How Should We Define the Suburbs?

[Paul2]

Americans embrace social primitivism of living in detached single family houses.

 

[KungFuLee]

https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/03/cities-economic-performance-data-suburbs-urban-research/584284/

The Persistent Economic Advantage of America’s Suburbs

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The rise of the city and the decline of the suburbs has emerged as a common meme in recent years. The young, the educated, and the affluent have come streaming back to the urban core, driving up rents, driving out the poor, and giving rise to patterns of gentrification. The story goes that the suburbs have lost their long-held position as the premier location, being besieged by poverty, economic decline, and other problems once thought to be the province of the inner city.

The trouble is that this picture does not match reality—not by a long shot, according to a detailed new paper published in the journal Urban Studies. Authored by Whitney Airgood-Obrycki of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, it looks at the change in the economic status of urban and suburban neighborhoods from 1970 to 2010, a period that overlaps with notions of the resurgence of America’s urban centers and the decline of its suburbs.

Airgood-Obrycki’s study classifies neighborhoods according to three categories—urban core, inner-ring suburbs, and outer-ring suburbs—based on their proximity to the urban center and their density. It further breaks out the suburbs into three additional categories based on when they were developed: prewar, postwar, and modern. Airgood-Obrycki defines the economic status of neighborhoods according to a series of key economic and demographic indicators, including income, college education, employment in professional occupations, home values, rents, vacancy rates, older households (60 years of age and over), and female-headed households.

Her data come from the U.S. Census Longitudinal Tract Database for the period 1970 to 2010, and cover roughly 40,000 census tracts across America’s 100 most populous metro areas.

In contrast to the idea of a Great Inversion—a shift of affluence back to the cities and poverty out to the suburbs—Airgood-Obrycki finds that suburban neighborhoods overwhelmingly outperformed their urban counterparts during the four-decade period spanning 1970 to 2010. Indeed, suburbs increased their economic advantage over urban areas during this time frame.

The share of suburbs making up the top ranks of all urban and suburban neighborhoods (measured as the top quartile) went from roughly two-thirds in 1970 to almost three-quarters by 2010. And the share of suburban neighborhoods in the top two status levels (that is, the upper two quartiles) increased from 56 percent in 1970 to 59 percent by 2010, while the share of urban neighborhoods in these top two levels fell from 41 percent to 36 percent.

Across the board, suburban neighborhoods have higher incomes, higher home values, higher shares of college grads, and higher shares of professionals.


The suburban advantage is clear. Across the board, suburban neighborhoods have higher incomes, higher home values, higher shares of college grads, and higher shares of professionalsthan urban neighborhoods. And suburbs do better than urban areas even when we compare neighborhoods in the same quartile of status.

Among America’s most advantaged neighborhoods (the top quartile), the median incomes of suburban neighborhoods are roughly $10,000 higher than those of their urban counterparts, a gap that has grown from $5,500 in 1970. Conversely, among the nation’s least advantaged neighborhoods (those in the bottom quartile), urban neighborhoods have incomes that are roughly $5,000 lower than in their suburban counterparts—$33,700 versus $38,600. Among declining neighborhoods, urban neighborhoods saw income losses twice as large as those of declining suburbs, $14,040 versus $7,570.

There were considerable shifts in the economic status of America’s neighborhoods over this period. More than half of all neighborhoods (53 percent) saw their status either improve (26 percent) or decline (27 percent). But the most common pattern of all was stability: 47 percent of neighborhoods saw no significant change in their economic status between 1970 and 2010, echoing the findings of Elizabeth Delmelle.

Here again, Airgood-Obrycki finds substantial differences between urban and suburban neighborhoods. Urban neighborhoods were far more likely to remain in lower levels of economic status. More than half of urban neighborhoods that remained in the same status quartile were those at lowest level, compared to less than a fifth of suburban neighborhoods.

High-status urban neighborhoods were actually more likely to see decline than their advantaged suburban counterparts. More than half of urban neighborhoods in the top two quartiles saw their economic status decline, compared to 40 percent of their suburban peers, and the decline in economic status tended to be much steeper for those urban neighborhoods.

But the suburbs are far from monolithic. Indeed, the lion’s share of the gains were confined to newly developed “modern suburbs,” nearly half of which saw gains in economic status between 1970 and 2010. “Modern suburbs saw the greatest gains in nearly every indicator,” the paper notes. By contrast, the oldest suburbs—prewar suburbs, developed before World War II—have consistently been the most troubled and disadvantaged, while immediate postwar suburbs have seen a significant drop in their economic status since 1970.

The reality of America’s urban and suburban neighborhoods is far more complicated than we typically allow. The old dichotomy of declining urban centers and wholly affluent suburbs no longer holds. Many urban centers have gentrified, and poverty and economic dislocation have spread into the suburbs. Despite all of this change, the most affluent places in America largely remain in its more recently developed suburbia.

The once cut-and-dried distinctions between city and suburb have blurred and no longer explain the actual places we live. “While the urban-suburban divide once served as a meaningful dichotomy, suburbs have greater economic inequities among them,” as Airgood-Obrycki puts it. America is becoming a veritable patchwork of economic advantage and disadvantage, spread across its cities and suburbs alike.

