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computer parts posted:And then you get to the temperature Inversions and literally die from smog. Please don't raise little children here. They will get really bad allergies and asthma 
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StandardVC10 posted:Yeah, the impression I got of the area was a series of housing tracts and large chain stores on loop for many miles, but since I was mostly just passing through, I felt like I had a one-sided perspective. I guess it's cheaper to live in than lots of other places, but I figure you lose at least a portion of that advantage once you factor in commute time and costs. The parts of the city of Riverside proper is actually not that bad and has a lot of older housing and things like trees. So does Redlands (which is smaller). Basically the whole rest of the IE that isn't in the mountains is kind of like that though.
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Aug 17, 2013 04:29
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cbservo posted:It mystifies me that Riverside is one of the fastest growing counties in CA.(including me and my wife, who are moving from OC to Corona) I'm not sure what's so mystifying, the only motivation for people moving out here is housing prices. I sold our lovely 50s tract home in Orange County and bought a lovely 00s tract home 3 times as large for the same price. And I'm in one of the nicer area of the IE.
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Aug 17, 2013 04:46
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etalian posted:Sort of the California version of Mordor? Mordor is clearly Death Valley. It has Death in the name. (And Humbolt is Rivendell)
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Aug 17, 2013 05:23
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Miss-Bomarc posted:I have had relatives call me and ask if I was in any danger from the wildfires burning outside Los Angeles. "No grandmom, those are actually four hundred fifty miles away." People on the east coast just don't understand how BIG some western states are. I grew in San Diego, my high school class won some sort of debate contest so we went to Sacramento for the State championship. It was 10 hours by bus, one-way. To get to my state capital. I think half the population of the US lives less than 10 hours by road to the nation's capital, never mind their state's. Same with people from Europe - drive through Nevada or Utah with them, and they react like you just flew them to another planet. Look at all this empty space! And it goes on forever! Holy poo poo! Of course, the reverse happens with regards to time instead of space. Things built before WWII are regarded as historical landmarks in Los Angeles, then you visit the east coast and travel through subway tunnels and train stations more than a century old, and go to Europe and watch the natives be utterly unimpressed that there's an 1100 year old castle on that hill over there, and then go to the Middle East where you can walk the same cobblestoned streets that Jesus probably was marched to his death along and shop in a marketplace that has been in that location, off and on, for 3500 years.
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Aug 17, 2013 06:00
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StandardVC10 posted:No, go ahead. I've been out there only a few times and around here (Orange County) people talk about that part of the world like it's Satan's own rear end in a top hat. On the one hand I've never come across anything to disprove that on the other hand I feel like I don't actually know what is going on there and what the issues are. I'm coming on 2 years in the Inland Empire after living all my life in North Orange County (which is actually quite different from South Orange County that most people think of) so I don't pretend to have all the answers but if I get some time I might write some stuff up about things I find interesting or unique about the area. I will repost this from the suburbia thread in GBS about my wonderful city though: I live in Eastvale, CA, a new city founded in 2010 on the land of old dairy farmers who cashed out during the boom. Our population went from 5,000 in 2000 to 50,000 in 2010. It's the very definition of a suburban wasteland. http://goo.gl/maps/0XWSF  We've got an Applebees and a Target, but no library or post office. Our city hall is located in the shopping center between a Gamestop and Nestle Toll House cookie store. The houses are big (mine is 4200sq. ft.) and the schools are nice, but it's so very much suburbia. Nothing feels right, I can't quite put my finger on it. The problem is that it's very difficult to afford a house in Orange County or LA where most people out here work. 80% of our residents commute to OC or LA, my commute into Irvine is 45 miles each way. To move closer to work would mean spending 3x as much for a house 1/2 the size. Luckily there is a option for me to take the train but even then the commute is still 90 minutes. I love working on my lawn though and wouldn't trade it for anything.
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Aug 17, 2013 06:06
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Let me guess, every street is curved to keep them teen-agers from driving their hot rods fast.
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Aug 17, 2013 06:12
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Aren't a bunch of cities in Orange County named for Klansmen?
