Does anyone hate modern suburbia?

[JMapleton]

I live in an area of town built up during the 1950s and 1960s that are mostly upper middle class and a few upper class areas. Most of the houses are all brick, shake roofs, have great detail, and a generally built with high quality. Mixed in are a few large mansions (20,000+ sq ft) built because of the good location. I personally live 1br in an apartment, albeit an upscale one.

I go out to modern suburbia, which I define that which was built up from 1985 to the present. All I see are bare neighborhoods with mannequinn like houses.

Attributes I that I dislike:

-Brick fronts (then the rest of the house is wood or concrete siding). Why do people do this? Isn't this a front for making your house look like something it's not (all brick)?

-The designs of the houses all are in general the same design, just altered. Some of hollow wooden pillars in the front to make them look "regal," but this too is a front.

-Landscaping looks like something from the wizard of oz of "desparate housewives." Which you have everyone perfectly cut and shaped with sharp corners, and "islands" of landscaping, where in the middle of the yard you have just like an "island" of rocks or wood chips. (wtf is that supposed to be?)

-The interiors of the houses are almost always cheap, mixed in with light colored oaks and just bare drywall on all of the interior, no wood paneling or other wall finishes.

This is just a rant, but my question of this is: Why don't people take pride in their homes anymore?

Do you? Will you (when you buy a home if you have not already)?

 

[Barfo]

How can you take pride in your home/community when strangers cut through your yard and bring their dogs to do their dirty deeds on there?

 

[JMapleton]

Originally posted by: barfo
How can you take pride in your home/community when strangers cut through your yard and bring their dogs to do their dirty deeds on there?

Excuse me, when does that happen? wtf do you live?

People do not cut through other people's yards where I live or in the neighborhoods I live. Nor do I suspect they do such things in suburbia.

 

[spaceman]

do you work for hgtv?
who gives a fuck?

 

[JMapleton]

Originally posted by: spaceman
do you work for hgtv?
who gives a fuck?

I care. The explosion of large cheaply built homes puts pressure on the environment and when the mass of babyboomers retire, we are going to be left with millions of large falling apart mcmansions and not enough families to live in them.

 

[lxskllr]

I agree 100%. Houses are bigger than they need to be, and most are just glorified hard sided tents. I can't imagine most of being around in 100 years.

 

[ElFenix]

i hate anonymous cookie-cutter suburbia. houses that are right up to the property line, neighborhoods with not a single tree over 5 years old, houses that are built to last 15 years instead of 50 or 100. that crap sucks.

 

[spaceman]

alot of old rundown houses with big red x's on them around here.
i love the look of old houses, but unless you have bank or are norm abrams they SUCK to work on/in etc.

 

[nageov3t]

I hate 1950's/60's suburbia more than "new" suburbia.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
i hate anonymous cookie-cutter suburbia. houses that are right up to the property line, neighborhoods with not a single tree over 5 years old, houses that are built to last 15 years instead of 50 or 100. that crap sucks.

What gets me is the cornfield subdivisions, where 10 years after being built, the lawns are still barren of mature trees. They'll have a couple of small bushes, and a dogwood, but that's about it :^/

 

[JMapleton]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
i hate anonymous cookie-cutter suburbia. houses that are right up to the property line, neighborhoods with not a single tree over 5 years old, houses that are built to last 15 years instead of 50 or 100. that crap sucks.

I honestly believe that most people have no concept of style or imagination. If you have to look out of a premade "floorplan" book you have no business building a house.

 

[Dirigible]

Yes, lots of people hate modern developments. So many people that I now assume everyone does so it is not worth talking about.

And "modern developments" that people hate go back much further than 1985.

 

[bignateyk]

I'm about to buy one of those 1985 split level, brick on part of front houses.

I plan to gut the inside, put slate tile in foyer and downstairs, hardwood upstairs with a brand new kitchen with slate counters, dark cupboards, new stainless appliances. Then I am going to make a master suite in the basement since none of these old houses have a master suite. Skylights will be installed, as well as some form of central air (mini-split probably).

After that I am going to build a nice stone patio, with a concrete slab for a hottub, and a trellis over the patio.

Havent thought about front landscaping yet, but it will be completely redone as well.

Not much I can do about the overall look of the exterior though...

 

[bobdole369]

Where I live - South Florida - was built in a couple of stages - from the beginning of time till the 1920's when a hurricane blew most of it away, then in the 40's to the 50's, then another hurricane, then from the mid 70's until the mid 80's then from the late 90's until about 5 years ago when the last parcel of buildable land was sold.

Every single building in the 70's phase I swear is exactly the same filled block wall, shingles, Linoleum or ceramic tile floors, postage stamp size yard (well most are about 30 feet by 20 feet and less in the backyard - often just enough for a pool. And they are ALL painted this hideous pink. Coral, bright yellow, pea soup green - its terrible. The houses built from the 90's till today are fabulous. All different as they are usually custom jobs - Huge - like 4 BR and 5000 sqft+. I like the newest building phase. I also like the earlier phases as there is a lot of architectural quality there.

 

[Farang]

yea man, like, society is like telling us all what SOCIETY wants from us. Suburbia and the rat race, man, like its what SOCIETY says is GOOD for us man. I don't care what SOCIETY wants for me, man, you CONFORM all you want man I don't do what SOCIETY tells me.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
i hate anonymous cookie-cutter suburbia. houses that are right up to the property line, neighborhoods with not a single tree over 5 years old, houses that are built to last 15 years instead of 50 or 100. that crap sucks.

I was gonna go on a rant but you pretty much covered it.

Modern suburbs are all prefab communities and they are SHIT!
Hey are also extremely overpriced, even in this economy they still want too much damn money.

I hate it.

 

[Kirby]

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

 

[meltdown75]

son, it's not healthy to hate random things like subdivisions.

seek counseling. let us know how it goes.

edit: on the bright side, this thread reminded me of the song Jesus of Suburbia, so there's that.

 

[rh71]

I'll just say I hate the brick facing too.

 

[mchammer187]

Do you actually like surbuban houses built in the 1950's to the 1970's?


http://images.teamsugar.com/fi...._V1._SX485_SY324_.jpg comes to mind

 

[Capt Caveman]

Don't like it then don't live there. Simple.

 

[evident]

Originally posted by: JMapleton

Originally posted by: barfo
How can you take pride in your home/community when strangers cut through your yard and bring their dogs to do their dirty deeds on there?

Excuse me, when does that happen? wtf do you live?

People do not cut through other people's yards where I live or in the neighborhoods I live. Nor do I suspect they do such things in suburbia.

there used to be an old guy that cut through our lawn w/ his dog when i was really young. my parents would always ask him nicely to not cut through our lawn, but he would ignore us and keep walking. his stupid dog would always take a shit between our lawn and our neighbors that i always played with. he's probably dead now, so that's ok.


our house (my parents's house) was built in the 70s. we have a finished basement, although it still has 1970s styling such as wood panel siding and a huge poster of smokey the bear that's been there forever, lol. we have the brick front, w/ asbestos (eek) siding. Our lawn is nicely mowed and we have nice plants and stuff, and we got a new kitchen. it's gonna be a lot of work to start modernizing our house. we dont even have central air =

my house doesn't look like anything else on our block though, for some reason. and our block isn't cookie cutter which is nice.

 

[natto fire]

"Hate" is a bit strong, but I would never live there. It's too easy to live elsewhere.

 

[CRXican]

I hate the giant, cookie cutter houses.

I want a nice, small house with a big garage.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Nope, I don't mind at all.

My house is all stucco, no brick or cheesy siding.