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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   6567 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025

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  • People, at least once they hit a certain age, want the SFH and the big yard with the fence and the space to raise their children.

I would say that's a very specific type of people. Snooty urbanist types like myself sometimes call them "breeders." It works if youre a married couple, age 25-45, with young children and a steady long-term job. It does not work nearly so well for others.

For me, i grew up a place like that. I remember it being great as a kid because the yard was big enough for me to run, and my boomer parents could either leave me at home or easily drive me around town. The local public school was nothing special, but good enough.

When i became a teenager though, it was stifling. A suburban yard isn't nearly enough space for any real sports, so it just become a pain the ass thing to take care of. Everything is designed around driving, so i was stuck dependant on my parents for all transportation until i got old enough to drive. The local school was excruciatingly boring for a gifted kid. No one seemed to care about anything except work, grades, and sportsball. If you were caught outside "loitering," the police would come and forcibly bring you home. The "spacious" surban home still had thin walls and a bad layout, so we had no privacy. I, like many teens, started staying up late to avoid my parents.

When i go back there now as an adult, it seems creepy. An adult single male just doesnt fit in there at all. Everything is oriented around child rearing- for young children. Almost nothing is open at night. There's hardly anything in the way of aets, music, or culture. The social life all revolves around "the parents of my chikd's friends." Its just not a place someone like me can live.

When i became a teenager though, it was stifling.

Not untrue, but how many years one spends as a teenager? 4 years from 14 to 18 perhaps? Substantial but a minority fraction compared to time one is a kid, and not that large fraction of human lifespan. I prefer my kids will have good childhood at cost of some boredom as teenagers (boredom is supposedly good for intellectual growth anyway). Hopefully they are ready equipped to handle some adult excitement when they are adults. Much better than living in a city where kids can be easily exposed to unsavory or dangerous side of adult excitement.

Nobody expects single adult males to move to suburbia. Lack of single adult men having fun is more of a feature, really.

I prefer my kids will have good childhood at cost of some boredom as teenagers (boredom is supposedly good for intellectual growth anyway). Hopefully they are ready equipped to handle some adult excitement when they are adults.

In college I noticed that my classmates who had grown up in New York were generally more responsible and less likely to get into the sorts of trouble that a naive suburbanite would. Now, it certainly had more to do with parenting style than the nature of the built environment, but the latter sort of kid was notable for their paucity of life experience and inability to deal with interpersonal conflict. Personally, I went from living in a third world country to an American exurb at age 8 and the latter was so mind-numbingly boring that I have no memory of anything that happened in my life, good or bad, between then and high school.

I don't see why it should be a selling point of inner city childhood that you "get" to become that sort of unnaive(?) hardboiled(?) person with lots of adult-tier "life experiences" before you are an adult.

I do have many things to sneer at about American parenting practices, suburban and urban alike, including ability to handle various social situations, but I am restraining myself not to rant about them as I don't see the concept of suburbia (detached houses, low population density, boring by standard of single young adults) as the culprit.

Certainly I can see it would be nice to bring up kids in a nice city with "high culture" and civilized people and such, but current available cities are bit lackluster in that regard.

Personally, I went from living in a third world country to an American exurb at age 8 and the latter was so mind-numbingly boring that I have no memory of anything that happened in my life, good or bad, between then and high school.

I have hard time believing this lack of memories is a feature of American exurb. Perhaps it was just you?

Not untrue, but how many years one spends as a teenager? 4 years from 14 to 18 perhaps?

Well, the literal mathematical answer would be from the second you turn 13 until just the second you turn 20. So 7 years. Almost half their life at that point, and more than half of the years they actually remember.

A less literal answer is that it's all the years when an adolescent is expected to have adult-type responsibilities, but without adult-type privileges. So roughly from age 10-18, although the exact age range depends on the person and their situation. But the exact ages don't matter, we see the same pattern play out again and again and again- an adolescent is stuck living in an environment that's profoundly bad for them. It's kind of odd to me that so many parents say "I'm moving to the suburbs for the sake of my children," but don't seem to care at all about what it does to their older children.

But hey, I'm an adult single male, so no one give a shit what I think. Let the soccer moms rule society.

Not untrue, but how many years one spends as a teenager? 4 years from 14 to 18 perhaps? Substantial but a minority fraction compared to time one is a kid, and not that large fraction of human lifespan.

Small children play in the yard with their dads. By the time they're six, they're old enough to play with friends on their own. Options for autonomous play are extremely limited in suburbia which means that kids basically play in front of the house on the driveway or, if the street is quiet enough, on the street.

