What is a city?

[kennedy]

I found myself in an argument today, about cities and suburbs. My point was that cities are healthier for people to live in, and in an ideal world, civilization would exist in metropolitan centers, and gradually shrink to rural areas through a sequence of ever-smaller cities (not suburbs). Of course, the people I was arguing with claimed that suburbs are small cities. I think that there is a distinct difference, and it makes sense in my head and my experience, but I found it astonishingly difficult to try and convince them that there was a difference.

Has anyone else ever found this to be true? I think that perhaps I took too adversarial a route to try and prove my point, and therefore, the people simply defended their point and refuted mine regardless of what I said. But what is a small city?

I had envisioned small, transit centers with a dense, mixed-use center (main street, square, etc.) with primarily residential space radiating from this center. Certainly not pure residential space, but something to satisfy those who value their privacy (IMO, too much).

What about you? I believe that real, urban cities, from large metropolises to small towns, as well as rural and natural wilds, have the ability to satisfy the needs of everyone. Am I fooling myself, that I think design can make anyone happy within an urban context? I understand that it's impossible for this idea to be exercised, as it's simply too utopian, but that doesn't mean a large majority of suburbanites could live in cities and change the world through a more efficient use of land.

 

[Pierce]

Sorry to be pithy and terse, I'm writing from my phone, but your idea kind of exists and it's called England.

Sure there is some sprawl but density still takes place in the suburbs and beyond. My uncle in law lives in a small farming village of 350 people or so (a consistent number for the last 800 years too) but in an urban and walkable configuration.

 

[unterbau]

Just England? Isn't most of Europe built that way?

 

[czsz]

Britain has plenty of autocentric suburban development. You only need to watch a Harry Potter film to see it:

They even have cul-du-sacs:

Of course, there's tons of walkable and transit accessible Victorian suburbia and Garden City development in England, too, as well as a lot of exurban estate-type development. It's got roughly the same range of development types, though.

 

[Pierce]

Britain has plenty of autocentric suburban development. You only need to watch a Harry Potter film to see it:

They even have cul-du-sacs:

Sure it does, but spend a little time in google earth spanning between cities and compare it to the same here and it's of a different tenor. Nothing is absolute but it is still much denser on average (note those suburban houses In your example are still touching)

and yes this is true of much of Europe but in my unscientific empirical sampling continental suburban development seems more varied and skewed to sprawl (esp in Spain)

 

[czsz]

You can easily have dense sprawl.The Western US is full of it. These houses in California are practically touching, too, but the development is completely autocentric. That's the point:

 

[Ron Newman]

Even here, suburbs can be considered small cities. Take a walk through the old town center of Marblehead, for instance.

 

[cden4]

I think our older cities in MA are built very much in the way you describe, with walkable town centers where government offices and small shops are found, surrounded by residential areas that also have pockets small retail on the main streets. It's the newer cities where everything is very spread out, and the only place to go shopping is the large strip mall by the highway.

 

[kennedy]

Ron, Marblehead was of course my primary example, as I'm most familiar with it. I don't dare claim my vision is unique, simply that it is not practiced commonly in the US, and that is bad.

However, I feel like most small cities here are suburbs and I think that there is a distinct difference. It's like comparing Old Town Marblehead to Danvers or even closer, Vinnin Square in Swampscott.

 

[Ron Newman]

When I wrote that, I didn't even realize you were from Marblehead. But other good local examples would be Lexington, Concord, Belmont, Melrose, and Wellesley.

 

[statler]

Those places do have solid urban centers, but the sprawl out to auto-centric neighborhoods quite quickly.

A good barometer for a 'city' maybe something akin to to "How much of the population can live comfortably without a car?"

Of course, the definition of 'comfortably' might be tough to pin down.

I could live where I live sans car, but it would (to me) be a royal pain in the ass (but doable).

Then there probably people who live in the Ritz Towers who couldn't conceive of living there without a car, despite being within a five minute walk of every major transit line in the city.

 

[bdurden]

You can easily have dense sprawl.The Western US is full of it. These houses in California are practically touching, too, but the development is completely autocentric. That's the point:

This is not an accurate reflection. Those developments in California are 100% autocentric. Nowhere in Britain I have seen comes close to resembling the sprawl of Southern California. In Britain, the dense sprawl is still generally close to a suburban center linked to mass transit alternatives. Absolutely apples to oranges.

Eastern Europe is closer aligned to the types of sprawl you'll see in the US.

 

[Shepard]

I wish I still had the link... a while back I saw some research which showed that Greater Boston "sprawl" - despite being often centered on old New England-style town centers, was actually more extensive and ultimately even less dense than the hypersuburbia we often associate with the south and southwest.

Someone can argue semantics and say that it may be less dense as an entire region but more dense in the areas people live and commute from...

But the point may ultimately be that whether or not a satellite town is southwest-style sprawl or New England town center may be no more than an aesthetic choice on the part of the people who live there. If you can't live without Route 1, move to Norwood. If you want your town center with the train station and light commerce, go live in nearby Stoughton (probably a bad example). It might not make a whole lot of difference int erms of the dyanmics of the region overall.

 

[Patrick]

See Peter Calthorpe's ideas on Transit oriented Districts (TODs) which are similar in idea to some of what you would like to see. They are his idea for combating sprawl.

Also, in places like Stockholm and Paris they have attempted very similar things whereby they have satellite cities ringing the urban core connected by transit lines.

