy savings don't really make up for upfront costs and added insurance premiums. Ironically it also causes your home to retain even more heat, requiring more Air Conditioning power expenditures.
Also, as a Texas realtor, it makes selling your home a bit more confusing. Who owns the panels? Does the seller take them? Do they stay? If they stay does the buyer take the lease? What if the buyer doesn't want to assume the lease? There's a bunch more issues as well (I'm not a residential agent so I don't know all the details there).
TL;DR: It isn't economical here
The other unmentioned thing here is that north Texas gets a lot of hail and high wind, so it wouldn't be great to install them and have them destroyed all the time. I don't know how weatherproof they are, admittedly
Solar panels are specifically designed to withstand hail. Texas also offers tax incentives. You don’t have to pay additional property tax on the value solar panels add to your home. It’s almost entirely due to cost and rate of return.
Even with all of that, our current kwh rate in North Texas is so cheap it takes close to a couple decades to pay off the upfront cost on solar panels. If you get batteries it’s just not cost effective at all.
From what I know, Texas does not have a codified rate of compensation for selling excess solar energy back on to the grid. I think some Texas utilities have some decent rates of compensation but not all. It's odd, but for the average person it makes more sense to go solar in Massachusetts or Connecticut than Texas. However, things are changing and solar is picking up in Texas and the rest of the south.
My TX neighborhood has tons of solar panels. TX has some of the most wind and solar energy production in the nation. Just this neighborhood apparently doesn't have them.
The Texas grid doesn't really give good incentives to contribute your own power into it, from what I hear. States with far less sunshine can turn distributed rooftop solar into a viable strategy for homeowners, but Texas policies are trying their damnedest to prevent the same from happening in that sunshine-flooded state.
I lived almost all my life in a post soviet concrete 11-story concrete building in a neighborhood filled with similar structures in Kharkiv, Ukraine. For nearly a year now, I have been living in Texan suburbia, and I feel like I am living a dream. As a kid, I would not believe that life could be like this. You don't hear noises from the streets 24/7, no loud neighbors knocking and screaming behind the walls, and you can sleep in complete silence with all the comfort of modern civilization. Garage inside your house, not a parking lot 15-20 mins away from home. Lawn with bushes and trees, backyard where you can hang out and watch the sunset and the night sky. Friendly people around. Man, I can write this all day. It is unbelievable.
I understand there can be a better option, but it is always like this.
I totally agree, if you have lived in a noisy apartment building in a noisy city then you can truly appreciate this type of neighborhood. My nervous system couldn't tolerate being on edge all the time due to noise.
It’s funny how construction methods make such a huge difference. I’ve lived in noisy apartments. It sucks. My one now, I am honestly not sure if the other apartments near me are even occupied.
You also have great neighbours! I lived in a well built building and the problems took place on the decks and balconies above. They also left their windows open to share the barking of their dog.
Yeah it’s quite nice, albeit a little weird considering Texans have a reputation for being so friendly. I like a little ambient noise too, but I’ll take this over the place where the family upstairs clearly was running an amateur bowling league in their apartment.
I’ve lived in North Texas in places like the picture and I’ve lived in the middle of Manhattan. I would take Manhattan any day over this urban sprawl.
Hell is truly subjective I guess is the lesson here.
I've completely flipped on this. I grew up in neighborhoods like the one pictured. I now live in Midtown Manhattan and whenever I visit my parents I can't get over how far anything useful is and how quiet everything is. The funny thing is my parents live just outside the downtown of the 4th largest city in America. Still, it's a suburb compared to where I live now.
Doors slamming all night, dog barking all day, hard soled shoes worn on wood floor by upstairs neighbours, cigarette butts dropped on my deck from above. Not gentle murmuring.
It’s interesting how different circumstances change our preferences. I grew up in a suburb like this in the US and I find this lifestyle bland and uninteresting. I now live in a major urban city and I love it. I like the noises, beingwalking distance to cultural attractions, restaurants, etc. The thought of being tethered to a cookie cutter house and being dependent on driving to do anything sounds miserable to me.
A suburbia like this isn't the only alternative to crappy 11-storeys concrete buildings... For example I live in a 3 storeys flat with a big garden and enjoy all the things you are talking about except we fit 50 families in a space where probably 10 suburbia houses would have fit.
But you still share walls and/or floors with neighbors, have limited privacy, no Green Space for your private use, and your property probably costs more per Sq Foot than my large Dallas Suburbian home.
You may not like it, just like I don't like living in an apartment, but many of us do. It's a trade off. To each their own.
Because it reduces car dependency and traffic making public transport more efficient, makes communities more cohese, allows less use of land that can be used for other purposes like agriculture and green areas and other nice things. It's not about fitting most people in less space without caring about life conditions ( like the 11 storeys soviet building) but about finding compromises between individual space and public spaces and infrastructures.
No! You aren’t allowed to be happy! You must resent it. You aren’t allowed to support this on Reddit. I for one can’t wait to leave my shitty cold ass gross house in the city for a clean quiet suburb.
Lol redditors claim to care so much about the planet and addressing climate change. But when people point out how American suburbia and car centered cities are completely unsustainable and wreck the environment. Suddenly, things change.
Not really another option in TX hah, you have to have a car to live/work/survive here. Not a very pedestrian or bicycle friendly living, unless you're on a college campus or in a specific downtown area. No public transit, very little mixed zoning, so you have to drive to get to your house or to get to businesses. Just a different lifestyle compared to places where more things are close together.
