There are some satellite hamlets that are attached to larger metropolitan areas that I feel sort of achieve this. I am specifically thinking of Carrboro, NC. I

There are some satellite hamlets that are attached to larger metropolitan areas that I feel sort of achieve this. I am specifically thinking of Carrboro, NC. I spent some of my childhood there and I feel it had all the good qualities of the suburbs (I have lived my entire childhood in them) but mitigated a lot of the bad ones (alienation, etc.) because it was in an area that is denser and much more progressive by Southern standards (Carrboro/Chapel Hill). A negative example would be Cary, NC. A small one-block 'downtown' surrounded by vast urban sprawl and conservative values all around. It is a malignant growth attached to Raleigh, NC.