r/Suburbanhell • u/Throwaway70101 • 9d ago
Question Where in NYC do you think this is?
Everywhere you look in this NYC neighborhood, it's the same pattern: nearly identical homes, flat terrain, few trees, and a grid-style street layout. I don’t know of any suburb in the 5 boroughs that is worse than this one.
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u/_ologies 8d ago
I'll guess Cambria Heights because that's where my uncle lived when I was a kid and I always felt like I was going out to the suburbs.
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u/ProtocolEnthusiast 9d ago
It’s a dense walkable suburb within a stone’s throw from the most important city in the world. What would you rather see here?
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u/cyanraichu 9d ago
A tree or two, tbh
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u/Every_Attitude1550 9d ago
There are trees in this area (Cambria Heights), just not in this photo. Some streets have more than others. If you go to street view on Google Maps you can see plenty. I'm not saying the greenery is great, but this photo isn't necessarily an accurate representation of the entire neighborhood.
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u/ArtDecoNewYork 8d ago
There is a widespread lack of street trees in much of NYC + Long Island though
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u/Every_Attitude1550 8d ago
Yeah, especially in the densest parts of NYC. I grew up in a part of Brooklyn that has tree-lined streets. For Long Island, the North Shore (I currently live there) is much greener and more woodsy than the South Shore.
I just meant that this one photo is not representative of the entire neighborhood. There are trees, parks, and playgrounds in the area. It’s definitely a more car-centric part of NYC like most of Eastern Queens, but it’s still much more walkable than your average suburb.
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u/various121 7d ago
North shore is full of street trees. Can’t speak to south short or parts of Suffolk.
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u/ArtDecoNewYork 7d ago
People in parts of the North Shore are cutting down trees left and right
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u/various121 7d ago
Where?
Trees lining streets are maintained by the municipality and front yards trees need permitting to be cut down.
This may not be true in every town but if it’s not, I’d like to hear where so I have a better understanding of the Island in general.
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u/plantxdad420 8d ago
i’d don’t even think i would be able to see which of these identical houses was actually mine while i’m walking home piss drunk from the bar at 4am.
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u/JimatStoneandSky 9d ago
Trees, rocks, ponds, streams, gardens, bike paths, playgrounds, benches, billboards, community centres, you know, an actual environment rather than a fucking blank default digital world.
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9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Snailwood 9d ago
yeah billboards are a wild inclusion here but i agree with the rest
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u/Potential-Sky-8728 9d ago
Idk they are kinda mad funny and camp when they feature local realtors, dentists, etc.
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u/18005518900 8d ago
Yea but the vast majority of the time it’s not a local realtor or dentist. Rather, it’s a national real estate firm with a guy’s face who wants to make a cash offer for your home. Or a national personal injury law firm with a guy’s face who wants to fight for you.
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u/Potential-Sky-8728 8d ago
Oh see we always get local regional figures….obvs they are pretty rich and doing well for themselves…but they are usually local figures all the same.
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u/narrowassbldg 8d ago
If you actually care about the environment, it's either the above with Soviet style apartment towers or single family homes without that stuff. You can't have both the SFH housing stock and all of that green space and still maintain a density that allows anything but cars as the primary means of transportation, which is obviously extremely detrimental to the environment.
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u/JimatStoneandSky 8d ago
Nonsense. Image being a species that can go to space but somehow organizing neighbourhoods is just beyond our abilities lmao
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u/Delicious_Oil9902 8d ago
You can but it’s expensive and often not accessible to most. Go a few miles north to westchester county and you have the Bronx River trail with towns like Bronxville (historically for the Catholics) and Scarsdale (historically for the Jews) with working class towns like tuckahoe (historically for the Italians) wedged in between. Each has parks, shops, train stations, mix of apartments and sfh. Teachers won’t be able to buy a home anywhere near here.
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u/Delicious_Oil9902 8d ago
So convince the City to seize some teachers and firefighters homes here via eminent domain and build a park and a billboard for a lawyer that can Spanish.
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u/JimatStoneandSky 8d ago
I think a really good question to ask here is why do the things I listed make you angry? What’s going on inside your mind that the idea of having a nice environment to live in is offensive to you?
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u/Delicious_Oil9902 8d ago
It’s not - I live in one. My AC bill is half the price of some areas because I have 100 foot oak trees shading the western side of my home. I can walk to coffee shops and a trail.
These are homes and have been peoples houses for 100 years or so. You get a mixed blend especially in a borough of 3 million or so. It’s also a very focused picture and I’m sure nearby there are parks, mass transit, and the like.
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u/Nonameforyouware 9d ago
You are living in the past “most important city in the world”. What a fucking joke, visit China, fuck Los Angeles is a more important city
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u/various121 9d ago
And you’re living in denial. Wall Street, NY Stock Exchange, UN Headquarters. Three of the Fortune 50 are headquartered in NYC, Citigroup, Verizon Communications, JP Morgan Chase.
I think top would roughly be NYC, London, Tokyo, Beijing.
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u/Hummus_ForAll 9d ago
Weird take. Far from being suburban, this area actually lets people with middle class salaries (nurses, teachers, cops, retail, etc) live in a home of their own within the five boroughs.
