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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   5562 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.

Urban living: Row houses and apartment buildings, with incidental retail

Suburban living: Single-family and two-family houses, and nothing else

I think that's pretty close, although I think it's worth pointing out that some suburbs have a good deal of garden apartment complexes, for example many towns in New Jersey. I have also seen a lot of garden apartment complexes in the Central Valley in California.

I'm tempted to distinguish urban and suburban based on whether, as a practical matter, you need a car. The idea being that the car requirement is a significant barrier for the kind of low human capital people who cause a lot of problems in cities and who suburbanites are typically trying to avoid.

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.

I think that to a large extent this describes fleeing. I mean, what's the problem with sharing walls walls, floors, ceilings, and outdoor space with strangers? To a large extent, the problem is low human capital people.

I'm tempted to distinguish urban and suburban based on whether, as a practical matter, you need a car.

I endorse this distinction wholeheartedly, although there are a lot of transitional neighbourhoods in US cities which don't feel truly suburban, and aren't objectively far from the urban core at all, but you still need a car to go anywhere. And I'd say it runs both ways - obligate urbanites like myself are attracted to dense cities in part precisely because you don't need the inconvenience of a car for your daily errands or going out at night.

The sharing walls/floors/ceilings thing can be mitigated pretty well by living in a solid older building. You can insulate your personal space with money in an urban area just as well as in the suburbs, the question is your tolerance of strung-out hobos (which shouldn't have to be a question, but there's also the tolerance of libs issue).

obligate urbanites like myself are attracted to dense cities in part precisely because you don't need the inconvenience of a car for your daily errands or going out at night.

Yes of course. In a sense, inconvenience is the point of suburbs.

The sharing walls/floors/ceilings thing can be mitigated pretty well by living in a solid older building. You can insulate your personal space with money in an urban area just as well as in the suburbs,

I agree with this as well, but in my opinion, there is a key difference which is that, generally speaking, it's far more expensive to insulate a family in a city than it is in the suburbs.

It's cheap enough if you buy that insulation collectively the way first-world Asian cities do.

It's cheap enough if you buy that insulation collectively the way first-world Asian cities do.

Agreed, you'll get no argument from me on that point.

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