There are words I want to use to describe “urban planning” in the US but they would probably get me banned from here, or at least sternly warned.
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Honestly, I don’t necessarily think the game developers are to blame for this.
The overwhelming majority of complaints I see about not being able to play in suburban areas come from the US. I think that there’s likely some inherent flaws in the way US suburbs are planned and built, and that’s primarily your problem (not that there’s much you can do about it).
I’m in the UK, I live in a suburb of a medium sized town, and it is a very strange concept to me that a suburb could exist with zero possible wayspot candidates in it. Suburbs should always come with amenities for the residents who live there. Things like parks, playgrounds, and maybe even things like religious buildings, walking trails, pubs, post offices, community centres, etc. (depending on the suburb). Sometimes there might not be many of those kinds of things, but realistically there should always be something.
I know that doesn’t necessarily help your situation, but just wanted to offer my perspective on it, as like I said, it seems like a very US specific issue when it comes to suburbs. I do wish you luck in finding something locally that does meet the wayspot criteria.
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Suburbs in the United States, especially those built more recently in smaller to medium sized cities, are often large “developments” of mass produced single family homes. They are frequently devoid of any parks or churches and are deliberately separated from any businesses (often big box and chain stores), schools or other social or cultural amenities. Bike paths, and often even sidewalks, are frequently non-existent.
Such poor planning is not Niantic’s fault.
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You might try going through this topic which I made to try to help people find some of those spots in areas with not as much obvious nominations:
It’s not really a suburb issue, but more of new developments/neighborhoods issue. Since we in the US are so reliant on cars, that’s typically what many new developments are developed around. Even where I live, many of the new neighborhoods don’t have much more than PRP, school (especially elementary schools), and maybe a park. It could take years before much else is developed in the area, and what is developed may be done so based on the demographics of the neighborhood. Some may not even want more developed, as they may not want to invite others from outside the area in (no joke).
There’s also a good deal of politics that can be involved, too. In a nearby city, a well-known resident protested against a plan to have multi-family units built in his neighborhood, saying it would bring down the value of everyone’s’ homes in the area, will invite more noisy and disrespectful people to move into the area, would allow younger people without kids to move in, and those are just a few of his arguments. Being he was well-known, he was successful in stopping the developments of condos, townhomes, and apartment buildings; he later ran for mayor and won, and still campaigns on this. I’ll just say that affordable housing is a big issue in his city and leave it at that.
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Here is one that is perhaps better suited to this topic.
Why are the majority of American cities not as vibrant as their European counterparts? This is the reasoning behind the question.
I found this “missing middle” very interesting.
There is little Wayfarer can do to address this missing middle.
And the majority of American cities and countryside will never be able to keep up with POI densities above a certain level like European and Asian cities and countryside.
This is because the things that should be POIs have been fundamentally destroyed.
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@TimRockhead What city are you located? I’d love to take a look around.
Everyone has been helpful on this so far, but I do want to note that part of the Niantic games are exercise and exploration so 2km should not be much of a trek (I will preface that I don’t know if you have mobility issues that may make it more of one) when that’s what it takes to hatch the lowest level of Egg in Pokémon GO.
You may be able to find things nearby when others in this thread help you to look but I wouldn’t personally bemoan a short walk where I could hatch an egg.
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The 'burbs certainly can be just a desert. Things I’d look for would be play areas, noticeboards, community centres, nature or walking trails or any historical artefacts that were there before the area was built.
A bit of virtual scouting around can often reveal things you didn’t know where there, for example OpenStreetMap often has a lot more details than Google Maps. Satellite view can often help you look in places that you would overlook otherwise, especially for things like play areas in new housing developments.
Also oldmapsonline.org is quite interesting to look back at areas in the past, that can sometimes reveal historical buildings or features that are eligible… you’ll typically need a citation to back them up.
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It’s truly just endless suburban sprawl. Not Niantics fault its just… i bet there is a lot of potential money to be made by getting endless sprawl players a better experience.
I get you, living in a city with poor planning sucks, but I don’t think that’s Niantics fault as people here said.
I live in a medium sized city in Brazil and the city planning here is also horrible, my lucky is that I travel a lot to bigger cities and is where I play the most. And because where I live there’s not so many interesting things to the public see, I noticed the community just started to send and aprove tons of bad quality POIs. I would not recomend that and when I see something bizarre I report, but the reality is that I saw some places that people literally vandalized to make graffiti and submit as wayspots when the game was more popular here.
That’s sad, but it’s the way people here found to enjoy the game were they live. But as it is a political problem that lots of cities and countries have, I don’t think that’s nothing we can do to change this in a simple way.