What does "Urban" mean? (An attempt at an explanation) (Pittsburgh, compared)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

You just used suburban as an adjective.

Yeah, well, I know what a suburb is! Ya hafta know that first.

suburban - definition of suburban by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

sub·ur·ban (s-bûrbn)
adj.
1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a suburb.
2. Located or residing in a suburb.
3. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the culture, customs, and manners typical of life in the suburbs.
n.
A suburbanite.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

So to use the word as an adjective, it must satisfy all three qualifications?

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Anyway my whole point rests in the first definition.

1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a suburb.

By your provided definition, It is possible for a place to satisfy this, and/or the third definition, but not be a suburb.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Yeah, well, I know what a suburb is! Ya hafta know that first.

Also not sure what you mean by this. The word suburb could not have existed without "urban," which is an adjective. There are no "urbs." So first - you must know "urban."

Then, the prefix sub- was attached. Meaning under, beneath, smaller than.

"Suburb" was a noun that was shortened from the adjective "suburban." Therefore it is possible for an area to be "suburban" (as you described your husband's work location) though not in a suburb (as I provided in photos).

If your husband's work location was exactly as it is now, but within the city limits of Denver, you would still be right for calling it suburban, even though it's in "the city."

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

Also not sure what you mean by this. The word suburb could not have existed without "urban," which is an adjective. There are no "urbs." So first - you must know "urban."

Then, the prefix sub- was attached. Meaning under, beneath, smaller than.

"Suburb" was a noun that was shortened from the adjective "suburban." Therefore it is possible for an area to be "suburban" (as you described your husband's work location) though not in a suburb (as I provided in photos).

If your husband's work location was exactly as it is now, but within the city limits of Denver, you would still be right for calling it suburban, even though it's in "the city."

Oh, come on! "Suburb" came before "suburban". This is ridiculous. Even if you subscribe to the nutty notion that there can be suburbs in the city, suburb came before suburban. The suffix "an" means

-an also -ean, -ian
1 in adjectives and nouns someone or something of, from, or connected with a particular thing, place, or person:
suburban
Jamesian
2 [in nouns] someone skilled in or studying a particular subject:
[Look up a word starting with D or S for samples of headword or sentence pronunciations on the LDOCE CD-ROM] a historian (=someone who studies history)

http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/-an

Interesting that they even use "suburban" as an example.

Here's another:

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/...s-and-suffixes
Prefixes and suffixes

Prefixes and suffixes are sets of letters that are added to the beginning or end of another word.

In other words, "an" was added to the end of "suburb". Suburb had to exist first. Suburb has become a word in its own right.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/urban
ur·ban (ûrbn)
adj.
1. Of, relating to, or located in a city.
2. Characteristic of the city or city life.
[Latin urbnus, from urbs, urb-, city.]

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

It turns out urban came first, from the latin "urbis" for city. I learn something new every day. Urbs Urbis Definition - Latin Word List

Etymology and linguistics aside ... Based on the definitions you provided, for an area to be "suburban", it must be like a suburb ... which means it need not BE a suburb. It can be in the city limits. Surely you can admit this now, with all of the information you have provided in its support.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Online Etymology Dictionary

The etymology of suburb is interesting:

Close to crowds but just beyond the reach of municipal jurisdiction, suburbs in 17c., especially those of London, had a sense of "inferior, debased, and licentious habits or life" (e.g. suburban sinner, slang for "loose woman, prostitute")

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Well, I was just curious how many people would make a separate walking trip to the coffee shop. I know if I couldn't drive through the drive-through, I would skip the coffee and just drink the swill at work. In fact, if there are too many cars in the queue, or I'm running late (most days), that's what I do. I'd never have time to make two separate trips. I'd guess many do drive/take transit and then walk to the coffee shop, and then the office.

DH works in a very suburban area of Westminster, CO and he has a few restaurants he can walk to, as restaurants usually locate near offices.

I think there's a difference in an urban environment with a good number of people walking about and stores to cater to those who are walking--in that kind of environment, you're not really making a separate trip for that coffee. That coffee is more or less along the way to where you're headed to anyhow or at most a very small detour that's still somewhat on the way.

[dweebo2220]

Interesting etymology and usage of suburb from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb):

Etymology and usage

The word is derived from the Old French subburbe, which is in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub (meaning "under") and urbs ("city"). In Ancient Rome, wealthy and important people tended to live on the hills of the city, while poorer citizens lived at lower elevations – hence "under the city". The first recorded usage of the term in English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, where the form subarbis was used.

...

United States and Canada

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. In fact, many of the classic streetcar suburbs are within the political boundaries of their respective cities, such as West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a part of which has is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the West Philadelphia Streetcar Suburb Historic District. American journalist and social commentator Joel Garreau criticized the common use of the term solely to areas outside the political boundaries of major cities in his 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier when he discussed the phenomenon of edge cities in Atlanta (emphasis added):


"Meanwhile, "suburban" is usually defined for statistical purposes as any place in a metropolitan area outside the central city. That definition is less than ideal in both directions. There are beautiful, affluent, quiet, black and white neighborhoods within the political boundaries of the city of Atlanta that feature trees, lawns, and single-family detached homes. For all practical purposes, they look and function like suburbs even though they are usually counted as urban. Similarly, there are downtrodden neighborhoods in outlying "suburban" jurisdictions that are nothing but extensions of either urban or rural poverty. Suppose, therefore, a neighborhood is functionally suburban, regardless of its location within a metro area, if it is predominantly residential, well off, and marked by single-family homes.[2] ”

[dweebo2220]

While I don't necessarily find Garreau's definition to be quite satisfactory, it would be interesting to try to apply it to actual US cities. I wonder if he'd count rowhouses as single family homes, or if he's only referring to detached homes? I wonder what he'd consider "well off.." or what the threshold is for "predominantly residential.." ??

Maybe we could use detached or duplexes as "single family" (any more units connected would be considered "rows").

Maybe we could consider "well off" as anything above, say, 200% AMI.

"Predominantly residential" is the toughest... Garreau should know that this is tricky as the author of "edge cities..." Maybe we'll just have to make a qualitative judgment here as to whether the area has residential as the "predominant" use... especially since most urban neighborhoods are predominantly residential.