# Are most of today's suburbs around the world influenced by American style suburbia?



## Skyline_FFM (May 25, 2008)

hudkina said:


> I would say it's about as damaging as Slough being over 20 miles from central London, or Charles de Gaulle airport being over 15 miles from central Paris. Also, keep in mind that London and Paris had the benefit of sprawling in 360 degrees, while Detroit was only able to go north and west. (To the east is a giant lake, and to the south is a foreign nation.)
> 
> But then, that's beside the point. You were originally arguing that outside of the central city, American suburbs are nothing but single-family homes built to house people who work in bland downtown office parks and shop at big-box stores.


You are mixing Detroit up with the two biggest cities of Western Europe!!! I think such distances are normal in megacities such as New York, Sao Paulo or Moscow. But not in a medium sized metropolis as Detroit!


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## niterider (Nov 3, 2009)

I think it's also worth noting that in an example such as London, the city did indeed expand with the creation of new suburbs along the new under/overground rail routes in past centuries. However, these suburbs have densified and diversified over time to become urban centers in their own right, to a degree generally much greater than that found in US cities.

This is actively encouraged through planning policy as London is surrounded by a 'green belt' - effectively banning development beyond the city limit, although it has had the effect of 'leapfrogging' expanding settlements to towns and cities beyond this green belt, say 20-30 miles out.


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## Nolke (Oct 25, 2003)

hudkina said:


> You don't think American residential neighborhoods have a mixture of detached housing, rowhouses, apartments, etc?


Proportions are clearly not the same. The facts that European towns have huge suburbia and American cities have some dense residential sectors don't mean that dense residential sectors aren't more usual in Europe, it's as simple as that. What's actually true and I suppose this is your point is that the myth of European cities seen as almost suburb-free is pure bullshit, suburbs play a proportionally very important role in Europe.

I believe that this exaggeration has a lot to do with the look of the city cores (downtowns+adjacent dense residential areas) in both cases: Europeans cores are much more extensive (meaning less dense), so when a visitor takes a look at them probably gets the wrong impression that most of the city is like that, after all visitors generally spend most of their times in downtown; in the USA it's much easier to notice the suburbs because of the centres' bigger density. Then, it's also true that American downtowns are very specialized in economic activities while the ones in Europe combine that with the residential function (so they're bigger proportionally to their density, and watching so many people living in that environment helps a lot the "then all must be like this" impression). It's like the quite false myth about most of Europeans using public transport: obviously it's far more used (proportionally) than in other regions, but still that proportion is overall very small. 

Anyway, I don't think this is actually an American cultural feature that has spread all over the world, it seems to me more like the logical (hence universal) reaction in a given moment (economic expansion and cheap oil, city garden reasonings, few experience on the problems that suburbia generates and no ecologist ideas at all) to a certain fact (generalization of private transport, that's what actually American, not the urban model, although in fact some of the European suburbia was based on train infraestructure and was developed at the same time or even prior to the suburbial expansion in America); but I could easily be wrong. Also, as you already pointed out, that suburban model in Europe is only widely present in the North-western early-industrial and always-capitalist countries (but not everywhere in them, historic urbanism plays a big role here in small towns), which after all don't even represent the half of the continent, Southern and Eastern countries are very different.


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## dösanhoro (Jun 24, 2006)

Depends how you define suburbia. All the places I have seen have looked very different from what I have seen in NA on google earth. I would say generally housing styles are different in places.


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## zaphod (Dec 8, 2005)

Those pictures are fascinating

I'm not a planner but here in some parts of the US, like the east, maybe it's a land fragmentation problem. Some developer builds on a wedge shaped parcel of land a tiny detached neighborhood with no way of connecting to the adjacent piece of property. This goes on and on. Any one development is too small to have various amenities built in. Retail, schools and parks get built along 4 lane roads on leftover land. Traffic is outrageous because its like a flash flood but with cars, vehicles flow off dead end streets to a series of collector roads.

Then again excessive land use restrictions and urban growth boundaries don't necessarily fix this.

Instead of either central planning or lassiez-faire, maybe things would come out better if a growing suburb could be planned to work like a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece may be different and be built separately, but over time each is designed to snap together and form a whole.


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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

WANCH said:


> What do you think? Are most of today's suburbs around the world influenced by American style suburbia especially those in Europe, Asia and Oceanic countries like Australia and New Zealand?
> 
> Especially in features and urban planning where you have nice middle to upper class homes and villages, strip malls, shopping malls, drive-thru fast food, K-mart / Walmart style retail stores, etc?


Less so in Europe, where many of their suburbs developed earlier. 

But in Canada, & many cities in Latin America, Australia, & Asia, the suburbs are developing very much on the sprawling American model, save with more hi-rises. 

Amazing how many of the new suburbs around Chinese cities look like they could have been transported right from California!


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

Yes Europe has suburbs (we invented them). Yes some of them may be tracts of low density detached housing. Yes some of them have out of town malls.


However the difference is not the built environment so much as the function. What you'll find in European suburbs is still that every few streets youll get rows of local shops. With time these tend to mature into full blown town centres (over here we say 'High streets'). So it's one thing getting satellite shots of Euro-sprawl, its another actually visiting these places and seeing how much they differ - from sidewalks, to permeability, to public transport, to the fact this sprawl is actually a patchwork of housing, schools, shops, transport, parks and light industry, unlike the vast tracts of residential one-type zoning you see in North America.


Where I live 10 miles from the centre, I'm in a block of flats with an old folks home, a health centre, a parade of shops, an ATM, 3 bus stops, a rail line, a youth centre, a community centre, a factory and a post office all within 200 yards - not to mention the circus school next door (no kidding). A km away is our local high street (read: town centre), bus station, rail and light rail line.

For all that my area looks as nondescript as any US style suburb via satellite, but is far more complex than appears:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&s...91023,0.053065&spn=0.005531,0.009409&t=k&z=17


.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

Also just look at the London heavy rail lines (black) and their thousands of stations that cater to even tiny villages in the green belt,
not to mention the larger undergound network - this is the difference:











some shots of London sprawl - note the public parks, rail lines and highrises
(and how it would still look the same as Mcmansion style sprawl by satellite):



























































plus tower blocks are always mixed in, there are 2700 in the 'burbs:


















my area









comparing Euro-sprawl - yes you get the vast tracts of housing, but its more than just that:










and the population density is high, but comes in far lower on paper due to the intermixing with open space - 
35% of all city area is public parkland











compared with US style, overwhelmingly one style and one function (and nowhere near the same density of local shops, businesses, parks and public transport):










^and yes, I know not all US style suburbs are like this !, and this can be very dense


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## JPBrazil (Mar 12, 2007)

Are most of today's suburbs around the world influenced by American style suburbia?

Yes, unfortunatelly. In Latin America they are mostly gated communities:


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

In the UK theyve banned gated communities, big in the 1990s but now councils this past decade demand 30-50% of new developments be dedicated to affordable homes (even luxury projects) otherwise they won't likely get planning permission. Also you can't wall yourself off, the area has to be permeable and open to all. I understand China also has similar legislation.

The problem with gated communities is not that they deter crime, but that they increase the fear of crime, and people's behaviour toward their fellows. They pretty much divide a society.

I understand though how they can (must?) exist in countries with too high crime etc.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

I don't understand why a gated community would be bad, while most of the highrise living is the exact same thing, only not on a ground surface, but up in the sky.


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## PD (Jun 11, 2007)

ChrisZwolle said:


> I don't understand why a gated community would be bad, while most of the highrise living is the exact same thing, only not on a ground surface, but up in the sky.


I cant stand gated communities.
They are allowed to drive down the street outside my house but I cant to the same.

Highrise is not the same thing, eg you cant come inside my house but you can come onto my street. Even if you live in highrise you can access the street that the high rise is on. With a gated community not so.

I am glad that they are a rare sight in my city.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

In Brazil gated communities are on the rise. Because of development and construction patterns, if you have above middle class incomes, you can basically choose high-rises with 10+ stories or gated communities.

Even smaller cities (50.000 inhabitants) are now getting their gated communities. They are a good deal for every part involved, compared to the other option (an open suburb in the same place).

Local governments do not have to care with street lighting, maitenance and cleaning; and they also collect property taxes of the whole area (e.g., not only the house parcels but also street surface, parks and ammeninties built inside the gated perimeter, even small bodies of water if they are inside the perimeter).

Because street violence has been historically high in Brazil (altough situation improved a lot in last decade in many places - Rio is a bad exception indeed), for decades people would build walls and individual CCTVs in every house, giving drivers and pedestrians the impression that they are driving/walking not thourgh a residential area, but a military instalation. Gated communities alow people to build nice houses without front-walls, and they put such security features only on the outside perimeter.

A typical gated community in Brazil has 100 to 200 houses unit. They are not necessarily extreme low-density, as some of them resort to rowhouses or semi-detached homes to make them affordable to lower income brackets, but most beautiful and high-income ones have only detached houses. They will have a walled perimeter of at least 4 meters-high with electrific fences on top (6 mt not unheard of). Video surveillance of the external wall is a must. Entrances have armed guards, and can consist only of two or three gates or, in the most expensive ones, a "transitional" sealed area where you enter, get cut-off from street, get checked and identified, and are then released to the inside area. Most of them have at least a private leisure complex, some of them have completely equiped gyms, recreational facilities and small parks/forests inside the gated perimeter.

