# European cities experiencing urban sprawl



## urbanjim (Feb 22, 2008)

Seems it's not just an American phenomenon. Many cities of Europe have evolved into vast urban areas encompassing millions of "suburbanites". For example, metropolitan Paris is contains nearly 8 million persons outside the city proper. By my own calculations, here are some European metros and the percentage of their population that lives outside the major urban core(s):

Katowice, Pol.- 88%
Dortmund/Bochum, Ger.- 85%
Mannheim, Ger.- 81.2%
Mancester, UK- 80.3%
Stuttgart, Ger.- 78.5%
Paris, Fr.- 78.2% 
Bielefeld, Ger.- 75.7%
Frankfurt/Wiesbaden, Ger.- 75.5%
Cologne/Bonn, Ger.- 75.3%
Lisbon, Sp.- 71.6%
Lyon, Fr.- 70.8%
Barcelona, Sp.- 67.2%
Milan, It.- 67%
Dusseldorf/Essen, Ger.- 65.1%
Naples, It.- 63.6%
Stockholm, Swe.- 57.5%
Birmingham, UK- 53.8%
Munich, Ger.- 48.7%
London, UK- 45.43%
Madrid, Sp.- 45.38%
Hamburg, Ger.- 36.6%
Rome, It.- 29.9%
Berlin, Ger.- 24.7%
Moscow, Rus.- 23.3%

In America, growth of the suburbs was initially the result of the mass production of the automobile, and in turn, the creation of the interstate highway system. Then, during the 1960's and 1970's, a mass migration from many American cities to their suburbs occurred. The reasons for this migration are many... from crime, to racial tension, to the lure of the "suburban way of life". 
So this begs the question: What fueled the growth of the suburbs of European cities? Did they develop simply as a result of cities outgrowing their borders, or did they experience a similar migration from the inner city to outer regions? And which portions of European urban areas are currently experiencing the most population growth, cities or suburbs?


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

From what i read, the suburbs of many European cities aren't nothing like what we see here.


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## Sagaris (Nov 28, 2006)

For one thing, those stats are definately skewed. Katowice and Dortmund are just the main cities in areas that are highly urban because of the close proximity of many cities. Its not a recent phenomenon there, nor is it urban sprawl.

While you may find single family homes in Europe more now than in the past, its still not nearly the same as in north america. I would estimate that a large part of most of those are simply cities outgrowing their own borders


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Cities like Paris are misleading. It has a very small land area in the first place, so obviously the vast majority of the metro would live outside of the city limits. 

From what I've seen in pics, a large portion of the Paris suburbs are quite dense.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

The original post is totally wrong. Completely, 100% out of context. Forgive me if I sound harsh, but people have explained this thousands of times and it keeps coming up. Perhaps it's the role of SSC to explain Demographics 100 to uninformed people every two weeks. 

Municipal boundaries mean very little regarding sprawl. Virtually zero. Municipal lines can be drawn anywhere, with little regard to how a city functions. 

The City of London is a square mile of office buildings, does that mean that someone at Trafalgar Square is in the middle of sprawl? Of course not. Trafalgar Square is outside the City of London, but it's often called the center of town. 

European development is generally much denser, both within "core" municipalities and outside them. Small towns routinely have densities several times the US average, often being dominated by townhouses or apartments. 

Even what Europeans consider sprawl is typically denser. For example, the "Harry Potter" house on a small lot is a common type in some countries. 

Didn't the same poster have a similar thread locked recently? Maybe this one will be too.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Lots of those cities you mention have very dense "suburbs" which I'd hardly call "suburban" as far as Australian, NZ, American etc standards go. A typical British suburb is FAR more dense than a similar NZ suburb and a German suburb is usually more dense than a British. 

It's simply a case of the definition of "metropolitan" being applied to a European city when in fact it never used to exist. Those "metropolitan" areas used to be considered seperate entities to the cities in many ways and had their own roots as seperate settlements much like is seen in London vs Greater London vs London commuter belt. It isn't an indication of sprawl at all, more of old historical definitions of "city" not holding true any more with the new definitions of city proper, urban area and metropolitan area becoming increasingly more common.


