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A stray comment on the culture-war thread from two weeks ago reminds me that, IMO, people on this website have been talking very loosely when they compare "urban", "suburban", and "rural" living.
The definitions endorsed by the United Nations are roughly as follows.
Urban: ≥ 1500 people per km2 (6.1 people per acre)
Suburban: ≥ 300 people per km2 (1.2 people per acre)
Rural: < 300 people per km2 (1.2 people per acre)
However, six people per acre actually isn't that dense. The US's IZC (International Zoning Code) is not necessarily authoritative, but in its single-family and two-family residential zones it permits density of up to six dwelling units per acre, implying 15 people per acre at 2.5 people per household.⁎
Likewise, a representative comment describes suburbs as follows:
Yet, if you look at a random US "city" in Google Maps, you will see lots of single-family houses with their own backyards and limited access to mass transit.
So, what do you actually mean when you say "urban", "suburban", and "rural" living? Maybe it's something like this.
Urban living: Row houses and apartment buildings, with incidental retail
Suburban living: Single-family and two-family houses, and nothing else
Rural living: Incidental single-family houses in land that is largely agricultural or undeveloped
⁎With tongue significantly less than halfway in cheek, I previously suggested that the threshold for a fourth "mega-city" category in the UN's framework might be set at 7500 people per km2 (30 people per acre). This matches the IZC's upper bound for multifamily residential zones (12 dwelling units per acre), past which commercial/residential zones with unlimited dwelling-unit density must be used instead.
I'm reminded of the recent discussion online about how the United States only has <10 "real" cities, the rest being urban-suburban car-dependent Frankenstein agglomerations. Most of the second tier US cities I've been to lack a continuous urban experience outside of their downtowns, instead consisting of a sparse network of walkable business districts separated by swathes of lower-density development.
This is somewhat addressed in my mega-city comment.
We are well on our way to "Mega City One". I've seen plenty of joking commentary online about "Northeast Megalopolis Supremacy," suggesting a growing regional identity along the DC-Boston Corridor. I think this is also downstream of recent positive migration to Philadelphia and DC by young people, slowly reducing the dominance of NYC in the cultural machine.
That's under the looser US definition of "urban". Under the stricter UN definition, there is no continuous urban corridor, so in my comment I was referring only to New York City (along with Newark, Long Island, etc.).
Certainly, I'm just speaking colloquially. I'm impressed at a lot of this data, I wasn't aware it was tracked and visualized with such precision.
I do believe that eventually the corridor will become continuous, especially as NYC and Philly continue to cross-pollinate. In my eyes, it's just a question of how long it'll take. If any meaningful rail infrastructure is developed in the next 50 years, I'd expect it to accelerate dramatically.
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