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Small cities can be urban, as well. I think it's correct to call many settlements in Europe "urban" and most settlements in the US "suburban". But Europe has plenty of lower density suburbs as well, just not as low density as American ones.
But, to reiterate what I said, given European suburbs can be structurally denser, pedestrian focused, built around multi-unit housing, and mass-transit oriented, none of these can be seen as indicative of suburbs as a whole, only the built form of U.S. suburbs (which were aped in some countries, particularly Australia and Israel, and to a lesser extent the U.K. and Canada).
Instead, the commonalities of suburbs are:
1. Mainly residential instead of mixed use
2. Some distance from urban core/employment centers.
3. Workers use some form of transit (mass transit or driving) in order to travel to work
A neighborhood can thus also be urban (structurally dense) and suburban - streetcar suburbs in the U.S. case. Although both suburban and urban are both different scales of measurement, not a dichotomy. Thus you could say that a neighborhood like Park Slope in Brooklyn is in a sense suburban, as people live in a residential neighborhood and generally commute to work in Manhattan. Of course, it is far less suburban than a neighborhood further from the core with less walkable shops and amenities, but it is still somewhat suburban in social function.
Red for me. Not picky, though. Maybe it depends on what the red is and what the white is. I like where this discussion is going! Reps, OhioGirl.
But you can all walk to get your wine?
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It occurs to me that function is important as well when it comes to determining the type of settlement. A large part of what makes suburbs suburbs is that a lot of residents commute. (Okay, people living in cities, small towns, and rural areas commute as well, but it tends to be a primary or at least significant function of suburbs to serve as bedroom communities.) To a great degree, areas with substantial bedroom commuter populations are suburbs pretty much by definition.
I'm not sure how useful it is. It's true cities tend to get an increase in daytime population, and most people who live in a city work in their city while those in a suburb tend to work in another suburb or in the center city. But individual suburbs are usually small in an area and population, while cities. If you look at suburbs at a county level (or some other larger level) some suburban counties have daytime population increases, others have daytime population decreases. Within the counties, some suburbs or section host lots of job, others are mostly residential, with businesses to serve only the local residents. People in cities are also commuting to certain employment districts within the city, maybe with many in a closer distance than suburbanites, but it's not that different. The central city is usually the biggest job center, though.
If you looked at the New York metro county by county, the counties where the highest percentage of people leave to commute elsewhere are mostly city counties (unlike most cities, New York City is composed of 5 counties) together with some outer suburb counties with a small population of any of those counties is small). Not surprisingly, those counties have the longest commute times in the nation (city size doesn't help). The city itself registers a small daytime population (net change of commuter coming in - those leaving) increase (+7%), not high compared to most cities (Denver is +28%, Boston +41%) but within the city there are commuting flows. Broken down by county NYC is (Manhattan +87%, Bronx -10%, Brooklyn -10%, Queens -15%, Staten Island -16%). Interestingly, the places with the highest % daytime population loss in New York State are in rural counties — not a whole lot jobs in rural towns, and most people aren't farmers anymore, so they have to commute elsewhere. These commutes are often really long, and cost lots in gasoline that the not well off residents can't afford. Increases in gas prices hurt rural areas more than most suburban areas, despite what posters claim. A coupe of big cities register a daytime population loss. San Jose has the highest; it's a city that houses workers that work in office parks elsewhere in Silicon Valley. Its light rail has done badly since downtown isn't much of a job center.
Getting back to the subject, so, are these city counties suburbs, then. Obviously not, but the local dialect might choose to disagree. In the NY metro, if people so going to the city, it's usually referring to Manhattan. If you call other parts of the city "the city", you might create confusion. As in, your grandma's from the city? No, she's from Queens. Probably came from 50-60 years ago, when fewer residents live in suburbs and Manhattan was so different from the rest that only Manhattan deserves the label "city". Or from annexation or the commute patterns.