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## Stretch (Sep 9, 2007)

I may be misinformed, but in the case of a city like Paris, isn't the area of the city-proper extremely small - relatively speaking? Maybe because the city's boundaries were drawn a long, long time ago? It seems to me that what are technically suburbs of Paris, many people would consider Paris, not necessarily suburbs? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: mhays & Svartmetall made my point for me.


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## urbanfan89 (May 30, 2007)

^Yes, the 75 is very small as the boundary follows the city walls that were built during medieval times. The suburbs are much denser than anything in North America or Australia, but there's still a huge divide between the 75 and 93, 91, 77, etc. Look at the Metro map: the City proper is extremely well served, but service outside the 75 is scarce. It's also surrounded by the beltway that exacerbates the gap, and some banlieus are isolated from public transport. This partially explains some of the root causes behind the riots in the housing projects.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

The word "suburb" means less than urban. It's not a suburb if it's urban in form. So the municipalities outside central Paris are mostly not suburbs anyway.


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Village









Small city









Big city


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Well, the Katowice/Ruhr area are counted wrong, because they don't have one core city, but multiple ones. If you only count one core city for those metro's, you'll automatically have a higher level of "suburban" inhabitants. 

It's better to compare those cities with a Google Earth screendump, because some "suburban" area's around major cities in Europe are very dense, like in Paris or London. I think most suburban sprawl can be found near midsize European cities, and perhaps the outskirts of the larger metro's.

Near Madrid, this looks a lot like Dutch suburban neighborhoods









You don't count here if you don't have a swimming pool


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

German suburbs are also not very dense, but it can differ from location to location. This one is near Hamburg:









Belgium might me the most sprawled country, urban planning was virtually non-existent, and almost all roads are lined with detached homes. 









In contrast to neighboring Netherlands, where urban planning is very controlled.
This is near Amersfoort:









Danish suburbs are pretty sprawly, but apartment buildings can be common in the-closer-to-downtown-suburbs, this one's near København.









Swiss countryside can be pretty much suburban, with lots of detached homes, this one is in suburbia Zürich.









British suburbs are full of detached homes with their own garden etc, this one is in Coventry.


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## Mekky II (Oct 29, 2003)

Higher price of lands = higher need of money = higher need of people per m² or sq² = higher density ... :cheers:


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Chris: I'd say in the global scheme of things even suburbs in Britain (which I'd say are some of the least dense in Europe outside of Scandinavia) are much more dense than the new world anglosphere (having lived in both). What we as Europeans class as "not dense" in the form of detached houses, a Kiwi would find insufferable!


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

A parisian suburb (on the foreground) 










But it's true that we experience sprawl (much less than north american cities), but looking at suburban populations is definitly not the good way to measure it.


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## Mekky II (Oct 29, 2003)

The french sprawl in picture :


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Budapest suburbia:


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## Chilenofuturista (May 24, 2005)

Excellent information Chris, simply excellent. :cheers:


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Chriszwolle said:


> Budapest suburbia:


So suburbia is inside or outside city limits? Because these areas are all inside,and not new.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Mostly inside, except one, in Gyál. But it surely has that suburban feeling.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Suburban Berlin:


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Marseille:









Lyon:









Toulouse:


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Yes, we can all use Google Earth screencaps... But you are being rather selective in your publishing of those said screencaps. Everyone can go to Google Earth and find low density areas in every city - even in Tokyo! However, one screencap of one suburb doesn't serve to show the overall feel of suburbs from each of those cities as "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" to borrow an overly used phrase.

Also, in German cities (and French too I presume) there is no guarantee that one of those "houses" isn't a multi story flat block with two or three different flats in it as you simply can't tell from above! Stuttgart is a perfect example of this with lots of areas looking overrun with "detached houses", but if you know the city you'll know that most of those are in fact multi story (3-4) houses with flats inside them.