They are very safe and security is usually high, both being the main appeal to Brazilian well-off families ("raise your children without being concernd of they being robbed or kidnapped or being locked up in an apartment building with no private area")

Unfortunately, beucase their in-wall streets are considered private areas (like the lobby of a high-hise), those gated communities will never show up in Google's Street View. They have the most pristine and elegant houses built in Brazil at least since the late 80's.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Copenhagen, Denmark, suburban areas (that's about anything outside the city center).





































beach suburb:


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## Skyline_FFM (May 25, 2008)

Gated communities are good alternative in high-crime cities or countries. If I had the choice between violence and golden cage, I'd go with the golden cage or Gated Community. 
Such a pattern is a horrible development but has becaome a necessity in order to provide quality of life standards in otherwise low quality of life cities/areas...
And many former degraded land was transformed into a parklike landscape due to the gated communities. They would be complete nonsense in most of europe. But in the US, namely LA or other violent places and other countries they are an alternative!


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## intensivecarebear (Feb 2, 2006)

^^I completely disagree. Gated communities create a horrible mentality amongst the people who live there. Sure they're safe and nice places to raise a family, but the second you leave your little bubble you start fearing anyone who's different, poorer, etc. It's a very common phenomenon that has been studied in the U.S. extensively. Plus gated communities only perpetuate the class divide and make the changes of violent crime higher. 

I would hate to see the development of more gated communities anywhere


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## Skyline_FFM (May 25, 2008)

intensivecarebear said:


> ^^I completely disagree. Gated communities create a horrible mentality amongst the people who live there. Sure they're safe and nice places to raise a family, but the second you leave your little bubble you start fearing anyone who's different, poorer, etc. It's a very common phenomenon that has been studied in the U.S. extensively. Plus gated communities only perpetuate the class divide and make the changes of violent crime higher.
> 
> I would hate to see the development of more gated communities anywhere


Ah okay. Didn't know that. We don#t have that problem here in Germany. I thought it could be a solution. BTW: I have seen some kind of massive highrise development that looked like a GC in Cairo. Are there GC?


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## LAgreek18 (Nov 30, 2008)

Brisbane typical outer suburbia 20km + from downtown where mountains are left untouched and sprawl is found surrouding them


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

In Australia, with its overall low population density, it would be insane not to have plenty of suburbs . In regard of gated communities, a think they are a lesser evil than violence exposure, especially in really violent and risky places like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia etc. What some critics of gated communities fail to realize is that the option to them are not nice open suburbs like a gated community without gates, but indeed massively fortified single houses with high walls, double gates, armoured glasses on windows etc.


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## intensivecarebear (Feb 2, 2006)

Skyline_FFM said:


> Ah okay. Didn't know that. We don#t have that problem here in Germany. I thought it could be a solution. BTW: I have seen some kind of massive highrise development that looked like a GC in Cairo. Are there GC?


hmmm I don't know of any high-rise gated communities, but there are more low-rise places in the outskirts of Cairo that are gated and have a very American style winding streets and impeccable green lawns. Usually they are being built around some kind of leasure center like tennis courts or a golf course and pool. It's pretty sad and crazy to see these places literally sprouting out of the desert.

But people chose to live in these places because they want a clean and healthy place to raise a family. Cairo, given its size, is not a city that suffers from lots of crime but it is very dirty and polluted and the whole concept of a public park/open space is almost non-existent. There really are no free facilities for the average Egyptian who wants to play a sport or relax in any way in Cairo. All the recreation places in the city are located in private compounds strictly in wealthy parts of town where the people can afford to pay for such privileges. 

here's a short but interested article about gated communities in Cairo
http://www.boston.com/news/world/af...s_gated_compounds_show_rich_poor_gulf/?page=2


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## thebackdoorman (Jan 26, 2005)

IN The US, such images are considered part of the city, not part of the suburbia. I guess that is enough to tell the overall difference.


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## thebackdoorman (Jan 26, 2005)

While presented as the image of the standard American suburbia, this is clearly not the case. This is the Center of a small satellite town to Detroit, not how suburbia looks in general. This should be compared with the center of a european city of less than 50.000 near a big city, not with suburban areas outside of US.


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## thebackdoorman (Jan 26, 2005)

Nolke said:


> I believe that this exaggeration has a lot to do with the look of the city cores (downtowns+adjacent dense residential areas) in both cases: Europeans cores are much more extensive (meaning less dense), so when a visitor takes a look at them probably gets the wrong impression that most of the city is like that, after all visitors generally spend most of their times in downtown; in the USA it's much easier to notice the suburbs because of the centres' bigger density. Then, it's also true that American downtowns are very specialized in economic activities while the ones in Europe combine that with the residential function (so they're bigger proportionally to their density, and watching so many people living in that environment helps a lot the "then all must be like this" impression). It's like the quite false myth about most of Europeans using public transport: obviously it's far more used (proportionally) than in other regions, but still that proportion is overall very small.


I do agree with the rest of your quote, if you also add into it an important factor in my opinion, america's fascination with individualism. The suburban house is not just a place where it is "safe" for your children, quiet, and convenient due to the car, it is also a place where you are the man of your garden and of your house. Some suburban development contradicts this purpose, but that sort of development is considered weak even by american standards. Indeed, there is almost a stigma in many US places against living in apartments. 

Also, I do not think that this is an exaggeration due to the view point, as you say, I do not think European cities merely look less suburban than american ones due to the more extensive core. While every city probably has some suburban development, in most american cities that majority of citizens live in such developemnt, whereas in most european city the small minority of citizens live in suburban development. I am talking with a lot of Most and Majorities, but that is what makes the difference. I have lived for example in Athens, no extensive suburban development at all. Can you find a city in the states with no extensive suburban development.
Also, do not mistake single family houses with suburban development, they are not the same thing at all.


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## Scba (Nov 20, 2004)

One enormous irritant of mine in the suburbs around me, here on the east cosat, are the newer style, upper-middle class developments taking up half the county.

A farm is sold, and the land is cleared and divided up into large lots. The only interest to the homeowner is the size of their flat, grassy yard, and they seem to have no interest in planting trees or landscaping the lot anywhere further than three feet away from the house. 



















It seems like a huge waste of space, and an eyesore when you're driving around the countryside to see these giant McMansion homes sitting on empty land.

Another baffler, like someone mentioned earlier, is the reluctance to connect new developments.










All three of these small developments were built around the same time, and each only have one outlet. None connect to each other or the road to the north. The walking path seen splitting them is fair and fine, but is just that - a path, and leads nowhere else but other developments.

An older, 70s-era development that comes across as smarter to me.


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## NCT (Aug 14, 2009)

I think the spliff fairy has hit the nail on the head. What I like about European cities (and suburbs) is the continuity and a sense of belonging.

I don't know much about the rest of Europe so I'll just go by my experience of the UK. Traditional town centres and villages are usually always preserved in new developments, so wherever you live you can find one close to you, and you find that you _belong_ in its catchment area. In the US, from Google Earth images and what's been discussed here, it seems that there's just vast swathes of land with monotonous land-use without a town centre for miles, and you feel you live in no man's land. Worryingly this is becoming the case with a lot of Shanghai's new developments.

In Britain density and diversity increases _gradually_ as you go towards the centre, and also varies on a micro-level. You might live in a posh suburb of detached houses, but on your walk into town you'll always see some semis, a school, a council tower block here and there, and as you approach the centre some garages, dealers, a pub, and some Victorian terraces. You never get bored and you always share the path with people from different backgrounds. In the UK, I suspect that it's either monotonous single-family houses for miles on end or suddenly a giant shopping mall, with no continuity at all.

I wonder what Americans use for locations. In the UK people almost never use road names. It's always I live near that pub (name)/post office/garage/the chippy/that little row of shops/the other side of the park or playing field or school etc. In Shanghai it's always the junction of this and that road, which is very dull. If you can use something other than road names to describe your location (with some accuracy) then you live in a well planned suburb.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

the spliff fairy said:


> However the difference is not the built environment so much as the function. What you'll find in European suburbs is still that every few streets youll get rows of local shops.


Your view of this is skewed by the fact that you live in London, whose suburban development is very ancient and not representative of suburbs in the rest of Europe. Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I can guarantee you that any American suburbs has more commercial areas and stores than the suburbs of Paris for example.


the spliff fairy said:


> For all that my area looks as nondescript as any US style suburb via satellite, but is far more complex than appears:


Well, US suburbs are also far more complex than what they appear to be on satellite views. That's why it's best to talk about a place if you have actually visited it.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

^ so do you think, from the example I was quoting, that one would find within 200 yards a parade of shops, a heavy rail line, post office, ATM, 3 bus stops, community, youth and health centres, a factory, playground etc in your average 10 mile out-of-town US suburb? That was my point.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

^^And my point was that what you're describing here may apply to Greater London (less so to the counties surrounding Greater London), but it doesn't apply to the vast majority of European suburbs where you don't have lines of shops, train stations, post offces every 200 yards.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

Still I think Euro-sprawl still has far more 'regional centres' read: lines of shops, transport connections, public parks (sidewalks) etc, maybe not 'every 200 yards' but at far more regular intervals than strictly zoned US style suburbs, many of which rely on out of town malls and car commuting. also Eurosprawl is far more permeable.

