Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Status:
"Pickleball-Free American"
(set 5 days ago)
Location: St Simons Island, GA
23,466 posts, read 44,100,317 times
Reputation: 16861
Advertisements
Highland Park, IL
Chestnut Hill, PA
Greenwich, CT
Alexandria, VA
Winter Park, FL
Cambridge, MA
Franklin, TN
The Woodlands, TX
Scottsdale, AZ
Decatur, GA
Arlington, VA (has several urban villages around Transit Oriented Development).
Silver Spring MD (same as Arlington but on a smaller scale. TOD around the Silver Spring Metro/MARC station with a mix of residential and commercial highrises eventually leveling off into lower density the further away you get from the station)
Bethesda MD (Ditto, but just more upscale)
If we include Canada, Mississauga Ontario would be another good contender. They have highrises everywhere and a lot of people using transit.
I agree with Oak Park IL. It shares its eastern and northern borders with the city of Chicago. There are 2 "L" lines operating in Oak Park (Blue and Green), a Metra train (commuter railroad), as well as Eisenhower Expwy. (I-290). So, there are many options to commute to downtown Chicago. Oak Park is actually closer to downtown than some neighborhoods within Chicago. Its streets follow a grid pattern and the residential neighborhoods have alleys for trash collection. The downtown area of Oak Park was an important suburban shopping district until some time in the 1980s. It even had a branch of Marshall Field's. Both Ernest Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright resided in Oak Park.
Agree, Evanston and Oak Park are 1a and 1b for Chicago.
I'm surprised nobody has said Carmel, Indiana. I hear it's often voted near the top on many of the more prestigious "best of" lists. I think Carmel could give Santa Monica a run for it's money when you consider what you pay for what you get. Carmel is as high quality as Santa Monica but without the high cost. What Santa Monica has that Carmel will never have is a good beach on the Pacific Ocean and rugged looking mountains in the background with a Mediterranean type climate, and a high profile. Everything else, as far as quality goes, Carmel can compete with Santa Monica in just about every kind of way. With the money a person would save by living in Carmel, they could take weekend trips to Santa Monica every weekend. It would almost be like living there but not having to pay for it. What a person would save in property taxes and state taxes by living in Carmel rather than Santa Monica would be a small fortune.
Last edited by Ivory Lee Spurlock; 10-18-2018 at 04:49 PM..
I'm surprised nobody has said Carmel, Indiana. I hear it's often voted near the top on many of the more prestigious "best of" lists. I think Carmel could give Santa Monica a run for it's money when you consider what you pay for what you get. Carmel is as high quality as Santa Monica but without the high cost. What Santa Monica has that Carmel will never have is a good beach on the Pacific Ocean and rugged looking mountains in the background with a Mediterranean type climate, and a high profile. Everything else, as far as quality goes, Carmel can compete with Santa Monica in just about every kind of way. With the money a person would save by living in Carmel, they could take weekend trips to Santa Monica every weekend. It would almost be like living there but not having to pay for it. What a person would save in property taxes and state taxes by living in Carmel rather than Santa Monica would be a small fortune.
Interesting take. Personally I can’t imagine why anyone wanting to move to Santa Monica would move to Carmel Indiana instead. They can’t have much in common at all.
I agree with Oak Park IL. It shares its eastern and northern borders with the city of Chicago. There are 2 "L" lines operating in Oak Park (Blue and Green), a Metra train (commuter railroad), as well as Eisenhower Expwy. (I-290). So, there are many options to commute to downtown Chicago. Oak Park is actually closer to downtown than some neighborhoods within Chicago. Its streets follow a grid pattern and the residential neighborhoods have alleys for trash collection. The downtown area of Oak Park was an important suburban shopping district until some time in the 1980s. It even had a branch of Marshall Field's. Both Ernest Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright resided in Oak Park.
Oak Park is to west suburbia what Evanston is to north suburbia.....first city past Chicago city limits, combining elements of city and suburb, extensive (CTA el and Metra....Ev and OP are the only suburbs to have both CTA and Metra stop in their downtowns) public transit into the city. Similar major shopping districts (with Evanston and Oak Park having virtually the exact same old Marshall Field's buildings), a notable increase in downtown residential construction (Evanston leads, Oak Park now on the way), liberal communities, intellectual, integrated (admittedly with bumps) two blue and orange high schools (ETHS, OPRF, once in the same league). Both were once the major retail centers for their respective (Ev:N, OP: W) suburban regions that hit the same wall when the malls were built in the 1960s and 1970s (as you noted with OP in the 80's which lost ground to Oakbrook Center, which was developed by the same company that built Old Orchard in Skokie and hurt DT Ev retail (which came back through speciality stores, loads of restaurants, theaters and really catering to NU students).
They differ, of course...Oak Park gets FLW and prairie style architecture while Evanston gets a lakefront and Northwestern. Evanston is bigger, Oak Park denser befitting its location that borders Chicago on two sides and surrounded by rather tightly packed suburbs. Evanston is a bit more "open", really fades more into real suburbia in its north end which is basically very much akin to the other North Shore towns further along the lake.
MetroWest Boston, North Shore Chicago, Main Line Philadelphia, Westchester NY all come to mind. Some great suburbs in SF, Seattle, Detroit, DC, Cleveland areas too.
A few that come to mind right away:
Winchester, MA
Wellesley, MA
Marblehead, MA
La Grange, IL Winnetka, IL
Scarsdale, NY
Chevy Chase, MD
East Grand Rapids, MI
Grosse Point, MI
Penn Wynne, PA
Kirkland, WA
Pasadena, CA
Sausalito, CA
On what level is Winnetka an "urban" suburban? Here's a community that is virtually covered with single family homes with virtually nothing in the way of businesses other than retail/restaurants and the like (and virtually all the retail abuts one street and its immediate surroundings: Green Bay Road. Pretty typical downtown for a North Shore community. I transit line (Metra's UP/N) runs through town (admittedly with three stations). As I said, I can't think of much that would make Winnetka considered an urban suburb.
Location: Midwesterner living in California (previously East Coast)
296 posts, read 438,397 times
Reputation: 598
I find it hard to agree that Santa Monica CA is a suburb. Doesn't pass the smell test.
Due to the highly decentralized nature of Greater LA, Santa Monica could be considered one of the core hubs in that MSA (along with Hollywood and Downtown LA).
Aurora, Colorado, also Lakewood, though it's not quite 25% of the population of Denver.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
