Can people be more specific than just saying suburbs? Municipal government means every town is a little different.

Hard to respond to sweeping generalizations of suburbs. In general, most suburbs i drive thru are in good shape fwiw.

My mother still lives in my hometown on the South Shore, in a suburb of Boston.

The sidewalks, and roads are in decent shape. There have been several small business's that have opened up over the last 10 years. There's the commuter rail into Boston. They recently been updating the water/sewer lines, and then actually repaving the streets. AND adding sidewalks. My sister lives in a town further away from Boston, but still a suburb. And the town is clean, has decent roads, schools, shopping and sidewalks.

I am often on the North and South Shore suburbs for business. And no, the "suburbs" of Boston are not dying. And there's been plenty of investments in them. *smh*

What’s your reference point here? What town hasn’t had the “surrounding area updated in decades”?

As an example, Woburn just had a whole dead mall torn down and replaced with a modern shopping center, with restaurants and stuff. It’s always busy.

Sidewalks? TLDR

I don't think this is broadly true in Massachusetts, but it is true in many states, largely due to the fact that suburbs are a ponzi scheme.

No

What's even an example of a "suburb you're talking about? Malden absolutely redid many concrete sidewalks while I was there, and has rebuilt their entire downtown in the last 6 years or so. Wellesley has great sidewalks, many concrete, mostly with granite curbs; the city even plows all the sidewalks in the winter. Somerville seems to have sidewalks at least as nice as Boston, if not nicer and many large projects going on like Assembly. Lexington is redoing their entire town center, and cutting down all the trees in doing so 😢. The list can go on and on. I can't think of a suburb in the Boston metro that even anecdotally supports your hypothesis.

I drive through Natick on 27 all the time. They just redid a huge section of side walk on both sides. Completely replaced granite curbs for over a mile. Anecdotal but... So is this post.

The main artery into my neighborhood was also newly repaved last year...

My mother died recently and she left a 4 bedroom house in a Boston suburb to her 7 grandchildren. Our job is to decide what to do with it as there is some interest in the grandkids to keep it. There is no real pressure on a timeframe. The house isn't in great shape but it is in a great location and neighborhood. It would likely be a teardown because it was built in the 1920s and people with the money to buy it want modern infrastructure.

My understanding is that this is happening a lot in the Boston suburbs. One nice thing about the Boston suburbs is that people living in the area want good schools and will fund them. But they won't necessarily pay for other stuff that can be put off.

We live in NH and the thing that stops us from buying the place is the age and MA taxes. I go down once or twice a week to maintain the place as does a sister that lives nearby.

I moved to the suburbs about 5 years ago. Since then there has been a sidewalk installed for about all of the two miles from here to the town center. The town center and the road all the way along have been regraded and then repaved with improvements made to stormwater control, there are new crosswalks and other traffic controls, and the shopping center there has also just been repaved.

I am thinking that you have seen what you have seen, but there are 50 or so communities that can each be called a suburb, and they are each in a different place and heading in a different direction. You did not describe the suburb I live in really at all.

Tewksbury got a bunch of money from the state to redo their sidewalks and they don't even have anything worth walking to.

It all depends on the town and which part of town.

Sidewalks seem fine in the suburbs I travel in. 🤷‍♂️

It does sound like your perception is not 100% clear. The suburbs are fine. Been living here for many years. There is natural wear and tear on all roads and sidewalks. Upkeep and repair takes time and money. And there’s never enough of either.

What you describe doesn’t match up with what I see in reality.

You need to clear snow from the sidewalk outside you house. That's why people hate them.

I mean, the suburbs are full of people who hate taxes and don't want to live in a city but paradoxically want city services. There is never enough revenue to pay for all the upkeep.

where I live we don’t have sidewalks in 85% of our town. Roads are pretty shabby too. No businesses. Taxes are nice and high though. It’s great! /s

I know what you mean. Sidewalks and roads are typically shitty here. I’ve lived in many other states (south, north, west), and cities like Buffalo and Chicago suburbs despite heavy snow and being quite old do not have crappy pothole laden and cracked/overgrown intermittent sidewalks. But I don’t think this is an indication of suburbs dying. People think these streets and sidewalks are normal, it’s not uncommon to see an old frail person walking/little kids biking/strollers on the street along heavy traffic even though it gives me a ton of anxiety over safety issues.

I like the unmaintained 60 year old,sidewalks in my neighborhood because they’re half grass now.