Also that style of carcentric suburb is far more popular across the ocean than here (although they do exist in smaller formats), and to the majority of a city's population, and area.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

brisavoine said:


> ^^And my point was that what you're describing here may apply to Greater London (less so to the counties surrounding Greater London), but it doesn't apply to the vast majority of European suburbs where you don't have lines of shops, train stations, post offces every 200 yards.


Yep. I lived in a new suburban residential area in my city (the development had a population of 20,000 at that time). The nearest railway station was 3 - 6 km away (depending on where you live), it had one post office, one shopping center and one bus line which served most of the area, you were usually not more than 600 m away from a bus stop.


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## dark_shadow1 (May 24, 2009)

Most of the suburbs in Israel are not affected by that style, especially because of high land prices and much more expensive houses. In my city, which is around 10 miles frpm Tel-Aviv- an average house on a 500 square meters lot can cost up to 650,000 US$- which is completely insane since the average salary in the country is 2,000$. So most of the people (including me) live in apartments in buildings of up to 7 floors (3-5 are the most common ones). Private swimming pools are VERY rare- mainly due to the high land prices, high water prices and many, accessible beaches. 

Urban Planning in Rishon-Lezion:










And from the ground:


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## intensivecarebear (Feb 2, 2006)

^^I'm not surprised about the high density in Israel given that it's such a tiny country. i'm pretty sure the entire country could find into some very large metropolitan areas:nuts:


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

thebackdoorman said:


> While presented as the image of the standard American suburbia, this is clearly not the case. This is the Center of a small satellite town to Detroit, not how suburbia looks in general. This should be compared with the center of a european city of less than 50.000 near a big city, not with suburban areas outside of US.


Actually that is a suburb. It was developed in the 1920's and 30's as a streetcar suburb of Detroit. It was never an "independent" village. The reason it developed where it did was because it was along a major interurban line connecting Detroit and Pontiac. Detroit has quite a few suburban areas (both inside and outside the city boundaries) that developed similar retail strips. (Hamtramck, the Grosse Pointes, and East Dearborn are examples) And while it is true that many suburban centers originated as small farming villages, much of their development was due to the proximity of the central city. For example, though Royal Oak started out as a farming village of sorts in the late 1800's, it never reached a significant population until the rise of suburban Detroit in the 1920's. It went from less than 1,000 people in 1910 to over 20,000 by the 1920's. That's why most of the commercial buildings within the city date from the 20's-40's and beyond.


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## Nolke (Oct 25, 2003)

thebackdoorman said:


> I do agree with the rest of your quote, if you also add into it an important factor in my opinion, america's fascination with individualism. The suburban house is not just a place where it is "safe" for your children, quiet, and convenient due to the car, it is also a place where you are the man of your garden and of your house. Some suburban development contradicts this purpose, but that sort of development is considered weak even by american standards. Indeed, there is almost a stigma in many US places against living in apartments.


Yep, agree, in America that was an important factor for the spread of suburbanization too.




thebackdoorman said:


> Also, I do not think that this is an exaggeration due to the view point, as you say, I do not think European cities merely look less suburban than american ones due to the more extensive core. While every city probably has some suburban development, in most american cities that majority of citizens live in such developemnt, whereas in most european city the small minority of citizens live in suburban development. I am talking with a lot of Most and Majorities, but that is what makes the difference. I have lived for example in Athens, no extensive suburban development at all. Can you find a city in the states with no extensive suburban development.


Well, Europe is very diverse about this. In my comment I was refering to just some cases in the north-western countries, since the forumer I was replying to was clearly alluding to them. Of course Europe is bigger than that area, that was one of my points in fact.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

I still disagree with the notion that "majorities" in Europe live in dense, urban centers, but that just may be because of how we define "dense, urban centers". For example, many of the neighborhoods in London with semi-detached housing and even rowhouses are clearly suburban in nature, despite being developed at relatively high densities. And while it is true that many of the Southern European cities have a limited amount of suburban development, there is still a relatively significant amount, at least as far as what I consider "suburban" development.


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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

Suburbanist said:


> In Brazil gated communities are on the rise. Because of development and construction patterns, if you have above middle class incomes, you can basically choose high-rises with 10+ stories or gated communities.
> 
> Even smaller cities (50.000 inhabitants) are now getting their gated communities. They are a good deal for every part involved, compared to the other option (an open suburb in the same place).
> 
> ...


Brazil & Mexico too seem to be expanding upon the gated concept as it existed in the US. 

Another suburban Brazilian phonmema of note that apparently dwarfs anything of the sort in the US is the helicopter commuting to the center of Sao Paulo by hundreds of the very rich to avoid the sprawl, traffic jams, crime, etc.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

brisavoine said:


> ^^And my point was that what you're describing here may apply to Greater London (less so to the counties surrounding Greater London), but it doesn't apply to the vast majority of European suburbs where you don't have lines of shops, train stations, post offces every 200 yards.


Can you give some examples of European suburbs that lack what _the spliff fairy_ described just above. I'm just curious as to what you are considering suburbs and if that is the reason why both of you don't agree. Maybe we should back up and first define what is a suburb. Is it any locality that is not within the city's jurisdiction? Is it any area where single-family houses dominate and where commercial/retail is concentrated in specific intersections or road segments?


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## Nolke (Oct 25, 2003)

bayviews said:


> Brazil & Mexico too seem to be expanding upon the gated concept as it existed in the US.
> 
> Another suburban Brazilian phonmema of note that apparently dwarfs anything of the sort in the US is the helicopter commuting to the center of Sao Paulo by hundreds of the very rich to avoid the sprawl, traffic jams, crime, etc.


Some Brazilian guys told me once that one of the main reasons why residential highrises are so popular there among middle and upper classes is to avoid crime. Whether that's true or not, Brazilian urbanism always seems to be so interesting.



hudkina said:


> And while it is true that many of the Southern European cities have a limited amount of suburban development, there is still a relatively significant amount, at least as far as what I consider "suburban" development.


I'd actually say that it's 'occasional at most of cases'. Terminology is always a bitch, isn't it?  actually, you can find that model in good (still by far minoritary) amounts at certain of the biggest metro areas, but you may have a hard time when trying to find them at smaller towns. Important note: Southern doesn't apply for Southern France in this case.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

intensivecarebear said:


> ^^I'm not surprised about the high density in Israel given that it's such a tiny country. i'm pretty sure the entire country could find into some very large metropolitan areas:nuts:


Israel is quite urbanized, there isn't much space, given the fact the southern part of the country is mostly the Negev desert, and the rest is quite urbanized with small cities and towns ever few km. But Israel is still a major exporter of fruits nonetheless. Almost half of the Israeli population lives in the Gush Dan metropolitan area.


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## jbkayaker12 (Nov 8, 2004)

intensivecarebear said:


> Gated communities create a horrible mentality amongst the people who live there. Sure they're safe and nice places to raise a family, but the second you leave your little bubble you start fearing anyone who's different, poorer, etc. It's a very common phenomenon that has been studied in the U.S. extensively. Plus gated communities only perpetuate the class divide and make the changes of violent crime higher.
> 
> I would hate to see the development of more gated communities anywhere


I strongly disagree about your point of view regarding people residing in gated communities. I was born in the morning but not this morning and so do many residents behind gated communities. Your assumptions that we residents of gated communities think others not necessarily living behind gated communities are poor or from the bottom of the social ladder was a careless statement. It is a simple fact that we all have different preferences in life and there are people from all walks of life that like to live behind gated communities and vice versa.

In many suburban neighbourhoods in the US, gated communities and non gated communities together with rentals are in the same area, in the same community. Gated communities perpetuating the class divide is simply not true as you've mentioned above, it is not a status symbol in the United States to be living in a gated community. It is just a preference whether its a gated rental apartment complex, a gated condo complex or a gated Mcmansions.

Perhaps in other countries, living in a gated community is a status symbol but not entirely true in my neighbourhood or in many areas in the United States and if others in the United States feel inferior simply because they live in a non-gated community then it is not my problem anymore.


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## julesstoop (Sep 11, 2002)

The similarities are most striking indeed.


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

I don't know if this style of housing is taken from the US, but it's common in my city...


















Pictures by me.


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## NYC007 (Aug 13, 2004)




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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


>


Is that anywhere near Canberra?


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

^^It's about 13 hours North of Canberra.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> I don't know if this style of housing is taken from the US, but it's common in my city...
> 
> Pictures by me.


