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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.
Here in Russia the urban/rural divide is defined by employment. If 50% or more or the economically active population is employed in agriculture, it's a rural locality. Of course, this alone doesn't define suburban living, but I would define it like this: 50% or more of the economically active population is not employed in agriculture and their place of employment is located in another locality.
But this definition isn't great. Imagine a small town with 49 farmers and 51 people, out of which 49 commute to a large city to work. It's not rural and not suburban, which means it has to be urban, which is a silly idea. Maybe it should be defined like this:
If 50% or more are employed in agriculture, it's a rural locality;
Otherwise, if 50% or more of those not employed in agriculture work in a different locality, it's a suburban locality;
Otherwise, it's an urban locality.
Still not perfect, but I think it's a workable definition.
I don't think that works because there's plenty of small suburban or rural towns (in a way that we would definitely recognize them as such despite definitions) that are basically supported by a single big factory. People work locally, not in agriculture, but that doesn't make those tiny towns urban. And the tiny villages around them that supply some extra workers aren't necessarily suburban.
Outside of density, which could be used to make a hard criteria for analysis, but not necessarily capture the real spirit of the word, I would define the three as what proximity people are seeking there.
In urban localities, people want to be in proximity to other people. Density is a virtue here. In suburban localities, people want to be in proximity to the urban locality, but not other people. Density is not a virtue, but it will happen as there is a limit to how far people can be and meaningfully access the urban core. In rural localities, people want to be in proximity to open spaces (for economic purposes, like agricultural activity, for recreation or as an aesthetic preference).
Isn't a rural town an oxymoron?
To me no; town I would define as a locality that has most of the services needed for day-to-day life, a core that spans a few streets rather than one, but doesn't have the businesses and services that would truly make it independant. A town would have for instance pharmacies, supermarkets, maybe some chain stores like a walmart, a few restaurants, probably a high school, medical clinics but no hospital, no mall, no airport, no nightlife outside of local bars, minimal public transport. I expect people from a town make a trip to a city in a 1-2 hours drive radius a few times a year when they want to go on real "shopping" trip, need to go to a hospital, etc... There usually aren't any higher education institutions in towns either, so the kids often end up having to move when they start studying at that level.
A village, to me, has a handful of businesses, rarely spread on more than one street: a gas station, a local diner, a very small grocery store, maybe an elementary school, maybe a bar or two but everyone there goes to the nearest town in a 15-30 minutes radius for their real actual groceries every week, and to a city as often as the townfolks do.
I would even posit that the the village/town/city distinction is sometimes completely distinct from rural/suburban/urban. There are small cities in my province that exist essentially as service hubs for the surrounding countryside. They are a bit denser than a typical suburb but the economic engine is not the city. One of them, for instance, has a large veterinary hospital, the biggest agricultural school in the province, etc...
Note that the UN definitions place the thresholds for "city" at 50,000 people, "town" at 5000, and "village" at 500. (And my aforementioned "mega-city" starts at 500,000.)
This is even worse, especially in New Jersey, where we've got weird stuff like Metutchen (pop 15,000) entirely surrounded by Edison (pop 110,000). Edison is just dense suburbia.
To clarify, both UN and US definitions operate on density-based "urban areas" rather than on legal boundaries.
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I prefer the UK system, where the rules are made up and, on the basis of fairness, Wales gets an automatic city for each Jubilee. Unfortunately, they realized they also needed a more sensible taxonomy, which does ruin the fun a bit.
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I get why they would, because other definitions are fuzzy and open to interpretations, even though in practice most people I know can tell which one a place is by looking at what its core looks like.
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