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.
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.
Well, you could say the same of New York City, then. Aside from Manhattan, the majority of NYC is not high-rises. And if one uses NY's commonly accepted standards of a high-rise being 8+ stories, a goodly amount of Manhattan is, I guess, suburban in nature.
Well, if the main reason you moved to a more suburban neighborhood was because of housing costs then fixing the city would not help. The solution would be to make the city a less desirable place to live in and then real estate values and rent would decrease.
Anyone have any suggestions? Ugly factories in residential neighborhoods might work, maybe an elevated freeway. Either of these would take up too much space and remove housing supply, potentially raising housing costs in a dense area.
True, but now I've thought of a good point: Large cities tend to have varying neighborhoods. You could have a cheap, crime-filled neighborhood or a safe, expensive neighborhood.
I don't know how to really respond to your comment. My family's goal was to find the right balance of space, safety, good schools, and price and the place where that balance existed was the suburbs. However, if one of those elements became too extreme (if we could get a nice, big, cheap house in the ghetto, or a big, safe home in an expensive area, or a tiny home in a safe, affordable area, we wouldn't be able to take either one), we'd just have to keep looking until we found that balance, wherever it may be.
But the thing about this thread is that you can fix the quality of life issues, but you can't fix the problem that makes a city a city: Some people simply don't like dense areas, so you could have a safe neighborhood and great schools, but by their nature, a city will have smaller living spaces and you'll have more neighbors on your block, and some people simply don't want that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caladium
Exactly. In fact, they would probably find the question laughable because no matter what changed in the nearby suburb, they'd still like living in the city. They live in cities because they like living in them.
And the same is true of most suburbanites. Most of us live in the burbs because we like living in them. It really wouldn't matter what changed in the nearby city, we'd still like living in the burbs.
Not necessarily. Some people move to either cities or suburbs, but don't like living in them (e.g. They found a high-paying job in the suburbs but they would prefer that it be in the city, or they can't afford to buy a large plot of land in the suburbs and have to live in the city)
True, but now I've thought of a good point: Large cities tend to have varying neighborhoods. You could have a cheap, crime-filled neighborhood or a safe, expensive neighborhood.
I don't know how to really respond to your comment. My family's goal was to find the right balance of space, safety, good schools, and price and the place where that balance existed was the suburbs. However, if one of those elements became too extreme (if we could get a nice, big, cheap house in the ghetto, or a big, safe home in an expensive area, or a tiny home in a safe, affordable area, we wouldn't be able to take either one), we'd just have to keep looking until we found that balance, wherever it may be.
But the thing about this thread is that you can fix the quality of life issues, but you can't fix the problem that makes a city a city: Some people simply don't like dense areas, so you could have a safe neighborhood and great schools, but by their nature, a city will have smaller living spaces and you'll have more neighbors on your block, and some people simply don't want that.
Not necessarily. Some people move to either cities or suburbs, but don't like living in them (e.g. They found a high-paying job in the suburbs but they would prefer that it be in the city, or they can't afford to buy a large plot of land in the suburbs and have to live in the city)
I think that was the point of this thread. How many people choose to live in the suburbs because they are suburban, and how many people choose to live in the suburbs because of a deficiency in the city? (i.e. too expensive, poorly performing schools, higher crime, etc.)
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.
It's a good start! What I find frustrating on this forum is that people tend to use "suburb" very loosely, e.g. low-density land in the city; "inner-ring" communities, incorporated or not, outside the city that are fairly dense; unincorpated land outside of the city; etc. Add to that each city has its own uniqueness. Philadelphia has its "Main Line" burbs, a reference to the railroad line that went out of Philly at one time; these burbs are old but not necessarily super-dense, etc. I have been told (on this forum) that I don't live in a suburb b/c it has a downtown area. Truth is, it's in the midst of the Denver/Boulder metro, so what else would it be? Lots of its residents work in Denver, we identify with Denver; it's in Boulder County, part of the MSA. The large areas of LA are maybe their own separate case.
To many members of this forum, it seems like "suburban" means an area of low-density housing (mostly or all single family homes) built after World War II, few public amenities, and auto centric. That certainly does not describe all, or even most suburbs. Even burbs that started out like that have acquired commercial districts, employers, and so forth.