Some seaside towns in California and Florida look similar


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

WANCH said:


> Some seaside towns in California and Florida look similar


I think it's common in Miami, FL.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

Cherguevara said:


> And do they still exist as real centres with shops and restaurants and the like? I've only limited experience of American suburbia so I don't know. But other than a few places around Boston I've never come across a similar sort of place. Maybe the difference is that in the US they're not the suburbs any more but part of the city, whereas in the UK because our cities weren't allowed to sprawl so widely they're still what we think of as suburbs?


Yes, of course they do. What else would they have?

Detroit's tri-county area alone has at least three dozen suburban centers that started as either small farming communities or streetcar suburbs. Some of the more "well-known" centers are Royal Oak, Birmingham, West Dearborn, Pontiac, Mt. Clemens, Wyandotte, Plymouth, Rochester, Ferndale, and Grosse Pointe.

Here's a few examples of what you'd expect to find:


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## desertpunk (Oct 12, 2009)

^^ Classic leafy inner suburb that began in the 19th century as a small village. The worst offenders are all the post-World War II suburbs that never had a traditional center and were designed soley for the automobile. Arlington TX, Glendale AZ, and Coral Springs FL are prime examples.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

Those are actually pics from five different locations: Birmingham, Ferndale, Plymouth, Northville, and Rochester.

There are plenty more examples such as Hamtramck which is home to a large foreign-born population:

































There's also Wyandotte, which is more working-class:

















































I would say these are all relatively common suburban centers among U.S. metropolitan areas. While some "newer" metro areas such as Phoenix and Las Vegas obviously don't have many neighborhoods like these, you'll find them all over the Northeast/Great Lakes region.


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## PD (Jun 11, 2007)

isaidso said:


> Exactly! Suburbia in new world nations look the same because those nations all developed in a similar way and at the same time. A US suburb will look like a Canadian suburb which will look like a New Zealand suburb which will look like an Australian suburb.
> 
> One country didn't all of a sudden realize that their suburbs needed to look like ones in another country. They look the way they do because it made sense to build them that way. It's modern residential built in rich countries with lots of available land. *The most accurate description is 'New World' suburbia.* It's not American.


I actually label it *Western New World*. Remember Latin America is the New World also but developed differently than the 'Anglosphere' New World nations.


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## Cherguevara (Apr 13, 2005)

hudkina said:


> Yes, of course they do. What else would they have?
> 
> Detroit's tri-county area alone has at least three dozen suburban centers that started as either small farming communities or streetcar suburbs. Some of the more "well-known" centers are Royal Oak, Birmingham, West Dearborn, Pontiac, Mt. Clemens, Wyandotte, Plymouth, Rochester, Ferndale, and Grosse Pointe.


I think in the UK we'd refer to those as separate towns rather than suburbs though, unless any of them are within the boundaries of Detroit itself? What I was asking is are the suburban centres within the city itself still active?

For example London in addition to its two main centres has numerous local centres (Kensington, Islington, Camden, Hackney, Greenwich, Lewisham, Elephant and Castle and then more further out) to serve the needs of the local population. Does Detroit (for example) have these?


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

Cherguevara said:


> I think in the UK we'd refer to those as separate towns rather than suburbs though, unless any of them are within the boundaries of Detroit itself? What I was asking is are the suburban centres within the city itself still active?


Actually that's not what you were asking. 

Here's one of your earlier posts:



> I'd say that's fair to an extent, although it doesn't explain everything. In places like London the suburban centres are medieval villages swallowed up by the sprall, which is obviously something American cities wouldn't have. But in more recently arising British cities with no significant medieval settlement patterns there are still these suburban centres. For example in Manchester the suburban centres are generally areas that we built following the construction of local railways between 1840-1900, and didn't exist before then. But American cities were growing at the same time and presumably in a similar way, so why don't they have similar centres?


While it is true that North America doesn't have _many_ medieval villages, many actually did start out as colonial villages and early American farming communities. For example, some suburban communities surrounding Detroit were settled in the mid-1700's such as Dearborn. Little remains that dates back to that era, as much of the region was complete wilderness up until the early 1800's. However, once you start getting into the early 1800's and especially into the era when the Erie Canal and the railroads were completed (the 1830's-1860's) a lot of communities started popping up. In many cases these small farming communities had little more than a few hundred people, but others grew into small towns such as Pontiac with 10,000 people before suburbanization kicked in. 

While many American cities had interurban systems (basically electric streetcars that connected the various towns and villages to the main city) as far back as the 1880's it wasn't until the early 1900's that streetcar suburbs were commonplace, popping up around many lines. Early streetcar suburbs were often annexed by the city and became neighborhoods, but in many cases they still exist as separate communities. One such example is Ferndale, MI, which I showed earlier. 

So in other words, American cities do indeed have "similar centres" and have them in rather large amounts. And while you can try to change your argument and say that you were referring to suburban centers that were eventually annexed by the city, it still doesn't change. While the city of Detroit is notorious for having crumbling inner-city neighborhoods, there are still quite viable "suburban" centers even within the city. Granted, Detroit isn't nearly as large as London and since many suburban communities staved off annexation they aren't as common. For example, Hamtramck which I showed above is a small 2 sq. mi. city that is only 4 miles north of Detroit's city center. It and another suburb Highland Park are completely surrounded by the city of Detroit. They both staved off annexation allowing them to remain independent. 

But you can go to many other American cities which were able to annex more generously (such as Los Angeles) and find many "suburban centres" within the municipal boundaries of the central city.

Besides, I'm not sure about you but I would consider Islington as being a part of "Central London". Especially when you consider that it is within 2 miles of the City of London.


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## Cherguevara (Apr 13, 2005)

hudkina said:


> Actually that's not what you were asking.
> 
> While it is true that North America doesn't have _many_ medieval villages, many actually did start out as colonial villages and early American farming communities. For example, some suburban communities surrounding Detroit were settled in the mid-1700's such as Dearborn. Little remains that dates back to that era, as much of the region was complete wilderness up until the early 1800's. However, once you start getting into the early 1800's and especially into the era when the Erie Canal and the railroads were completed (the 1830's-1860's) a lot of communities started popping up. In many cases these small farming communities had little more than a few hundred people, but others grew into small towns such as Pontiac with 10,000 people before suburbanization kicked in.
> 
> ...


I don't actually have an argument so I don't know what you're reading into my posts. I've never suggested America didn't have these areas, I just didn't know of any and wanted to find out if it did. Maybe it's a question of different definitions that's getting you so worked up? Anyway, I'll let the conversation lapse before you get worked up over another perceived slight I'm not making.


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## Concrete Stereo (May 21, 2005)

About the original question: no.

Dutch suburbs have different roots. They are based in the garden-city movement, a movement that in the Netherlands fought for an alternative housing model in contrast to the working class misery of the 1900 industrial metropole. 

So where the American suburban ideal is one of solitary living in the Great Outdoors, strongly related with growing wealth and mobility of the middleclass, Dutch suburbs are more or less the opposite; urbanistically based on the community model, developed by housing corporations (social entreneurship, either from civil society or from companies) for better working class living conditions. It's also an older development (gaining real momentum from 1901 onwards, when the first housing-law created governement subsidy for social/public housing)

there's a great thread about the contemporary version of them on SSC: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=560898


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

Cherguevara said:


> I think in the UK we'd refer to those as separate towns rather than suburbs though, unless any of them are within the boundaries of Detroit itself? What I was asking is are the suburban centres within the city itself still active?
> 
> For example London in addition to its two main centres has numerous local centres (Kensington, Islington, Camden, Hackney, Greenwich, Lewisham, Elephant and Castle and then more further out) to serve the needs of the local population. Does Detroit (for example) have these?


Suburbs are also towns or municipalities that surround and are contiguous to a major city and that have not or may never be annexed. I think that definition of suburbs is more commonly understood than outlying localities of a city, although I and others also call driving to the suburbs to refer to such places still within a city's jurisdiction but far out. Anway, not all cities like London and Berlin have annexed so much land or formed ambiguous entities like City of London, London and Greater London. In fact, London and Greater London are used interchangeably (which is very confusing) and nobody would image without reading that City of London refers to a square mile area where London began and which is now only a small part of the whole city. My point is that London has a unique jurisdictional structure that doesn't seem to be the norm.

I can already see that there is not a universal understanding of the term suburb here which is normal since not all cities have the same composition.

--
London is a collection of many boroughs and is the same as Greater London. As such, London is not officially a city (does not have city status..the City of London and the City of Westminster do. Confusing too. The City of London is only a very small "district" comparable to a borough although not technically a borough while the City of Westminster is a borough. Confusing again.

New York City consists of 5 boroughs: Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. People refer to Manhattan as The City but that's just a colloquial term and a much bigger portion of the pie compared to what The City means in London (The City of London). There is not official boundary for Greater NYC the way there is for Greater London. Greater NYC includes suburbs stretching in every direction from Manhattan.

Paris or the City of Paris is a well-defined city as are most other municipalities. Surrounding Paris are other municipalities with their own mayors and are collectively referred to as _la banlieue_. Many translate that to "the suburbs". Greater Paris is the City of Paris plus all the other attached cities that surround it. There is no well-defined boundary of Greater Paris like there is for Greater London. Those who say that Greater Paris is all of Ile-de-France region are stretching a lot and only saying that to give Greater Paris hard-coded boundaries like Greater London (and probably to try to make Greater Paris bigger than Greater London, and that's another story).

