# Is your city's suburb more vibrant than its centre?



## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

I noticed with some cities especially in The United States and in other continents are the suburban areas are more vibrant and cosmopolitan compared to their city centre especially the CBD. Some cities have inactive downtowns and bustling suburbs. Sounds strange isn't it?

Anyway, is this same with your city?


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

Well, Mong Kong, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui are at least, if not more bustling than Central.

But then neither of those three are suburbs.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

No it isn't. Suburbs are officially dead at evenings and at night in Tallinn. Downtown is the only place with life in it.


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## Frankfurter_Bockwurst (Aug 8, 2007)

Rebasepoiss said:


> No it isn't. Suburbs are officially dead at evenings and at night in Tallinn. Downtown is the only place with life in it.


almost same in frankfurt


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Plenty of suburban-centric North American cities are not vibrant in the city centre and not vibrant in the suburbs at night or on weekends.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

Well Saint Denis is more vibrant than Tour Eiffel, Louvre, Notre Dame, and the banks of Seine districts, but Saint Denis is not really a suburb and we have more vibrant places in the center like Chatelet, Belleville etc...


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

exactly Minato ku, the inner suburbs are not really suburbs in the strict sence ("sub"-"urb"). And generally if you live in any outer suburb exept for a few, if you want to go out, you head to central areas of the agglo.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Although the vast majority of my metropolitan area is suburban (~90%), I would say no.

It's more dead in the suburbs than it is in the city. Central CT as a whole is devoid of life.


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## Robert Stark (Dec 8, 2005)

LA


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

With the exception of maybe Oak Park, Evanston, and <cringe> maybe Naperville, Chicago's suburbs are all but dead. There is absolutely no vibrancy in any suburb...sad very sad. Then again I'd like to think of Chicago in the handfull of cities that are exceptions in the U.S...the argument can well be made for "dead" cities.


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## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

In Minneapolis the core is definitely more vibrant than the suburbs, the only exception may be the shores of Lake Minnetonka in the western suburbs during boating season in the summer but for the most part the suburbs are pretty dead.


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## PedroGabriel (Feb 5, 2007)

My city is part of Porto Metro Area, although it is not a suburb. And I find it more trendy, much safer, and alive than Porto itself, at least in the summer that is. In the rest of the year, I don't know.

But there's the following differences, Porto has three nightlife areas, Póvoa has just one, although Póvoa's is much more packed. 

Porto is too much indoors, spreed and reserved nightlife, Póvoa is a lot more similar to the Spanish one, packed, esplanades, nightclubs, casino, bars, and cafes packed in the same area.

Porto has a mature nightlife, Póvoa is a very young city, most of its population is very young, sometimes too much.

Porto has gay nightlife, Póvoa doesn't, just gay friendly areas.

Even tourism is different, Porto has English tourists, Póvoa has French ones.

Póvoa and Espinho are traditional entertainment areas for the people of Porto (both located in the extremes of the metro), although Espinho is more much related with Porto, for that matter, while Póvoa is for the hole Northern region from Braga, Guimarães, Famalicão to Porto.










the metro area today is bigger, it looks like this:









As for my city proper, the suburban area, is of course dead as a corpses. Well, not quite. :lol: Won't talk about that here, I disagree with so much regulation on gambling and prostitution. The Portuguese police loves the Internet.


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## DanielFigFoz (Mar 10, 2007)

In my opinion Póvoa is a suburb of Porto


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## Xelebes (Apr 1, 2007)

Right now it's shifting towards the downtown.

However, the old amalgamated suburb's main street is considered to have more nightlife. Edmonton has the joy of having 5 old main streets in the city.

The suburbs that lie outside of the city's boundaries are quite dead, however, St Albert's downtown does have some nightlife to it.


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## Pavlov's Dog (Aug 2, 2007)

City planning and politics in Oslo pretty much guarantee that all the night-life and shopping are within the 2nd ring road. Within this small area night life is almost entirely concentrated within small areas. This despite the fact that 3/3 of the cities inhabitants live outside the area. Even in my suburb of Bærum with 105,000 inhabitants there is almost nothing to do and all cultural activities are in Oslo. The closest bar to my house is over a 25 minute walk.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

In Detroit's case, I would say most people would consider the suburbs more vibrant. However, downtown Detroit is still the cultural center of the region.

Suburban Detroit has dozens of small "villages" that have replaced downtown Detroit as the "social" center for metro Detroiters. Royal Oak, Birmingham, Wyandotte, Rochester, Ferndale, etc. have lively downtowns. Royal Oak is where Detroit's "hipster" crowd can be found, while Birmingham is a more "upscale" city geared toward a wealthier population.

