which is the 'burb for us? Help, please? - Page 9 - PhillyBlog

artspirit · #81 (**permalink**) 05-27-2008, 07:44 PM

We are all entitled to our choices, and don't need to defend them. Some people like the city, some like the burbs, some like the country. Thank goodness all of have homes... and computers!
Celebrate diversity!

orrmobl · #82 (**permalink**) 05-27-2008, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by billy ross

orrmbl: you misunderstand me. My father was a steelworker, who never recovered from the collapse of the old-line steel industry in the early 80's. I was quite young at that time, and spent the rest of my student years quite poor. My first home in East Falls was a four bedroom house which cost me $25,000. I lived like a monk in a falling-down house for years until I finally got it fixed up. What I am saying is that I made sacrifices as a young man which allow me now as a parent to be able to afford to send my kids to the school of our choice. My choice to stay in the city and live cheap allowed me (and then us) to live cheap while I (we) built up capital. Now the future for which I worked so hard my whole life has arrived.

BTW: about a year after moving to my home on Stanton Street my $800 Oldsmobile was stolen from outside of my house. I immediately replaced it with a $2700 classic Chevy (in 1994). Since then I have never really had a personal vehicle, for daily use - I leave the Chevelle in the garage and take it out for special occasions. I bought a new work truck in 2005, but I went 11 years without a personal vehicle, and still try to avoid using my truck for anything but work. Imagine how much cash you would have now if you had given up having a personal vehicle for 11 years, and then bought a vehicle on which you put less than 5000 miles per year. Living in the city has allowed me to do this. If your fixed costs are low it makes investing easy. If you then make investments which pay off, you no longer need to live like a pauper. It is much easier to accumulate capital if you live cheaply, with cheap housing, cheap taxes, and cheap cars. I have never in my life (to this day) made very much money, but I have saved a very high percentage of what I made. My property taxes have always been relatively reasonable, and since I spent a large percentage of my time on non-taxable things like fixing up my car and fixing up my home, the city wage tax was never really all that bad.

Oh I understand what its like to be poor alright - so poor that private school wasn't even a consideration. Your folks did better than mine if they could afford to send you to private school.

I'm still not getting your car argument though - who paid for the work truck and what is it used for? If you own two cars and I own two cars, how is either any different? I own what will fit my kids, my wife has the smallest best on gas car I could get her that she could run into and over things with and not hurt herself or the car.

But I still fail to see how a $20K outlay per kid per year is better than ownership of a vehicle.

The first year alone covers the cost of the cars plus insurance gas and oil changes for the next few years. And I would argue that while autos equal freedom and collateral at hand, a private primary school education is hardly worth it. Why not save that money and pay for the best college your child can get into?

billy ross · #83 (**permalink**) 05-27-2008, 08:57 PM

A car is a lousy 'investment'. Private school education of your children is not an investment at all; it is consumption. We all consume in some way or another. Some play golf, others collect DVD's, others spend ridiculous sums on their children's education. Still others go down the shore or buy boats. I am not saying that private school education is right or even smart - it is merely a choice, like a woman who buys 50 pairs of shoes. Wealthy people spend ridiculous amounts of money on the education of their children and grandchildren, so that they can become anonymous doctors and lawyers. I don't fully understand the motivations myself.

However, if you really do believe in giving your kids the best educations possible, your logic can be extrapolated further: if awful, selfish parents stay in the city and subject their kids to the depradations of thugs and the city's public schools, then the merely terrible parents live in the suburbs and send their kids to public schools out there, while the benighted parents spend any amount necessary, even if they need to beg, borrow, or steal it, to get their kids the best educations possible - this is what my parents did. I already said that my high school, which is in the city, has a 70% suburban student body. My daughter's school seems to be about a 50 / 50 split, and it too is in the city. Out of 45 kids between two classes, at least two are from P-W's school district, a least one from LM's school district, and at least one from Abington's. People generally pay a premium to live in these places to avoid the necessity of private school. What gives? Are they all confused? Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but I am not taking any chances.

mcel17 · #84 (**permalink**) 05-28-2008, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zannebar

My husband and I would like to leave Center City for the suburbs -- essentially I need a yard and a dog and a horse to regain my sanity after years spent in New York and Center City. But since we're not from this area, we really have no idea where even to start looking.