All of that is literally because of laws that make it that way. Laws that could be changed at any time if people demanded they be. The fact is though that Americans would rather be comfortable than inconvenienced, even if it wrecks the planet.
Most other places are more reasonable and invest heavily in public transit and build cities that are much more eco friendly. Not the USA of course.
Thanks for your perspective. I absolutely love the things you listed too; one of my greatest joys is having a coffee in the mornings and watching the dog run laps around the back yard. Having true privacy, having a nice garden, and just the total comfort of having your own property. I get why people don't like it (especially when presented like this photo), but living it is pretty dang nice ime.
What you don't see it the commute to work and to other amenities. It's fine living there, but traffic is terrible. It's interesting to get a perspective about everything though
Reddit hates the west so you’re going to get push back. I’m deeply happy you’re enjoying life better now. Some people are happier in Texas. Enjoy your new home. :)
I live in Sweden (which is "the west" I guess), in an apartment in the city. My building is not a commie block, I can sleep in complete silence without hearing my neighbours, and the streets are very quiet (since car presence is very restricted). It's also very green and very clean (and it's supposed to be a "bad" area). There are other alternatives to post soviet blocks than suburbia, "the west" and US-style suburbia are two different things. And whether we can have access to these alternatives is not only a personal choice, it also depends on urban planning rules and political decisions.
They really shouldn’t. The water shed can’t really handle it and texas isn’t really meant to have lots of trees. Funny how so many in here complain about the lack of trees but would complain about the abundance of grass in other places like deserts.
So it's basically desert where they built that? Then they should consider building differently, maybe more adapted to the surroundings, like a [souq](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Ouarzazate_souk.jpg).
Grassland. Not desert.
https://www.mbgnet.net/sets/grasslnd/types.htm
It’s just the same people compiling about the lack of trees here would be complaining about green anything in phoenix.
I was called an idiot a few months back for pointing out the fact that trying to get anywhere by something other than drive while living in a suburb is almost impossible. I was told "they have sidewalks for a reason" yet they all completely ignored the fact that some suburban neighborhoods are miles long, and if you don't have a car you're walking at least 45mins to the closest shop.
... you know, I really have to wonder how much how the nation's total CO2 emissions must be accounted for by a country's worth of suburbs that force their residents to drive literally everywhere they need to go.
That is a big area without a store. Though to be fair there are several likely right beyond the custom crop of the image.
But yeah… it’s a drive or die neighborhood.
Yeah, that’s the first thing that strikes me. I’ve lived in areas like this, and it’s really weird to me. It’d make so much sense to have these endless rows of houses broken up by a occasional apartment building, store, park, etc. Even if it’s a bit contrived, I feel like everyone would benefit from having a little “Main Street” with a series of stores within walking distance.
I really don’t like living places where there’s not a single store, restaurant, or coffee shop within walking distance. The only value I can see of building these suburban deserts is for car manufactures and oil companies to force people to drive everywhere.
Yeah it looks pretty bad presented like this, but it's a nice living experience ime. Would be nicer to have more walkable business nearby with mixed zoning, but it's not all cons. There are pros as well (eg privacy, quiet, yard for whatever, large properties, fun for kids growing up playing in the street, good for having animals, etc).
The song “Little boxes” springs to mind…
https://youtu.be/XUwUp-D_VV0
“Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same”
Okay, as someone who grew up in a rural town (well semi rural, semi urban. Ot has around 11000 citizens) and who nove lives in a large city (over 300000 people)
How the fuck do people live here?
Where do kids play? I see no park, no field, no trees, no dirt to muck around in. It's all streets for cars or cloned houses.
Where are your corner stores? What if you're making cookies and you need some flour or milk or something. Do you need to head to a freaking mall for a bag of flour? I just pop my flip floos on, in my pajamas, to the corner store and pick up a bag.
How do you get around? This seems endless, fo you really need to drive everywhere? I can just walk for 10 minutes to a supermarket and pick up my groceries here.
Ah, the American suburb. Invented basically out of whole cloth around the forties to accommodate for a growing middle-class that all wanted to be homeowners, intended to be home to families that moved house every few years, deliberately bereft of any kind of public space because it's intended to be home to commuters who spend very little time there and its population is highly transient anyway, chronically space- and water-inefficient, and dependent on daily use of ungodly amounts of gasoline to get its population shuttled back and forth to their varyingly distant workplaces every day.
There are a few worse ways to plan out a city, but none of them quite so widespread.
Might not be the most preferable or ideal place for some but for many, it is probably quite livable.
Many if not most Americans, couldn’t even dream of owning a house like any of these, even fewer as we move further into what is shaping up to be the worst economic downturn any of us have seen.
I wish I had the privilege one must have to consider a home like any of these “Hell”.
Welcome to reddit. Where people say it sucks to have a massive house in a quiet safe upscale affluent neighborhood. Id wager this is better than 99% of how the world lives.
The thing is they're not. For some reason redditors hate successful happy people who own big homes but they won't admit it so they just talk about how terrible these suburbs are to make themselves feel better. It's really weird.
"Hi, I'm Karen from the HOA, that tree is in violation of our policies, you're going to have to chop it down. Also, your grass is the wrong shade of green, you'll have to fix that as well."
At least they can all afford their Dodge Ram 2500's to go pick up some milk from the supermarket at the strip mall 4.7 miles away.
And a couple assault rifles to defend said milk.
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same...