Royal Oak








©Davezilla was taken









©Davezilla was taken









©suesue2









©One Foot Over The Moon









©One Foot Over The Moon









©suesue2









©Davezilla was taken


Birmingham








©miss ania k









©One Foot Over The Moon









©enjoybirmingham


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## LordMandeep (Apr 10, 2006)

Suburban Toronto is somewhat vibrant (Talking about the North York and such).


In the outer suburbs vibrancy is none existent (I live there, so don't argue) 
All of the fun action is downtown...and i don't only mean strip and night clubs either...


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## LMCA1990 (Jun 18, 2005)

I'd like to see satellite maps of porto, toronto and others to compare visually.


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## LordMandeep (Apr 10, 2006)

These images are about 3 years out of date....

View of central Toronto 
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.653839,-79.368153&spn=0.058623,0.160675&t=k&z=13&om=1

look around and enjoy


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> Plenty of suburban-centric North American cities are not vibrant in the city centre and not vibrant in the suburbs at night or on weekends.


In particular college towns.


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## KevD (Jan 14, 2007)

nope. Unless we're talking about murders...


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## Kiss the Rain (Apr 2, 2006)

By definition it's impossible, because once the original centre becomes dead it will not be "urban" as urban means concentration of people, and once the original suburb becomes more vibrant, it will cease to be suburb for the same reason. Therefore suburb cannot be more vibrant than the centre simply becasue the virtue of it's own meaning.


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

Kiss the Rain said:


> By definition it's impossible, because once the original centre becomes dead it will not be "urban" as urban means concentration of people, and once the original suburb becomes more vibrant, it will cease to be suburb for the same reason. Therefore suburb cannot be more vibrant than the centre simply becasue the virtue of it's own meaning.


A suburb is not defined as "where all the people aren't"; it's defined as "residential areas on the outskirts of a city or large town"

It is possible that suburbs are more vibrant than a city's centre; like I said, have a look at college towns.


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## LordMandeep (Apr 10, 2006)

> It is possible that suburbs are more vibrant than a city's centre; like I said, have a look at college towns



I have noticed especially in Canada (Ontario, Quebec) that the big universities are in the big cities.

There aren't to many universities randomly placed in a small town that are very large.


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

U. Mich at Ann Arbor springs to mind...


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## DetKing111 (Sep 6, 2007)

nope, not in Detroit. downtown detroit beats out any michigan suburb in about everything. sports, resturants, architecture, bars and population.


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

DetKing111 said:


> nope, not in Detroit. downtown detroit beats out any michigan suburb in about everything. sports, resturants, architecture, bars and population.


Did I visit the same Detroit? Downtown Detroit was deader than a dodo.


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## Edo15 (Jul 23, 2007)

i don't know. but i think in my city (Santiago-Chile), the east zone is more vibrant than downtown


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## Mahratta (Feb 18, 2007)

No way in hell


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## PedroGabriel (Feb 5, 2007)

:lol:


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

_00_deathscar said:


> Did I visit the same Detroit? Downtown Detroit was deader than a dodo.


It depends on when you visit downtown Detroit. Monday-Friday between 9 and 5 the downtown area is lively. And during sporting events, concerts, shows, and cultural events it is busy as well. There are times when the downtown area is dead compared to many suburban districts, but that's how a lot of cities are in their central business districts during certain times. Detroit is and will always be the cultural center of the region, but it lost the social center status long ago. People no longer go downtown just to "hang out", at least not compared to the amount of people who go to their local suburban "downtowns".

It also depends on where you go. Campus Martius, the Riverfront, Greektown, the Financial District (weekdays), and Foxtown (sporting events) are the lively areas of downtown.


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

hudkina said:


> It depends on when you visit downtown Detroit. Monday-Friday between 9 and 5 the downtown area is lively. And during sporting events, concerts, shows, and cultural events it is busy as well. There are times when the downtown area is dead compared to many suburban districts, but that's how a lot of cities are in their central business districts during certain times. Detroit is and will always be the cultural center of the region, but it lost the social center status long ago. People no longer go downtown just to "hang out", at least not compared to the amount of people who go to their local suburban "downtowns".
> 
> It also depends on where you go. Campus Martius, the Riverfront, Greektown, the Financial District (weekdays), and Foxtown (sporting events) are the lively areas of downtown.


I was around for a few days, although not during any sporting events, concerts or shows but found the city centre to be rather dull just about everytime I was there; even during peak times there was hardly any sort of activity, and as a tourist I found Detroit (downtown anyway) didn't have much to offer, apart from a decent train ride overiding the city.

The city's suburbs, however, are fantastic - I recall one in particular (can't remember its name) - but there were a lot of restaurants and clubs, theatres and malls, it was a buzzing place and really crowded too, by which I was surprised. I was staying in Dearborn - the place in question was maybe Birmingham or Troy?


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