Which major cities have the most interesting suburbs? (credit, house)

[xboxmas]

In the typical US suburb you will find generic strip malls, chain stores, car dealerships, and cookie cutter subdivisions. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just not as interesting as the city. What cities do you think have the "coolest" or most interesting suburbs? What makes them stand out compared to the typical suburbs?

Out of the bigger cities I have been to, I would have to say Boston's suburbs win. Cambridge, Charlestown, and Salem all had unique things to offer. It could also have to do with how historical they are, so there's a lot of interesting sites to see.

[mhays25]

Cambridge is part of inner-city Boston in every functional way except the name on the cop cars.

Generally the answer will be about older places that have been enveloped (ones not within a near golf shot of the local downtown). But some newer suburbs have gotten pretty dense and/or diverse in an urban or townish way. Kirkland and Bellevue are a couple examples in the Seattle area.

[slowlane3]

The "Old Town" elegant colonial section of Alexandria, VA. Technically it's an inner-suburb of Washington DC, although it's actually older than Washington, dating from the 1750s. Sometimes it's called "Georgetown with a southern twist."

Sausalito, CA, nestled in a cove near the Golden Gate Bridge

Pasadena, CA

Coronado, CA, on San Diego Bay

LaJolla, CA, near San Diego

Ellicott City, just outside of Baltimore, MD, resembles more of a mountain town in a gorge surrounded by hills. The nation's first railroad was there.

elegant, colonial New Castle, next to Wilmington, Del.

Scottsdale, next to Phoenix, AZ.

Coral Gables, next to Miami, FL

[NigerianNightmare]

The answer as others mentioned would be suburbs that border small city limits. As well as areas that developed pre 1960's in general. Wealthy suburbs also tend to be unique more than he funk fthe mill middle class area IMO. But that is because of the retail and the housing stock in wealthy areas. One thing I wish suburbs did was take elements from Native American cities and styles or ethniburbs took elements from foreign nations. The generic U.S style that can Be found even in extremely diverse areas in terms of ethnicity, religious beliefs etc. with only slight differences accounting for regional preferences. For example it would be cool if Mormon church architecture was incorporated into residential areas of Utah.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

San Jose, CA. San Jose is often disparaged because it doesn't have a vibrant city center, and the reason is because the city started as a very small town, and just kept incorporating farmland and little towns farther and farther out, along with new developments. The result is a city with very different neighborhoods and suburbs that have their own unique personalities and can really be like mini-cities within the sprawling incorporated city of San Jose, with over a million inhabitants.

The different suburbs include Buddhist temples and Sikh temples (forget the proper term), a Japan town, Mexican areas, and more, it's just really diverse and interesting in architecture, too.

[Clayton white guy]

Agree about Sausalito near San Francisco, very unique.
1. What about the "Gross Points" north of Detroit?
2. Mountain Brook, Alabama has a unique 'mountain meets the city" vibe.
3. Lookout Mountain, Georgia (Chattanooga suburb) has incredible mountain views AND its own "incline railway".
4. Avondale Estates (1920's planned suburb) east of Atlanta has a downtown built to resemble a quaint English village.
5. Less unique than Avondale Estates in appearance, but wedged between Avondale Estates and the City of Atlanta is Dekalb County's seat of government, Decatur, Georgia. Why am I including it on this list? Well, underneath the historic Courthouse building on the Decatur Square is a full fledge MARTA station (MARTA is Metro Atlanta's subway system) I have never seen this kind of set-up before, a full fledge subway station under a courthouse square of a smallish suburban city, not underneath the streets of a metropolis.

[aliasfinn]

As far as historical goes, I will have to list the area I know best, North County in St. Louis.
I'm sure everyone has seen the picturesque scenes of some of it during the Ferguson riots.
We once had a drive-in theatre that only showed XXX rated movies. They had a tall chain link fence which was covered with a canvass so the movies could not be seen from the road. There were always a crowd of people peeking thru the holes in the canvass and every once in a while it would get raided by the fuzz and all the cars would come racing out. Down the street from the drive-in, many years ago, there was an old castle for the insane. The castle is gone and I think there is a hospital there now. The house where the Exorcist took place back in the 40s is also in North County. The gangsters that controlled St. Louis during the early 1900s were the Egan's Rats, and when they got chased out of the city they set up headquarters at an abandoned racetrack in North County. Lambert Airport, where the tornado hit, is in North County. Farther down, but still in North County, there was an old paddle wheel boat that they hauled up from the river and had it set near the Target store parking lot. They made a seafood restaurant out of it and we used to play on the paddle wheel when we were kids. It was later torched.
I guess that landfill with the burning radioactive waste is considered North County.
North County is very interesting, but definitely not a Brady Bunch neighborhood.

[Warszawa]

I think Boston's suburbs are by far the most interesting. You can't compete with Somerville or Cambridge

[ckhthankgod]

As mentioned, a lot of "older" metros will have suburbs that go against the stereotypical view of suburbia.

[edsg25]

You have to give credit to Chicago, given it has suburbs like Evanston and Oak Park.