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OK, now this makes me feel weird. I just realized that I must have no idea what a suburb is. I've only lived in Canadian cities, and I've spent extensive time l

by PakG1 4y ago

OK, now this makes me feel weird. I just realized that I must have no idea what a suburb is. I've only lived in Canadian cities, and I've spent extensive time living in Shenzhen and was stuck in Busan for almost a year due to COVID. I am now realizing that I must have never seen a suburb before because everything I imagined as a suburb must actually qualify as a city. What am I missing here, or is the US really just that abnormal in the world?

ghaff 4y ago
"Suburb" covers a lot of ground. There's the classical US cul-de-sac development of course. But people also use the term to encompass small cities and the periphery of larger cities that are mostly spread-out single family homes often generally lacking the ability to easily walk to stores, etc. Or largely exurban towns that may have a center but with homes often spread over a number of acres. (Which are still often considered urban by the US Census because they're basically within an hour or so of a larger city.)
- detaro 4y ago
  wikipedia struggles a bit with the definition, but the pictures at the right show very clearly how large the range of what at least sometimes is called a "suburb" is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb But for discussions like this you probably can assume that people mean the less-dense, residential-only types
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Yes, people think about characteristics like needing a car, mostly segregated (strip malls, industrial parks) commercial development, primarily single family homes, etc. but not truly rural (although that's a matter of degree). Whether or not it's actually a suburb of a city, an outlying town, or part of an outlying smaller city.
theshrike79 4y ago
"Suburb" is usually the bit of America where every house is made from the same McMansion catalog, all roads are paved and there's not a shop, store or office in sight. Everyone leaves at the same time like clockwork to go to work with their immense SUV, alone of course, driving through a congested interstate to the nearest city to their office. Then the spouse leaves on their SUV to take the kids to school, queueing to drop them off. If someone sees anyone walking in the evening or at night, they call the cops and the walker is arrested first, then investigated later. The unlucky ones get shot.
- PakG1 4y ago
  I can't tell if this is satire or not, but it sounds absolutely horrific and I have no idea why anyone would want to live like that. I guess different people just have different tastes.

by PakG1 4y ago

ghaff 4y ago

"Suburb" covers a lot of ground. There's the classical US cul-de-sac development of course. But people also use the term to encompass small cities and the periphery of larger cities that are mostly spread-out single family homes often generally lacking the ability to easily walk to stores, etc. Or largely exurban towns that may have a center but with homes often spread over a number of acres. (Which are still often considered urban by the US Census because they're basically within an hour or so of a larger city.)

detaro 4y ago
wikipedia struggles a bit with the definition, but the pictures at the right show very clearly how large the range of what at least sometimes is called a "suburb" is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb But for discussions like this you probably can assume that people mean the less-dense, residential-only types
- ghaff 4y ago
  Yes, people think about characteristics like needing a car, mostly segregated (strip malls, industrial parks) commercial development, primarily single family homes, etc. but not truly rural (although that's a matter of degree). Whether or not it's actually a suburb of a city, an outlying town, or part of an outlying smaller city.

theshrike79 4y ago

"Suburb" is usually the bit of America where every house is made from the same McMansion catalog, all roads are paved and there's not a shop, store or office in sight. Everyone leaves at the same time like clockwork to go to work with their immense SUV, alone of course, driving through a congested interstate to the nearest city to their office. Then the spouse leaves on their SUV to take the kids to school, queueing to drop them off. If someone sees anyone walking in the evening or at night, they call the cops and the walker is arrested first, then investigated later. The unlucky ones get shot.

PakG1 4y ago
I can't tell if this is satire or not, but it sounds absolutely horrific and I have no idea why anyone would want to live like that. I guess different people just have different tastes.