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Aug 17, 2013 06:12
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If the I.E. is Mordor, then the city of San Bernardino itself is Mount loving Doom! I live in Victorville, part of the High Desert, which is part of the Inland Empire at least according to Craigslist. The High Desert has a lot of the same problems like the I.E., only with a Republican Christian twist. The only thing separating us from I.E. proper is the Cajon Pass, a little sliver of the I-15 that goes through the San Andreas Fault. Anyway, just like the I.E., this place is a loving wastelend. It's basically Orange County without anything fun. But hey, at least we have a beautiful sunset ("Gilded Cage" and such).
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Aug 17, 2013 06:13
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On the bright side, you're among the
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Aug 17, 2013 06:20
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Forceholy posted:If the I.E. is Mordor, then the city of San Bernardino itself is Mount loving Doom! It might be orange county without anything fun, more poor people, no jobs (besides the prison!), and 3x the meth per capita.
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Aug 17, 2013 06:45
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Eegah posted:Let me guess, every street is curved to keep them teen-agers from driving their hot rods fast. DORIFUTO!
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Aug 17, 2013 06:52
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Eegah posted:Let me guess, every street is curved to keep them teen-agers from driving their hot rods fast. Yes and curved roads allow for more cul-de-sacs houses which sell for more money  nm posted:Victorville is scary these days. I think it has more problems than San Bernardino or Ontario. This is a real cool article about living in Victorville http://exiledonline.com/dispatch-from-victorville-levine-starts-his-journey-into-the-heart-of-americas-foreclosure-nightmare/ Victorville was the hardest hit in all of Southern California by the housing boom. More than half of the residents commute 2 hours each way to work in LA or OC. quote:Victorville is the embodiment of the housing bubble. In 2007, its population grew by 9.5%, and nearly doubled in the past eight years. Now there are just over 100,000 people living here. The growth wasn’t related to anything tangible; no KIA auto-plant opened up. The Air Force base here, which employed thousands of civilians, closed down more than a decade ago. There were barely enough jobs to support the pre-boom population. But the people didn’t move here for the jobs. Victorville was a commuter development and proud of it. According to official city data, most of the adults here commute at least two hours each way—some make the 100-mile trip out to Los Angeles, others trek 200 miles east all the way out to Las Vegas. There's a whole series about this guy who rented a home in Victorville for a year or two. http://exiledonline.com/tag/victorville/ FCKGW fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 17, 2013 07:03
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FCKGW posted:Yes and curved roads allow for more cul-de-sacs houses which sell for more money Is this true, and does it imply what I think it does about the people who would pay more for such a house? My mental image is of someone cradling a gun with their back to a wall...always keep your back to the wall and face the door.
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Aug 17, 2013 07:06
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nm posted:Victorville is scary these days. I think it has more problems than San Bernardino or Ontario. Pretty much. I technically live in Hesperia, only 5 minutes away from Victorville city limits. It's depressing going through Old Town and seeing everything boarded up with the only Business thriving in the area is a loving AMPM gas station. The high-speed rail is going to be a loving trainwreck(no pun intended). Here's a Vice article.
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Aug 17, 2013 07:12
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VideoTapir posted:Is this true, and does it imply what I think it does about the people who would pay more for such a house? Yes it's true, but it's not as sinister as you think. Homes on the ends of cul-de-sacs are worth more usually because 1) They have bigger backyards generally 2)Less traffic so it's quieter and "the kids can play outside" I guess there's probably some weirdos out here but they're all living in Menifee building so many "Doomsday Shelters" the city had to ban them until they could get a permitting scheme in place.
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Aug 17, 2013 07:15
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All this talk about the presidio and no one has yet mentioned we need to keep to open to build starfleet academy? Dub tee eff nerds?
