Roody

The whole point has flown right over your head. You confuse your own experiences with what's typical or practical for most other people.

You also suffer from the delusion that sprawl is a victimless crime. It's not. We all pay a high price to provide a few people with the opportunity to live in splendid isolation.

The paved streets and parking lots cause pollution of our waterways, while the superfluous car driving pollutes the air. We all pay higher monthly bills to subsidize the cost of extending utilities into the countryside. Sprawl causes us to lose local farmland and wilderness areas. And all this is in addition to the problems noted in the flyer.

You also spent a lot of verbiage suggesting that all flyers are a waste because nobody pays attention to them. By your logic, all attempts to change people's minds through the written word are a waste of time.

This is absurd. I remind you of people who wrote flyers that changed the history of the world, such as Thomas Paine and Frederick Douglass. These men wrote flyers that helped establish the freedom we now use to write our own flyers and post on internet forums. Who can predict which flyer will be the next one to change the course of events?

Robert Foster

The point is you can decide to ride 7 miles or decide to take a bus or decide to drive. But what earthy good does it do to complain that you are 7 miles away from a job, but live where you want? Would you sit down and wring your hands because you moved to be close to work but the store is now 8 miles away? Or you moved to be close to the store and now your relatives are 10 miles away? I simply can’t understand people who move into a suburban area and then complain because it isn’t like the urban area they left in the first place. Who put a gun to their head to get them to move? When did they get chained to the suburbs that keep them from moving back?
Just so you know it is smaller communities like mine where you can buy property and bring in one of those Pee-Wee homes you talk about. Would you be willing to be car free and travel 10 miles to the store if you could get that kind of zoning?

cycleobsidian

Not to mention that, if flyers are such a waste of time, why do I get so many? They must be working for somebody or companies would look at their bottom line and decide that they are not cost effective to design, print, and distribute.

Also Mobius, on a limited budget, has hung his flyers in areas that he feels will get the most bang for his buck. He may also have considered that the people frequenting those libraries may also be the clientele that may want to pause and consider what he has to say in his flyer.

Robert Foster

They didn't do them as a class project did they? And they did more than post flyers they took action to separate themselves from the conditions they were writing about. If you move to the mountain top to get away from people it seems shallow to complain the animals that live there make too much noise. A better solution is to get your feet moving back to where you can live like you choose. Nothing in our culture says the OP has to stay there. And yes I get a mail box full of flyers and on the way to the living room the flyers go right to the recycle box.
I will ask you this. If someone were to go to a central city library and hang flyers decrying Heat Islands and suggest they tear down the offending concrete, glass and steal buildings and destroy the city streets would you pay attention? I doubt it. But I agree they have to right to post them even as a class project. ( know you might come up with excuses of how we can learn to live with heat islands and someday traffic might get better in town.) But I don’t think such flyers will cause a mass exodus by urban advocates do you? The issue simply is not that there are suburbs. The issue is why there are suburbs. Till the Op learns the difference they will have no effect on the intended target suburbanites. Because they already knew everything the flyers point out just as you know you live in a heat island that can be seen from space and measured.
But today we have an advantage the founding fathers didn’t have. We can get our mail electronically and with spam software and never have to see flyers we aren’t interested in seeing.
As far as personal experiences I maybe shouldn’t have pointed out my attempt in to overcome transportation difficulties. But that is the difference in how I feel about dealing with a problem.

Smallwheels

Your point is a good one. What you must realize is that not all jobs are close to towns. Not all housing is affordable to everybody in the locations closer to jobs. If it is possible for someone to move closer to work and have good affordable housing then they should make the move.

None of the jobs I'm doing for other people are permanent careers. They are jobs I do for pay. This will continue until I can get one of my awesome business schemes to work. It isn't worth my effort to move closer to any of these jobs. Other people might feel the same way or not.

In this bad economy, people with professions that work for large companies might not feel secure enough to spend the money to make such a move.

Robert Foster

Look all I am saying is life is not always easy and we always have to make decisions on where we live and where we work and they are hardly ever perfect. We can both complain and try to get everyone else to change how they live and why they live that way or we can adapt and make the best of it.

My point is people have good and valid reasons to live in a highly urban area. I would not question their right or decision making ability for deciding to live even in an urban blighted area, not saying all urban areas are blighted, if they wanted to or even if they had to. But I will say again it is obtuse to believe people that moved to a bedroom community didn’t go through the same mental process making the choice to move as the urban dweller did deciding not to move. Suburban developments didn’t just happen and then someone put drugs in the water to get people to leave the cities or rural areas. If you believe that you believe in crop circles and Big Foot.