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Older small cities located within metro areas but outside the city, such as Nei described earlier might seem difficult to place. So might large commercial centers. I'd generally have no trouble categorizing these places as being generally part of suburbia, though, since many of them still will have a larger percentage of long- or middle-distance commuters in their populations than you'll find in central cities.
I suspect that it's generally the case that even a densely populated small city surrounded by suburbia, if it is not enough of a commuter destination to qualify as a second primary city for its metro area, will have a significant number of residents who commute around the metro area and into the main city. Functionally this fits the notion of a suburb, even if you might look at the landscape and think, "urban."
Not sure if from commute patterns, but just from being part of the metro. Going back to the White Plains example, it's often thought as an important center of Westchester (White Plains' daytime population increases by 450%) but its integrated in the metro area. Its also treated the same way as Waltham — a place for people looking for something more urban but are working in the suburbs and living there for other reasons.
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Another point to consider is that many of those large commercial centers in generally suburban locales are centers of retail activity, existing primarily to serve the needs of those living in the surrounding suburban areas. They really have little connection to the principal city other than being located in its suburbs. Thus such areas would also fit into the broad category suburbia.
You're not going to get this in Boston so much, but some suburban retail centers serve the city as well because the city has declined so much. For example here, Downtown Springfield doesn't have much in the way of shopping. The main shopping area for the metro is the Holyoke Mall, which is the city limits of another old city, Holyoke, but well outside the built up area where the residents and old commercial buildings are. True for many upstate cities as well.
The mall gets good bus service, but it's still more difficult for most Springfield residents: unless you're on the line, it's bus to downtown Springfield, then change for bus to mall.
White Plains solved this problem by placing a mall in its downtown, which has its own problems. The rest of the downtown retail survives (and I think is making a comeback) but I suspect they occupy 2 different niches.
Yes, I can say from limited experience that getting around western MA without a car can be interesting, especially going from Springfield to places like Amherst; of course, there may have been options that I wasn't aware of..
It seems that living in an exurban or small city almost requires a car, by definition, while in the major cities, esp the Northeast and Chicago, one is better off using public transit anywhere within city limits/immediate streetcar suburbs..
I'm no pollyanna here (obvi) but shouldn't a definition define what something IS, not what it is not?
Yes, Denver and Boston look different. That's not surprising. One is much older than the other, and they are in different parts of the country. Denver also includes its airport (~50 sq. mi) in its city limits, so 1/3 of the city is not occupied at all, which brings down its density stats.
Boston also includes its airport in its city limits along with a seaport so there are large portions of Boston that are uninhabitated too and the whole city of boston could fit in the airports land and still have space left over. Boston also has large parks that cover large parts of the city.
I would like to see an actual link to this. I think it's been taken out of context. Well, obviously it has, but I'd like to see the "rest of the story".
Going to bed.
It is all online. The City of Denver is not trying to hide anything from you.
1) From hills west of Cayuga Lake, about 6 miles NW of Ithaca, NY
2) Shelburne Falls, MA overlooking the Deerfield River
3) Probably somewhere in the town of Conway, MA or very close to the border
4) Rocky Hill Road in the town of Hadley, MA looking towards the Holyoke Range
5) River Rd along the Deerfield River in the Hoosacs by Rowe/Florida, MA
6) From the trail to Trapper's Peak, North Cascades (WA); no can't get that in the NE
All the MA ones I got to without a car (bicycle).
#2 is as OhioGirl said; a small town in the middle of nowhere. It's rather compact, though there are normal houses around the brick buildings but it ends quickly without much sprawl, being surrounded by hills helps. It used to be a mill town centered around the dam. Now it's kinda touristy, but it's also the only sizeable town with services for a long distance in any direction (except 10 miles to the east, where there's a much bigger town). Deerfield River flooded the town badly last August from Hurricane Irene. I was in a lunch (sandwich / pizza / etc) place and a local was saying how the insurance was contesting her basement damage claim until they got proof it was hurricane caused flooding! Shelburne Falls isn't a legal government entity, it's just the name for the built-up area. The part on the west bank of the Deerfield is in the town of Buckland, east side town of Shelburne. One of the more compact small towns I've seen in the US, but not as extreme as European ones like this:
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Originally Posted by nei
Likely all the houses are close together and the fields outside of where the houses are. Much of rural Europe is like that. Look at this French village (population about 2000):
I can't imagine any North American town being this dense. It's almost a city in miniature. There are detached houses soon a bit further out, but then it abruptly turns to rural. These residents are living at densities higher most American city dwellers, but the settlement is small and sleepy looking. Does the city mouse vs country mouse fable relevant for density preference anymore?
