[mattnf]

What exactly is the difference? Is there any?

Exurbs have been defined as:

- Mixed rural/suburban areas
- Cities or towns that are their own entities but the metro area of the large city has grown out to meet them
(example: Aurora, Illinois; Oshawa, Ontario)
- Newer suburbs - tend to be less planned, less dense and less pedestrian-friendly than older suburbs

[hudkina]

A picture says 1000 words...



The first pic is Lincoln Park, an inner ring suburb of Detroit. The second pic is of Canton TWP, an outer ring suburb of Detroit.

This post has been edited by hudkina: 22 October 2005 - 11:09 PM

[ZachariahDaMan]

Canton Township- my hometown

[TheBostonian]

I don't know if there are any official standards to distinquish between suburbs and exurbs. In fact, the first pictures looks borderline urban to me with those main streets lined with what looks like retail. Maybe "inner suburb" is the best way to describe it. And the 2nd picture looks purely suburban to me.

Lincoln Park: 11 miles (google driving directions) from Detroit and 7,000/sq mile (rounded)
Canton: 30 miles from Detroit and 2,000/sq mile

I'm curious to know what distance from a core city and density warrants being called a suburb or exurb in people's opinion.

[ryanmckibben]

Today's exurb is tomorrow's suburb. Exurbs are newly settled rural areas that have traditionally been rural, whereas suburbs are any area that has a mutual relationship with a larger municipality. In Atlanta their are older "streetcar" suburbs close to the city center, such as Grant Park or Druid Hills and newer "auto" suburbs a little farther out, like Roswell and Deluth. A little farther up the interstates are today's exurbs, places like Cumming and Jasper. Unfortunately most exurbs are being developed just like the newer suburbs and will be doomed to repeat the mistakes if their older counterparts.

[Jacob Norlund - KCØLTV]

To me, an "exurb" is an area on the fringes of a metropolitan area that is rapidly undergoing disparate development. The trademarks are residential developments with lots of cul-de-sacs and houses but no variety (e.g. retail) surrouned by expanses of farmland / swamp / forest, usually connected to highways, which may have developed "retail oases" and office parks, the exurban equivalent of commercial development. However, these generally develop independent of pre-existing retail and office agglomerations. So baically exurbia is what would happen if an angry two-year-old started scribbling with different colors on a map.

[Michi]

Think of it from the perspective of coming into a metropolitan area rather than going out of one from a city center.

Detroit's exurbs begin, in some locations, 55 miles from the city. Driving in on I-96, the feeway widens amongst agriculture fields and lush, tree-covered areas. Soon, you can spot sporatic McMansions sprawled out on rolling terrain. These homes are more or less the outskirts of exurban communities such as Howell, Brighton, and South Lyon. Though these towns have their own distinct character, their surroundings have developed into leapfrogged housing that is so sprawled, it mingles with the suburbs the further into the metropolitan area that you go.

There really aren't many jobs in the exurbs aside from second-tier commerce that supports the bigger business of the suburbs. An offic park will sprout up every now and then, but the exurbs are mostly defined by single-family housing, abundant acreage, and even dirt roads on occassion. Unlike the suburbs, there is less evidence of public transportation, which is why freeways in exurban areas tend to be some of the most congested since they provide the backbone to countless "tributary roads" that trickle out into the seemingly unending dots of development, all linking (some way or another) to the downtown core.

[FALLEN594]

Haha, I live in an exurb myself then. Yep, housing develpoments going up every other week, strip malls, McDonalds, bigg malls, chain retaurants.. That'd be an exurb. The sprawl around philly is horrible, going down any state road around here all you see is cokie-cutter houses in every direction.... all on old farmland of course.

[Trae]

Same here in Houston. I live in an exurb, it all of the old farmlands I have seen as a kid, are no replaced with huge subdivisions.

[cloudship]

I still don't really get the concept - to be honest it is not one tossed around much around here.

It sounds to me that it's relative to one's residence. For instance, those people who live in the far reaches of the suburb space think they live in the suburbs, while thos who live in the communites close to the main city are considered still part of the city. But if you live in the city core, or one of the communities around the city, you think the suburbs are too rural to be called suburbs, so they use the term exurb.

I think it is a term that really is in search of a definition, and a need.

[DigitalSky]

Here's what my Urban Geography Textbook says:

Suburb: An outlying residential district of a city

Exurb: Small, semi-rural towns at least 100 miles away from major metropolitan areas that house suburbanites seeking cheaper housing, a slower plce of life and desire to be near nature.

[cloudship]

So then what is a major metropolitan area? Doesn't that kind of expand to deal with the suburbs?

Somehow that definition doesn't work for me - 100 miles? That is far beyond commuting time - even if you lived directly next to a highway, had no traffic, and could get off of the highway right where you worked, it would take an hour and a half. When I was commuting 50 miles each way, it was taking me over 2 hours.