I will agree with you on British cities though - but they still pack those darned houses in quite well - I should know, I lived in small town (new) suburbia for 5 years of my life right on the edge of Northampton.


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## Cherguevara (Apr 13, 2005)

To correct an earlier point most British 'suburbs' are densely packed with semi-detached houses, rather than detached ones, each split into two with one family in each. Before I moved to London (from the 'suburbs' of Manchester) I'd never lived in anything else.

Except when I was a child and I lived in a detached house on the coast north of Wellington, NZ. Which rather proves the point. Even in English 'sprawl' the houses are packed remarkably tightly by NA standards.


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## woutero (Jan 14, 2008)

I think this is a very interesting discussion. 

The idea that there is no sprawl in Europe is outdated. Measuring sprawl is difficult, but driving on motorways in Europe will tell you a lot. 

For instance: compare the Spanish coastline and Spanish cities today with those of 10 years ago. Compare French retail patterns now with those of 15 years ago. Compare office locations around Amsterdam now and 15 years ago. You will see that there is an outward flow of functions (residential, daily retail and offices) from urban centers toward motorway locations. Also in European cities.

You can argue about the extent to which this is happening and whether it's a bad thing. Also, it's very different from place to place. But in general: sprawl is occuring. I think it is best measured by the density of residential neighborhoods, the type of retail (street oriented, or parking lot oriented?), the modal split of mobility (do people have places to walk or bike to?, is there enough volume to support decent public transport?), and how far people on average live from their work.

I have a feeling (can't prove anything) that especially Central European countries are going to experience quite some sprawl in the coming decades. Highway infrastructure is being built rapidly, the post communist retail vacuum is being filled by large chains with a strong suburban tradition, people are getting richer fast which enables them to buy good wheels and maybe a house that's bigger and nicer than a commieblock, planning is a dirty word in the post communist world and land is still cheap. This combined: beware.

So, I think sprawl is occuring. Not in the same form as in the Anglo-saxon world, and in a very diverse way, but it is happening.


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## urbanjim (Feb 22, 2008)

Woutero, I think you make some excellent points. There isn't a catch-all method of accurately measuring sprawl. But we can see it in urban areas throughout the world. Europe is no exception.
In most cases, sprawl is arguably the common result of an urban area's unplanned growth. I believe that as long as people choose to live in an exurban environment, it will continue to be developed, and sprawl will continue.
In today's world, many people want to reap the advantages of living in somewhat close proximity to a major city. Access to services. Shopping, entertainment and leisure activities all within reach. At the same time, these exurbanites don't want to feel penned in. They require ample space between themselves and their neighbors. They don't want to hear the sounds of an urban environment. Their idea of a great view isn't a skyline-- unless it's from a far distance. So they strive to have the best of both worlds. 
I also agree that the urban centers of Central and Eastern Europe are just beginning to feel growing pains in the 21'st century. It seems highly likely that they should begin to experience sprawl. 
How do Europeans view this phenomenon? As a good thing or a bad thing?


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## Unionstation13 (Aug 31, 2006)

Most of Europe's suburbs are fairly dense. In the US the only dense suburbs are those developed before WWII. It hasn't been until recently that smart growth and high density development in suburbs became popular here in NA.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

urbanjim said:


> How do Europeans view this phenomenon? As a good thing or a bad thing?


Given the fact that they are constructing nearly 80.000 homes per year in the Netherlands like this, i think they feel it's a good thing.

I know opinions on SSC might be different about that, because most members here might want to live in condo's, but when you're older, and have a family, priorities change, and a house in the quiet suburbs is better.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Svartmetall said:


> Yes, we can all use Google Earth screencaps... But you are being rather selective in your publishing of those said screencaps. Everyone can go to Google Earth and find low density areas in every city - even in Tokyo! However, one screencap of one suburb doesn't serve to show the overall feel of suburbs from each of those cities as "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" to borrow an overly used phrase.