Kids under sixteen rely on their parents to drive them to every single activity since they have no other means of transportation. That means those activities are usually planned by the parents too. So much for intellectual growth.

boredom is supposedly good for intellectual growth anyway

It's 2025. Nobody's going to be bored, they'll just scroll tiktok if there's no point going outside except when Mom drags them to soccer practice.

Kids under sixteen rely on their parents to drive them to every single activity since they have no other means of transportation.

This is the key problem with American suburbs. Zoning laws make it impossible to build anything other than houses in suburbs, and there's no public transport because US zoning is designed around cars.

In the UK, suburbs have pubs, shops, schools, parks, churches, and buses to get to denser areas if you want. We get most of the upsides (our houses and gardens are smaller, to be fair) and few of the downsides.

If only we could build more of them...

Small children play in the yard with their dads. By the time they're six, they're old enough to play with friends on their own. Options for autonomous play are extremely limited in suburbia which means that kids basically play in front of the house on the driveway or, if the street is quiet enough, on the street.

From what I see, options for autonomous outdoors play in a big city are not better and usually much worse. No yard either behind or front of the house. All environments are built. If you are lucky, they are managed. Street and driveway certainly are not an option for kids to hang around, usually you hang around inside. In a nice suburb you have access to some parks, playgrounds and like. (You could say you have access to parks and playgrounds and like in a city, too, but cities get the drawbacks from higher population density.)

Kids under sixteen rely on their parents to drive them to every single activity since they have no other means of transportation. That means those activities are usually planned by the parents too. So much for intellectual growth.

I kind view that this structured activity craze is pushed by adult FOMO. I though myself as a bit of loner nerdy kid and yet I had spent a great deal of unplanned hanging around time in friends' places after school and during weekends, and then we got ideas. DnD campaign, transliterated some short stories to Angerthas Moria and then briefly tried to learn to speak in Sindarin, which was too much like learning languages in school, so we come up with our own language. One summer one of us got access to someones old video camcorder, so during span of two summer we made amateur home movies, with only select safe parts shown to parents (in retrospect the edgy parts were quite innocent too). Later, girls and illicit booze, but for some reason I was no longer cool for those parties. Also lot of time with nothing but books and imagination.

I see no fundamental reason why substantial part of similar class of experiences it could not be ... not exactly replicated, but have something similar in spirit. Kids have spirit of creativity if given the space and the opportunity and the means. Bookish kids will be drawn to bookish experiences. If the kids turn sportish, replace books with sports.

Regarding transportation, ideally really I'd find a bikeable neighborhood. Chances for that are better in suburbia than a city.

It's 2025. Nobody's going to be bored, they'll just scroll tiktok if there's no point going outside except when Mom drags them to soccer practice.

...I will be so disappointed if they only tiktok and don't find even a single obscure internet discussion forum teeming with political opinions I oppose. In any case, I will restrict internet access initially.

In a nice suburb you have access to some parks, playgrounds and like. (You could say you have access to parks and playgrounds and like in a city, too, but cities get the drawbacks from higher population density.)

If we're cherry picking just the nice suburbs, we're gonna have to cherry pick the nice urban neighborhoods too.

In my suburban neighborhood, the nearest park is nearly a mile away and requires crossing a five lane state highway. That park is about 150 feet square.

I kind view that this structured activity craze is pushed by adult FOMO.

Correct. Where do you think you find such adults? They move to the suburbs.

I though myself as a bit of loner nerdy kid and yet I had spent a great deal of unplanned hanging around time in friends' places after school and during weekends, and then we got ideas.

How old are you and where are you from? The situation is very different today. I know there are young kids on my street because I see them with their parents, but they do not play outside. My parents live in a neighborhood a few teenagers on the block and they are similarly never seen. The suburban reality today is phones and extracurriculars.

Regarding transportation, ideally really I'd find a bikeable neighborhood. Chances for that are better in suburbia than a city.

Assuming "bikeable" means that you can get somewhere you want to be, I wouldn't be so sure. The suburban housing division I grew up in was bikeable in the sense that you can bike around the subdivision and the streets are pretty quiet, but if you even wanted to get to the mall you'd have to bike on a 45MPH road without a bike lane. Urban cores don't even have roads with speed limits like that these days.

Small children play in the yard with their dads. By the time they're six, they're old enough to play with friends on their own. Options for autonomous play are extremely limited in suburbia which means that kids basically play in front of the house on the driveway or, if the street is quiet enough, on the street.

