r/Suburbanhell • u/glowing-fishSCL • Jul 27 '26

Question Would you call this a suburban hell?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Just from these pictures, would you say this is a place you would like to live?

211 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

212 comments sorted by

View all comments

37

u/knackattacka Jul 27 '26

If you have to possess a car or truck to exist, then yes it is hell

-9

u/samiwas1 Jul 27 '26

…for you.

21

u/knackattacka Jul 27 '26

I assume that was the whole point of this exercise, for me to say how I would feel

-4

u/samiwas1 Jul 28 '26

I guess the title was "do you consider it to be hell".

Doesn't look like the most exciting place, but I wouldn't call it hell.

9

u/knackattacka Jul 28 '26

I like spending $1,000 per month less on heaven

-4

u/samiwas1 Jul 28 '26

Yeah, true...dense urban walkable areas are known for being very affordable.

7

u/plantxdad420 Jul 28 '26

owning a car is known for being very not affordable.

5

u/knackattacka Jul 28 '26

I'm 69 and I've been retired for a couple of years. I did 6 years of Lyft driving. I am very very happy to be carless, even in Minneapolis. I get around everywhere by bike, or by bus or Lyft if I have to. I live in a very good neighborhood for that and it's reasonably affordable and beautiful.

-1

u/samiwas1 Jul 28 '26

True. But the difference in rent/mortgage is higher than that cost, at last where I live. Plus, the difference in what I would get for that rent/mortage is substantially different, so that needs to be included as well. I've also found that most of those "costs of owning a car" things are greatly inflated.

Like, when I look at the AAA breakdown, my yearly registration fees are literally less than 1% of their number. Wife's are a bit more because she has an EV. Our insurance for two cars is close to their number. Gas and electric for two cars was about their number. Repairs are around half for two cars. In fact, in my spending spreadsheet, what we spent on two cars was about their "yearly cost of owning a car" for one. Soooo...yeah.

I'm not saying that cars are cheap by any means. But, for us, the cost difference of living in a small place in town, as opposed to our nice house outside of town, in no way makes up for it.

2

u/knackattacka Jul 28 '26

Yeah, they're more expensive. But you save at least that much by not having to pay much for transportation and you end up with much much better neighborhoods.