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Aug 17, 2013 16:22
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FCKGW posted:I'm coming on 2 years in the Inland Empire after living all my life in North Orange County (which is actually quite different from South Orange County that most people think of) so I don't pretend to have all the answers but if I get some time I might write some stuff up about things I find interesting or unique about the area. Eastvale is the weirdest thing. I still call it Mira Loma. I go to the chiropractor next to the Five Guys there. When I drive on the 15 though there all I keep saying is "this used to be miles of cow poo poo" Mind if I ask what you paid so I can cut myself? My 2000 sq footer in riverside was 400k in 2004.
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Aug 17, 2013 17:32
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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There's a whole lot of research and thought that's gone into urban planning and development and the general consensus these days are that cul-de-sac sprawl is extremely bad. The deal is, it slows down traffic. That was thought to be a great idea, because it makes for safer streets, and ensures that the only people driving down your street are the ones who actually live there or are coming to visit; there's zero through-traffic (compared to a grid layout). However; -It's less land-efficient than a grid layout -It's far more expensive to deliver infrastructure and services, including sewer, garbage pickup, power distribution, and especially fresh water -It's virtually impossible to run public transport into these developments, because ridership per block is too low (so you get 1 bus per half hour at best) and the layout slows down bus routes so much that nobody is willing to tolerate them (it takes an hour to get anywhere because has to navigate a ridiculously circuitious route) -Nobody walks anywhere, because there's nowhere to walk to besides your neighbor's house, and it takes too long just to walk to the "exit" of your development to find a main road -Businesses, even small ones like corner stores, cannot thrive because they get no through-traffic and the density of neighborhoods is too low to support them on their own. Compared to a grid layout, twisty cul-de-sac sprawl is a dead zone for business services. This only serves to force more people into their cars for more trips -It takes longer to deliver emergency services. Fire trucks and ambulances take longer to get to a home where an emergency is happening, compared to grid-layout development Basically these developments are horrible for everything except ensuring people who really really want a big back yard with a pool, a sidewalk with absolutely no strangers walking down it, and a perfectly uniform neighborhood with no character or variation to it at all, get what they want. It's amazing to me that this has been well understood for at least 25 years now by urban planners, and yet there are still communities eagerly slapping huge mazes of cul-de-sacs onto hundred-acre tracts of ex-urban semi-desert. Everyone involved in planning and developing those places are in it for the quick buck with no concern whatsoever for the sustainability of the city or its infrastructure.
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Aug 17, 2013 17:34
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Kenning posted:The landscape around Riverside is one of the most depressing places I can think of. The first time I drove through there some scrapyard had caught fire and there was a plume of inky black tire smoke floating up near the freeway. It didn't seem out of place in the slightest. I lived in Corona in the late 70's as a pupgoon and there were stage 5 smog alerts and you weren't allowed to go to school since that required going outside and then you'd die. You couldn't see 1/4 mile at times and your clothes would smell like exhaust if you did decide to go outside. It's light years better now.
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Aug 17, 2013 18:05
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Leperflesh posted:
I should add that the way they force businesses to congregate in shopping centers far from the homes also seems to ensure that mom and pop stores are as rare as unicorns. I dare you to find 3 stores that are not a chain within 5 miles of some of these homes.
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Aug 17, 2013 19:23
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about cul-de-sac sprawl
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California fun fact for the day: the gold find at Sutter's Mill was first documented by Mormons who were recently released from Army service during the Mexican-American war. They tried to convince Brigham Yound to move out of Utah in favor of settling near the gold fields, but the freedom of running what amounted to his own kingdom was too much for Young to resist.
