I don't know about suburban as in "within commuting distance to the city", but rural poor largely have cars because they need them. You absolutely cannot get by

I don't know about suburban as in "within commuting distance to the city", but rural poor largely have cars because they need them. You absolutely cannot get by in a rural area without a car, and that is a huge barrier to entry to the job market. Contrast this to living in the city (or close enough so that you can commute there), where you can commute whenever/wherever you want with a MetroPass for $70 a month . The cost of living is much lower in rural areas, but the pay for an equivalent job is much lower as well. If you're a poor person with an unskilled job, if you are in the city you can get another job the next day. In a rural area, this is close to impossible - jobs are very few and far between, so if you lose yours you might have to move to an entirely different location. (for an unskilled job, there are obviously more choices, but if you lose a skilled, professional job in a rural area and you don't have enough saved up to move somewhere else, you're pretty much fucked.) So I dunno about the city vs. the suburbs, but if you are poor, you do not want to be anywhere near rural areas - they are absolute traps that leave you either on government assistance or at best in a situation with a single point of failure.