The Supreme Court of the United States (well, one justice anyway) has said in reference to pornography and what is and is not 'obscene' the following: I know it when I see it.

Personally, I think something along the same lines applies to cities and suburbs. It is subjective and you won't find a definitive answer. That said, it is interesting to argue about and consider what some of the factors that balance in favor of one answer or the other are. To me, such elements include density, height etc., but most of all the biggest factor to consider in my opinion is the number of jobs a place has relative to population and relative to neighboring municipalities.

If I'm not mistaken, the federal census comes close to proving you with an answer by designating any place with more people commuting IN than commuting OUT as an urban center. This is somewhat different than a designation as a "city" which is largely left up to local preferences. Hempstead NY is a TOWN of almost a million people, and Framingham, ma is similarly a town, while portland maine is a city with similar population to framingham, and boston is a city with fewer people than the town of hempstead. The official names mean nothing. Either a place is urban or not, and this is decided by reference to a continuum. A place can be more or less urban than another place, but I don't think you will ever be able to say something is definitely a town versus a suburb. The lines have blurred. Even the word 'suburb' doesn't necessarily mean that a city cannot also be suburban. For instance, many of the industrial areas around Boston are cities in their own right, while at the same time being literally SUB-URBAN in the sense that they are outside of and peripheral to the core. the word suburban denotes anything and everything outside of the city center, but it has also evolved to take on particular connotations and meanings of large lot subdivisions. So, in one sense, a city can have suburban feeling parts that are still in the city and a suburb can similarly have dense city centers if it is a satellite. I hope this sheds some light on your question. This is something years ago when I was in college (maybe 5 years ago) I thought about extensively.

oh also in response to your other question I too think design and arrangement can make many aspects of day to day life better and more enjoyable for everyone, not just urban enthusiasts, and I think probably many people on here share your opinion in this regard. But, there are always going to be people, myself included, who once in a while prefer the country to the city. That said, country towns can be arranged and designed well, too. and should be.

 

[Ron Newman]

Norwood has two train stops and an intact (though rather sleepy) town center, so I'm not sure why you used it as an example here.

 

[Shepard]

Saugus?

It's actually hard to think of any municipality around Boston without some sort of "old" town center. I picked Norwood because the majority of its amenities are going to be found on Route 1.

It's a difficult distinction in some cases. Newton Centre has a thriving commercial center that's transit-oriented. And yet there's no easy walking-distance supermarket, and many will do their shopping at the Route 9 malls (Chestnut Hill, Macy's, and Atrium). It also has a parking lot instead of a village green, but that's another story.

The point is that every municipality will exist on a scale from hypersuburb to town center with no perfect absolutes. And my larger point is that it doesn't matter - no matter which model is predominant, the effect of satellite towns on the region overall is the same.

 

[scootie]

electric car + green power generation = no problem

 

[kennedy]

A good barometer for a 'city' maybe something akin to to "How much of the population can live comfortably without a car?"

I wish I had said that, but the problem is, they're probably worse than the Ritz residents when it comes to cars. I honestly think that people in suburbs have been brainwashed into thinking that cars are a necessity, and cannot be improved upon.

...The official names mean nothing. Either a place is urban or not, and this is decided by reference to a continuum. A place can be more or less urban than another place, but I don't think you will ever be able to say something is definitely a town versus a suburb. The lines have blurred. Even the word 'suburb' doesn't necessarily mean that a city cannot also be suburban. For instance, many of the industrial areas around Boston are cities in their own right, while at the same time being literally SUB-URBAN in the sense that they are outside of and peripheral to the core. the word suburban denotes anything and everything outside of the city center, but it has also evolved to take on particular connotations and meanings of large lot subdivisions. So, in one sense, a city can have suburban feeling parts that are still in the city and a suburb can similarly have dense city centers if it is a satellite.

This is what I couldn't make them understand. The definition of "city," "town," and "suburb" mean very different things to architects, planners, urban enthusiasts, etc. than it does to the average person. I mean, when you have a dictionary definition working against you, it's very difficult to say the dictionary is wrong, or at least that there are multiple meanings. City the noun, and urban the adjective are not one and the same.

oh also in response to your other question I too think design and arrangement can make many aspects of day to day life better and more enjoyable for everyone, not just urban enthusiasts, and I think probably many people on here share your opinion in this regard. But, there are always going to be people, myself included, who once in a while prefer the country to the city. That said, country towns can be arranged and designed well, too. and should be.

Yeah, I agree, but I don't think suburbs are necessary at all. Rural areas are definitely necessary to society, as are places with extremely low density, but they can still have well-designed town centers.

electric car + green power generation = no problem

I agree, but that doesn't address the problem with suburbs.

 

[a630]

It's interesting that this discussion went straight to the car as the root of an urban/suburban bipolarity. I guess that's because this is a design-based crowd?
Certainly there were suburbs before cars... and there are cities where cars are convenient ... and suburbs where cars are inconvenient.
In history and urban studies literature, suburban/urban is defined by function. And there is no bi-polarity.

 

[laslonyc]

I tend to think of places in terms of program and how I spend my time. What can I get done in one afternoon, and do I have choices? To me a city is a place where I can get many errands done/have a variety of experiences all in one day, all on foot/taxi/or via public transit, from where I live. A variety of building types/land use helps advance this. With this definition, how do American cities rank? For example, I live in downtown Boston, but it bugs me that everytime I have to pick up a birthday present for one of my childrens' classmates, I have to get in the car and drive to Inman Square or the 'burbs...