How to define what's a suburb (or suburban) (versus, population, issues)
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A suburb is a city or town or metro district that is next to the primary city in a MSA.
For example:
Pueblo is the principal city in the Pueblo MSA. Its suburbs are Pueblo West, Avondale, Boone, Blende, Beulah, Rye, Colorado City, and Hatchet Ranch.
Bedroom communities are cities and towns not really in the official MSA but where most of the people who work commute to the city. A good example of a bedroom communities for Pueblo are Rocky Ford, Manzanola, Walsonburg, and Penrose.
To take it one step further then you have regions where the principle cities influence extends. For example Pueblo has the Pueblo region which is a 20 county region in 2 states.
Yes, I agree with you! However, you haven't been posting on this board (urban planning) too long if you think everyone agrees with that. There are many on this forum who like to posit that areas that "look" suburban, such as some parts of SE Denver, are suburban, even though they are in the city.
Yes, I agree with you! However, you haven't been posting on this board (urban planning) too long if you think everyone agrees with that. There are many on this forum who like to posit that areas that "look" suburban, such as some parts of SE Denver, are suburban, even though they are in the city.
They might "like" to post that way but with all due respect to them they are simply wrong. At least by the official definition of a suburb.
They might "like" to post that way but with all due respect to them they are simply wrong.
I don't think there are any right or wrong answers to draw the line. But I don't think using the legal definition is usually very interesting. As from this link I posted earlier:
Quote:
The tentacular, pockmarked, pulsating blob that we call the City of Los Angeles is the map of a long-ago war over water and power. The only people who care about it today are those who work for city government or serve as its elected officials, plus a few who've considered city taxes and services as a reason to locate in the city or out of it.
Or for example, some Canadian cities, where the city limits contain the metro area and then some. The suburbs still exist, they're just not independent.
In any case, going back to the OP, I think the OP was interested in places that feel like suburbs rather whether a place fit the legal definition. He wanted places that had huge houses, a backyard, wide open space and clean air.
Many words have more than one definition. A suburb can be a residential neighborhoodinside or outside of a city limit. Many suburbs start out outside city limits that are later annexed into a city--does the neighborhood stop being suburban even if its physical form is completewly unchanged? Or do tract houses magically transform into condos, and 7-11s into wine bars, when a suburb is annexed into the city limits?
In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an outlying residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality, borough, or unincorporated area outside a town or city. The latter definition is evident in the title of David Rusk's book Cities Without Suburbs (ISBN 0-943875-73-0), which promotes metropolitan government. Note, however, that this definition is not universal.
The first definition can place a suburb inside a city.
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