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Usually rural is defined by density and built form rather than by municipal boundaries. So we can ask at what density (or whatever other important markers) does a place become rural? So why not for urban and suburban in the same way? Then, at density (or again, any other factors) does a places become urban? Or suburban?
This depends on the city. On the East Coast, city boundaries have a tighter correlation with "urbanity" because the cities had developed so much of their present form prior to post-WWII decentralization. In newer cities, the boundaries probably don't make as much sense.
That's not so much true of Boston. Philadelphia annexed more of its surroundings than Boston Partly due to the Charles River, a lot of "urbanity" on the other side of the river is not part of Boston proper, even some that's a 20 minute walk from Downtown! Parts of Brookline, Everett and a few other cities close to Boston feel more urban than some outer neighborhoods of Boston.
Of newer cities, Los Angeles has some bizarre boundaries incorporating some really random lower density areas in its city limit. Las Vegas is probably the winner of irrational boundaries. The Las Vegas strip is not actually in Las Vegas! I like the Australian method: almost the entire of metro is one city.
The difference is based on the physical urban form. Because suburban neighborhoods can be (and have been) built both inside and outside of city boundaries, and because suburban neighborhoods are often annexed by cities, I would say the issue of whether a suburban neighborhood is inside or outside of a city boundary is essentially irrelevant in regards to its built form. It may make specific differences in other matters (questions of governance, utilities, jurisdiction) that don't really have much to do with the appearance and design of the built environment.
Los Angeles must look really confusing to someone from the East Coast in terms of its boundaries, but out here, it's not the exception--it is the rule. Other Western cities were predominantly built out (rather than up) in that fashion, by suburban annexation. San Francisco, the Western city that seems most rational by East Coast standards, couldn't expand because it is on the end of a peninsula--instead, its suburbs sit across city and county lines in the outer Bay Area, and places like San Jose, Vallejo and Hayward grew in the traditional, Los Angeles style suburban pattern around San Francisco. As these regions grew, jobs and commercial activity left the downtown core, making them mostly irrelevant to the people who lived in the outer suburbs. Las Vegas takes this to a new level of ridiculousness.
Western cities are postmodern cities. They aren't really designed, so trying to put firm definitions on them is inherently problematic.
Sunnylea, a pre-WWII automobile suburb (at least I think, as far as I know the Bloor Streetcar didn't come that far) just South of The Kingsway, although not with a street grid. https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=Sunnyl...,71.78,,0,5.01
Forest Hill North was built in the 40s and 50s and not really close to any rail transit, but is very similar looking to Forest Hill South. There was a commuter railway there before (Toronto Beltline) but passenger service ended well before. https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=Forest...200.84,,0,6.81
That's not so much true of Boston. Philadelphia annexed more of its surroundings than Boston Partly due to the Charles River, a lot of "urbanity" on the other side of the river is not part of Boston proper, even some that's a 20 minute walk from Downtown! Parts of Brookline, Everett and a few other cities close to Boston feel more urban than some outer neighborhoods of Boston.
Yeah, I would that Boston is the East Coast exception. It's also exceptional in the fact that it lacks any type of grid layout.
Boston has no grid because it was developed before a grid pattern became popular. I think it is so compact because its suburbs were incorporated early in the game, encouraged by the railroad barons who developed them in the 1840's.
Boston has no grid because it was developed before a grid pattern became popular. I think it is so compact because its suburbs were incorporated early in the game, encouraged by the railroad barons who developed them in the 1840's.
Boston isn't any more compact than Philadelphia; it's a bit less dense.
Philadelphia has a grid, and it was built in the 1600s. Partially true of Baltimore. New York was originally grid less and then adopted one in the early 1800s, though it has occasional deviations from a grid. Boston could have done the same, but choose not to. Few places in New England have gridded streets, though a few 19th century industrial era cities have grids, and parts of larger cities were developed on a grid in that era. Boston's 19th century streets were usually fairly regular, even if they did follow a grid format exactly.
Many midwestern (and western) metros grid their arterials (and some rural roads) as well as their local streets. Eastern cities don't grid their main roads.
I always find it interesting flying over the East Coast (I always get window seats). You can already tell what city you're looking at before the pilot says, "If you look to your left folks, you'll see Philadelphia." The footprint of the city is that distinct.