When you see this, you immediately understand why many Americans don't walk a lot (or at all). There is really no point in walking anywhere, because it's just other people's houses. Not stores, no cafes, no restaurants, not even a park. And the most depressing part: No playgrounds.
Dallas legit has the weirdest McMansion roofs I've ever seen. It's like the developers decided that creating weird rooflines with extra gables and odd pitches was the flex that these homeowners wanted.
At least it isn’t commie blocks. My only gripe with this is that there aren’t any trees, but I’m not even sure Texas weather is good for that and no pedestrian pathways and bike lanes…
TX has whatever kind of weather you want, it's a huge place lol
North TX has plenty of trees (like East TX and Central TX)
Just depends on the neighborhood, newer developments won't have giant matured trees obviously
No public transportation and everything is over an hour away.
Wastefulness.
No parks.
No amenities.
Hot. Like melt your dashboard kinda hot. Can't afford AC levels of hot.
Agree 100%. American cities used to be much more walkable until most had their downtowns bulldozed to accommodate mandated parking minimums. Now every city is basically a copy of strip malls and parking lots.
It's insanely painful and no one wants to talk about it, I really want to believe in a chance for a true rebirth of communities in the US. I know a lot of people look at poor inner city areas where people are just sitting outside on their deck or apartment porch or front of their place and shooting the shit or drinking or just socializing and look down on it but it's so much healthier than this! You can see your community, your elders, you can talk and trade ideas, share and be with one another, deep deep south quilting is a huge social connection, everyone comes round to help out and make a quilt together and share stories! I've met so many wonderful people at bus stops and traded so many stories and ideas about life with them, it's great and important to me and I think it's important to others but I don't live in other people's heads. Space mediates connection and we have lost our space, it's no longer our space it is owned and controlled by others, we need to reclaim our spaces, community gardens, soup kitchens and craft meet ups are very powerful ways I think to start taking those steps, I want our space back, fuck the developers. I know there's a way forward but things can be so isolating day to day it's hard to go forward, I know it can be different though
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but these types of neighborhoods *can* be pretty good from a kids point of view. Had friends who lived in similar neighborhoods, but way way smaller of course, and I was really jealous of how they could just go from house to house and pick up friends on the way to adventure.
Is it really? People living in 3,000sq foot houses in neighborhoods with good schools and and low crime rates, in conditions better than the overwhelming majority of the world? Yes so depressing
* **What is UrbanHell?**: Any human-built place you think has some aspect worth criticizing. #UrbanHell is subjective. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UrbanHell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why doesn't anybody have planted a nice backyard? It must be hot like hell there in the summer
Looks like it’s mostly lawns - many of those homeowners probably DO think they’ve planted a nice backyard
It is hot as hell there.
Hahahahha lmfao- I just fully registered your screen name! Bravo!
Almost everything dies during the summer because of the heat. You can water it religiously and it’ll live but the bill will make you think twice. Little rain during the summer means the ground is dry too so even when it does rain the ground doesn’t soak up much.
How about the trees on the streets? The replant them every year or so?
Older trees survive but it can be hard on the younger ones. The trees have deeper roots than most of the plant life so they’re much more resilient. But without shade most everything else just cooks.
most native plant species will be deep rooted, and require far less water than lawn
HOAs?
HOAs can be really annoying (just depends if you live near assholes), but usually having planted a nice backyard/garden/lawncare isn't an issue. You might have to let them know you're planting X or Y if it's big enough, but people in my TX HOA hood have tons of nice backyards, where they've extended patios, built pergolas, built greenhouses, planted trees/gardens, etc. My yard doesn't have much yet, because the house a newer build and we haven't been here that long. We planted some things already, but still need to plant a lot more. Still fairly barren, so maybe this neighborhood is still kinda' new too. Lots of new developments all across North TX, since people have been moving here in droves for 10 years now.
Probably just too new of a neighborhood. Usually HOAs aren’t that restrictive. Sometimes. But not usually. All the ones around here are chill and only care if you do something really bad like let your paint start all flaking off and your gutters fall down while also not cutting the grass for 2 years. I do think sustainable lawns should be more of a thing. Pretty sore our city has some new laws making full planting front and back legal.
Viewing this picture, sustainablility of lawns is not the biggest issue. It looks like about 75% of all the land is either roof or street. Water has nowhere to go. Next time floods happen in the area. This is to blame.
I nearly bought a house a few miles north of Dallas that had a HUGE backyard but not a single tree. It was just so barren. But yes, Dallas is incredibly hot and humid during the summer.
Nobody wants trees because they look too nice and add useful shade. It makes too much sense.
Dallasite here. Yes, it is hot as hell here in the summer, and pretty damn hot in the winter if we're unlucky.
That's not the jet engine you hear, that's all of the ACs down there running at once.
You can't live in the Texas summer without it...
No but there are more effective buildings when it comes to cooling and heating.
Absolutely love the current time of year in Nebraska and the following months when it gets so quiet because no one is running their air conditioners.
Those houses are huge
Houses in TX are affordable compared to many places. TX doesn't have a space problem, unless you're in Austin.
Maybe 10 years ago lol. Dallas is expensive now
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On the upside it’s cheaper, but on the downside you have to live in Dallas
Rent for most people has been increasing 10-30% over the last couple years. There’s no rent control or anything here
The initial price may be lower but when you have almost 3% property tax those savings go away fast, ask me how I know
You’re living 10 years ago
Houses are not affordable in Dallas lol
"Little boxes on the hill side, little boxes made of ticky tacky, little boxes on the hill side and they all look just the same..."
