Where do you draw the line between urban and suburban? (apartments, houses)
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For instance, how would you describe blocks like these? To me they seem to be in a grey area of not really suburban or urban but I'm curious to hear the perception of others.
1,2,4 Suburban to me.
3 is more vague, but i would likely make it suburban as well.
My argument is essentially in America we like to call dense SFH urban, but is it really? Especially when you compare to international cities, just because you take a garage out of the equation, and cut out a front and a back yard out of the equation as well at the end of the day it is still a single family house.
Interesting question. I don't think it can be determined on a block-by-block basis, but by looking at the larger area. If the single family homes are among a more mixed use neighborhood, apartments, or multi-family homes, I wouldn't strictly call it suburban, either. When there are continuous blocks, or larger subdivisions, where single family homes are segregated from non-SFH use areas, that IMO represents suburban development.
Personally, I use the term "urban" to differentiate areas which can support a pedestrian-based lifestyle, and "suburban" where it must exclusively require use of an automobile.
Since all of the examples from the OP are roughly in the same area, and are close to walkable business district and public transit, I would define them as all urban (in my American-based definition).
Number three and four are clearly urban, but I agree with the other poster who said we have to look at the whole neighborhood. Are used to think of Eastern Queens as almost universally suburban, but I have moderated that stance, as of late.
Photo 1 is the one photo that's closest to a city boundary, but the traffic light and little businesses up the street suggests that you're still, though barely, in an urban environment.
Photo 2 is the most suburban feeling of them all, but of course the narrow setbacks from the street and architecture give the feeling that in most of the car-dependent cities, you're clearly in an urban environment. In a place like Atlanta, this is level of density that is common just outside the downtown/midtown core. To a northeasterner though, its first-ring suburban. It's classic "line between urban and suburban" IMO by American standards.
Photo 3 is clearly urban, even by NE standards. Lots of attached rowhomes and some dense SFH close to the street are part of a neighborhood with a few businesses, including a couple grocery stores nearby, a library, and a few restaurants.
Photo 4 almost reminds me of San Francisco-style architecture and i common among neighborhoods bordering downtown in cities like Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit (before and where it hasn't been demolished) and Minneapolis. The truth is cities like NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are a small fraction of what typical city development is. Photo 4 is clearly urban by non-NE corridor standards based on the density of development. It's in the same neighborhood as photo 3 though, and by general US standards is urban.
For instance, how would you describe blocks like these? To me they seem to be in a grey area of not really suburban or urban but I'm curious to hear the perception of others.
I'd call all of those other than 3 to be suburban housing typologies, albeit older, prewar, suburban.
If it's dominated by detached single-family houses with front lawns - however closely spaced the houses are - it's a suburban neighborhood. "Streetcar suburbs" are suburbs - it's right in the name.
1 and 2 I would classify as dense suburban, 3 is urban and 4 is right in between. My factors are basically if the majority are SFH and have front yards (even a small one) and driveways then its defintiely suburban even if its relatively dense. Connected houses with small front lawns but no driveways I would call urban.
I think neighborhood walkability and distance from the core are important factors in determining urban vs suburban, and neighborhoods need to be evaluated on the whole.
for example, this, this and this would meet some people's definition of suburban, but they're in the same neighborhood as this, this and this.
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All four are "New York suburban", which means urban to 85% of the country--even #2, which is clearly the most suburban, has narrow streets and permanent parallel parking, something not common in typical McMansion suburban areas. I'm not even sure two cars can comfortably pass by each other in that photo.
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