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I understand what you're saying. My take is that our infrastructure was built many years ago. If a town truly wanted to fund all the maintenance projects, it would keep track of the lifetime of each capital item, then assign a lifetime, then add a yearly budget item to save for it. Just like most homeowners don't do this for their roof or furnace or central air, neither do the towns. Priorities shift, tax dollars become scarce and costs rise. Would you rather fund the school budget or maybe let the roads/sidewalks go another year? what about the police/fire/etc Maybe the road/sidewalk is due to be replaced, but its a 25 year plan and the NE weather has destroyed it in 20. Lots of issues, but it always comes down to $ (taxes)

What are you talking about? Which towns?

For instance Natick, Framingham, Wayland and many other metrowest burbs have just had MASSIVE water main/roadway/sidewalk improvements. Like multi-year projects. Huge money spent.

Also, many burbs see shit tons of one-off development from tear-down homes where the builder is going to cut into the roadway to increase the size or replace the service to the houses for water or gas. That leads to asphalt patches that can look like shit over time until the roadway is resurfaced.

All those big box stores in the burbs? They are filled up by huge trucks that do a number on the roadways.

Any town that has permanently crappy main roads is likely doing poorly in terms of real estate tax revenue/income per capita. That’s not a suburb/city thing, it’s an income thing. And if you want to see some janky-ass sidewalks…go wander around Harvard and Back Bay/Beacon hill. There are some brick sidewalks that are so root-heaved in those neighborhoods they are nearly un-walkable.

I think you might be familiar with a struggling town you frequent or live in and thinking all suburbs look like that. They don’t. And not all sidewalks in Boston are 10/10. (Beyond the brick sidewalks that are lumpy as shot…go Google the number of gas main leaks under sidewalks as well as the electrified manhole covers that kill dogs in the city).

I live in a suburb near the NH boarder and they’re putting in sidewalks for the first time in my neighborhood!

Here’s a theory, but it certainly doesn’t apply to all suburbs: If you’re in a suburb where everything is spread out, what’s even the point of sidewalks? Where I live, nothing is in walking distance, except neighbors’ homes. At minimum, you’d have to take a bicycle to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time, but for most things (work, grocery shopping) you need a car. Sidewalks would only be for recreational walking (like for fun or exercise). And if I’m walking for fun, I’ll probably go to some place scenic like the park or the trails, rather than strolling by people’s houses.

I live in Quincy and the sidewalks are in terrible condition to the point I couldn't imagine trying to get around using them with any type of mobility issues. Lots of poorly planned tree planting has left the often narrow sidewalk with the roots making all kinds of hazards with the cement being pushed up in some places close to six inches above the flat before and after with huge cracks making it impossible for an elderly person or someone with a walker, crutches or a scooter or even baby carriage to get over safely and it is absolutely a citywide problem once you leave Hancock St and travel down any side street into a neighborhood. I also can't figure out how the ramps with circle bumps don't cause more problems than they cure in addition to the Horrific inconsistency of the timing and sounds of the pedestrian lights that are in and around Quincy Center which have zero consistency from block to block some even having signage instructing you to press the button and wait for the cars to stop while using sounds that a visually impaired person would Easily mistake as the ok to cross and there is ONLY a blinking light present that Never gives a pedestrian light with some like the intersection at Burgin Parkway where Star Market is heading twords Hancock St that has a pedestrian light that once you hit the median/2 lanes going across the 4 lane road traffic gets a green light arrow pointing them right into the crosswalk and the do not walk like doesn't even have the timer. It literally sets people up to get run over/sets driver's up to hit pedestrians and if it's raining there's even More of a chance of them not expecting a pedestrian to be there. They also put a SUPER dangerous New crosswalks just past it that has only a blinking light and signage saying to yield to pedestrians.

This city has been designed to trap people inside their homes in a very real way with zero options for being outdoors without it being a drive or walk into a restaurant. I grew up here and it is such a disappointment to have things this way. The intersection you have to get through to visit the police station is an absolute death trap as well and I tried crossing it with my then 5yr old and we got stuck having to push the button for the pedestrian light at every island going from the cemetery (that has a yeild to traffic right turn with No light) to get to McDonald's.... It was infuriating how long it took us to safely cross that little section to get to the button for the pedestrian light. I'm thinking the whole time between the lack of public restrooms (plus having to be a customer to use one elsewhere) and the pedestrian lights being so terrible.... I'm going to be stuck showing him how to jaywalk and keep a poncho with me so he can piss outside and still learn he'll get a sex offender rap if he ever gets caught taking a leak outside by the time he's 12 because he's gonna be one of those big kids who looks older than he is. Grrrrr

Ugh god more armchair urbanists