As an early millenial who grew up in an american-style suburb (in Canada), I didn't quite have the kind of feral childhood that boomers describe fondly, but I would usually just play in the streets around my block. I had an understanding with my parents that if I wasn't at home and I didn't tell them where I was going, I'd be somewhere around the block. This was from about 6 to 12. I had 3 friends living within seconds walking distance from me. If I wanted to go see a friend that lived further or go play at a park, or whatever, my parents would expect me to tell them where I was going, but in general it was more so that they could tell me when to come back for lunch/supper, or where to look if I wasn't back when I was expected.

Kids under sixteen rely on their parents to drive them to every single activity since they have no other means of transportation. That means those activities are usually planned by the parents too. So much for intellectual growth.

I would go places by bike or rollerblade, or by walking when I had ample time (and suburban teens usually have a lot of time). By the time I finished high school, I would also start taking the local buses, which, while they were not an efficient method of transportation between two points in the suburbs (they would still work in a pinch, but in general having to go to a larger hub in between extended travel time by at least 30 minutes), did the job.

Then get married and become a normie.

Like it or not, society doesn't revolve around men having fun. You're not a kid anymore. I'm not sure why eccentrics should have a veto over societal development. The suburbs are great for most people; your disinterest in growing up into a normie probably says more about you than it does about society.

Then get married and become a normie. Like it or not, society doesn't revolve around men having fun. You're not a kid anymore.

Brutal.

This is a stage of adulthood that a lot of men have trouble with. Maybe an identity crisis over. Life isn't fun all of the time, and it gets more unfun with time. People grow old and die. First your parents and then your older siblings and cousins and then you. You may as well learn sooner, rather than later, that life is still meaningful and worth living even if it's not maximally fun.

your disinterest in growing up into a normie probably says more about you than it does about society.

Indeed.

I'm not sure why eccentrics should have a veto over societal development.

Who are you worried about veto-ing what exactly? There's approximately 0 veto-ing that prevents new suburban development, except for the NINBYism of neighboring suburban developments lol.

There's approximately 0 veto-ing that prevents new suburban development

Incorrect. Central planning at the state and regional level does so, through urban growth boundaries and similar growth restrictions. This isn't NIMBYs (who mostly don't want you to build halfway houses for criminals and/or the mentally ill, or dense pod housing, next to them), it's New Urbanists and similar anti-sprawl types restricting single family development.

The New Urbanists are having about as much success restricting single family development as Hamas is at destroying Israel.

This isn't NIMBYs (who mostly don't want you to build halfway houses for criminals and/or the mentally ill, or dense pod housing, next to them)

That's the sanewashed position. The reality is that NIMBYs are against duplexes and fourplexes too.

How much actual banning of single family homes is going on? The only thing I've seen is banning "single family zoning" which doesn't ban single family houses but bans the banning of denser options.

Yes, but,

"breeders."

He's gay. Or using gay lingo. I don't forsee a wife and kids in his future.

Nope. Utterly, totally fucking wrong. A big part of why I like cities, as a straight man, is that the dating scene is better. Good luck with your OLD apps in the exurbs though.

Okay. "Breeders" is a gay term for straight people. You can borrow gay language. People reading it will think you are gay.

Not clear what old apps are. Dating apps? I have never used a dating app. This is actually confusing since the same apps are inside and outside city limits. Some other meaning of "apps" I'm not getting?

Ironically, i need to first move to a city to find a wife. Only then can i move to a suburb to spawn and become a normie. That's the American cycle of life.

I don't agree with the "just find a wife bro" that you're responding to, but this isn't true either. You can in fact find a nice girl (or boy) whether you live in the city center, in the suburbs, or in BFE nowhere. People do it all the time.

(If you don't mind her weighing 250lbs)

Women in cities do tend to have better physiques than elsewhere (same with the men, of course). There's also a level of achievement in cities: you have to put up with the In This House We Believe crowd a lot more, but, absolutely and proportionately, you find more people who are deeply ambitious, agentic, and capable of making an important mark on the world. The culture of the suburbs is more just finding the joy in the day-to-day, which has its own value, but some people want something different.

Then get married and become a normie.

You say this as if it is a choice.

People would probably respond better to this sort of pro-suburban stuff if it was ever written as a paean to the sublime joys of seeing your children and caring for them and making that sacrifice, instead of longhouse hectoring because "you just have to, ok?! And if you don't, I'll tell the HOA!" Urbanists and suburbanists appear to be in some kind of competition to see who can me more off-putting to onlookers.