I would have to say it's a balance between privacy or social connection.

In Hong Kong, I live in Mong Kok, this is Mong Kok

I currently live in the suburb of Marsfield, near Macquarie University.

EDIT This is not my house, I found this pic on domain website, it's a random house for rent in my suburb

Well, in Hong Kong, it's all about closeness between you and your neighbour, also about space, which you really don't have any. In my apartment, we have about 100 unit over 25 storey, all the people I know basically live at the same building, my best friend live 2 level down from me, my girl friend lives 1 storey up, even my secondary school teacher live in the same building.

In Australia, i live in a duplex, which is instead of 1 house in one land, it's 2 houses in one land, I live with 2 other students I met at college and we share the house. Stangely, this 2500 sq ft house cost less than the 400 sq ft apartment my family renting in Hong Kong. Even apartment here are super big. A friend of mine live in an apartment in Macquarie Park, it would as big as the house I am currently living.

I would say, a suburb is a community, where everything you need is in one single place, self sufficient, I would not say it's isolated, (maybe a bit here in Australia as land area here are quite large) different suburb are grouped to serve different people, you have your high income suburb (Like North Sydney), you have your university suburb (Like Marsfield), a working class suburb (Like Doonside) and ethnic Suburb (Like Cabramatta or Parramatta where a lot of Chinese reside). In Hong Kong, the zoning is not really that specific. I went to Hong Kong Universtiy (In Hong Kong Island) yet I lived in Mong Kok, we don't have all these different suburb, except of course the riches live up the mountain or near harbour where you can have the best view, but other than that, it's a mix bag in Hong Kong.

As for which is better? Depends on which way you lean, as I said before it's about space, privacy vs social circle.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Americans embrace social primitivism of living in detached single family houses.

Possibly..but it has more to do with castles. The popular saying in Britain/Europe was "A man's home is HIS castle". So people tend to want their own land and drop a "castle" in the middle of it. They then make it very presentable and fill it with every convenience.

But single family homes are not an American phenomenon...even most Japanese live in them.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

an "outer suburb" 40km from the Boston city line.

 

[Elvin]

Remember I'm in "Taxachusetts" where many states laugh at us for taxing residents for things like nice services and schools ( ). BTW we have the 3rd lowest suicide rate in the country and that is with our “major city” being just 90sq miles and only about 700,000 people.

Zoning laws are different from place to place. It must be far worse in the areas you are talking about. While I grew up in a large home (which had servant sections BTW) there were the notorious “triple deckers” maybe 200 meters away. (For the uninitiated Triple deckers are synonymous with landlord owned “slum housing” while “the projects” are government run “slum housing”)
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From wikipedia

300 meters away was a multilevel ~50 unit apartment building. So there was quite a mix of living styles and incomes. It isn’t as socially friendly as you think. During a discussion one day a co-worker realized he lived only 5 houses down from me for 2 years. I never noticed him.

Many suburbs (but not the majority here) do have single-family zoning laws to keep out apartment complexes. I already touched upon it. One town “Weston” pays a fine every year to the state instead of building the state-law-required low income housing just to keep out the “riff-raff”.

The majority also do restrict businesses to the “main road” through town area instead of the neighborhoods. So if you are far from it you’ll have to commute some way and yes if you are a mom&pop you’ll probably be paying premium rent.

Again the bike stuff is also regional. We have dedicated bike trails and bike lanes in both the cities and suburbs that get plenty of use.
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There's even a 12 mile dedicated bike path leading through some of the wealthiest suburbs into Boston.
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We even have those rent-a-bike things in the suburbs.

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Still this is a minimal factor in the city vs suburb choice.

Around here there are plenty of mom&pop places in the suburbs. For instance I don’t even go out to dinner in Boston because the selection out here is so nice. There isn’t any zoning that I have ever heard of that favors chains. If anything it is the opposite here. Lots of towns refuse chains like McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts.

Hmm...now I know why there are fast food chains in Pakistan that don’t have any presence In Massachusetts. @OsmanAli98 ( https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/why-isnt-white-castle-a-fast-food-giant.643445/#post-11899395 )

Let's not drift off topic too much, nationally the US does have higher than average suicide and depression/anxiety rates and most of those are found in the suburbs where people have less social interactions than in the city. The US is making an attempt to change zoning laws, but they remain very similar throughout when it comes to the single family home concept and everything zoned in a manner that requires driving (for the most part). The place I live in at the moment is truly making strides to put in bike lanes, more sidewalks and change some zoning laws in the downtown area to allow for more mixed use development and it has definitely paid off thus far, but it has a very long way to go.

There is not much in the world that can compete with the look of US suburbs and the grand homes you see in them. Most homes, even tough middle class, are out of reach for WEALTHY people in other areas of the world in terms of owning a house that looks like a middle or upper middle class home in the US. However, going back to my initial point that humans are social creatures that need interaction and unfortunately suburbs, in my opinion, are not practical as they typically keep people apart and isolated. The zoning laws and the way we have the cities in the US can also be contributed to race and wanting to "stay away" from others, but this is another topic.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

speaking of gentrification