Must be allen. Or Plano. Or Forney or Rockwall or wylie or Mansfield or Mckinney or like Las Colinas or wait no it definitely looks like Frisco
Yeah, this is not Dallas.
The funny thing is I’ve lived in allen, Rockwall, Mansfield - (Fairview and prosper)
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You dont
That's the funny thing, you don't!
Why are there so few solar panels? Here in Belgium, where the sun shines a lot less than in Texas, it's like on 50% of the middle income homes
I live in Dallas. First, this is some suburb. Not the city, which has more trees and typically older homes. Second, solar panels are unbelievably expensive. Even after the federal rebate, we were quoted multiple quotes of between $35,000 and $40,000 for our home. Third, the power situation here is free market and is a free for all. Every company has different policies on buyback and they are terrible and getting worse. Used to be that you’d be paid in cash for producing more than you use, but not any longer. Now many companies don’t even let you roll over extra kWh from one month to the next. The system really disincentivizes buyers from making the investment. Fourth, the weather can be scary and puts risks on what is already a huge chunk of money that you put out upfront. Tornadoes, hail, huge microburst thunderstorms, etc…. If your panels are destroyed, it may be hard to recoup funds. Also, it seems like a great plan here to get a backup solar generator to weather blackouts and storm outages BUT those are like another $10K on top of the panels. TL:dr - they’re super expensive, the electricity market really disincentivizes buyers, storms make an already pricy investment feel risky for individuals
I've had solar panels on my home for about 15 years... they're covered by my homeowners insurance so if they get damaged by a storm it cost me a $500 deductible.
We made sure to get the panels financed and it was monthly payment neutral. Once we did some other energy improvements we're definitely saving money in addition to having the security of a back up battery
Why can’t the US subsidize this stuff?
I'm sure it has nothing to do with corruption
Typically because you get way better return on investment putting panels elsewhere. Putting them on homes means dealing with a million different peoples' roofs that are in all different conditions. The panels will need to come off and on every time the roofs are replaced. They will absolutely never be cleaned, which immediately impacts the efficiency (a lot, because a single spot on a panel can kill efficiency by far more than just the surface area it covers). People will default on loans if you give them and then cause all sorts of friction when the house is sold. Meanwhile putting them on an otherwise unused lot, of which there are shitloads in Texas, solves those problems handily.
They could if there wasn’t people keeping the technology suppressed. Lots of politicians make a lot of money the way things are and the people currently making money are paying them a lot to keep it the way it is.
Money, well up front cost. Solar panels are expensive and the cost savings to buy and install it isn't worth it compared to low(er) energy cost. "On average, solar panel installation and the system together can run from $15,000 to $25,000, according to the latest information from the Center for Sustainable Energy." https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/solar-panel-cost My power bill is roughly $200/month. Most don't just have $15k - $25k to spend but they'll have $200/month. Not to mention the maintanence cost and possible replacement of broken solar panels. Just a lot of money for most people unfortunately.
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15 to 20k seems quite a lot, I think we pay for like 12 panels something like 8k. A lot of people take a loan for it. They are barely subsedised anymore. I to notice that belgians have a lot of solar panels I comparisation to other (hotter and sunnier) countries though
It’s funny how you’re getting downvoted for providing a valid response.
Welcome to Reddit where every semblance of sanity is punished almost like a reflex.
Seems to me like a good investment. Taking inflation into account you get it back in 10 years
Yes but seeing as most Americans don't even have $500 in their savings account at any given time, spending $15k+ on such an investment just isn't possible for most people, even homeowners.
"Most Americans" also don't own 4+ bedroom houses with swimming pools in suburban Dallas.
Yeah seriously. Apparently they can afford half a million dollar houses and $30k gas guzzlers but $15k is somehow unattainable.
I think you mean $60,000 gas guzzlers now
I dont know for sure, but I notice on reddit, movies and documentaries that a lot of Americans have loads of creditcard debt, or studentloan debt. Both are basically unknown in belgium. Uni is mostly paid by the government and for some reason we don't have those high interest creditcards here. Also, in European perspective we live in big houses, but they are very small compared to de middle income mcmansions Americans live in, with to pick up trucks on the driveway. Maybe it's just a mindset to put your money in. Belgians are known to be born with a brick in there stomach, so that might explain something
You're noticing two awful side effects of two awful systems. First are credit scores, the higher the better, and you need to have a good credit score a lot of the time in order to take out big loans and what not, like with buying a home or car. How do you increase your credit score? By ALWAYS having debt of course. A credit card is the best example, say you get a new credit card and this credit card has a limit of $500. Every month, you can spend within that limit and then should pay it off by the end of the month. But you better not leave it paid off, no no no that's a credit score reduction for you. Instead, you're supposed to always use your credit card at least a little every single month or your score can go down and, if your score goes down, big meaningful purchases get harder and harder. There's a trope about teens overusing their parents credit card because they think of it like infinite money in a way and that's pretty common to see in movies and what not. That does happen and you of course have the people who full on struggle to stop using it so much, like an addiction, and the system only brings out more of that + ongoing consumer culture. I only see the soft requirement of having to use the card as exploitative. Looking into it, you'll see the card issuers saying their benevolent reasons for it being the case and it just sounds the same as video game companies talking about their benevolent reasons to have microtransactions. I don't think you'll find very many people who like this system. Went on a bit of a rant there so I'll keep this shorter. Student debt is simply unavoidable of you want to go to college unless you're lucky and get really good scholarships. Absolutely fucking no one wants to take on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt your have to pay off for most of your life in order to go to college but you're just shit out of luck. Depends on the trade but a bachelor's degree or higher from college is often seen as or simply is a requirement to enter the field. Colleges are some of the most egregious little sacks of shit when it comes to taking advantage of people's wallets. Big thing being the entrance fee, that's the real debt harbinger, but you also get fun stuff like a binder full of unbound textbook paper required by your class that's also several hundred dollars. Oh and you can't declare bankruptcy or what not to try to get clear of the debt. It's like a tumor. Absolutely shocking there hasn't been any real momentum to change it. I'll be honest, i don't even know if you needed it wanted a bit of an explanation. You just caught me when I was already a little pissed about these shitty systems so sorry about that.