Once someone makes the choice to live in a suburban area or even one of the bedroom communities described by the OP they did it to change something they didn’t like in their life. Unless you address the reasons for the move in the first place you are wasting your time because the reason still exists and nothing you hang in the library will change that fact.

The suburban dweller knew they would have to commute before they moved. That will not be breaking news. They decided it was worth it and over time businesses moved close to most of them so they have no need to move. The Urban dweller knew the benefits and draw backs of where they lived and decided to stay. Pointing out the reasons in a flyer that someone else moved out of the central city will not make the urban dweller change their thought process will it? Tell me, who is right? What is the better life style? Who is doing what is best for their family? Will a flyer clear up the reasoning?

Robert Foster

What you might not understand is that what many describe or promote as urban utopia I might feel is more like Bosque Redondo. Our perspectives are different because we view privacy and personal freedom differently. If we were to post a picture of a beautiful home or a perfect road to ride a bike on I bet neither of us would post the same kind of picture.

Roody

I never said anything against you living in the suburbs. I have said many times that I don't care where you live. I know you think the suburbs are God's country. But I don't understand why you refuse to consider things that would make the suburbs EVEN BETTER. You talk about personal freedom, but you are against easing zoning laws so that people have greater freedom to do what they want with their property. You're against making streets available to cylists and pedestrians, so that they will have the freedom to use their choice of transport without a greater risk of being killed. You have no problem with a suburban lifestyle that disproportionately pollutes the planet and flagrantly wstes resources. What you see as freedom in the suburbs, I see as security, convenience and comfort above all.

There is nothing inherently wrong with suburbs. They can be good places for certain people to live. But they can be improved, and they must be improved. Suburbanites (like everybody else) must learn to live with a smaller footprint. We are all part of the same world, and living in a gated suburb doesn't take away our responsibility to live like we mean it.

BTW, I said that if you ever mentioned heat islands again i would scream. I bet you heard it way out there in California.

Robert Foster

I couldn't help myself. I only used them to make a point. The other point is the tone of the flyer. As if people simply didn't realize what they were doing when they moved to or from where they are. Every place can be made better but no place can be without problems. If you live in a city that was 15 miles across and put the library dead in the middle some people will be more than 7 miles away. If the OP doesn't want to drive, and there isn't a bus they can ride a bike and get faster than 7 MPH or walk and take 2 hours. That is not any different than living in a bedroom community and being the very same distance from the library is it?

MobiusX

I already rode the bike to the library. The hard part about it is not the actual riding. It's the fact that once you escape the subdivision either by foot or bike, you are basically forced to walk on the white line since there aren't any sidewalks and once you reach the strip malls, they have signs that say people can't ride bikes, skate, etc... there, so what the hell are people with bikes supposed to do? Plus, the way these streets are designed, more like a Nascar racetrack, it makes it even more dangerous for people who use bikes to commute but I got lights on my bike, front and back, and I have stay on the white line as much as I can. It still causes people to move a little to the other lane in order to pass me. 57 cars were forced to do this simply because of 1 person riding a bike. That's a problem. A few of the drivers beep, but they are forced to share the same street I'm riding since there isn't any other place to go. This way of thinking that the streets are only for cars is ridiculous. What do they expect people with bikes to do? Ride them in circles in subdivisions? I don't consider riding a bike exercising or walking, but these people consider anything exercising. They can't comprehend why somebody would ride a bike instead of driving. If you think walking or riding a bike is exercising, then I guess so is walking in the house, walking to the kitchen to eat something is also exercising. I don't do it for a workout, I do it to commute. I don't know what kind of planning went on when they were designing suburban places like this, but they have to go back to the blackboard and rethink because their design has failed to include everyone, it has failed.

Robert Foster

Name the city or county and state or take a picture of the road and post it. How did you get there in the first place and what is keeping you there now?

MobiusX

the name of this place is called cartersville in a state of ga. there was only 1 time I saw a sign that was for pedestrians here, and that wasn't on the actual streets, it was at a gasoline station, it was a sign on a soda vending machine that was warning the people who park their cars to pump gas to be careful, that there are "pedestrians" nearby.... a person buying soda from a vending machine is now a pedestrian even though he arrived to this place by car that is only located a few inches away from him, but they don't have any signs on the streets for people who ride bikes.... And I'm still here because of financial reasons, but will eventually move back when the opportunity presents itself.