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Aug 17, 2013 19:25
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Aeka 2.0 posted:Eastvale is the weirdest thing. I still call it Mira Loma. I go to the chiropractor next to the Five Guys there. When I drive on the 15 though there all I keep saying is "this used to be miles of cow poo poo" Mind if I ask what you paid so I can cut myself? My 2000 sq footer in riverside was 400k in 2004. You lived in Sky Country, correct? I paid $400k for a 4200 sq. ft. 5 bed 4 bath home in Dec. 2011. It was bank owned and home was foreclosed in 2008 for $805k. Of course a house that big brings $600 electric bills too  Eastvale actually had a "turf war" with Mira Loma (which incorporated as Jurupa Valley now) over who would get the shopping centers along the freeway when they incorporated. Mira Loma wanted the centers on both sides of the freeway, Eastvale wanted the same. They ended up splitting them up but it resulted in weird boundary issues like 10% of Eastvale's residents (myself included) have a different zip code and parks department from the rest of the city. Fun Fact: Eastvale has one of the highest household incomes in the area at around $106k, beating many OC cities like Laguna Beach and Newport Beach. Leperflesh posted:Basically these developments are horrible for everything except ensuring people who really really want a big back yard with a pool, a sidewalk with absolutely no strangers walking down it, and a perfectly uniform neighborhood with no character or variation to it at all, get what they want. It kinda makes sense when you realize that these are mainly bedroom communities though. I mean, most people want the big back yard with the pool to relax on the weekends, they want a quiet street so they can sleep in. They don't want to really go out and socialize with their neighbors because it's usually in the late evening when they get home anyways. The only shopping you do is the trip to Costco, Target and Trader Joes on the weekend anyways, and you can do all that shopping in a single location which many people prefer. I like my house, I like my lawn, I like my pool. There's a bunch of parks around here I can take my kids to. The schools are great. I do talk to my neighbors but I think I'm the exception. I do wish the city had more culture but there's trade offs for everything.
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Aug 17, 2013 21:18
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Leperflesh posted:Everyone involved in planning and developing those places are in it for the quick buck with no concern whatsoever for the sustainability of the city or its infrastructure. I'm shocked, shocked to hear that the real estate industry has no concern for sustainability, long term planning, or the welfare of the people it serves!
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Aug 17, 2013 21:23
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FCKGW posted:It kinda makes sense when you realize that these are mainly bedroom communities though. I mean, most people want the big back yard with the pool to relax on the weekends, they want a quiet street so they can sleep in. They don't want to really go out and socialize with their neighbors because it's usually in the late evening when they get home anyways. The only shopping you do is the trip to Costco, Target and Trader Joes on the weekend anyways, and you can do all that shopping in a single location which many people prefer. And people wonder why there is no sense of community anymore. Wake up in your 4k sq foot bubble at 5am, drive 2 hours to work, leave work at 5pm, drive 2 hours home, make dinner for the kids, watch some netflix and go to bed. Ahhh yeah baby, that is the life! The American Dream! Captain Frigate posted:I'm shocked, shocked to hear that the real estate industry has no concern for sustainability, long term planning, or the welfare of the people it serves! Its almost as if decades of comically generous corporate/wealthy tax rates and loopholes have forced states, and by extension counties, to desperately seek other streams of revenue to survive! cheese fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 17, 2013 21:46
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FCKGW posted:You lived in Sky Country, correct? I paid $400k for a 4200 sq. ft. 5 bed 4 bath home in Dec. 2011. It was bank owned and home was foreclosed in 2008 for $805k. It's also the only type of lifestyle that many people have ever known for generations now. The only thing that seems to be breaking up suburban living among some Americans (notably young and/or poor people) is that gas is becoming expensive as all hell. That's not a problem for richer suburbs like Eastvale, though, on top of the fact that it's a lot easier to raise kids in that kind of environment.
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Aug 17, 2013 21:50
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ProperGanderPusher posted:It's also the only type of lifestyle that many people have ever known for generations now. The only thing that seems to be breaking up suburban living among some Americans (notably young and/or poor people) is that gas is becoming expensive as all hell. That's not a problem for richer suburbs like Eastvale, though, on top of the fact that it's a lot easier to raise kids in that kind of environment.
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Aug 17, 2013 21:54
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Captain Frigate posted:I'm shocked, shocked to hear that the real estate industry has no concern for sustainability, long term planning, or the welfare of the people it serves! The National Association of Realtorstm and the 1.2 motherfucking million real estate agents it represents is without a doubt one of the most dangerous lobbying groups in the US, and without looking it up I'd be willing to bet they caused the financial crisis. Also I think the point of curvilinear streets is to protect residents from the sight of hundreds of identical houses, which would all be visible if the streets were straight. And you'd feel like you lived in a piece of fractal art. For the concept done well, see Riverside, IL. It's not expensive, developers just have to take a break from making GBS threads and pissing nonstop on every fundamental of community development they can isolate and wreck.