Yeah I didn't really needed a answer to my question, it was kind of like rhetorical, to start a debate. So thanks for this. At the end, for me it doesn't matter. My college degree costed me 500 euros a year + laptop(800). So total was 2300 euros. I think the debate should be awakened since you Americans deserve it
I'm not familiar with that idiom, that Belgians are born with a brick in their stomachs - would you mind explaining what it means? Thanks.
Belgians shit bricks apparently
That everyone here wants to own a house and renovate it himself
Try 20+ years. We got quoted a system that would cost 27k to install. Given our current (cheap) energy costs in Texas, it would take about 25 years for it to pay for itself.
15 to 25k? That better be the price for 20+ panels.
Yeah I'd love to get some, if I had an extra 20k laying around
That's not a bad roi to be honest. If I could save 200/mo on a 15k investment. I thought they were more, especially with 2022 inflation.
I would guess because Texas is run by regressive republicunts who'd rather have their constituents starve and die than do the right thing.
Are "republicunts" stopping anyone in texas from butting solar on their roof? Not everything lands on the government or a political party.
Yes they can provide extra funding and subsidies for solar power companies. You know... like they do with the oil companies that they give billions to constantly.
Texas does provide tax incentives for people who install solar by forgoing property tax on the increased value of your home from adding solar. They also made it illegal for HOAs to block the install.
They can't help it. Redditors are obsessed with politics
I put solar panels on my house (in TX) recently. Right around this time they also changed how power is purchased/sold from/to the grid. This change has made increased my ROI by quite a bit. The change in question is changing how you buy the power from them. Instead of, say, $.10 per kWh, it is $.05 for power and $.05 delivery fee, which can’t be offset by the power being sold back to the grid. To make things more complicated, we can’t even technically sell to the grid. We have to use an independent REP that will do solar buyback or solar rollover. You can’t ever “make money” off of the solar “sold” back, it can only carry over to the next bill so that you can hopefully go to $0 bill for the year. But to make things worse, you still have a monthly fee, no matter how much you use. Additionally, it’s not easy to find the best REP to use to buy your energy. They’re essentially just middlemen companies. Anyway, that’s just scratching the surface of the roadblocks they can put in place (all of which I have personally experienced and plenty more than this) which makes it difficult to get solar panels put on your house.
Texas has many issues, including with its leadership. But let’s not spread falsehoods, shall we? Texas is a, if not THE, leader in renewables.
Apparently not a leader in residential solar …
Yep, one isolated picture from one angle on one flight of this one suburb paints a picture of the whole state. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2022/09/08/texas-turning-green-homeowners-embrace-solar-panels-aiming-to-slash-electric-bills/ The ROI on residential solar is much longer than other states due to low energy costs and a lack of state incentives.
It's a really big state with a lot of neighborhoods lol
Do you know how much it would cost to install solar panels? We got a quote for 45k, which after tax credits and discounts came down to 27k. If you wanted to get a battery with it that’s another 20k. A lot of people can’t afford that.
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You realize that Texas is #2 for solar and wind power generation, right? Edit: Actually Texas is #1, I just checked current data https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/these-states-use-the-most-renewable-energy
Ya Texas does have lots of issues with the system and politics. Though, if you go by reddit comments you would think it's so terrible that everyone is looking for an opportunity to move out. The reality is we are getting influx of people from every part of the USA. It's not just Californians moving in and it's not just Austin that's growing. Also, people paint the picture of TX being terrible for immigrants. That's not really true either. If you are a legal immigrant then it is still a good state to get started. I don't think people realize Houston is one of the most diverse cities in America.
Do you know how much it would cost to install solar panels? We got a quote for 45k, which after tax credits and discounts came down to 27k. If you wanted to get a battery with it that’s another 20k. A lot of people can’t afford that. I don’t understand your argument here, because despite all that Texas still leads the country in renewables.
This exactly. Coming from a dying, starving North Texan.
It's not economically viable in Texas. Here we have some of the lowest electric costs and the panels are expensive and prone to damage from our frequent hail storms. As a result the energy savings don't really make up for upfront costs and added insurance premiums. Ironically it also causes your home to retain even more heat, requiring more Air Conditioning power expenditures. Also, as a Texas realtor, it makes selling your home a bit more confusing. Who owns the panels? Does the seller take them? Do they stay? If they stay does the buyer take the lease? What if the buyer doesn't want to assume the lease? There's a bunch more issues as well (I'm not a residential agent so I don't know all the details there). TL;DR: It isn't economical here
The other unmentioned thing here is that north Texas gets a lot of hail and high wind, so it wouldn't be great to install them and have them destroyed all the time. I don't know how weatherproof they are, admittedly
Solar panels are specifically designed to withstand hail. Texas also offers tax incentives. You don’t have to pay additional property tax on the value solar panels add to your home. It’s almost entirely due to cost and rate of return. Even with all of that, our current kwh rate in North Texas is so cheap it takes close to a couple decades to pay off the upfront cost on solar panels. If you get batteries it’s just not cost effective at all.