Ofcourse. But this thread is about European style sprawl, so a few caps of that wouldn't do any harm, don't you think?


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## Swede (Aug 24, 2002)

urbanjim said:


> By my own calculations, here are some European metros and the percentage of their population that lives outside the major urban core(s):
> 
> Stockholm, Swe.- 57.5%


How'd you get that number? It doesn't make any sense to me. The reality as us Stockholmers see it is that 85% live in suburbs. Our urban core is tiny for a metro that's fast approaching 2M. The InnerCity has about 300k inhabitants. 
The City of Stockholm is NOT the InnerCity, but also has about 500k people living in suburbs. The continuously built-up area is larger at 1.2M, but most of that is just suburbs.

/Greater Stockholm: less dense than the Netherlands.


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## gincan (Feb 1, 2006)

woutero said:


> I think this is a very interesting discussion.
> 
> The idea that there is no sprawl in Europe is outdated. Measuring sprawl is difficult, but driving on motorways in Europe will tell you a lot.
> 
> For instance: compare the Spanish coastline and Spanish cities today with those of 10 years ago. Compare French retail patterns now with those of 15 years ago. Compare office locations around Amsterdam now and 15 years ago. You will see that there is an outward flow of functions (residential, daily retail and offices) from urban centers toward motorway locations. Also in European cities.


The main diffrence is the european sprawl don't leave behind gosttown centers like it happened in USA after WWII. The citycenter of any european city with a population of 100.000 or more have a very vibrant day and nightlife, comparable to Manhattan rather than say Detroit.

When the commieflats are left vacant the don't stay vacant like it happened in north america but rather filled upp by all those that can't afford anything better.


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

gincan said:


> When the commieflats are left vacant the don't stay vacant like it happened in north america but rather filled upp by all those that can't afford anything better.


Actually,commies are not necessarily sold when you reach a certain level of wealth...commies are not slums or ghettos, as westerners think...I had the pleasure to spend the first 3 years of my life in a flat about 90m2 on the 8th floor. Newly built flats(and houses) meet a serious competition in the form of commies,and if they are reconstructed, then they even sell better.
BTW,what Chris showed are not new development here...those village-houses,aka "sprawl" are there for decades,they are remains of the old villages that the city consumed.


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## poller1 (Aug 27, 2003)

Chilenofuturista said:


> Excellent information Chris, simply excellent. :cheers:


He's somehow right, but he doesn't compare the comparable... (size of shown cities)


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

RawLee said:


> Actually,commies are not necessarily sold when you reach a certain level of wealth...commies are not slums or ghettos, as westerners think...I had the pleasure to spend the first 3 years of my life in a flat about 90m2 on the 8th floor. Newly built flats(and houses) meet a serious competition in the form of commies,and if they are reconstructed, then they even sell better.
> BTW,what Chris showed are not new development here...those village-houses,aka "sprawl" are there for decades,they are remains of the old villages that the city consumed.


In Germany, commie blocks are generally ghettos. Especially these large scale developments. And yes, there are lots of vacant commie blocks as well. Many have been demolished already.


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## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

Here,the gov gives aid if the house has enough money(10%,maybe 20% of the whole cost) to conducts full reconstruction. In the end,they will be as efficient and look as good as a newly built house. See for yourself:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=17739622&postcount=574
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=18210538&postcount=687


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

urbanjim said:


> Seems it's not just an American phenomenon. Many cities of Europe have evolved into vast urban areas encompassing millions of "suburbanites". For example, metropolitan Paris is contains nearly 8 million persons outside the city proper. By my own calculations, here are some European metros and the percentage of their population that lives outside the major urban core(s):
> 
> Katowice, Pol.- 88%
> Dortmund/Bochum, Ger.- 85%
> ...


Your calculation lack some essential informations. Just because it lies outside the city borders does not mean that its a suburb American style. Actually just to take the example Paris, the proper city is better compared to the historic core by far and large. As such it is massive compared to many other cities in the world. The banlieues of Paris are often very urban themselves, probably not all of them, but thats the very point. The number of people who live in the Banlieues compared to those living in the city proper does not say much about how many people live in urban environment and how many in suburban environmnet of American style.