Ah, but it's not. When you look to your left you see the stadium complex and the skyscrapers of Center City (and nowadays the apartments on the right bank of the Schuylkill, one of which is called "The Left Bank"), and on a clear day, maybe the Benjamin Franklin Parkway leading to the Art Museum. But that's only a small part of the city.
The city is a large Y-shaped area extending far to the west, northwest, and northeast of the recognizable area. On the southern part of the western border, it's essentially all urban in form on both sides of the border into Delaware county. Further up, at City Line Avenue, you have a distinct transition from urban forms to dense suburban when you cross City Line Avenue into Montgomery County. On the northwest border north of the Schuylkill, development becomes suburban before you cross the border; it's not obvious when you cross on Germantown Pike/Avenue. The northwest (which some people like to claim isn't "real" Philadelphia for various reasons) starts as a bunch of urban neighborhoods and becomes much more suburban and less dense as you head out to the Bucks County line.
So the city includes most but not all the unmistakably urban built-up areas, but it also includes a lot of less-built areas. The contrast would be something like Hudson County, NJ, which is almost all urban but is made up of several municipalities. Or Cleveland or Chicago, where the urban area spills out of the city boundaries in every direction.
More or less, yes, at least for me (excluding the one story homes; one story homes aren't the majority in the postwar suburbs I'm familiar with). City limits are rather irrelevant and misleading because they don't give information on what's inside them. At one time, I used to think of city vs suburb as going by city limits, until I learned more about places and realized they're rather disconnected by layout and form.
In any case, I think this thread discussion is almost exclusively on urban form and layout.
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Originally Posted by nybbler
Well, most also call the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia suburban, and it's both pre-war and never was a suburb (that is, it was built up after being incorporated into the city of Philadelphia). See what I mean about any definition having glaring exceptions?
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Originally Posted by pvande55
Does this definition include suburbs that were laid out during the 1920's but not built until after that war? I assume that the railroad suburbs built from the 1840's to the 1920's are excluded.
1. The population of the US has more than doubled since WW II. Even w/o taking into account lifestyle changes, e.g. the decrease in household size, and the need to replace at least some of the older housing, new housing had to be built after WW II. If you add in the issues above, the number of housing units had to more than double since WW II. These people had to live somewhere. It is incorrect to say that all this housing built was suburban.
2. What in the H*E*double hockey-stick is wrong with innovation? WW II ended almost 70 years ago now. Despite what some people, especially those with no scientific or engineering background, think, homes today are better insulated and appliances more energy efficient than those of 1945. Most homes built prior to 1945 had no place in the kitchen for a refrigerator, b/c most homes didn't have a refrigerator. The wealthy had "ice boxes", literally boxes in which blocks of ice were inserted to keep food cold. The rest of the population had, well, nothing. There was a saying "back then" that the "second summer" was the most dangerous to a child's health. That is because the first summer of the child's life, s/he was breast fed. Breast milk is sterile as it comes from the body. The second summer the child was weaned (there was often another baby either present or coming) and the child had to eat spoiled food. Lots of kids got serious diarrhea leading to death this way.
3. If you drive around metro Denver, in most cases you need a sign to tell you when you have left the city and entered a suburb, and vice versa. There is an area of SE Denver where the houses all look similar to those in my neighborhood in a suburban city (something else I've been told is an oxymoron). When you cross the city line into Aurora, there is no noticeable difference. Ditto on the NW side, where there are old bungalow neighborhoods. When you cross Sheridan Blvd. into Wheat Ridge, there is no discernable difference. There are differences as you go farther out into the burbs, and as you go closer in to the city center, but at the edges, little to none.
4. If the definition of "the city" is proximity to "bars/lounges, farmer's markets, shopping, etc" (going from memory in another thread), most of these very suburban looking neighborhoods in the city are in proximity to all the above, and no more than a few miles from the city center.
5. How do you reconcile the idea that suburbs are "form", not defined by city limits with statements like these:
a) "These rapacious western cities; (insert name of western city) has just annexed (insert number) square milles and has increased its area and population by x and y percent?" (This is a recurring theme on the Pittsburgh forum, quiescent for now, but just when you've forgotten all about it, it's back.)
b) "People move to the suburbs for suburban schools" if there can be "suburbs" in the city?