So based on the place of work/bedroom community definition, Mississauga might not be considered suburban?
Mississauga daytime population increase: 18.9%
Toronto daytime population increase: 17.4%
55% of Mississauga residents who have a regular place of work work in Mississauga. Most of the employment is not in formerly independent cities or towns as is the case with White Plains, it's mostly office parks, business parks, industrial parks, shopping malls... as well as more local employment like schools of course. It's probably similar to Silicon Valley, except with different kinds of businesses. Two other suburbs (Vaughan and Markham) also have more jobs than workers, in Vaughan it's more blue collar (lots of jobs around their huge railyard), and in Markham there are more tech companies, as well as more general corporate offices and some blue collar. It seems like Downtown Toronto has daytime population increases while the surrounding neighbourhoods up to Toronto city limits (including old 19th century neighbourhoods and former 60s/70s era suburbs that were amalgamated) have daytime decreases. The municipalities just beyond Toronto city limits (Mississauga, Vaughan and Markham) have daytime increases, and the suburbs beyond that have daytime decreases (Aurora, Newmarket, Pickering, Ajax, Brampton, Oakville).
You also have some other oddities, like I think Kitchener might be considered a suburb of Waterloo based on that idea, even though Kitchener is the central municipality. I'm having a hard time finding detailed numbers, but Kitchener's population decreases during the daytime and there are a lot more jobs in the peripheral municipalities. Kitchener is essentially a blue collar city that lost a lot of jobs in the last couple decades, while Waterloo just North gained a lot of jobs with its two large universities and many tech companies including RIM which is headquartered there (at least up until 2006 when the most recent job data is from). None of the municipalities in the CMA are truly suburban, they all started out as independent towns but Kitchener is bigger than the other two (Waterloo and Cambridge), has a bigger core/inner city and is more centrally located. Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo are basically lined up one on top of the other, so they all have greenfield development and outlying bedroom communities within them.
But, to reiterate what I said, given European suburbs can be structurally denser, pedestrian focused, built around multi-unit housing, and mass-transit oriented, none of these can be seen as indicative of suburbs as a whole, only the built form of U.S. suburbs (which were aped in some countries, particularly Australia and Israel, and to a lesser extent the U.K. and Canada).
There is still a large density contrast in suburb vs city in Europe.
Picked two extremes but the difference is clear. The Paris suburb is built around a train station and looks very walkable, though there are highways as well.
Suburbs in some parts of Europe (for example, Spain) are mostly apartment buildings, but they tend to be less mixed use and more accommodating to automobiles than the older urban parts, so there is some difference.
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A neighborhood can thus also be urban (structurally dense) and suburban - streetcar suburbs in the U.S. case. Although both suburban and urban are both different scales of measurement, not a dichotomy. Thus you could say that a neighborhood like Park Slope in Brooklyn is in a sense suburban, as people live in a residential neighborhood and generally commute to work in Manhattan. Of course, it is far less suburban than a neighborhood further from the core with less walkable shops and amenities, but it is still somewhat suburban in social function.
The suburb part of streetcar suburb never made sense to me; if it's structurally dense then it's just urban and it's not, it's suburban. I can kinda feel for Park Slope. While Park Slope has a high population density for American standards, relative to Manhattan, which has services and amnetities for visitors/workers while Park Slope is mostly residential and services for the people who live in the immediate area. So feels like you've escaped to a more peaceful place with as much "city stuff" going on. Not that Park Slope is all that sleepy of a place.
Last edited by nei; 06-22-2012 at 01:08 PM..
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