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"A suburb is a mixed-use or residential area, existing either as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city.[1] In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central or inner-city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, suburb has become largely synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in other countries and the term extends to inner-city areas."
I've seen a gazillion of these threads. There is not, nor will there ever be, a concensus on this.
There’s certainly consensus in the US English speaking population. No one says that a place is a suburb of Chicago, Atlanta, LA, etc and mean a neighborhood within that city.
I'd throw Bellevue WA (Seattle) in the ring as well!
Bellevue perhaps has the best skyline of any suburb in the country, but it’s not actually that urban. Daly City, California is a stronger contender in my opinion.
There’s certainly consensus in the US English speaking population. No one says that a place is a suburb of Chicago, Atlanta, LA, etc and mean a neighborhood within that city.
I agree - its not so much the word suburb as a noun that is all that subjective -- its the adjective suburban that is. Suburban is not only used just to refer to the suburbs of an area, but also the look and feel of any area, no matter if its technically a suburb, or a city neighborhood, or somehwere basically in the country that's built with the look and feel of a typcial suburb.
Shaker Heights, OH (just east of Cleveland), definitely belongs high on this list.
It is one of the oldest, completely planned and executed, at once, suburbs -- built in the early decades of the 20th century and was also unique in being inspired and built along high-speed rapid transit to the urban core.
Shaker Heights features:
- high quality, architecturally significant housing, especially mansions.
- significant set-asides for lakes and parks.
- a well-planned, high quality school district with a tradition of not only sending 90% of its graduates to college but to the Ivy League and other of the nation's top colleges, as well.
- after initial racial restrictions, one of the first suburbs to embrace diversity and implement busing students to achieve it (in the early 1960s).
- 2 rapid transit branches with stations within .5 miles of every resident (the suburb is 6 square miles in size; around 28,000 residents.
- many desirable curving streets and lanes oriented to the gently hilly typography in places as well as to the many rapid transit stations.
- a strong national and international reputation for many (or all) of these attributes.
This is exactly what I was talking about.
Shaker Heights is a nice prewar suburb. But it's not really that urban. It's pretty spread out, and the vast majority of its development is set aside for single-family detached homes. There are a couple nodes of higher-density mixed use - near Shaker Square and by Fairnsleigh Station - but it's still rather low density. This is hardly the height of urbanity.
Lakewood is a better example of a quality urban suburb of Cleveland than Shaker Heights, IMHO. Even if it was built to be a bit more downscale.
Shaker Heights is a nice prewar suburb. But it's not really that urban. It's pretty spread out, and the vast majority of its development is set aside for single-family detached homes. There are a couple nodes of higher-density mixed use - near Shaker Square and by Fairnsleigh Station - but it's still rather low density. This is hardly the height of urbanity.
Lakewood is a better example of a quality urban suburb of Cleveland than Shaker Heights, IMHO. Even if it was built to be a bit more downscale.
+2 on Shaker Heights. Lakewood fits the bill in urbanity, but it's not - on the surface- all that desirable. Tremont feels like a mini suburb, through it's very much part of Cleveland's urban fabric. I loved Tremont... Favorite neighborhood in Cleveland by a mile.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
There’s certainly consensus in the US English speaking population. No one says that a place is a suburb of Chicago, Atlanta, LA, etc and mean a neighborhood within that city.
Again, says you.
Virginia-Highland:
Buckhead:
Morningside:
All neighborhoods safely ensconced within the city limits of Atlanta.
I really don't know how much more suburban it can get.
Last edited by Iconographer; 10-19-2018 at 05:47 PM..
And others here as well. Are you saying that people in Atlanta will call a neighborhood within city limits a “suburb of Atlanta”? I’ve lived north, south, east, and west and have never experienced that among Native US English speakers. But I haven’t lived everywhere in the US. Maybe some places are different. Where in the US uses “suburb” in that way?
All neighborhoods safely ensconced within the city limits of Atlanta.
I really don't know how much more suburban it can get.
A city can be suburban and a suburb can be urban. The latter is the entire point of this thread. The distinction we are discussing is that in American vernacular we don not call areas within the city limits of the main city a suburb. No one that lives in buckhead says that they live in an Atlanta suburb. Or are you saying that they do? I think that it’s the whole noun-adjective thing that’s causing the disagreement as someone mentioned earlier.
Shaker Heights is a nice prewar suburb. But it's not really that urban. It's pretty spread out, and the vast majority of its development is set aside for single-family detached homes. There are a couple nodes of higher-density mixed use - near Shaker Square and by Fairnsleigh Station - but it's still rather low density. This is hardly the height of urbanity.
Lakewood is a better example of a quality urban suburb of Cleveland than Shaker Heights, IMHO. Even if it was built to be a bit more downscale.
All neighborhoods safely ensconced within the city limits of Atlanta.
I really don't know how much more suburban it can get.
Those neighborhoods may have suburban layouts but they are not actual suburbs as they are within the actual city of Atlanta.
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