Can an exurb of one city be a suburb of another? It sounds to me more a perception that there really is nothing else around it - even if it is not a major city, there very well may be some kind of core it surrounds.

[DigitalSky]

Yeah i'm not sure about the textbook definition - especially about 100 miles. heres a better/detailed definition via Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exurb

This post has been edited by cantnot: 08 November 2005 - 06:56 PM

[Brickell]

cloudship, on Nov 8 2005, 06:51 PM, said:

Somehow that definition doesn't work for me - 100 miles? That is far beyond commuting time - even if you lived directly next to a highway, had no traffic, and could get off of the highway right where you worked, it would take an hour and a half. When I was commuting 50 miles each way, it was taking me over 2 hours.

I find that exurbans usually commute to edge cities and suburbs rather than city centers. This effectively cuts the distance in half. They are still depedent on the Metro and city center, but in a less direct way.

[cloudship]

If everyone is relying on the city for support, then in fact shouldn't it be a suburb? I didn't realize that a suburb could only be a grid with no trees at all.

I wonder if the real issue is that the core city is still trying to - for lack of a better term - take credit for the whole region, when in fact in some cases the community in question may be a suburb of something that the core city considers a suburb of itself. So maybe the stereotyping of these kinds of communities inadvertantly is prohibiting other denser cores from establishing themselves?

[Recchia]

cloudship, on Nov 9 2005, 06:01 PM, said:

If everyone is relying on the city for support, then in fact shouldn't it be a suburb? I didn't realize that a suburb could only be a grid with no trees at all.

I wonder if the real issue is that the core city is still trying to - for lack of a better term - take credit for the whole region, when in fact in some cases the community in question may be a suburb of something that the core city considers a suburb of itself. So maybe the stereotyping of these kinds of communities inadvertantly is prohibiting other denser cores from establishing themselves?

You've lost me.

[cloudship]

Sorry. I know - my writing leaves a bit to be desired.

Basically, it sounds to me that people are taking a very big city-centric view. They then want to categorize everything that isn't within that one major core as sprawl, and they try to call it all suburbs. But what do they do about those areas that arent' completely spraw? They need to fit it in, so they label it the Exurb, trying to categorize it into sprawl that actually has some green to it.

The problem is, that this is so prevalent, not just in deisng terms but in simply looing for a job, news coverage, etc. - that it completely ignores, and in many cases undermines, smaller core areas that are devloping around the larger core. So instead of letting these cores develop, it almost forces the surrounding areas into becoming just sprawl.

[teshadoh]

I think I follow cloudship, in other words those unfortunate towns that were trapped by the sea of sprawl that engulfs large cities.

I don't know, I usually just feel sorry for those towns, there are a number of lovely towns surrounding Atlanta that are now just known for boring faceless suburbs - Roswell, Marietta, Jonesboro...

[Recchia]

cloudship, on Nov 9 2005, 09:03 PM, said:

Sorry. I know - my writing leaves a bit to be desired.

Basically, it sounds to me that people are taking a very big city-centric view. They then want to categorize everything that isn't within that one major core as sprawl, and they try to call it all suburbs. But what do they do about those areas that arent' completely spraw? They need to fit it in, so they label it the Exurb, trying to categorize it into sprawl that actually has some green to it.

The problem is, that this is so prevalent, not just in deisng terms but in simply looing for a job, news coverage, etc. - that it completely ignores, and in many cases undermines, smaller core areas that are devloping around the larger core. So instead of letting these cores develop, it almost forces the surrounding areas into becoming just sprawl.

I think I get what you're saying now. There are many areas around big cities that are not sprawling at all, but are in fact dense cores that are often overlooked, and should not be considered suburbs at all. Like Hoboken and West New York, NJ, these are in no way "suburban" or sprawling at all, yet are considered "suburbs" by many just because they are small in area and are outside of a city. Is this what you mean?

To me, suburbs are those communities around cities that are sprawling, and exurbs are those even farther from the city that are sprawling at an even lower density. Basically, I don't think you can call a place a suburb unless it is sprawling, but this is just my opinion. For instance, I wouldn't say that Revere, MA is a suburb, it's far too urban and dense despite being a small (in area) community outside of a major city (Boston). Likewise, a place like Harrison, NJ isn't really a suburb to me either. Although a lot of these areas are dependent on the core cities for jobs (which is why many consider them suburbs), I don't base the "suburban criteria" on this. Jobs are all over the metro area now, so if we went by that criteria then places like Burlington, MA (clearly sprawl and NOT a city, despite its high concentration of jobs) would be considered a core city and Woburn would be its suburb. I hope I'm making sense here. To me, the classification of areas should be based on density, I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

[teshadoh]

Recchia - then what again is your urban/suburban definition for streetcar suburbs. Particularly those that are mixed use, population density above 5k per square mile, small lots, & have varying housing unit types.