I agree that in no case should land inside the city be called a suburb. I think it might be confusing to call it suburban for that reason. Perhaps a different word is necessary. I was thinking of "low density", but then some burbs are high density too, though most do not have the skyscrapers of the core city. Maybe someone could help out?
Lets keep this simple. Suburbs outside of the city limits. The city being in inside city limits.
No, let's keep this factual. Many suburban neighborhoods are inside city limits. If I showed you two neighborhoods in the city where I live, one just inside the city limits and one just outside, you couldn't tell them apart, because they're both basically suburban neighborhoods--one was annexed to the city and one was not, but they otherwise look and function the same.
Oversimplifying things is part of why there is so much contention here! If you claim you like suburbs but not cities, what would make you dislike one neighborhood of single-family homes with big lots and broad streets that just happens to be within city limits, and like an identical neighborhood that isn't inside a city limit?
No, let's keep this factual. Many suburban neighborhoods are inside city limits. If I showed you two neighborhoods in the city where I live, one just inside the city limits and one just outside, you couldn't tell them apart, because they're both basically suburban neighborhoods--one was annexed to the city and one was not, but they otherwise look and function the same.
Oversimplifying things is part of why there is so much contention here! If you claim you like suburbs but not cities, what would make you dislike one neighborhood of single-family homes with big lots and broad streets that just happens to be within city limits, and like an identical neighborhood that isn't inside a city limit?
It is not factual that there are suburbs in the cities. That defintion flies in the face of many other defintions of suburbs, e.g. "inner ring", "streetcar", "Main Line" (Philadelphia), etc.
A neighborhood of single-family homes with big lots and broad streets is not the only type of suburb there is, nor is such a neighborhood confined to the outer limits of some cities. In fact, many cities have areas of "boulevards" with old, large homes on large lots. No one would call those areas "suburban".
The areas of Denver that have newer single family homes do not have any wider of streets than anywhere else in Denver. They may (operative word may) be more "walkable" than an identical area outside the city.
What's to dislike about these areas, anyway?
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 12-24-2011 at 11:55 AM..
I was thinking of "low density", but then some burbs are high density too, though most do not have the skyscrapers of the core city. Maybe someone could help out?
Yup, we have the same hybrid sort of a situation here. Many of our burbs are both high density (in sections) and low density (in sections). As more and more companies move out to the burbs, you see urbanish streets appearing--but the towns are still suburbs. So many communities are "ish" (Urban communities that have parts that are suburbanish, or suburban communities that have parts that are urbanish).
Take Reston, an unincorporated HOA community about 7 miles from my house. It's definitely a suburb, right? I mean, it's more than an hour's drive from DC. It's surrounded by suburban communities on all sides. It was built in the 1960s, and is an HOA that never incorporated. Many of the streets have homes that look like the photo below. Those are all components of suburbs, so that makes it a suburb, right?
Or does it? The photos below are also Reston. These buildings and the density make it an urban area, right? (it can't be a city because it's not incorporated, but you could label it urban density, I suppose). There are quite a few high rises in Reston because it's the heart of the Tech Corridor. So that makes it urban, right?
And, on the other hand, the photos below are in Reston, too.
So, is it a city or is it a suburb?
Personally, I call it a suburb because that is what it is officially called by the census and also the residents who live there. It may have many urban elements, but it's a suburb in the outer fringes of the Washington DC metro area.
No, let's keep this factual. Many suburban neighborhoods are inside city limits. If I showed you two neighborhoods in the city where I live, one just inside the city limits and one just outside, you couldn't tell them apart, because they're both basically suburban neighborhoods--one was annexed to the city and one was not, but they otherwise look and function the same.
Oversimplifying things is part of why there is so much contention here! If you claim you like suburbs but not cities, what would make you dislike one neighborhood of single-family homes with big lots and broad streets that just happens to be within city limits, and like an identical neighborhood that isn't inside a city limit?
Because this debate is between living in the city limits or outside the city limits. I agree there are suburban looking neigborhoods inside the city, but people still choose to live outside the city limits anyway.
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.
