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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6579 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

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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:

Most suburbanites are not fleeing urban disorder; they're chasing suburbia. No amount of urban green space can ever replace a private backyard where you can grill and watch the kids and dog run around and plant a personal garden. No amount of smart planning can replace not sharing walls, floors, and ceilings with strangers. No high-quality public transit system can ever replace the freedom provided by American car culture.

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.

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

My personal tongue-in-cheek definition:

  • Urban living: cars are an optional purchase to support specific careers and/or lifestyles. Middle-class aspiration for non-car owners includes frequent taxi/Uber use.
  • Suburban living: Working-class respectability requires one car per family (with carless living possible for the childless possible but not ideal). Middle-class aspiration is one car per employed adult.
  • Exurban or rural living: Working-class respectability requires one car per employed adult. Middle-class aspiration is one car per licensed driver, with the car being a pickup, SUV or 4x4 if the driver is an employed adult who doesn't drive a van for work reasons.

Note that on this definition, a lot of American "suburbia" falls into the exurban/rural category. This is deliberate. "Urban" living by my definition is compatible with upper-middle-class people having houses with private gardens (many such neighbourhoods in London zone 2/3), though probably not detached ones.

One imagines this will change completely the moment self-driving cars and self-driving fleets reach mainstream acceptance. This has been talked about for ages now but I would be genuinely surprised, especially with latest AI progress, if it isn't all sorted out within ~20 years. Actually as I think about it I can imagine some big problems that have to be solved even after the cars can be trusted to drive themselves, but in theory there's so much money at stake that I would expect them to be solved. And I would expect that to have massive repercussions on urban development and suburban density.

I very much agree. There are two great questions about the self-driving car era that we don't know the answer to yet:

  • Will self-driving cars be hired like taxis or will they be privately owned? Or in other words, will people still own a car once renting it on the spot market not longer adds the cost of a chauffeur.
  • What is the geometric constraint on cities in the world where self-driving cars are the main form of transit? (From Babylon to the Victorians, it was walking distance. In the private car era, it was parking scarcity first and carriageway scarcity for moving vehicles second)

Seems to me like the problem is rushhour -- everyone wants a self-driving car at the same time. If you can't convince people to get self-driving rideshares or even a bespoke self-driving programmable bus, then everyone wants their own car. And then you still need parking because otherwise empty cars returning home just produce twice as much traffic and exponential congestion.

To your first question, I think it is likely that we will see a progression over time. At first, self-driving cars will likely be sold privately to individual owners to appeal to the existing culture of private car ownership. Tesla has already begun this. However, I'd imagine that eventually, manufacturers will transition to larger and larger taxi-style fleets, as this seems to me a more profitable business model. They might even have a subscription model where you pay X amount for Y miles of travel per month. The question will be in how these fleets are administered. Will these fleets be controlled by municipalities? Will multiple fleets coexist or will there be a clear winner that later becomes impenetrable due to market dominance? How will rural or suburban areas be served? It is going to be an interesting few decades.

I'm not sure it'd ever fully replace ownership. Many people don't treat their cars as interchangeable parts today. If you have a work truck with tools in the back, you may not want to move those often. Or reinstall a bike rack every time you use it. I do think it could replace a lot of uses, but probably not all of them.

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