Berlin is a city and one of the 16 states of the country. So it's a city and a state at the same time! Their boundaries are the same. It's the smallest state in size but still a state with the same status. That's like saying that Paris = all of Ile-de-France and that is not the case for Paris. That is like saying that Houston = all of Harris County and that is not the case for Houston.

Mexico City and Washington are capitals in a country of states but they have district status and those districts are independent of any other state. Their suburbs extend well beyond those districts and in the case of the Federal District (Mexico City) a lot of that district is rural and suburbs or suburban communities developed in adjacent states instead, like Washington DC has in Virginia.

My point is that with so many differences in how big cities and capitals are delimited and governed can be so different and speaking of suburbs for them can get confusing unless we state what we mean by a suburb rather than assume the other person knows.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

Why do people always think others are getting worked up when having a discussion? I was just answering your question. Now you know American cities have similar development patterns to the ones you described about Manchester.


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

edubejar said:


> Berlin is a city and one of the 16 states of the country. So it's a city and a state at the same time! Their boundaries are the same. It's the smallest state in size but still a state with the same status.


Actually the smallest state in Germany (or better _'Land'_) is Bremen, after there is Hamburg and finally Berlin... all are a sort of 'state-city' while the other German Lander have a way bigger size


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Actually the smallest state in Germany (or better _'Land'_) is Bremen, after there is Hamburg and finally Berlin... all are a sort of 'state-city' while the other German Lander have a way bigger size


Thank you. Political geography is so much fun. One never ends seeing the variations in local government jurisdictions and their boundaries. My favorite is still the fact that London is not a city (does not have city status) the way other cities in Great Britain and around the world are that appear on a map with a dot. These kinds of variations puts challenges in comparing apples to apples and only complicates the notion of a suburb.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

I'm still surprised that Detroit metro has several urban suburbs despite being home to the Big 3 automakers who destroyed public transit systems in most US cities.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

bayviews said:


> My impression is that Berlin seems much more sprawling & low-density as compared with Paris. There are significant portions within the Berlin boundaries that seem very rural.


I think you are right about Berlin looking more sprawling and low-density compared to Paris and about portions being very rural however I was referring to the Ile-de-France region of France being bigger than the state of Berlin (which coincides with the City of Berlin). The state of Berlin (which is also the City) are 892 sq. km. while Ile-de-France region is 12,000 sq. km., which is many times bigger (12,000 sq. ft. not 1,200 which can be confused). 

So I was trying to say that it's harder for me to see the Ile-de-France region as the potential (artificial) limits of Greater Paris when the region does not come close to hugging the (natural) extents of the Paris urban area the way the state of Berlin more perfectly hugs the extents of the Berlin urban area. While it's true that arms of the Paris urban area may extent up to or beyond Ile-de-France, it's only along narrow corridors like rivers, rail, or highway. But huge areas of the region are totally rural elsewhere.

BTW, the general density of the Paris urban area can be very misleading. Unless you are comparing at the same scale it's easy to perceive a denser area (Paris urban area) as more compact than a more sprawling area (Berlin urban area). But in fact the Paris urban area is either as big or very possibly bigger in land area than Berlin's. The Paris urban area really sprawls most notably to the south and to the northwest. The Paris urban area is really the opposite of the City of Paris: big (or very big by European standards). A long ride on the RER or a drive on the A86 ring road (beltway) can show this.


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

Anyway those ones are Paris and Berlin at the same scale


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

Thanks for the aerial maps shown at the same scale.

I'll post here some I made in a software that we use in the GIS and mapping industry. These should be easier to interprete developed vs. undeveloped. Google's aerial maps look very busy with labels and have patches (sections) from different sources which can look different in color and very uneven. These should be smoother 

All at the same scale:




















(The absolute scale of 1:200,000 here for Madrid is a (typo) mistake. The map is at 1:400,000 like the other cities in this section.
Note that only the absolute scale [map scale expressed as a ratio] was a typo. The scale bar is set correctly, however.)




















Here is Houston in Texas competing for the prize of most suburban-looking city and always trying to outdo places like Pheonix, Atlanta and places like that.










Perhaps the densest among the top sprawling cities of the world.










Here are the same cities at a closer scale but still showing a lot of outlying development:









































Very small dense urban core with a lot of low-density development around but some clusters of medium density visible not too far from the core










Serious lack of land seems to lead to this (density and sprawl at the same time):


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Houston rocks! Along with Denver, Phoenix and Salt Lake City they are my favorite metro areas in the World!


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

You prefer suburbs and lowrise sprawl over this?

































































SCROLL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>










SCROLL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>











or this? Bear in mind there are only 5 million in Athens

SCROLL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

Suburbs are better for family life, but city living is good when you are young, single or just in work 24/7


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## Concrete Stereo (May 21, 2005)

@the spliff fairy

It would be fun to compare Houston

Athens btw is one of the most generic and uninteresting cities of Europe. It's basically the dense version of endless suburbs, it hurts my eye to see it after Paris ...


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

poshbakerloo said:


> Suburbs are better for family life, but city living is good when you are young, single or just in work 24/7


That's just bullshit about cities being good for those working 24/7.


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

edubejar said:


> I'll post here some I made in a software that we use in the GIS and mapping industry. These should be easier to interprete developed vs. undeveloped. Google's aerial maps look very busy with labels and have patches (sections) from different sources which can look different in color and very uneven. These should be smoother
> 
> All at the same scale: [...]


Very interesting pics

Don't you have any of Milan (or some other Italian city)? thx


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Massiveli built areas are just dull, expensive and full of strange people. I don't like them. I respect people who find beauty in too cramped housing (for my standards), but I preffer low density development that encourage car use, larger roads and giver way more privacy and private space (your own lawn instead of a neighborhood park). They are more suited to our individualistic ideals of 21st Century, or at least mines.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Cities like LA and Houston are build like what you described, and they have some of the worst traffic in the country, especially LA's. Being too auto dependent brings you more disadvantages from my experience. Trust me, I lived in suburbia all my life.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

LtBk said:


> That's just bullshit about cities being good for those working 24/7.


Not really. If your single, no children and in work a lot...why would you live in a 4 bed, 2 bathroom house a long way out of the city?


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

LtBk said:


> Cities like LA and Houston are build like what you described, and they have some of the worst traffic in the country, especially LA's. Being too auto dependent brings you more disadvantages from my experience. Trust me, I lived in suburbia all my life.


Having a car dependant design is only really bad when the roads, no matter how big they get, are congested. You can see that in some places here in the UK. take a 2 lane road, expand it into 4, and it ends up just as crowded as it was before, people will just drive more given the space. If LA had only small roads, that weren't expanded even when congested then people would have just given up and travelled some other way...


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

There's alot to be had in a dense city for socialising - or if youre just plain bored. The late night commerce is also something Ive learned I can't live without - shopping aswell as nightlife.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

poshbakerloo said:


> Having a car dependant design is only really bad when the roads, no matter how big they get, are congested. You can see that in some places here in the UK. take a 2 lane road, expand it into 4, and it ends up just as crowded as it was before, people will just drive more given the space. If LA had only small roads, that weren't expanded even when congested then people would have just given up and travelled some other way...


That's the case in those very car centric cities like LA and Bangkok.



> Not really. If your single, no children and in work a lot...why would you live in a 4 bed, 2 bathroom house a long way out of the city?


What about couples, people who work at home, elders, or people who like cities regardless of job? Why the hell would you need 4 bedrooms if you don't need one?


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

the spliff fairy said:


> There's alot to be had in a dense city for socialising - or if youre just plain bored. The late night commerce is also something Ive learned I can't live without - shopping aswell as nightlife.


In my suburb there are 24 hour grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, pharmacies, etc. There are also plenty of bars, restaurants, night clubs, theatres, etc. You don't have to live in a dense city to experience "late night commerce" or a nightlife.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

I once visited a friend just south of Frisco, Texas in a place called The Colony in the northern suburbs of Dallas. I stayed there for a week and it was the most boring, suicide-indusive experience. Not only was it extremely far from anything fun close to the center but it was true suburbia as in one of the last suburban developments of Dallas. How do I know? Because on a Google Maps aerial his subdivision was still not there yet and Street View which was more recent than the aerial image showed some of the houses under construction.

Anyway, he was single and had a 3-bedroom house. He was from Puerto-Rico originally so for him having landed a successful career job in the US meant that ownership at any cost was how you showed success in life to friends and family. That meant a big house but in suburbia since he could not afford a big house in Dallas-proper like Old Money. His idea of fun 80% of the time was driving to the big suburban super-stores and shoppping centers for something for his house. This was a few years before the 2008/2009 crash in the economy. Not sure how his job is doing now. He's a mechanical engineer in sales. 

My point is that in the US everyone seems to want to own a house at any cost and although they may prefer something closer to the center (they rarely want something in the very center unless its gentrified and black-free to say the very truth) they can't afford it especially as a new home buyer so they'll go as far as needed to get AS MUCH for their dollar and show-off a house AS BIG AS POSSIBLE to tell themselves that they have achieved the American dream and although they (like my friend, honestly) commuted in horrible traffic by car it was still the American dream.

