Are most US cities actually suburban?

Kyle C. Barker

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I know what the OP is talking about.


I've spent a lot of time in Philly, Baltimore, and DC so my definition of urban is based on a big downtown district with tall skyscrapers followed by a sea of rowhomes for miles, then you hit the suburbs.


Since my mom's side is from Florida I've been to Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville and I have no idea how those places are referred to as cities.


Take Tampa for instance, they have a downtown area but once you leave downtown you're in the suburbs. There's no sea of rowhomes like that.
 
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Cave Savage

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I know what the OP is talking about.


I've spent a lot of time in Philly, Baltimore, and DC so my definition of urban is based on a bug downtown district with tall skyscrapers followed by a sea of rowhomes for miles, then you hit the suburbs.


Since my mom's side is from Florida I've been to Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville and I have no idea how those places are referred to cities.


Take Tampa for instance, they have downtown area but once you leave downtown you're in the suburbs. There's no sea of rowhomes like that.

Right. I think Jacksonville even has rural areas in its city limits.

I'm not saying a neighborhood needs to look like Washington Heights to be urban, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. If it can pass for a middle American suburb, then it's probably not an urban neighborhood.
 

The Coochie Assassin

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There seems to be zero demarcation between ATL and its suburbs
That's cuz Atlanta doesn't really have that big city feel so the burbs kinda mix in with the city.

Atlanta is a pretty unique city when you look at it.

1. Small city limits
2. Low density inside the city limits, you got areas in the city where there's land on land with just one big mansion.
3. Only like 8% of the ATL metro lives in the city limits. That's wild when you think about it. So when 92% of people say they live in ATL, they really mean the surrounding suburbs.

I moved from ATL to DC in 08 and immediately noticed how much more dense Washington was. ATL is twice the size of DC land wise yet DC has 200K more people.

Also I think White flight hurt ATL's development back in the mid 1900s. ATL didn't annex in more land that whitey fled to so the city never developed much while the burbs, especially the northern burbs got developed more. Northern cities got developed earlier before White flight hit them unlike the A.

But more White folks moving back into A-town now and guess what? They building the city up to accommodate them.
 

The Coochie Assassin

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NYC
San Francisco
Chicago
Philly
DC
Boston

are the only true urban cities in the country

Everything else is either a replication or suburban mess

I wouldve added Baltimore but they have transit system outside of buses.
You meant to say Bmore doesn't have transit outside of buses? Cuz they got a subway, it's medicore but they got one lol.
 

Spiritual Stratocaster

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I was just about to ask about Seattle. I figured it would look like San Francisco. Do they have rowhomes or anything like it outside of the downtown district?
More like houses though there are more apartment buildings being built.

Downtown is between i5 and the waterfront...soon as you go east past i5 you see more trees and single homes with more apartment buildings.

c8bfc5f2-2ad9-11e6-aea6-293dc6bd4fb8-780x516.jpg
 
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