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Aug 18, 2013 00:09
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agarjogger posted:The National Association of Realtorstm and the 1.2 motherfucking million real estate agents it represents is without a doubt one of the most dangerous lobbying groups in the US, and without looking it up I'd be willing to bet they caused the financial crisis. Also I think the point of curvilinear streets is to protect residents from the sight of hundreds of identical houses, which would all be visible if the streets were straight. And you'd feel like you lived in a piece of fractal art. For the concept done well, see Riverside, IL. It's not expensive, developers just have to take a break from making GBS threads and pissing nonstop on every fundamental of community development they can isolate and wreck. Suburban development in places like the midwest is fundamentally different than in more expensive areas of CA. People in the midwest expect big lots, with houses set far back and no one will accept living in a house where you can lean out of your second story window and touch the wall of the other house. Land is also, in general at least, much cheaper. I agree that those streets look much nicer to live on - they have actual trees and stuff! Correct me if I'm wrong but that area looks like it has been developed/lived in for much longer, while places like IE are super new.
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Aug 18, 2013 01:46
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Are you guys all Quiverfull or something? What the hell are you going to do with a 4000 square foot house? Or is that the size of your lot?
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Aug 18, 2013 01:57
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Captain Frigate posted:I'm shocked, shocked to hear that the real estate industry has no concern for sustainability, long term planning, or the welfare of the people it serves! A major portion of the blame goes to city planners, too, though. They zone the land and approve the developments and the subdivisions and are effectively on the hook for providing services. Zoning for dollars is why you get cities that consist of nothing but tract suburbs and car dealerships: the housing because the developer makes up-front promises and maybe pays for a road or something, and then the auto dealerships because the city is desperate for revenue and the taxes they can get from car dealerships beats most other kinds of businesses. But it's not sustainable. Bedroom communities have residents that do a lot of their spending out of town. Also all the cities along that particular traffic corridor are all expanding at once, so the freeway gets too congested, commute times rise, and if the cities are unsuccessful in lobbying the state or national government to widen the freeways, property values fall. Widening roads only serves to exacerbate the problem, of course. The more you widen the freeways, the farther out people move, worsening the sprawl. I mean, I don't want to come off as a hypocrite. I bought a house in a semi-suburban development. But my house is about 1200 square feet, and my development is three parallel streets (one does have a couple cul-de-sacs on it) within walking distance of my city's downtown plaza, where we have two farmers' markets a week, one on Thursday nights with live music and thousands of people come out and hang out and eat good food and socialize and stuff. Like, people walk down my street during the day, going to the school or the market or the skate park. There are corner stores. There's an ethnic grocery I can walk to in 15 minutes. Good development is multi-use. You can still have quiet streets if you interleaf them with business streets, use sensible traffic control to keep speeds down (my street has traffic humps and a traffic light at each end), and build houses with double-paned windows and good insulation (which you should be doing anyway). As nice as it'd be to own a 4000 square foot house - and if I could afford one, I'd probably consider it - the tradeoff is unsustainable development that is hugely wasteful of limited resources (water, electricity generation, sewage treatment, and land), creates "communities" full of people with no coherency or sense of a shared stake in their town, and gradually decay over a few decades into run-down shabby shitholes. My best guess is that a lot of that Inland Empire development is going to be really sad in 50 years. Bankrupt cities, poor-quality construction falling apart, water shortages and restrictions leaving everyone with dead lawns and empty pools and peeling paint and with absolutely no local centers of employment, everyone who can afford to will flee for greener pastures leaving behind the crap.
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Aug 18, 2013 02:11
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Leperflesh posted:(my street has traffic humps AKA totally awesome jump ramps.