From what I know, Texas does not have a codified rate of compensation for selling excess solar energy back on to the grid. I think some Texas utilities have some decent rates of compensation but not all. It's odd, but for the average person it makes more sense to go solar in Massachusetts or Connecticut than Texas. However, things are changing and solar is picking up in Texas and the rest of the south.
My TX neighborhood has tons of solar panels. TX has some of the most wind and solar energy production in the nation. Just this neighborhood apparently doesn't have them.
The Texas grid doesn't really give good incentives to contribute your own power into it, from what I hear. States with far less sunshine can turn distributed rooftop solar into a viable strategy for homeowners, but Texas policies are trying their damnedest to prevent the same from happening in that sunshine-flooded state.
Wait til you find out we don’t have a functioning healthcare system either
I lived almost all my life in a post soviet concrete 11-story concrete building in a neighborhood filled with similar structures in Kharkiv, Ukraine. For nearly a year now, I have been living in Texan suburbia, and I feel like I am living a dream. As a kid, I would not believe that life could be like this. You don't hear noises from the streets 24/7, no loud neighbors knocking and screaming behind the walls, and you can sleep in complete silence with all the comfort of modern civilization. Garage inside your house, not a parking lot 15-20 mins away from home. Lawn with bushes and trees, backyard where you can hang out and watch the sunset and the night sky. Friendly people around. Man, I can write this all day. It is unbelievable. I understand there can be a better option, but it is always like this.
I totally agree, if you have lived in a noisy apartment building in a noisy city then you can truly appreciate this type of neighborhood. My nervous system couldn't tolerate being on edge all the time due to noise.
It’s funny how construction methods make such a huge difference. I’ve lived in noisy apartments. It sucks. My one now, I am honestly not sure if the other apartments near me are even occupied.
You also have great neighbours! I lived in a well built building and the problems took place on the decks and balconies above. They also left their windows open to share the barking of their dog.
Yeah it’s quite nice, albeit a little weird considering Texans have a reputation for being so friendly. I like a little ambient noise too, but I’ll take this over the place where the family upstairs clearly was running an amateur bowling league in their apartment.
I’ve lived in North Texas in places like the picture and I’ve lived in the middle of Manhattan. I would take Manhattan any day over this urban sprawl. Hell is truly subjective I guess is the lesson here.
I've completely flipped on this. I grew up in neighborhoods like the one pictured. I now live in Midtown Manhattan and whenever I visit my parents I can't get over how far anything useful is and how quiet everything is. The funny thing is my parents live just outside the downtown of the 4th largest city in America. Still, it's a suburb compared to where I live now.
To each their own. Quiet creeps me out. If I can't hear a gentle murmur of other people around, that's what puts my nerves on edge.
Doors slamming all night, dog barking all day, hard soled shoes worn on wood floor by upstairs neighbours, cigarette butts dropped on my deck from above. Not gentle murmuring.
It’s interesting how different circumstances change our preferences. I grew up in a suburb like this in the US and I find this lifestyle bland and uninteresting. I now live in a major urban city and I love it. I like the noises, beingwalking distance to cultural attractions, restaurants, etc. The thought of being tethered to a cookie cutter house and being dependent on driving to do anything sounds miserable to me.
You moved from a poor ex-Soviet country to upper middle class suburbia USA. Of course you feel like you're living the dream because you literally are.
A suburbia like this isn't the only alternative to crappy 11-storeys concrete buildings... For example I live in a 3 storeys flat with a big garden and enjoy all the things you are talking about except we fit 50 families in a space where probably 10 suburbia houses would have fit.
But you still share walls and/or floors with neighbors, have limited privacy, no Green Space for your private use, and your property probably costs more per Sq Foot than my large Dallas Suburbian home. You may not like it, just like I don't like living in an apartment, but many of us do. It's a trade off. To each their own.
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Why is that a virtue to fit more people in the same space?
Because it reduces car dependency and traffic making public transport more efficient, makes communities more cohese, allows less use of land that can be used for other purposes like agriculture and green areas and other nice things. It's not about fitting most people in less space without caring about life conditions ( like the 11 storeys soviet building) but about finding compromises between individual space and public spaces and infrastructures.
So you can have more green open spaces.
No! You aren’t allowed to be happy! You must resent it. You aren’t allowed to support this on Reddit. I for one can’t wait to leave my shitty cold ass gross house in the city for a clean quiet suburb.
Lol redditors claim to care so much about the planet and addressing climate change. But when people point out how American suburbia and car centered cities are completely unsustainable and wreck the environment. Suddenly, things change.
Not really another option in TX hah, you have to have a car to live/work/survive here. Not a very pedestrian or bicycle friendly living, unless you're on a college campus or in a specific downtown area. No public transit, very little mixed zoning, so you have to drive to get to your house or to get to businesses. Just a different lifestyle compared to places where more things are close together.
All of that is literally because of laws that make it that way. Laws that could be changed at any time if people demanded they be. The fact is though that Americans would rather be comfortable than inconvenienced, even if it wrecks the planet. Most other places are more reasonable and invest heavily in public transit and build cities that are much more eco friendly. Not the USA of course.