Meanwhile we visited a friend of his in the center of Dallas in a gentrified neighborhood full of condos. Although it was not Manhattan it was so much more fun. The condos offered density thus young single people and the courtyard had a swimming pool where we finally socialized and made plans for the night, etc. I guess one vs the other depends on where you are in life. What I don't understand is why other than value anyone would want suburbia over a city if you're young and single. I guess I already gave the answer earlier. Ownership no matter how far and the most for your money.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

hudkina said:


> In my suburb there are 24 hour grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, pharmacies, etc. There are also plenty of bars, restaurants, night clubs, theatres, etc. You don't have to live in a dense city to experience "late night commerce" or a nightlife.


True. There is no doubt that not all suburbs are built the same. Some are denser and offer more mixed-use than others. That seems to be the case in older American cities. Your suburbs sound differently than the one I just described above in the Dallas-metro area.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

hudkina said:


> In my suburb there are 24 hour grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, pharmacies, etc. There are also plenty of bars, restaurants, night clubs, theatres, etc. You don't have to live in a dense city to experience "late night commerce" or a nightlife.


Which Detroit suburb do you live again? Once again, I'm surprised Detroit has areas like you described.


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## julesstoop (Sep 11, 2002)

@Suburbanist
Why on earth would you want to encourage car use? It's expensive and auto-mobility (is that a word in english?) has a particularly high carbon footprint.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Very interesting pics
> 
> Don't you have any of Milan (or some other Italian city)? thx


Here are some for Milan. The best way to compare for now is to open two internet browsers of this thread and toggle between two of my aerial maps.

To be fair with Milan I had to move the center of the map away from the center of Milan because its urban area is greatly skewed to the northwest. Milan's urban area is made up of many small towns that are often diconnected by undeveloped land. Madrid has this too, compared to London and Paris or even Berlin that have very continuous urban areas. Because the Milan aerial I have access to is not very good (it has some cloud cover--Google's is not any better). I have drawn the motorways that go around much of Milan (A50, A51/A52 and A4) for some reference. I have also circled the airport grounds for reference. There is a lot of development between far-out Malpensa International Airport, even if not always continuous.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

poshbakerloo said:


> Suburbs are better for family life, but city living is good when you are young, single or just in work 24/7


Only true for Anglo countries outside of Europe, the whole other world doesn't know that separation.


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## gonzo (Jul 30, 2006)

If we are speaking of middle-class suburbs..

In my experience most new/modern suburban developments aren't QUITE as compact as the historical centres but much more dense than american-style suburbs. 

Most are designed to accommodate pedestrians and public transit. In many cases, where the suburb isn't separated by greenbelt, it can be argued that it's simply modern extension of the historical centre.

Personally, I much prefer the convenience and "life" of non-american suburbs.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

LtBk said:


> Which Detroit suburb do you live again? Once again, I'm surprised Detroit has areas like you described.


I hope you realize that "Detroit" only accounts for around 915,000 of the urban area's 4+ million residents. That's less than 25% of the population. Even then, half of Detroit itself is in fairly decent condition, or at least far better than what many people would think. Do you honestly think that the entire metropolitan area of 4+ million looks like the selected "ruin porn" those magazines always show? Suburban Detroit contains some of the wealthiest suburbs in the country, and especially in the Midwest.

I live exactly 13 miles southwest of Downtown Detroit in Southgate. It has a population of about 30,000 in just under 7 sq. mi. The western half of the city is home to a mixture of light industrial/commercial office areas and newer residential. The eastern half is made up of early post-war housing. While the overall density is less than 5,000 ppsm, the residential eastern half has densities in the 7,500-10,000 ppsm range. The city is mostly middle-class in nature, though on the lower-end of the middle-class.

I live in the southwest corner of the city in a newer condo development. To the east of me is a large apartment complex and further east is a large post-war neighborhood of single-family homes with churches, schools, parks, etc. dotting the landscape. To the south of me is a nature preserve as well as a small commercial development with a few restaurants and other businesses. To the west of me is a strip club/bar and a junkyard. Further west is a 90's era subdivision and another condo development. To the north of me is a large commercial crossroads. Further north is the government complex.

Within a walking distance of me is:
-a high school
-a grade school
-a nature center/preserve
-a golf course
-a police station
-a fire station
-a public library
-public baseball/softball diamonds and tennis courts
-several churches
-over a dozen restaurants (mexican, chinese, italian, american, greek, etc.)
-several bars
-a gym
-a pharmacy
-a bank
-several clothing stores
-a movie rental store
-a hair salon
-a racquet club
-a computer/electronics store
-a doctors office
-a chiropractor
-a strip club
-a travel agent
-an insurance agent
-a furniture store
-a bakery
-a farm market
-a veterinarian
...and much more. This area was definitely built to accomodate the automobile, but you could definitely live car-free if you absolutely had to. Every road and street has a sidewalk and there's even a bus line that runs along this corridor.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

I never said Detroit suburbia was a shit hole, I said I was surprised Detroit has suburbs like you mentioned because Detroit metro is the birth place of car centric lifestyle and the Big 3 automobile companies that help destroy mass transit in most US cities.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

Government policies and personal choices had a lot more do with that. Keep in mind that all they did was replace streetcars with buses. General Motors certainly didn't build the freeways and shopping malls, and they certainly didn't force people to use them...

Besides, it wasn't until after the 60's that "suburbia" turned into "sprawltopia". By that time Metro Detroit already had 4 million people. While you'll find plenty of sprawl on the fringe of the metro area (especially 90's era sprawl), the inner-ring suburban core has a decent amount of urbanity.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

edubejar said:


> I think you are right about Berlin looking more sprawling and low-density compared to Paris and about portions being very rural however I was referring to the Ile-de-France region of France being bigger than the state of Berlin (which coincides with the City of Berlin). The state of Berlin (which is also the City) are 892 sq. km. while Ile-de-France region is 12,000 sq. km., which is many times bigger (12,000 sq. ft. not 1,200 which can be confused).


To compare comparable things, a few months ago I calculated the population within the densest 892 km² at the center of the Paris urban are (I added up each municipality until I found a contiguous area of 892 km²). That's a territory covering exactly the same land area as the state of Berlin. At the January 2006 census, these 892 km² at the center of the Paris urban area contained 7,371,081 inhabitants (I haven't done the calculation with the new figures from the January 2007 census, but the population increase in these 892 km² was about 45,000 inhabitants in one year). In comparison, Berlin had 3,395,189 inhabitants in January 2006 (and 3,404,037 in January 2007).










I also calculated the population in the 892 km² of Berlin and the 892 km² of Paris on various dates since 1900 (based on the official censuses), which is quite interesting to compare the development of both cities.


```
[B]     State of Berlin      City of Paris + 149  
       (891,6 km²)     suburban communes (891,9 km²)[/B]

1911    3,678,847              4,486,697
1921    3,879,409              4,826,262
1931    4,332,834              5,629,069
1936    4,226,584              5,677,370
1946    3,064,629              5,480,873
1954    3,359,182              6,015,106
1962    3,252,691              6,824,808
1968    3,245,325              7,129,595
1975    3,118,134              7,034,597
1982    3,050,974              6,864,922
1990    3,409,737              6,969,748
1999    3,398,822              6,993,010
2006    3,395,189              7,371,081
2007    3,404,037           approx. 7,415,000
```



edubejar said:


> So I was trying to say that it's harder for me to see the Ile-de-France region as the potential (artificial) limits of Greater Paris when the region does not come close to hugging the (natural) extents of the Paris urban area the way the state of Berlin more perfectly hugs the extents of the Berlin urban area. While it's true that arms of the Paris urban area may extent up to or beyond Ile-de-France, it's only along narrow corridors like rivers, rail, or highway. But huge areas of the region are totally rural elsewhere.


Yes, but don't forget that outside of the Paris urban area, the Île-de-France region is quite empty, being largely rural, so using the Île-de-France region as a proxy for Greater Paris gives meaningful results whatever aspect of Paris you're studying (e.g. the % of university degrees in the Île-de-France is essentially the % of university degrees in the Paris urban area). If Paris was located in a very dense country, as is the case for London and Brussels, of course using a region as large as the Île-de-France would give quite misleading results, but that's not the case here.


edubejar said:


> BTW, the general density of the Paris urban area can be very misleading. Unless you are comparing at the same scale it's easy to perceive a denser area (Paris urban area) as more compact than a more sprawling area (Berlin urban area). But in fact the Paris urban area is either as big or very possibly bigger in land area than Berlin's.


It's quite bigger in fact. According to IAURIF (the Institute for Urban Planning and Development of the Paris Île-de-France Region), only in the 1980s and 1990s there was a surface equivalent to the entire Berlin urbanized area that was added to the Paris urbanized area on its margins due to the physical growth of the Paris urbanization.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

edubejar said:


> The Paris urban area really sprawls most notably to the south and to the northwest.
> The Paris urban area is really the opposite of the City of Paris: big (or very big by European standards).
> A long ride on the RER or a drive on the A86 ring road (beltway) can show this.


