I totally agree. As a matter of fact I live in a neighborhood that IS a suburb. It's one of the original 'streetcar suburbs' in Denver. The big differences: *

I totally agree. As a matter of fact I live in a neighborhood that IS a suburb. It's one of the original 'streetcar suburbs' in Denver. The big differences: * houses align to the city grid (well a city grid, Denver actually has two.. it's complicated;) ). This is really important as the grid is far more friendly for pedestrian access. * mixed use: There are integrated retail spots throughout the neighborhood. I don't have to leave the confines of my neighborhood to take care of almost anything * Ready access to transit. I have a bus stop 2 bloycks away * Proximity : I'm about 2 miles out of Downtown. I still have a house (albeit much smaller than out in the burbs). I have two dogs. I have a yard. So in many ways I have the same trappings as those houses farther out, just less space. Really when we talk abut 'suburbs' we're talking about 'exurbs' or extra urban areas. That said, it can be very difficult to get this right. Here in Denver our old Airport gave way to a 'new urban' development called Stapleton. To me it's an absolute tragedy. The planners took 'walkable' to mean, quite literally, 'able to easily walked'. They forgot that you have to actually have things to walk TO. They built a neighborhood that sort of mashes up the two concepts. The houses are on the grid (for the most part), but the retail centers are highly zoned off. So they failed to actually integrate the retail into the neighborhood itself. They sit on the edges of the development. It has nice wide sidewalks and a really big park, but most people live at a pretty good distance. So the results are mixed. You do get a lot of leisure walking going on. On a day like today (almost 80 degrees and sunny) you'll see a lot of folks out and about pushing strollers and the like. However, most people find themselves packing up the car when they want to eat or go to the grocery store. Contrast that with my neighborhood where half the streets don't have sidewalks that go all the way through. Yet it's highly trafficked all day and well into the evening simply because we have lots of places worth walking to. note: As you can tell, this is one of most favorite topics to absolutely geek out about:)