Those joys are unfortunately not very describable.

I have plenty of friends who do a pretty good job of it. Just got to overcome the instinctive negativity bias the internet gives people.

When i go back there now as an adult, it seems creepy. An adult single male just doesnt fit in there at all. Everything is oriented around child rearing- for young children. Almost nothing is open at night. There's hardly anything in the way of aets, music, or culture. The social life all revolves around "the parents of my chikd's friends." Its just not a place someone like me can live.

Depends on what you value. Arts, music, and culture can all be readily found on the internet. If you want to go experience it in person, it's typically a 20-30 minute drive away from the suburb. You can easily manage that a night or two a week.

I accept your critique as stifling a teenager, though I don't think that's a bad thing. What exactly is the problem as an adult male?

Arts, music, and culture can all be readily found on the internet

You will live in the suburb, you will consume essential human experiences via a screen, you will be happy

lol, lmao even

I'd say its a vibe more than anything specific, which makes it hard to put into words. Almost everyone i meet there is married , has kids, and moved there intentionally to raise their kids. They live in a world of Disney movies and Youtube Kids. Talking about sex, drugs, or anything "weird" is verboten.

And yeah, there's the internet... but I feel like the internet is getting worse every year. And driving 30 minutes for real life culture is highly optimistic. I don't just want to stare at some paintings, i want to be part of a community that looks at paintings, do you feel me?

They live in a world of Disney movies and Youtube Kids. Talking about sex, drugs, or anything "weird" is verboten.

Why this is a problem?

thinking bit more, my first reply above was too flippant.

More charitable version: vibe of no sex and drugs is exactly the main feature. And frankly: when I was kid, there was some amount of sex and drugs^1 and rock'n'roll behind the curtains. Anti-signalling is there to establish safe limits for teenagers to rebel against, to keep it at manageable levels, because is is frickin bad sign to have that stuff overtly around when you are raising kids.

I view that there is a purpose for having different urban environments for different stages of life. Single adults are more than welcome to leave suburbia, try adult life in college towns or artsy parts of big cities or spend few years as vagabonds (and ultimately see it for its emptiness in comparison to simple joys of love, marriage and family, and see the benefits of suburban environ).

^1 mostly pot and alcohol

And yeah, there's the internet... but I feel like the internet is getting worse every year. And driving 30 minutes for real life culture is highly optimistic. I don't just want to stare at some paintings, i want to be part of a community that looks at paintings, do you feel me?

Move to Europe.

And driving 30 minutes for real life culture is highly optimistic. I don't just want to stare at some paintings, i want to be part of a community that looks at paintings, do you feel me?

What's interesting is that most highly-cultured tier-1-city people live around 30 minutes by public transit from their local art museum, symphony orchestra, etc., but that doesn't stop them. I suspect it's partly a question of driving having a higher activation energy and commitment than public transit, and partly that, realistically, your suburb's city is unlikely to actually have good enough culture to sustain a feeling of culturedness.

Other public transit pros:

Generally the density of places with it means I can add a second or third destination after the primary museum, gallery, glory hole, restaurant on a whim

If your social sphere lives in the same area, it's much easier to meet up with people while doing any of this

You can read or do other stuff while you travel, no attention required

I can get drunk or high at the destination without coordinating a DD

I live in a suburb right now and it's a 50 minute drive to the nearest proper city, where I can spend another 15 minutes looking for parking.

Looking at pics on the Internet is so far away from what any humans before the rise of the otaku would have recognized as "participating in culture" that I'm not even sure what you mean.

What exactly is the problem as an adult male?

OP's point is that there's no benefit to living in the suburbs as a single adult male and nothing to do. Is your rebuttal "that's not true, you can drive half an hour or more to a place with something to do, what's the problem"?

it's a 50 minute drive to the nearest proper city

This is an exurb. You live in the countryside. You might as well own a farm.

My friend, I live in a bedroom community of nearly a hundred thousand people. This is the reality of life in the bay area.

My apologies. I forget that a disproportionate share of this community hails from the most topographically inefficient metropolitan area in the country.

yeah? where do you live, where it's a 30 minute drive to the opera house, live theater, and art gallery, or any other sort of cultural scene, but you can still buy a large suburban home for cheap? are you a time traveler from the 1950s?

Not cheap, but my suburb of Seattle is a quicker drive to the theaters and museums and such than much of Seattle proper.

It’s about a 15 minute drive at this late hour, with no traffic.

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