To you what is the line between what constitutes a suburb and what constitutes a rural town? (suburban, houses)

[HereInMaine]

In Maine there is not that many suburbs in the traditional sort since there is still room for people to build houses along existing roads along traveled routes and there are no HOAs but the vast majority of these people still do not work in the towns they live in and travel to the nearest city's to work and i wanted to know if you would consider these people suburban or rural?

[wburg]

What generally makes a suburb a suburb is the commute--they are a product of an era when there was a deliberate effort to live and work in vastly different places. So if the people in those towns commute to a nearby big city (or to equally distant office parks or suburban work destinations), then the small town becomes a suburb.

In California, a lot of places that were once little rural farm towns are now suburbs--an expansion that has taken place over the past century. In some cases, there are still "old town" cores at the center of these areas, a holdover from their small-town era. Some are preserved as historic districts, some are abandoned, and some were demolished. What now defines them is the suburban growth around them, not the remnant of a rural town they once were.

That is the traditional sort of suburb--buildouts of streetcar suburbs a century ago were also done on greenfields or former farm neighborhoods. The main difference is the distance from the city center.