1. The population of the US has more than doubled since WW II. Even w/o taking into account lifestyle changes, e.g. the decrease in household size, and the need to replace at least some of the older housing, new housing had to be built after WW II. If you add in the issues above, the number of housing units had to more than double since WW II. These people had to live somewhere. It is incorrect to say that all this housing built was suburban.
True, though the bulk of the growth has been in low-density autocentric areas.
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2. What in the H*E*double hockey-stick is wrong with innovation? WW II ended almost 70 years ago now. Despite what some people, especially those with no scientific or engineering background, think, homes today are better insulated and appliances more energy efficient than those of 1945. Most homes built prior to 1945 had no place in the kitchen for a refrigerator, b/c most homes didn't have a refrigerator. The wealthy had "ice boxes", literally boxes in which blocks of ice were inserted to keep food cold. The rest of the population had, well, nothing. There was a saying "back then" that the "second summer" was the most dangerous to a child's health. That is because the first summer of the child's life, s/he was breast fed. Breast milk is sterile as it comes from the body. The second summer the child was weaned (there was often another baby either present or coming) and the child had to eat spoiled food. Lots of kids got serious diarrhea leading to death this way.
I have no clue what this has to do with the thread. Though, I've been in plenty of old homes, lived in many of them. I like a lot of old homes. They all of a functional kitchen with fridge. The median home in Massachusetts was built in the late 1940s. People seem to do fine with the houses here.
You can have bad innovation and good innovation. I dislike the design of most new neighborhoods in the US over older ones, though I know others will disagree.
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3. If you drive around metro Denver, in most cases you need a sign to tell you when you have left the city and entered a suburb, and vice versa. There is an area of SE Denver where the houses all look similar to those in my neighborhood in a suburban city (something else I've been told is an oxymoron). When you cross the city line into Aurora, there is no noticeable difference. Ditto on the NW side, where there are old bungalow neighborhoods. When you cross Sheridan Blvd. into Wheat Ridge, there is no discernable difference. There are differences as you go farther out into the burbs, and as you go closer in to the city center, but at the edges, little to none.
Yes, you agreeing with me there, I've said similar before. Which is why I dislike using city limits. For Long Island / New York City, for odd historic reasons, the neighborhood names can be even the same for a short distance. There is a Floral Park Long Island and a Floral Park city neighborhood on the other side of the border. The Long Island side has stricter zoning rules, so there are some parts where the housing has been replaced by multifamily on the city side.
5. How do you reconcile the idea that suburbs are "form", not defined by city limits with statements like these:
Quote:
a) "These rapacious western cities; (insert name of western city) has just annexed (insert number) square miles and has increased its area and population by x and y percent?" (This is a recurring theme on the Pittsburgh forum, quiescent for now, but just when you've forgotten all about it, it's back.)
Well, that's from the Pittsburgh forum, I don't think we discuss that much here. Either way I don't see how that's contradiction. Some cities have bigger city limits that others. The more urban sections of the metro don't change. Boston vs Philadelphia was given before as a one city that annexed a lot more than the other. Don't really think either way is better nor does it matter much.
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b) "People move to the suburbs for suburban schools" if there can be "suburbs" in the city?
Well, yea, that's one of the instances where city limits do matter. But some "urban" suburbs don't have good schools. Occasionally some of the more suburban areas of the city have good schools. (Back in that Boston case, Cambridge and Somerville are both urban but outside of the city limits don't have particularly good schools). And you haven't acknowledged the many posts on the forum to give reasons why people want to compare how urban a place is based on form. Saying talking about places being more urban than other doesn't sense is almost preventing an idea from being discussed. City limits may define what's in a particular city, but they don't say how urban a particular spot is. Two different words, two different concepts. If the city vs suburbs discussion was just about city limits, then the pro-urban people would find low-density autocentric cities interesting (Phoenix). I don't usually complain that you are defining cities by their city limits, this thread is not about what is city and what is a suburb but what density (and form changes) is enough for a place to feel urban? Subjective, yes, but that's the point.
I always felt the biggest difference between city and suburb is how built up it is. Many others probably feel the same way.
Last edited by nei; 06-16-2012 at 06:15 AM..
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