The A86 ring road is still quite central in the urban area, so when driving on it you'll only see inner suburbs. For a good
view of the recent outer suburbs you'll have to drive on the A104 ring road. With the RER, even if you take the RER
to the most distant suburbs, your perception of the recent suburbs will be a bit obscured by the fact that the areas
immediately around the RER lines were urbanized more anciently than the large suburban areas in between the
RER lines. Only a tour of the outer suburbs with a car or a bike can reveal the actual extent of what's going on there.

Here some suburbs built in the 1990s and 2000s (in the eastern outer suburbs of Paris):














































SCROLL>>>



























Neo-Haussmannian revival (we're still in the outer eastern suburbs of Paris). I'm planning to do a photo tour with a bike in those new
suburbs when the Spring comes. Entire new high standard districts have mushroomed there in the past few years.
This particular area of the outer eastern suburbs covers 82 km², and the population there has increased from
11,324 in 1982 to 61,789 in 2007, and it is planned to reach 103,000 inhabitants in 2020.



























Neo-Montmartre-cum-American mall in the eastern outer suburbs. The new Paris you'll never see if you only stay
in Central Paris or around the RER train stations









Here they try to copy the style of the old French towns. Note that all of the houses in this picture are less than 10 year-old. :nuts:









Here they try to copy... London! :nuts: :nuts: (it's gonna be a fascinanting photo tour... I'll post the pictures on the forum)




































The infrastructure they've built to cope with a mushrooming population:


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

brisavoine, do you know what the population density of that new developments around Paris are?


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

^^It depends if you count the entire municipal territories (which include both developped and undevelopped land), or if you count only the developped land. From the figure I gave in my previous post, that area in particular in the outer Eastern suburbs shown in the post contains 61,789 inhabitants on 82 km² (total land area of the municipal territories, so that includes undevelopped land; those 82 km² also include Disneyland Paris, which has lots of tourists but not inhabitants). The population density is thus 754 inh/km². By 2020 there should be 103,000 inhabitants there, so that will be a density of 1,256 inh/km². Of course the density of the developped areas is higher, since these figures include the undevelopped land (fields and forests) contained within the municipal territories.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

Do you also have figures for developed land only? It's interesting to compare it to other typical urban densities.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

No, no figures for the developed land only I'm afraid, at least not in the INSEE databases.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

brisavoine said:


> ...
> I also calculated the population in the 892 km² of Berlin and the 892 km² of Paris on various dates since 1900 (based on the official censuses), which is quite interesting to compare the development of both cities.
> 
> 
> ...


The growth spurt of Paris+149 (149 suburban communes you selected to compare with the city-state of Berlin) is amazing to see side by side with the city-state of Berlin. Paris+149 continued to climb while Berlin went down between 1936 and 1946 (WWII) and then again between the 60s and 80s (Cold War era/Berlin Wall). During all that whole time Paris+149 continued to grow and grow. I don't know how accurate that is but it is amazing in a historical and geographic point-of-view. Reunification in the 90s seems to be the first growth spur Berlin has seen. Clearly Germany was growing in the urban centers of West Germany.

It's also good that your 149 suburban communes you added up to get the area of Berlin city-state are contiguous because that makes it easier to see as a unit. But how in the world did you get figures for those 149 suburban communes at the same years as reported by Berlin? It's not like anyone reports anything matching your Paris+149 statistical entity. That would have meant you had to tally up the figures reported by each commune individually for those historical years. I hope there was already a common source to help you like a database or spreadsheet of some kind. 

By the way, your Paris+149 entity really shows how the French micro-manage their territory, including Greater Paris hno:. Even a French forumer in the French section of SSC complained about this in some thread before saying France is afraid of big territories (referring to local government jurisdictions). Thus each administrative area shown in your map below for Paris is governed by its own mayor. The City of Paris at the heart of Paris+149 (or the urban area in general) has no power over the other communes. Meanwhile a single mayor governs an equal territory to Paris+149 in Berlin. Although each Berlin borough you show has a borough mayor indeed, they have limited powers and still have to answer to the City Mayor. The only thing the Paris mayor and Berlin mayor seem to have in common is that they are both openly-gay mayors


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

edubejar said:


> Paris+149 continued to climb while Berlin went down between 1936 and 1946 (WWII)


No no, between 1936 and 1946 the 892 km² of Paris went from 5,677,370 to 5,480,873. That decline was largely due to the deportation of Jews and resistants by the Germans, as well as a higher death rate resulting from the rationing of food.


edubejar said:


> I don't know how accurate that is


Very accurate. I used the official census figures for each country.


edubejar said:


> But how in the world did you get figures for those 149 suburban communes at the same years as reported by Berlin?


Basically, the years listed are those of the French censuses. For each census I added up the 149 communes + the City of Paris. In Germany, the good thing is they publish official population figures every year, and there is only one city (Berlin), so it was easy to find the population of Berlin for each year corresponding to the French censuses. The only year that was complicated for Berlin was 1911, because the State of Berlin (Gross-Berlin) didn't exist yet, so what I did is I added up all the municipalities from the Dec. 1910 German imperial census that later formed Gross-Berlin in 1920.


edubejar said:


> I hope there was already a common source to help you like a database or spreadsheet of some kind.


No, no database. I had to add up numbers commune by commune. 

Fortunately the population figures for the 37,000 communes of France are now available online for each census since 1801.


edubejar said:


> The City of Paris at the heart of Paris+149 (or the urban area in general) has no power over the other communes. Meanwhile a single mayor governs an equal territory to Paris+149 in Berlin.


Yes, it's just crazy how the Paris urban area is fragmented into so many communes. Unfortunately most French people don't seem to realize that. The government has apparently abandonned the idea of forming a Greater Paris political entity, so the hundreds of Parisian communes will remain for the time being. We're just 90 years late compared to Berlin, and 48 years late compared to London. It's pathetic and so 'little French' in terms of mentality! hno:


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Here you have a graph showing the population figures for the 892 km² of Berlin and Paris from 1911 to 2006 (2007 is not shown). In this graph, the population figures for Berlin are year by year (whereas for Paris the figures are only from census to census). The Berlin curve is thus much more detailed than the Paris curve (if the Paris curve was also year by year, you would see a deep plunge in 1940 when between a third and half of the Parisian population fled Greater Paris as the Germans marched on Paris). In other words, the Paris curve in this graph is smoothed compared to the Berlin curve (the only part of the Berlin curve that is smoothed is from 1911 to 1920, when there were no yearly population figures for Berlin).










And for those who like history, here you have all the municipalities that formed Gross-Berlin (the State of Berlin) in 1920. As you can see, even before 1920 the current territory of Berlin was not as fragmented as the territory of Paris today. There were only something like 89 separate municipalities in what became the State of Berlin, compared to a mind-boggling 150 separate municipalities for the 892 km² of Paris today.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

^^ Ya, I looked at the population figures too quickly and realized that Paris+149 also had some declines, even if not as drastic and stagnant as Berlin. To think that your Paris+149 entity (equal in size to Berlin) has a population of 7.4 million and Berlin has 3.4 million means that that 892 sq. km. area is at least twice as dense in the Paris side. There are big parks and preserves and variations in density and housing types in both the Paris and Berlin entities that have to be taken into account when speaking of density but overall I would say you can feel the density when walking, driving or taking public transportation in Greater Paris versus Berlin (been to both) and I can see why with 3.4 versus 7.4 million people. And sometimes the calmer feel to Berlin is nicely appreciated. Paris and commuting to Greater Paris stresses me out after 1 week.

To get back more to the topic, the maps you show also stress out why speaking of suburbs can be confusing depending where you are or which ones you are talking about. In Berlin, suburbs are part of the City. In Paris, suburbs are outside of the City. The City only constitutes a small part of the urban area, like Boston, Chicago or even Detroit-metro like hudkina has explained for Detroit. I never realized that so much of Greater Detroit was outside the City. Now I remember why flying over Detroit for a transfer revealed what looked like very safe, healthy suburbs and nothing looking run-down or decaying. I just saw the "healthy" suburbs. Sad though that the heart which should be healthy to pump good blood is not as healthy or healthier than the suburbs. Indeed a very American and/or New World phenomenon even if exceptions exist like a healthy Manhattan or San Francisco-proper.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

Suburbanist said:


> Massiveli built areas are just dull, expensive and full of strange people. I don't like them. I respect people who find beauty in too cramped housing (for my standards), but I preffer low density development that encourage car use, larger roads and giver way more privacy and private space (your own lawn instead of a neighborhood park). They are more suited to our individualistic ideals of 21st Century, or at least mines.


Just curious: *would you draw the line somewhere as far as low-density urban growth?* I ask that because you express the interesting way-of-thinking that prefers private space over communal space (e.g. a lawn over a neighborhood park), car use (I assume over mass transit), larger roads (I assume over smaller, urban streets and I assume you include with this an abundance of freeways) and the such. You say those are more suited to our modern or contemporary individualistic ideals. 