I just thought of something. The mailman here drives and simply sticks his hand out to put letters in the mailbox. Where I used to live, they parked the car and walked to each house. This sticking your hand out technique is called laziness, the mailman does this where I used to live and he might get a high five from a kid walking pass him. But he won't get the mail in the mailbox that way. I'm sure many mailman that if they moved and transferred their job to my neighborhood would be finding themselves in big trouble once they realize that they actually have to walk with their own feet, no machine or device for them to help them do this, no more being treated like a princess.

Robert Foster

It looks like you live in a historic community and using Google earth to look at your streets they hardly seem insurmountable. You have a shopping mall and a rather defined town area even for a place with less than 20,000 people. Yes I see the cul-de-sac tracts with the big houses and long driveways like Navigation Pointe, Waterstone Dr. SE and Captains Turn SE. But if Rowlands Spring Road SE is any example I have been on much worse roads in LA proper as well as Seattle.
Small towns are not for everyone but just wait till you try sharing the road in Atlanta, Dallas, LA, Boston or even Miami. And very few mailmen will be walking up to your door anymore. One of the last places I lived had even fewer people than your town and the mailman never left the post office, you had to go there. I take it you don’t give your mailman a Christmas gift?

MobiusX

what mall? there is no mall, the nearest mall is 30 minutes away in another town, and what that googlemaps fails to show is the very steep hills. It doesn't matter. I'm going to to continue to ride the bike and if someone has a problem with it, too bad. 57 cars had to move to the next lane to pass me, this time when I actually go far double that amount will have to move out of the way, over 100 cars will have to move to the next lane simply because 1 person is riding a bike, ridiculous this is.

BTW, this is where I'm really from, Hempstead, NY, search that.

Robert Foster

Sorry: Just that it looks like the main street shopping center is in Cartersville. Out on East Main just past the Parkway? I did a map my ride from the Cartersville Middle school through the Carterville Village shopping center to the Cartersville Crossing shopping center and then to the Cartersville plaza shopping center and it was a distance of 4.3 miles with an elevation gain of 164 feet? It doesn’t look Kansas flat but maybe not insurmountable?
But if you have traffic fears there I wonder how you will fair back in Hempstead? https://www.city-data.com/picfilesv/picv20330.php

Roody

Well, it si normal for drivers to have to go into the left lane to pass slower traffic, including bicycles. It's probably safer for the cydlist, in many cases, to ride far enough left that drivers have to go all the way into the left lane, rather than just sharing the lane with the cyclist. On a road with two or more narrow lanes going in the same direction, I most often ride in the center of the right lane, or even in the left half of the lane. Very few drivers get mad at me, but it does happen occasionally. Oh well--I get mad at them sometines too, so I figure we're even.

For cyclists, this is called "tking the lane." For motorists, it's called "sharing the road." With only a few exceptions, we are allowed to ride in the normal traffic lane--even when there is a painted bike lane.

I like an old slogan from the 1970s:

"We aren't blocking traffic--We ARE traffic:

Check with League of American Bicyclists for more info on cycling ih traffic.

Robert Foster

How about that we agree and even read bikeleague.

MobiusX

There is no problem riding a bike in Hempstead, actually it's design for it, but I prefer walking and taking the bus to commute so I wouldn't need a bike there. I can go to other towns nearby very easy with a bike in NY. What is good about it is that the towns are close to each other. But where I am now, it's like this place is designed to keep you trapped in 1 town. The people here actually sell shirts and pants with the name of Cartersville on it? It's like these people try to stay faithful to the towns they live in, like they are fanatics. In NY, you pass many towns throughout the day on the bus so you see more and experience more. But where I am now it's the same crap. This environment doesn't stimulate the brain. A rabbit crossing the street in a subdivision will capture the attention of many of those who happen to be watching outside their windows at that time or more unlikely, happen to actually be outside to witness this. Leaving the subdivision also is boring since you are just looking at trees and farms. What this place tells me is that it lacks community. And I know what these people do during holidays. I've seen it. They drive out of their subdivisions and meet each other at a parking lot on let's say, Main St. to look at the display of old fashion or any other kind of car, car exhibition. Wait a second, let's go back. They drive to a parking lot to look at cars.... Car fanatics these people are.