The ideal situation would be somewhere quiet (I'd even take rural over suburban) with a reasonable commute to Center City (I say "reasonable" as someone who once got used to an hour commute). We're on starving student salaries, so the more affordable the better -- like under $1000 (or am I dreaming?). Could anyone at least point us in a direction? We just got Philly Car Share, so for the first time since we've lived here we actually have the option of leaving the city to look at other areas, but we don't even know where to start. Northeast of the city? Northwest? Southeast?

As someone who has seen almost nothing of Pennsylvania except what's within a mile or two of Center City, I'm a bit lost.

Thanks in advance!

I know I'm coming late to this and it looks like the thread has moved into the hate/like arguments here, but there are some areas that might meet your needs. They might be an hour and maybe more during rush hours, but the handoff might be more rural. In Montco there are places like Skippack/Schwenksville and their surrounding regions that still have lots of farmland, horses and markets. Then you have the route 1 corridor down near the Chester county areas of Glen Mills, Kennett Square and possibly even closer toward the city down that corridor. They're known as "pricier" areas, but you also can find older smaller housing that might fit the price range.

Like someone else said, even Malvern/Exton/West Chester areas also have their share of horses and yards. Good luck on your search!

orrmobl · #85 (**permalink**) 05-29-2008, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by billy ross

A car is a lousy 'investment'. Private school education of your children is not an investment at all; it is consumption. We all consume in some way or another. Some play golf, others collect DVD's, others spend ridiculous sums on their children's education. Still others go down the shore or buy boats. I am not saying that private school education is right or even smart - it is merely a choice, like a woman who buys 50 pairs of shoes. Wealthy people spend ridiculous amounts of money on the education of their children and grandchildren, so that they can become anonymous doctors and lawyers. I don't fully understand the motivations myself.

However, if you really do believe in giving your kids the best educations possible, your logic can be extrapolated further: if awful, selfish parents stay in the city and subject their kids to the depradations of thugs and the city's public schools, then the merely terrible parents live in the suburbs and send their kids to public schools out there, while the benighted parents spend any amount necessary, even if they need to beg, borrow, or steal it, to get their kids the best educations possible - this is what my parents did. I already said that my high school, which is in the city, has a 70% suburban student body. My daughter's school seems to be about a 50 / 50 split, and it too is in the city. Out of 45 kids between two classes, at least two are from P-W's school district, a least one from LM's school district, and at least one from Abington's. People generally pay a premium to live in these places to avoid the necessity of private school. What gives? Are they all confused? Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but I am not taking any chances.

No, to most people a car is transportation and freedom, not an investment. And to those who believe in private education it may be seen as an investment as well, or at least a means of avoiding bad outcomes by avoiding the poor local schools.

But in most cases it is a form of elitism; they are too good for the locals and their lowly free schooling which lets anybody in and doesn't teach manners, the classics and well, elitism. And that is why people who live in excellent school districts still send their kids to private schools - because it gives them a notch up socially, sometimes a better education, and definitely insulates them from the riff raff and thinking that is not consistent with their own. Wealthy people send their kids to private schools because its the thing wealthy people do - a combination of "keep up with the Joneses" and position the child for the Ivy League school they are legacied to - that is the part I don't get, it seems their money and influence would get the kid into the "right" school anyway, so why all the pretense? But I digress.

Your reasons for private vs public school in general may be valid, but a $20+K a year school? You are deluded if you think that that is money well spent and that it wouldn't be spent in a million better ways by others. It hardly adds up to a hobby or shopping addiction, its more like buying a new car or two a year.

If you want to be the beknighted parent, you would take all that money, put it into a house in Tredyffrin township and a new car to enable you to get to work and get around safely, send your kids to public school and save the excess cash to pay for their college, when there really isn't a free option.

billy ross · #86 (**permalink**) 05-29-2008, 10:46 AM

I disagree on two fronts: before I realized that I would be miserable I had everything set to go to Annapolis, which would have been free, although I would have been an indentured servant / officer for four years afterwards, but at least I would have been paid and would have gotten great experience. I was poor enough that college was essentially free, due to being a full-need student on financial aid. Since my college years financial aid for poor people has gotten even better.

Viv-a-vis getting a nice car and consigning myself to driving, I don't understand how 35 years after the first oil embargo this country has done absolutely nothing to wean itself from imported oil. Al-Quaeda would be nothing if we had switched from imported oil, we wouldn't have invaded Iraq, and the Twin Towers would be still standing. I for one am trying to do my part by boycotting imported oil to the maximum extent possible. Hence I haven't driven since last week. Whenever possible I try to travel by foot or by bicycle, and when I use non-me-powered transport I try to use trains, which have a lesser carbon footprint than airplanes or cars.