usa is famous for the suburbs and the single family zoning, do you live in a single family house, like the ones you see in movies/tv show ( big house, with big garden)?

33 comments

  2. Depends on what you consider typical but yes.

    My neighborhood isn’t one of those with the copy-pasted houses people love to hate, they’re all custom.

  4. Typically our front yard (what Brits call the “garden”) doesn’t have much going on. Sometimes they can be quite small. Its the backyard that usually has more stuff going on.

    I live in the downtown part of my suburban city in a mixed use development with a rail trail outside my door and a bunch of restaurants and amenities within walking distance, pharmacy and grocery stores within a 10 minute bike ride. I don’t know what that makes me….but its a good balance.

  7. No I live in a woodland/rural suburb. Like a suburb in the middle of the woods cut off from anything else.

  8. Thank god no! I live downtown in a big city. since growing up in the suburbs i always knew i wanted to move to the city, i hated the suburbs so much. it’s just not for me.

    edit: woo updated my flair

  9. Yes and yes. Big yard, big house, in the suburbs of a major US city.

    We also refer to the garden as a yard (backyard, front yard, etc). What we refer to as a garden is for growing plants/crops/flowers. For what its worth, we have one of those as well.

  11. I used to and did not enjoy it. My parents loved it but I thought they were weird.

    I hated that it was so quiet. I hated that everything “fun” was nearly a ten mile drive away. Inleft as soon as I could.

  12. Yeah, I do. Typical for around here at least. I love it.

    I personally can’t handle too much density and can’t fathom living in a city, I did it for a few months once and was completely miserable. Suburbs are the perfect blend of convenience (near the airport, easy to get anything I want/need) while being quiet and spacious. I live in a town with plenty of gorgeous houses and churches from the early 1700s through late 1800s, with a small but cute Main Street with shops and restaurants. Though I live in a newer house that’s tucked into the woods near a small river and woodland preserve, very nice and quiet – my goal when house hunting was to be able to be in my yard and mostly forget other people exist. I’m a big hobby gardener and like being outside. My house isn’t big by American standards though (around 1900sqft, plus an unfinished basement).

    I would prefer to go a little more rural but the convenience of being able to pop into a Korean supermarket or whenever I want is nice too.

  14. No, I live in an apartment in San Francisco city. Grew up in a suburb and that made me want to move to a city.

  15. It depends what you mean by typical. I used to live in one of the more recently built (80s and 90s) style burbs, with big plots and lots of turns off the main roads. I hated it personally. Lots of people prefer these style suburbs as they are generally safe, comfortable, have good schools and good infrastructure. I hated it as I found it lifeless, couldn’t walk anywhere, the “downtown” was fairly generic, and the houses, while large, were boring.

    I now live in what is considered an inner ring suburb, which is also quite common in the US. Houses are older (a plus for me) and generally smaller. Walkable to a fun downtown and plenty of stores. Still plenty safe though you have to be more cognizant of petty crime. Life in general is more interesting for me here. More density and diversity.

  16. no I live in a single family home with a small yard in the middle of the city.

    also single family zoning affects far more than just suburbs

  18. Look at my username lol. But no, my suburb isn’t typical of what you see on TV with the big houses and yards with big streets and everything. We have the same size lots as the city, allies, most everything is walkable like my kids school, stores, etc.

  19. Nope. My parents grew up in suburbs like that, so I do visit them, but I grew up in and currently live in a city.

  22. Yes, I hate it. My neighbourhood doesn’t even have sidewalks. The nearest grocery store is a 30-minute walk. The nearest secondary school would be an hour walk. Have to drive 12 minutes to the nearest city for things to do. 17-minute drive to get to any large parks. There are 4 Churches (Catholic, Reformed, Mormon, non-denominational) and a Hindu temple within a 15-minute walk from my house though…

  23. Not a huge house but we have about an acre of property around our home and we live in the suburbs.

  25. Yes. I live in a typical American suburb in a single family home. I have a a single story house with a large back yard and a detached garage that holds about 2 1/2 cars.

    Most to the stores I go to are about 10 minutes away by car at most. I have walked to the grocery store a few times, it’s much faster to just drive.

    I like it very much. Great place to raise the kids. Nice and quiet.

  26. Rural Montana off a dirt road. Single family home. Lots of backyard chickens and hopefully a mini cow soon.

  27. Yes. It’s not boring. I regularly walk to the local bar, which is 1 of 7 in my neighborhood, two of which are a bowling alley and a pool hall. I’m not going to even count the restaurants in my area, because there are so many. A couple of mexican ones, two BBQ joints, a Korean sushi place, Indian food, and a lot of other basic ones. One is just a bar that has food trucks pull up to it. There are two food markets, one specializes in Japanese stuff.

    The best time of the year is Halloween. The whole neighborhood goes crazy and it would put scenes in movies to shame with how many kids and adult parties are going on. It’s a lot of fun. People already have their decorations up.

    My neighbors are mostly chill and we hang out sometimes. The people behind me have had bands play in their backyard. We all have dogs who are friends. I’ve had more than one driveway party. The edgy goth mom gives us chicken eggs for fireball.

  28. Bill Cosby, The Brady Bunch, and Walter White all lived in very different variations on the “suburb” theme.

    Not all suburbs are large houses, not all suburbs are large yards.

    Some suburbs are in cities, some are in the country.

  29. The housing might not be as homogenous as you’re expecting. The type of suburb is going to vary a lot by the year it was built and the region it’s in.

  30. I live in a city neighborhood that used to be what people called a “streetcar suburb” from the early 1900s. Streets with sidewalks laid out in sort of a grid (but not exactly), mostly 3-4 bedroom single family houses from the 1910s-1940s on smaller lots, with a few low-rise apartment buildings from the same era and a walkable commercial district. My kids should be able to walk to school for most of their life, even if we move to another part of the neighborhood.

    It’s honestly a pretty fantastic compromise. I have just enough of a yard and detached garage to do what I want, but I have a short walk to a cool little strip of bars and shops, plus some really great little neighborhood parks. I’ve lived in similar neighborhoods for most of my life and I don’t think I’d want to change what I have, unless I moved out to a small farm in the far suburbs.

  31. I live in a suburb but it seems to not be like what you’re imagining. It’s a small city and a lot of the houses are older and pre-date widespread automobiles. (There are also a lot of newer houses that look very typically “suburban”.) My house was built in the 1920s. I can walk downtown in about 15 minutes, where there are lots of restaurants, shops, cafes, a grocery store, etc.

    My town was founded in the 1850s and back then it was a sleepy little farming community, a long distance from the city. It’s only become a suburb over time, as the metro area has sprawled and infrastructure has improved.

    Edit: this is the downtown of a suburb close to, and similar to, my own: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9727266,-122.5243094,3a,75y,99.08h,94.1t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYuOTv9WMWuO6y9Q5V7lGTw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

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