Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
While I realize Wikipedia isn't the be-all end-all definition, here is what Wikipedia lists under "suburb":
Quote:
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city (as in Australia and New Zealand) or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city (as in the United States and Canada). Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods
For purposes of this forum, might it be helpful to establish a common definition?
While I realize Wikipedia isn't the be-all end-all definition, here is what Wikipedia lists under "suburb":
For purposes of this forum, might it be helpful to establish a common definition?
Well, shut my mouth! I've been saying this for months!
[so, using your definition, there is no difference]
Yes, suburbs can be incorporated ciities, or towns or villages, depending on the state. However, in the case of suburban cities, there is always a core city that the suburban city is dependent on.
suburbs can also be unincorporated areas. There is not a single incorporated town or city in Baltimore County MD but it is home to large suburban areas such as Towson, Owings Mills, and White Marsh.
Yes, suburbs can be incorporated ciities, or towns or villages, depending on the state. However, in the case of suburban cities, there is always a core city that the suburban city is dependent on.
Suburbs can also be neighborhoods within cities that are not entirely subureban in character. Most of Los Angeles is suburban neighborhoods, for example. Only a small portion has high-rise, high-density areas. And it's that distinction that gets lost quite often on this forum.
While I realize Wikipedia isn't the be-all end-all definition, here is what Wikipedia lists under "suburb":
I'll give it a try. Hopefully most (?) posters will find this agreeable. But aybe I'm expecting too much. Anyhow, in many of these discussions posters are interested not in municipal boundaries but what form its built in, its density, walkability and maybe distance to the downtown core and use this to define city vs suburb. MIKEETC summed this up:
I am assuming the use of the word city in this case is the dense inner core of an urbanized area while the word suburb in this case is the outlying, less dense areas of an urbanized area.
Other times people think most about municipal boundaries. This might be important if they're worrying about a school system, taxes or a corrupt city government (though I don't believe corrupt governments are limited to cities, but I'll leave that for another post). nighttrain55 summed up this definition:
When I mean city, I mean within city limits. Suburbs would be outside city limits.
This sounds simple and objective but has its own pitfalls. For example, is Oakland a suburb of San Francisco? Is Boulder a suburb of Denver? If you go by this definition, Camden is a suburb of Philadelphia. Is that what posters had in mind? One can walk in 20 minutes from downtown Boston into another municipality (Cambridge) and find oneself in a very dense, pedestrian friendly area with retail, a high job concentration and few if any surface parking lots. Or one could walk 9 miles in another direction and be in a relatively low density neighborhood and still be within the city limits. Does it make sense to say the first place is in a suburb and the second place is in a city?
In many metro areas (such as the example I just gave) city limits don't always follow the built form. So, we need two different terms. If you want to talk about built form / density (similar to the first italicized comment) use the words urban and suburban. This is unfortunately subjective, but as I said, in some ways defining by municipal boundaries can be too. This thread gave some ideas of what urban or suburban means to posters:
If you want to use a definition based on municipal boundaries (2nd italicized comment), use the words city and suburb. I don't think it's completely clear if everywhere outside the central city is a suburb, though maybe we could usually assume every place outside the central city is a suburb except for places that seem like "independent cities". But in no case should anywhere inside a city be a suburb. Since we're defining a suburb by boundaries, it makes no sense for somewhere inside a city to be a suburb of itself. But it can be "suburban" from itself layout and form.
To give an example familiar to me, it makes sense to me to call much of Staten Island a suburban part of New York City. But it isn't a suburb of NYC; it's inside it.
I hope this helps and isn't too confusing and long.
If all you use to define urbanity is "walkable" try to just use the words "walkable" or "unwalkable" when possible. I can think up some situations where they don't match. A city neighborhood full of tall high rises surrounded by busy arterials might be unwalkable but isn't really suburban; at least in the usual American conception. A small town may be walkable but usually isn't thought of as an urban environment; it's too small and not busy enough. Many suburbs have pockets of walkability (often an old small downtown or areas right next to a main road) but if only over a small part of the suburb, I'd say the area is still probably suburban.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