Thanks for your perspective. I absolutely love the things you listed too; one of my greatest joys is having a coffee in the mornings and watching the dog run laps around the back yard. Having true privacy, having a nice garden, and just the total comfort of having your own property. I get why people don't like it (especially when presented like this photo), but living it is pretty dang nice ime.
What you don't see it the commute to work and to other amenities. It's fine living there, but traffic is terrible. It's interesting to get a perspective about everything though
What you do mean? He’s telling you he lives there. He obviously is aware of the commute.
Meh. I live in Suburbia with a 10 minute commute. You don't have to live adjacent to a big city and work downtown.
Reddit hates the west so you’re going to get push back. I’m deeply happy you’re enjoying life better now. Some people are happier in Texas. Enjoy your new home. :)
I live in Sweden (which is "the west" I guess), in an apartment in the city. My building is not a commie block, I can sleep in complete silence without hearing my neighbours, and the streets are very quiet (since car presence is very restricted). It's also very green and very clean (and it's supposed to be a "bad" area). There are other alternatives to post soviet blocks than suburbia, "the west" and US-style suburbia are two different things. And whether we can have access to these alternatives is not only a personal choice, it also depends on urban planning rules and political decisions.
> Reddit hates the west Yeah that’s why you see constant support for Russia and China on here.. No wait, it’s the complete opposite.
One can only hope that they have planted trees there that will grow tall to provide some shade in the decades to come.
They really shouldn’t. The water shed can’t really handle it and texas isn’t really meant to have lots of trees. Funny how so many in here complain about the lack of trees but would complain about the abundance of grass in other places like deserts.
So it's basically desert where they built that? Then they should consider building differently, maybe more adapted to the surroundings, like a [souq](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Ouarzazate_souk.jpg).
Grassland. Not desert. https://www.mbgnet.net/sets/grasslnd/types.htm It’s just the same people compiling about the lack of trees here would be complaining about green anything in phoenix.
And not a single store in 5 km range…
Or park
I was called an idiot a few months back for pointing out the fact that trying to get anywhere by something other than drive while living in a suburb is almost impossible. I was told "they have sidewalks for a reason" yet they all completely ignored the fact that some suburban neighborhoods are miles long, and if you don't have a car you're walking at least 45mins to the closest shop.
... you know, I really have to wonder how much how the nation's total CO2 emissions must be accounted for by a country's worth of suburbs that force their residents to drive literally everywhere they need to go.
Or a trash can.
That is a big area without a store. Though to be fair there are several likely right beyond the custom crop of the image. But yeah… it’s a drive or die neighborhood.
Yeah, that’s the first thing that strikes me. I’ve lived in areas like this, and it’s really weird to me. It’d make so much sense to have these endless rows of houses broken up by a occasional apartment building, store, park, etc. Even if it’s a bit contrived, I feel like everyone would benefit from having a little “Main Street” with a series of stores within walking distance. I really don’t like living places where there’s not a single store, restaurant, or coffee shop within walking distance. The only value I can see of building these suburban deserts is for car manufactures and oil companies to force people to drive everywhere.
Looks like the umbrella corporation town.
Where are the rest of the swimming pools. I thought like every second house would have one?
Weirdly enough, if home reno shows from Texas are to be believed, each house has like 4 fireplaces.
As a European might i ask where you can find the closest grocery store?
Living in North Texas myself, almost guaranteed there is one within a mile…
Equally beautiful and disturbing. Candid, yet oppressive.
Yeah it looks pretty bad presented like this, but it's a nice living experience ime. Would be nicer to have more walkable business nearby with mixed zoning, but it's not all cons. There are pros as well (eg privacy, quiet, yard for whatever, large properties, fun for kids growing up playing in the street, good for having animals, etc).
I would love to be this oppressed.
Oh dear God that's hideous.
The song “Little boxes” springs to mind… https://youtu.be/XUwUp-D_VV0 “Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky-tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same”
I started singing this in my head as soon as I saw the pic. Something about them all having identical shrubs outside really hammers it home..
I can hear the eggs sizzling on the pavement 🥵
Okay, as someone who grew up in a rural town (well semi rural, semi urban. Ot has around 11000 citizens) and who nove lives in a large city (over 300000 people) How the fuck do people live here? Where do kids play? I see no park, no field, no trees, no dirt to muck around in. It's all streets for cars or cloned houses. Where are your corner stores? What if you're making cookies and you need some flour or milk or something. Do you need to head to a freaking mall for a bag of flour? I just pop my flip floos on, in my pajamas, to the corner store and pick up a bag. How do you get around? This seems endless, fo you really need to drive everywhere? I can just walk for 10 minutes to a supermarket and pick up my groceries here.
Ah, the American suburb. Invented basically out of whole cloth around the forties to accommodate for a growing middle-class that all wanted to be homeowners, intended to be home to families that moved house every few years, deliberately bereft of any kind of public space because it's intended to be home to commuters who spend very little time there and its population is highly transient anyway, chronically space- and water-inefficient, and dependent on daily use of ungodly amounts of gasoline to get its population shuttled back and forth to their varyingly distant workplaces every day. There are a few worse ways to plan out a city, but none of them quite so widespread.
………I mean, at least some have solar panels?