However, if we look at the world's population from B.C. to today, we can clearly see huge growth spurts. History shows us that as humans we have grown with multiplication, not addition, to put it simply. Some of the more noticeable growth spurts have been during the Industrial Era/19th c. and after WWII. If we take your way of thinking and grant everyone the possibility to own a parcel of land (thus nobody leaving on top of you, not even one family, much less 4 or 8 stories) we would end up with many more urban areas like Houston's which have a consistent low-density fabric with very few clusters being the exception.

So my question is, would you continue stating what you say today if you knew that the world's population would to continue to climb the way history has shown, particularly in the last 2 centuries? Or would you wait until so much agricultural land and indigenous/virgin land cover reaches a certain level. I mean, where do you draw a line? When would it be time that you would say, "ok, from this point (population or developed land) people can no longer continue to build single-family houses because the health of Earth is in danger? Or have you not considered any of this and just live for today, for your generation, for you?


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

edubejar said:


> Here are some for Milan. The best way to compare for now is to open two internet browsers of this thread and toggle between two of my aerial maps.
> 
> To be fair with Milan I had to move the center of the map away from the center of Milan because its urban area is greatly skewed to the northwest. Milan's urban area is made up of many small towns that are often diconnected by undeveloped land. Madrid has this too, compared to London and Paris or even Berlin that have very continuous urban areas. Because the Milan aerial I have access to is not very good (it has some cloud cover--Google's is not any better). I have drawn the motorways that go around much of Milan (A50, A51/A52 and A4) for some reference. I have also circled the airport grounds for reference. There is a lot of development between far-out Malpensa International Airport, even if not always continuous.


Thank you edubejar, very good job kay:


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

edubejar said:


> Reunification in the 90s seems to be the first growth spur Berlin has seen. Clearly Germany was growing in the urban centers of West Germany.


Population growth in Germany has been stagnant for the last 20 years, while France is still growing. It is expected that France will become the largest country in terms of population of the European Union in the future. Germany has been declining for the past 5 years. You can see that the Berlin population barely grew since unification. It went through a short period of growth, but has been stagnant ever since.

I believe the fastest growing areas in Germany are along the Dutch border due to the influx of Dutchmen who want to escape the sky-high housing prices and taxes in the Netherlands.


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

ChrisZwolle said:


> Population growth in Germany has been stagnant for the last 20 years, while France is still growing. It is expected that France will become the largest country in terms of population of the European Union in the future. Germany has been declining for the past 5 years. You can see that the Berlin population barely grew since unification. It went through a short period of growth, but has been stagnant ever since.


Population growth during the early 1990s was quite strong. Thanks to immigration.












> I believe the fastest growing areas in Germany are along the Dutch border due to the influx of Dutchmen who want to escape the sky-high housing prices and taxes in the Netherlands.


Influx of dutchmen was rather low compared to the influx of east Germans from the former GDR. Especially economically prosperous west german metro areas such as Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt profited from this.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

How does a garage lower the temperature of your house? While the exterior walls of attached garages are generally not insulated, the connecting wall is most definitely insulated. In fact, I would bet the wall between the house and the garage loses less heat than any other exterior wall in the house.


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

Nothing wrong with garages. But prefer to have them underground.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Yes, there's nothing wrong with garages but they are hardly 'essential'.

I've noticed several houses round here where the garage has been converted into an extra room in the house, some people prefer to have the living space and simply park their car(s) on the driveway.


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

Those of us who don't have a garage cry every night under the bright stars and wonder why destiny has been so harsh upon us.


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## sephinet (Jul 23, 2008)

Rome, Italy

Infernetto (Little Hell) area

American stile suburbs..












Rome, Axa area









Rome, valleranello









rome, EUR









Rome, Olgiata


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## sephinet (Jul 23, 2008)

how they looks like:


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## JmB & Co. (Jan 5, 2008)

Buenos Aires suburbs, Argentina


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## El Mariachi (Nov 1, 2007)

I wouldn't want to leave my car on a city street. A garage isn't essential, but its nice. I wouldn't want to have to find an open spot and parallel park all the damn time just to get to my house.


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## gabrielbabb (Aug 11, 2006)

blue_man100 said:


> *Mexican Style "suburbs"
> 
> In the last four years there have been built 3.700.000 of these kind of homes in the country*
> 
> ...


gh


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

El Mariachi said:


> I wouldn't want to leave my car on a city street. A garage isn't essential, but its nice. I wouldn't want to have to find an open spot and parallel park all the damn time just to get to my house.



So the alternative to garage is street parking? Many people just park their car in the driveway. Parking in the street is very annoying. Couldn't live like that.


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## Czas na Żywiec (Jan 17, 2005)

eklips said:


> Those of us who don't have a garage cry every night under the bright stars and wonder why destiny has been so harsh upon us.


:laugh:



El Mariachi said:


> I wouldn't want to leave my car on a city street. A garage isn't essential, but its nice. I wouldn't want to have to find an open spot and parallel park all the damn time just to get to my house.


Do you live in a bad/crowded neighborhood? :dunno: I don't have a garage so I have to parallel park on the street but I don't find it to be an issue at all. If there isn't an open spot immediately in front of my place, I park a few spaces down, or at the very worst on the next block over. But blocks here are packed tightly together so it's not like I have to walk very far. You live in Milwaukee so I assume your neighborhood can't be too different from a typical Chicago neighborhood. 

My neighborhood:









I know most of the houses above have garages, but I rent one floor of a house so I don't have access to one. The situation is similar to many of my neighbors. But even of those who do have garages, many just park on the street because it's easier to just hop in your car and go than have to maneuver in and out of your garage via the alley.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

My neighbourhood is about as bad as it gets in this town for parking, it was built before cars were invented, the streets are very narrow and the houses are densely packed together. Even so, it isn't a major hassle, if I can bag the spot right outside my house its about 3 metres from car to front door, if I have to park down the street it might be 20 or 30 at most.

I'd like to see some city car sharing company set up here ideally so that many people could get rid of their personal cars, it would free up more parking spaces and save money for households too.


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## sephinet (Jul 23, 2008)

check this it is from the 60 but it really has much to teach about american suburbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjE-UtqQdU

Malvina Reynolds

1. Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

2. And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
3. And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.

4. And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.


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## El Mariachi (Nov 1, 2007)

goschio said:


> So the alternative to garage is street parking? Many people just park their car in the driveway. Parking in the street is very annoying. Couldn't live like that.


well, if you have a driveway. How common is it to have a driveway without a garage though? Here, its either driveway/garage, alleyway/garage, or street parking.


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## El Mariachi (Nov 1, 2007)

Czas na Żywiec;52140431 said:


> Do you live in a bad/crowded neighborhood? :dunno: I don't have a garage so I have to parallel park on the street but I don't find it to be an issue at all. If there isn't an open spot immediately in front of my place, I park a few spaces down, or at the very worst on the next block over. But blocks here are packed tightly together so it's not like I have to walk very far. You live in Milwaukee so I assume your neighborhood can't be too different from a typical Chicago neighborhood.
> 
> My neighborhood:
> 
> ...


My neighorhood isn't crowded but I wouldn't really like leaving it out on the street all the time, especially at night. The risk is always there for it to get broken into or someone messing with it. Plus, it would be a pain to have to street park during heavy snowfalls. 

Your neighborhood looks pretty similar to ones around Milwaukee. Personally, I think these styles are great to live in because you have alot of flexibility. It's easy to own a car, yet dense enough to walk to parks, businesses, transit. Plus, you get a yard.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

El Mariachi said:


> well, if you have a driveway. How common is it to have a driveway without a garage though? Here, its either driveway/garage, alleyway/garage, or street parking.


It's pretty common here, we don't very often see the alleyway/garage combination though.


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## Czas na Żywiec (Jan 17, 2005)

El Mariachi said:


> My neighorhood isn't crowded but I wouldn't really like leaving it out on the street all the time, especially at night. The risk is always there for it to get broken into or someone messing with it. Plus, it would be a pain to have to street park during heavy snowfalls.
> 
> Your neighborhood looks pretty similar to ones around Milwaukee. Personally, I think these styles are great to live in because you have alot of flexibility. It's easy to own a car, yet dense enough to walk to parks, businesses, transit. Plus, you get a yard.


It must be a comfort level thing. My parents have been parking their car on the street since the early 80s and I've been doing it ever since I've had a license so I don't really give it a second thought. But to each their own.  

But the winters are the best part! An age old Chicago tradition every winter is to guard your parking spot with a random piece of furniture. It takes a lot of time and effort to dig out your parking spot after a large dumping of snow so anyone with any common sense knows that if you even try and park in someone else's spot you're asking for trouble.


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

^
That is great. Just love these old american suburbs.


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## Czas na Żywiec (Jan 17, 2005)

goschio said:


> ^
> That is great. Just love these old american suburbs.


Sadly a lot of Chicago suburbs have a ban on street parking overnight. If you park on the street after a certain hour they can ticket you. hno: I'm glad I live in the city where that nonsense isn't the case.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

I love those types of neighborhoods. Much better than auto centric suburbia.


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