@Chriszwolle
This strongly controlled city planning in the Netherlands look interesting. Does it work well in order to create subscenters and reducing the absolute dependence on the car like in the suburb of American style?
If it works well, I would like it to see being applied all over Europe...


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

goschio said:


> In Germany, commie blocks are generally ghettos. Especially these large scale developments. And yes, there are lots of vacant commie blocks as well. Many have been demolished already.


In our village, we have some commieblocks, but these are often single-house developements with like 50 flats. There is no real problem with these. The problem occurs when you have 1,000 flats or more.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

gincan said:


> The main diffrence is the european sprawl don't leave behind gosttown centers like it happened in USA after WWII. The citycenter of any european city with a population of 100.000 or more have a very vibrant day and nightlife, comparable to Manhattan rather than say Detroit.
> 
> When the commieflats are left vacant the don't stay vacant like it happened in north america but rather filled upp by all those that can't afford anything better.


But it's a pity that even in europe the city cores have shrinked massively in population numbers. Most of the cores have population densities that are in the suburban range (2,000-5,000/km²). I hope that some day the offices are moving out of the cities and it'll be filled with people again.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Slartibartfas said:


> @Chriszwolle
> This strongly controlled city planning in the Netherlands look interesting. Does it work well in order to create subscenters and reducing the absolute dependence on the car like in the suburb of American style?
> If it works well, I would like it to see being applied all over Europe...


No, i don't think there are many demographic differences between US suburbs and Dutch Vinex locations. Both have a high car ownership (often 2 per household), and the number of people in a household is near 2,5. A difference can be, that Dutch government tries to make a demographic diverse suburb, with low-income housing, as well as senior citizens apartments. Though, most of the area exists out of middle-class commuters. Congestion to and from these neighborhoods, as well as on the freeway, is a growing problem, because they build like 5.000 to 10.000 houses in these locations, without adjusting the connecting and nearby road network to these spatial changes.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Chrissib said:


> But it's a pity that even in europe the city cores have shrinked massively in population numbers. Most of the cores have population densities that are in the suburban range (2,000-5,000/km²). I hope that some day the offices are moving out of the cities and it'll be filled with people again.


In the Netherlands, most historic districts have a low population, because almost all properties are retail or restaurants and bars. The central (historic) district of my city, Zwolle, has only 2000 inhabitants on approximatly 1 km², comparing to 116.000 in the city proper. The area is very densely build-up though.


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## London_2006 (Feb 9, 2003)

In the pictures I posted above, it seems London's suburbs show no 'planning' at all when compared to those of other countries.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

London has an ancient urban "planning" which dates back from before mass mobility like there is now. That's why the city is so congested. I think it has more congestion than other large cities like Berlin, Paris and Madrid.


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## London_2006 (Feb 9, 2003)

That's only the centre though, those suburbs in the pictures are about 15-20 miles from the centre and were probably built mostly between 1920s-1970s.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

Is there a residential construction boom in London right now or are they just filling up old homes with new people right now, as Lonon still has 1 million people less than it had in the 30s.


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## 909 (Oct 22, 2003)

Chriszwolle said:


> The Netherlands:
> 
> Emmen:


This is where i lived. The homes were very nice, but it was very boring to live there. This is a example where suburbia equals boredom.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

London_2006 said:


> That's only the centre though, those suburbs in the pictures are about 15-20 miles from the centre and were probably built mostly between 1920s-1970s.


Yeah, but those 15 - 20 miles (40 miles across) is still a quite large area, with millions of people, owning cars. 

It's also not only commuting traffic that is causing congesting in London, if i look at our motorways between 10 am and 3 pm, they're still full of cars. Think of all that traffic in a non-freeflow situation like most of London, and bam there you got your congestion.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

909 said:


> This is where i lived. The homes were very nice, but it was very boring to live there. This is a example where suburbia equals boredom.