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Aug 18, 2013 02:16
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Leperflesh posted:Nobody's building high-density housing in Presidio National Park. Speaking of which there was a dirtbag vfx/animation studio that went under that exploited that zoning loophole claiming they didn't have to pay overtime rules since the area fell under federal labor law and not california. It's a load of crap but the employees fell for it anyways and toiled away unpaid for a bunch of stuff. Meanwhile the technicians and artists at ILM and Lucasarts a few buildings over on the Presidio got full benefit packages and OT.
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Aug 18, 2013 02:46
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Zeitgueist posted:The Getty is a pretty awesome museum(s) as well. I went there for the first time last week, after living in LA for 8 years I'm not sure why I didn't go earlier*, it's an awesome facility. I'm taking a day off next week to bring my camera gear and shoot all the wings all day, what an awesome museum. *- The reality is I avoid that whole area of Sunset and Sepulveda/405 like the plaque due to horrible traffic..
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Aug 18, 2013 02:52
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Leperflesh posted:My best guess is that a lot of that Inland Empire development is going to be really sad in 50 years. Bankrupt cities, poor-quality construction falling apart, water shortages and restrictions leaving everyone with dead lawns and empty pools and peeling paint and with absolutely no local centers of employment, everyone who can afford to will flee for greener pastures leaving behind the crap. We're seeing this already. San Bernardino had a lot of low end suburban style development in the 60s and 70s and is really reaping the results.
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Aug 18, 2013 06:01
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So I went to downtown Salt Lake City recently (I live in one of it's conservative suburbs), and it's really like a little piece of California in Utah. Very artsy, urban, and somehow more genuine than the rest of this state. Even the LDS bit of SLC seems more true to life than the overwhelmingly LDS population in the rest of Utah. Just wanted to say that. As for California itself, I think that'd be one of my first choices to be if I didn't live in Utah.
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Aug 18, 2013 06:56
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Gygaxian posted:So I went to downtown Salt Lake City recently (I live in one of it's conservative suburbs), and it's really like a little piece of California in Utah. Very artsy, urban, and somehow more genuine than the rest of this state. Even the LDS bit of SLC seems more true to life than the overwhelmingly LDS population in the rest of Utah. Just wanted to say that. Yeah SLC is actually a bit of a oddity for Utah isn't it, especially since light rail and transit has really been pushed recently. Weirdly enough, the SLC metro area is actually developing a fairly decent public transportation system. I have no idea how it actually got done considering the politics of the state.
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Aug 18, 2013 07:34
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Ardennes posted:I have no idea how it actually got done considering the politics of the state.
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Aug 18, 2013 07:58
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FCKGW posted:
Sacramento is big enough to have lots of independent stuff still but...all this and it's easy to rip on it when you are a millenial, free trade coffee sipping hipster/trustafarian in skinny jeans, who owns a fixie and lives in the Mission or now Oakland uptown (since SF is even too expensive for the trusty's) in a 450 sq ft apt with no parking - but eventually life breaks you and by the time you are in your 40's you say gently caress it and sell your soul for a couple of covered loving parking spots and a patch of overwatered grass to stare at. The only thing that keeps me sane is the fact that I am back in the bay area every week for work a couple days.
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Aug 18, 2013 17:16
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Keyser S0ze posted:Sacramento is big enough to have lots of independent stuff still but...all this and it's easy to rip on it when you are a millenial, free trade coffee sipping hipster/trustafarian in skinny jeans, who owns a fixie and lives in the Mission or now Oakland uptown (since SF is even too expensive for the trusty's) in a 450 sq ft apt with no parking - but eventually life breaks you and by the time you are in your 40's you say gently caress it and sell your soul for a couple of covered loving parking spots and a patch of overwatered grass to stare at. Sacramento is not as bad as the bay area or so cal. A nice house in midtown is actually relatively affordable as far as California's pay->cost of living ratio goes. You can get your 3 bedroom and 1.5 baths with a yard for less than you might think, all while living in a cool area with old trees, freeway access and a smattering of independent stores.
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Aug 18, 2013 18:05
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