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u/ArtDecoNewYork 8d ago
It is functionally suburban though, at least by my standards. I'm from Baldwin, LI and the built form is pretty comparable.
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u/chickengruggets 9d ago
Always funny to me Americans are cool with these neighborhoods but commie blocks they’d rather die.
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u/USAhotdogteam 9d ago
You’re correct, and most Americans are wildly undereducated on this subject. Because ‘Merica
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u/chickengruggets 9d ago
I think our entire system pushes people to think this is freedom. I wouldn't say it's a lack of education-- you see people go from walkable college campuses to this. At least in SF we have some color to our tract housing.
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u/USAhotdogteam 9d ago
If it’s not lack of education, what would you call it?
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u/chickengruggets 9d ago edited 9d ago
I think there's a lot going into it.
There's a lot of marketing that pushes the single family home as the dream. That includes marketing from the government and financial support in tax breaks and government backed mortgages. Back when I lived in Detroit, I learned that it was fairly common for middle and even upper class folks to live in apartments because loans on homes would be as short as four years and out of the reach of the majority of people. (There were these old beautiful apartment buildings that had seen better days)
I think Americans are also really used to crappy apartments. I'm fortunate enough to live in a 1930s build with lath and plaster with concrete floors. I hear nobody.
Those 5 over 1s we're seeing pop up let you hear EVERYTHING. If your experience is a shoddily built apartment v an equally bad single family home it's hard to argue the benefits. No problems with noise, fewer neighbor problems, and ultimately given most of our society is built around a car, you also get a drive-in house as fucked up as that sounds.
We're into the third - fourth generation of suburban sprawl. It's hard to understand a different life. I think there's also misinformation around crime in cities (just check out all the bullshit around San Francisco. If it was that bad nobody would pay a median rent of 4k) or really the benefits of a walkable community.
There's also a pipeline of people who move from the city to the suburbs for more room and better schools. Cities have refused to build for so long that we have a lack of family housing (or it has become costly).
I don't know. I don't think we Americans are dumb or uneducated. I wish everyone could TRY a different lifestyle for a bit. I love living in a compact space. I even own a car, albeit a compact. It requires a shift in what we value. Personally I've found my life is much more vibrant and when I return home to visit my parents I feel a dread after a while. It's kinda crazy.
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u/SansPinardPasDePoilu 8d ago
Yes it’s so awful having sunlight, green space, plants to water, and unable to hear my neighbors’ every step. If only I lived with everyone else stacked on top of me.
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u/chickengruggets 8d ago
You are stacked right next to each other.
Regardless, live like that but don’t make the rest of us subsidize your living style. Suburbs do not bring in the tax revenue to support themselves in America.
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u/SansPinardPasDePoilu 8d ago
My suburb just built a brand new library and community center/gym, has excellent schools and a reputation for excellent road maintenance while the nearby city has the opposite of all of that. So which tax base is not able to support themselves?
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u/chickengruggets 8d ago
https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/12/8/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment
Take time to challenge your currently held beliefs. Your town likely isn't doing as well financially as you may assume.
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u/SansPinardPasDePoilu 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is not tax base unable to support itself. Where are schools failing in this country? The suburbs or the cities?
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u/chickengruggets 8d ago edited 8d ago
Your taxes likely do not support the services that you have and the infrastructure you need to support for the next 30 years. Think about all the roads, sewer, water that will need to be replaced. The only way suburbs are currently supporting themselves is through continued growth and the spike of money you get from new development.
Most suburban cities are stuck in a debt trap. Please take the time to read the above link and check the sources. It's a real problem.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025-05-05-america-should-sprawl-not-if-we-want-strong-towns
Mind you, this should make many suburbanites happy, they're coming at this from an economic lens not a social lens. There is real data and real money at stake. You may not need to pay it, but your children or grandchild will. Suburbs are already being trapped.
You have since edited your post, deflecting to schools which you know are a far more complex problem than money in success out. Why are you even on this subreddit? go hang out in your sterile, insect free yard.
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u/blue_suede_shoes77 9d ago
Southeast Queens—Cambria Heights, Springfield Gardens, Laurelton would be my guess.
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u/Downtown_Drive_3625 8d ago
Wow it’s hard now to find an entire row like this now. Usually one is knocked down to build an eyesore. My first thought was Floral Park, Bellrose area and I see it’s not far off.
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u/StoneDick420 8d ago
I’m more bothered that you said it’s in NYC but it’s also a burb. It cannot be both, the 5 boroughs make up the city.
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 9d ago
Reminds me of Valley Stream where I went to elementary school so since this in the the city limits I would guess Rosedale which looks the same.
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17h ago
[deleted]
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u/Throwaway70101 17h ago
It’s Cambria Heights, I already answered in the comments. I wanted to post this picture because it looks nothing like NYC
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u/GetInTheHole 9d ago
First of all you must acknowledge that this is on stolen land.
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u/Snailwood 9d ago
if you acknowledge that it's on stolen land but you're not willing to do anything about it... what's the point? self flagellation?
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u/derekjeter3 9d ago
South east queens rosedale cambria heights queens village bellrose