This waving hi to each other every time you see somebody walking outside in the subdivision is a desperate attempt of trying to make communication with another human since they are so used to being trapped inside their cars. Several times already, I've seen people I never met in my life wave hi to me from inside their cars while I am driving, and this ranges from children to teenagers to actual adults. That's how much they lack of the outside world here. Trying to communicate from inside a machine made out of metal, glass, and rubber is the equivalent of trying to talk to me using a cup and string, it simply does not work. Humans aren't meant to communicate with each other this way. Plus, it's pointless really to actually use your energy and time to wave hi at someone you absolutely you don't know, just to say hi? And then what? No real friendships or relationships will develop after this. What will you get out of this? It just means they are lonely and desperate. I can just imagine waving hi to random people at the bus station in Hempstead. That's not normal human behavior. It's either you have something important to say or something is seriously wrong with you. You must have a lot of free time to be doing that. Let's look at the facts here about where I am currently living. Bike is a better way to escape the subdivision but the chances of getting hit by a car has significantly increased since just like the subdivision, no sidewalks existence, but to make it worse, cars are now driving 50mph instead of 25mph while you are riding on a white line causing cars to move to the other lane and even increase their chances of getting into a car accident, simply because of 1 person? And once you finally arrive at your destination, like a strip mall, you better forget about it, bikes aren't allowed here and neither are skateboard or skates, so how the hell are people supposed to get there other than driving? Walking will take many hours. And the parks here do not allow you to ride bikes there... So the only other place you can ride your bike is at a mountain nearby, but I do not want to ride a bike for exercise. I want to commute. And even those who want to ride it outside their subdivision to exercise, they must now drive their cars with their bikes to this mountain which basically loses all purpose of riding a bike. That's like driving to the gym to use a walking machine while the actual walking could of easily been done while WALKING to the gym, LOL. And this is EXACTLY what these people do here. They have to make appointments to walk.

Whatever happened to the traditional way of when the kid simply walked to the park with their friends to play. Here, parents must make appointments with each other to meet at a location at a certain time, they drive their spoiled children, their children who are not independent and have to depend on their parents to drive them everywhere.

zeppinger

Don't forget St. Luther who changed the enitre Christina world with a SINGLE flyer placed in one strategic spot!

Roody

Sounds like you're a city mouse stuck in the country. But it also sounds like your mind is just as closed as the people you complain about. You might be sophisticated and all, but it's rather naive to not realize that social manners will be different when you move to a new location.

I have found that when I think I'm better than the people around me, my attitude will make ME unhappy, while having no effect whatsoever on the people around me.

"Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron bars a cage...."

MobiusX

better than everyone in what? It's just unnecessary, pointless, annoying, and fake. Once I went to a store and a random person said hi to me which, again, was very strange to me, so I continue doing what I was doing. I was looking at stuff and then 2 minutes later he popped behind me and said hi. It was getting creepy at this point so I just left the store and went to another that is close by. Only 5 minutes at that other store the same guy I see him walking in the store, I put my head down. This guy walks to me again and says hi. Then I just left the store. True story this is, I don't know what this guy's problem is. Stalking people like that can get him a beat down if it pisses off the wrong person. I'm not that kind of person. Then a few months later, maybe 3 months, I was at the library, and he saw me and said hi to me. You only find these kinds of stories in cartoons. I'm surrounded by Amish people except at least Amish don't have a high car dependency.

a good reason to avoid unnecessary, futile conversation is that I don't know these people and what they are capable of. A few years ago, maybe 2, I was walking the dog outside at night in the summer. At the end of the street, I see a lady driving a car and she sees me, when she does she drives it very fast and gets off her lane and goes to the other where I am and the dog is on the grass, she passes me, she was probably driving 50 while the speed limit is 25, she passes me and then turns right and goes to her house, which I couldn't see where it was. A few days later I find the car and it's parked at a house that also has a police car, so this lady lives with someone who is a cop. I didn't want to say anything just because of that fact, the cop would take her side and I have no evidence. What was her motive? I seriously do not know. But she was driving normal until she saw me, and I NEVER seen her, talked to her, heard about her. Maybe she was pissed off that I was walking outside? Pedestrians pisses her off? A guy who lives across the house, my brother's ball went on his front lawn and h got it, only a few minutes later the fat guy who lives there came out and said he's going to kill my brother for going on his property if he does it again. I have good reasons to ignore these people. Do they suffer from a split personality? I don't know what the deal is. But people here already broke my mailbox and threw eggs at the outside of the garage. So this "Oh what a wonder world this is" with a smile on the face every time they see people, is just fake to me. This state has a high murder rate, top ten.