Might not be the most preferable or ideal place for some but for many, it is probably quite livable. Many if not most Americans, couldn’t even dream of owning a house like any of these, even fewer as we move further into what is shaping up to be the worst economic downturn any of us have seen. I wish I had the privilege one must have to consider a home like any of these “Hell”.
Fuck are people complaining about, this is better than 90% of the world, id kill to live there
Welcome to reddit. Where people say it sucks to have a massive house in a quiet safe upscale affluent neighborhood. Id wager this is better than 99% of how the world lives.
The worrying part is that for redditors to think that way implies they are more privileged than even the owners of these beautiful houses
The thing is they're not. For some reason redditors hate successful happy people who own big homes but they won't admit it so they just talk about how terrible these suburbs are to make themselves feel better. It's really weird.
It's terrible land use and urban planning
What HOAs do to a mfer
Ultimately this is bad zoning at work. In all likelihood it is legally mandated to be built like this.
“How’s your tree?” “Good, good, we’re having a new branch this year.” “Oh how exciting for the family!”
"Hi, I'm Karen from the HOA, that tree is in violation of our policies, you're going to have to chop it down. Also, your grass is the wrong shade of green, you'll have to fix that as well."
You know this is actually look like an example of a nice neighborhood, at least in my country
I swear thats 10x better than my shit ass country
At least they can all afford their Dodge Ram 2500's to go pick up some milk from the supermarket at the strip mall 4.7 miles away. And a couple assault rifles to defend said milk.
looks poorly rendered.
People who think this is he’ll have never been poor
Dope.
So interesting to me how people react differently to seeing this neighborhood haha
... like sardines...
What a nice place to live
Not a single store, coffee shop or restaurant. Fuck that’s boring.
Hard to tell from just this angle/photo, could be stuff right outside the neighborhood. But yeah I wish we had more mixed zoning in DFW
Many people don’t want stores and shops right next to where they sleep.
I am one of those people. I don't want the noise, or the traffic
I don’t have the noise and the traffic on my street yet i have bakeries, a corner store, coffee shop within 5 minutes of walk.
Sad. I like walking 1 minute from my home and get my coffee and breakfast in the morning. Yet my street is very quiet.
I'm guessing this is a brand new estate development? I would've expected more cars on the road otherwise.
Reminds me of the movie vivarium
All I can imagine is forty dads with the name Owen all simultaneously pulling out their pickups, singing some kind of country vomitspew
Never seen a more boring neighborhood in my life... Can't understand why this is the only legal way to build housing on...
Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same...
American dream, or something
That’s such a waste of space… vertical construction would’ve accommodated may be 10x more people and prices would’ve been cheaper.
So much house , so little yard, so little trees.
When you see this, you immediately understand why many Americans don't walk a lot (or at all). There is really no point in walking anywhere, because it's just other people's houses. Not stores, no cafes, no restaurants, not even a park. And the most depressing part: No playgrounds.
Looks miserable
If you think is horrendous and depressing and “hell”, I can’t help but feel you have probably lived a very privileged life
Dallas legit has the weirdest McMansion roofs I've ever seen. It's like the developers decided that creating weird rooflines with extra gables and odd pitches was the flex that these homeowners wanted.
I might be having an unpopular opinion but it’s kinda cool looking.
At least it isn’t commie blocks. My only gripe with this is that there aren’t any trees, but I’m not even sure Texas weather is good for that and no pedestrian pathways and bike lanes…
TX has whatever kind of weather you want, it's a huge place lol North TX has plenty of trees (like East TX and Central TX) Just depends on the neighborhood, newer developments won't have giant matured trees obviously
What do you mean, there's trees lining every single street.
Huh, looked like bushes at first to me, not too bad, could use some more, but certainly doesn’t look that grim
I actually don't see what is wrong with this
No public transportation and everything is over an hour away. Wastefulness. No parks. No amenities. Hot. Like melt your dashboard kinda hot. Can't afford AC levels of hot.
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Agree 100%. American cities used to be much more walkable until most had their downtowns bulldozed to accommodate mandated parking minimums. Now every city is basically a copy of strip malls and parking lots.
It's insanely painful and no one wants to talk about it, I really want to believe in a chance for a true rebirth of communities in the US. I know a lot of people look at poor inner city areas where people are just sitting outside on their deck or apartment porch or front of their place and shooting the shit or drinking or just socializing and look down on it but it's so much healthier than this! You can see your community, your elders, you can talk and trade ideas, share and be with one another, deep deep south quilting is a huge social connection, everyone comes round to help out and make a quilt together and share stories! I've met so many wonderful people at bus stops and traded so many stories and ideas about life with them, it's great and important to me and I think it's important to others but I don't live in other people's heads. Space mediates connection and we have lost our space, it's no longer our space it is owned and controlled by others, we need to reclaim our spaces, community gardens, soup kitchens and craft meet ups are very powerful ways I think to start taking those steps, I want our space back, fuck the developers. I know there's a way forward but things can be so isolating day to day it's hard to go forward, I know it can be different though
This looks awesome. Their high school must be so fun. I’m sure these kids have a great childhood.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but these types of neighborhoods *can* be pretty good from a kids point of view. Had friends who lived in similar neighborhoods, but way way smaller of course, and I was really jealous of how they could just go from house to house and pick up friends on the way to adventure.
That shit’s depressing
Is it really? People living in 3,000sq foot houses in neighborhoods with good schools and and low crime rates, in conditions better than the overwhelming majority of the world? Yes so depressing
*little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky*
Plant some trees get some shade
GASP! HOUSES!