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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24149 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025

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Yeah in China you live in a tiny pod no matter how far from the city center you live. The pods are just cheaper (not even bigger) if the commute is longer.

Suburbs aren't even uniquely American at all. Britain invented single family homes for commuters quite a long time ago. Pretty much every country in the English speaking world (and Japan of course) understands the concept at the very least.

Our version of single family home in Britain is a bit different from that in the US. This picture from your link shows a nice symmetrical structure in the middle which Americans might think is a single house for a single family. In reality it's two houses (semi detached) for two different families which share a central wall.

Fully detached houses etc. do exist but they are very much an exception and even then we don't have "suburbia" in the sense the US does, you'll often find such fully detached houses a short walk away from a 6 storey tall council estate and a commercial area a few minutes away too. There is very little "this is where houses are, full stop.".

The US has duplexes as well. They used to be more popular... when the US was much poorer, like in the first half of the 20th century.

Landed houses do exist in China but they're fairly rare. I've seen enough random townhouse developments from the train even on the edge of big metros (though I assume the cost of entry would be pretty insane)

It depends. Some of the older ones in my wife’s tier three city are very attainable, but it seems a lot of people just don’t like the idea. Either you live in an older low rise or a newer high rise compound. Townhomes are odd.

Yeah I'm basing this on ones I saw in the midst of the greater Guangzhou area and the sheer congregation of wealth there surely means you'd be paying a lot for the rare landed places.

a yard, a car and a dog doesn't a suburb make.

To most, a suburb is best understood as a quiet and safe residential neighborhood away from the downtown core. It has limited through traffic, has easy access to the city and prioritizes families.

I had linked to Google maps of cities (domestic and international) that satisfy these requirements. Then I lost the comment. But, most don't look like sprawling suburbs. They were neighborhoods near Boston (Brookline, Somerville, Cambridge), Brooklyn (Bay ridge, Windsor terrace), SF (Noe valley, Sunset), Seattle (Wallingford, Westlake) and so on.

The impulse to move away from the chaos of a downtown core is understandable. That the alternative must look like a Midwestern suburb is where the rub is.

The United Nations uses the following general definitions:

  • Urban: At least 5000<ins>1500</ins> people per km2 (13,000<ins>3900</ins> per mi2)

  • Suburban: At least 300 people per km2 (780 per mi2), but fewer than 5000<ins>1500</ins> (13,000<ins>3900</ins>)

  • Rural: Fewer than 300 people per km2 (780 per mi2)

The linked page also includes an interactive map of the world and more detailed documentation.

Sweet, by that definition Stockholm city (not the urban or metropolitan area which are not as dense) is suburban.

Sorry, I misread the relevant page. The UN's actual definition of "urban" is 1500 people per km2 (3900 per mi2).

This page provides writeups for specific cities.

@DirtyWaterHotDog @BreakerofHorsesandMen

ah, that makes more sense. I should've known better than to latch onto a number that suited my biases.

Fascinating. The closest city to me is entirely suburban, by that definition.

suburban - fewer than 5000 km^2

  • DC - 4,355.4 km^2
  • Philadelphia - 4,608.9 km^2
  • Chicago - 4,656.3 km^2
  • Miami - 4,743.6 km^2

By city boundaries, only NYC, SF and Boston qualify. (and their city extensions - Jersey City, Daly City and Cambridge).

Guess I intuitively knew this because they're the only 3 US cities I can see myself living in, in the long term.

One thing I will say is China has safe calm neighborhoods in the downtown core and everywhere is safe. Houses are seen as for villagers or rich people. Most middleclass apartments have a central park area that mimics a suburb for families.

To most, a suburb is best understood as a quiet and safe residential neighborhood away from the downtown core. It has limited through traffic, has easy access to the city and prioritizes families.

I'd add another requirement: the suburb must still be dependent on the city for many, if not most, infrastructure and amenities. A suburb has some schools and maybe a grocery store - but not much more. Otherwise, its not a suburb but a small town.

This is also what make suburbs so distinctly American. For historical reasons, most settlements in the old world - and many on the east coast - have their single family residential neighborhoods around town centers that provide many services you would never see in a suburb out west.

I'd add another requirement: the suburb must still be dependent on the city for many, if not most, infrastructure and amenities. A suburb has some schools and maybe a grocery store - but not much more. Otherwise, its not a suburb but a small town.

This doesn't really work in a fair number of places. There are a lot of places where the suburb is neither self-sufficient nor dependent on the city; instead it's dependent on other suburbs for some things.

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