Smallwheels

Sometimes people don't know about alternatives to their situations. A post or flyer about urban sprawl might give somebody some information that they hadn't ever considered.

When I bought my first computer I didn't know anything about operating systems. I just bought one from a Gateway store because it was a reputable company. Eventually I learned about Apple computers. I didn't immediately buy one, I just knew of their existence. As time went on I learned more about them. A few years later when my computer with Windows XP was just driving me crazy with all of the virus software and update crap, constant slowness, needing to restart it three times per day to clear the RAM, and other freezing problems, I looked to Apple. That was the company I heard about long before but didn't fully investigate.

I loved my 2008 Mac Book. I doubt I'll ever buy a Windows computer again, and if I do I'll change the operating system. Which brings me to Linux. It's the same story. I heard of Linux but didn't investigate it. Eventually I put it on my 2009 HP Vista machine. (I hate Vista more than almost everything.) I love Linux. Ubuntu was the first one I choose. Now I'll be switching to www.BodhiLinux.com soon just for fun.

The anti-sprawl flyer could just be the seed that will grow in peoples minds. It will lay dormant until somebody realizes that they could change something and have a better situation. I didn't know there were better operating systems than Windows. Now I know everything is better than Windows.

Still, the flyer needs to list solutions to the problems it lists. Otherwise it will be forgotten.

MobiusX

that's why it has the name of the book and it does provide solutions to some problems, the flyer does.

Robert Foster

The difference being you didn't hate computers you had an operating system preference. No one suggested that you get a type of computer after decrying computers in general. I don’t know about you but I detect that someone has an agenda that has little to do with car free and a lot to do with not liking where they live. Heaven forbid someone I didn’t know said hello to me and expected at least a sign of recognition. But then I come from a state where hi and have a good day are a state slogan. I might expect an expletive from a New Yorker, (if I believed in stereotypes)
I don’t pay a lot of attention to people that hate where they are in life and can only see blue skies and smooth sailing on a place they plan on moving to. Somehow it loses a little clout when you discover the issue isn’t streets, distance, services or a sense of community but rather a small slow moving small town verses a fast moving large urban area. It is in effect a flyer posted by an outsider, the desire to be the outsider already stated by the author of said flyer. What a New Yorker thinks of California means nothing to me as a Californian. Nor should my opinion of Florida keep someone from Miami up at night. As small as this community the OP is talking about is, less than 20k people and 25 miles square I am sure the OP opinion is well known. The legs on said flyer are getting shorter by the minute.
For 19 years I lived in a resort community in the mountains. We were a pretty tight knit group and in fact at times it could be uncomfortably close. Many of the families moved there to get away from the stress and busyness of the cities below. But our Children weren’t as impressed with our quiet peaceful little community. Once out of school about 90 percent ended up moving, “Off the Hill” as we used to say. Not one parent that stayed behind would change a thing about their quiet community because it was just what they wanted when they moved in the first place. Why then did I move you might ask? Snow and Ice. The people that stayed don’t mind snow and ice. Any flyer I might have posted before or after I left the community would not have impressed anyone that happened to like a slow moving, quiet, peaceful resort community. In fact they looked forward to the winter and the increased business from tourists because of the snow. It was a community very much like the one the OP is posting about but tourists come for the Indian mounds and historic past of the city not snow. In a small community people know who belongs and who doesn’t so they know how the OP feels and are very likely going to consider the OP a deserter, right or wrong

Smallwheels

I understand. I read your post about listing the book before. As somebody who studies marketing, implements marketing (in my private projects), and does copywriting, having the name of the book is no where near enough and it isn't clear enough. Listing problems doesn't automatically conjure solutions in the reader's mind. Guiding someone to a solution must be done in a simple straight forward step by step manner that is logical to the reader. Anything less will fail in getting results. That's the way it is, all the time.

You don't need to justify your school project to us. I hope you get a good grade in your sociology class. What you've written does point out parts of society that are hampered by their geographical idiosyncrasies. If it were an advanced marketing class you'd not be doing so well.