I assume it's a perfect place to live for families. Youth can have different interests, they can better live near a city center, but when you're older, have a family and kids, priorities change, and suburbia is the best place to live for most people.


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## 909 (Oct 22, 2003)

Chriszwolle said:


> I assume it's a perfect place to live for families. Youth can have different interests, they can better live near a city center, but when you're older, have a family and kids, priorities change, and suburbia is the best place to live for most people.


The residential area is known as Parc Sandur is also known in the city of Emmen because it's lacking almost everything. There are no schools, no public transport, only one entrance for the whole area and the roads are too small. Also, there aren't enough parking spaces. 
To be honest, i believe this is a perfect example of bad planning. It was designed as a resort, but due to financial problems the governing body of the municipality and the planner decided to change the concept so half of the parc became residential. The part which is a resort is still visible on the left of the picture.
So, it is no coincidence that, relatively speaking, a lot of homes are for sale.


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## London_2006 (Feb 9, 2003)

Chrissib said:


> Is there a residential construction boom in London right now or are they just filling up old homes with new people right now, as Lonon still has 1 million people less than it had in the 30s.


Most of the decrease from around 9 million to 6 million was due to people moving from the city to the suburbs. At the moment there is a residential construction boom however.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Chriszwolle said:


> I assume it's a perfect place to live for families. Youth can have different interests, they can better live near a city center, but when you're older, have a family and kids, priorities change, and suburbia is the best place to live for most people.


Families may like houses, but how many families actually like living in suburbia?


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

LtBk said:


> Families may like houses, but how many families actually like living in suburbia?


Well, given the fact that they still sell like free hotdogs, i assume a lot of people like it. I live in suburbia myself, i don't like it too much, but i'm still young. I'm moving to an apartment at the end of this year, can't wait 

Also, given the fact that the majority of the US population lives in suburbs, i would find it strange if they're all unhappy. I can understand people like to live, in those treelined, hilly, landscaped and green suburbs on the East Coast. You have a lot of privacy and personal space, and not the 24/7 rush of that in downtown.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

London_2006 said:


> Most of the decrease from around 9 million to 6 million was due to people moving from the city to the suburbs. At the moment there is a residential construction boom however.


Is this boom happening more in Inner London or in Outer London? I've read many statistics that say that the population boom is happening mostly in the inner parts like Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster and Camden.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

del


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

Chrissib said:


> Is there a residential construction boom in London right now or are they just filling up old homes with new people right now, as Lonon still has 1 million people less than it had in the 30s.


As pointed out, much of the loss was people moving to the "suburbs" and metro area. Also, keep in mind that "Greater London" is not the same as Greater Frankfurt or pretty much any other city, as "Greater London" is the name of the city proper. It has defined borders and is a council area. The metropolitan area (equivilent to your Rhein Main) extends out _from_ "Greater London".


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Chriszwolle said:


> Well, given the fact that they still sell like free hotdogs, i assume a lot of people like it. I live in suburbia myself, i don't like it too much, but i'm still young. I'm moving to an apartment at the end of this year, can't wait
> 
> Also, given the fact that the majority of the US population lives in suburbs, i would find it strange if they're all unhappy. I can understand people like to live, in those treelined, hilly, landscaped and green suburbs on the East Coast. You have a lot of privacy and personal space, and not the 24/7 rush of that in downtown.


Its either:
1.They like it
2.They boring
3.Can't afford to live in a urban area
4.All of Above

There are quiet neighborhoods in the city you know.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

LtBk said:


> Its either:
> 1.They like it
> 2.They boring
> 3.Can't afford to live in a urban area
> ...


I certainly prefer to living inner city, and do so here in Frankfurt (well, at least walking distance from downtown... just)

But I can understand the lure of the suburbs, especially if it's a family. Most kids, if had a choice, would prefer the spacious homes in the suburbs with their own backyards than cramped up in innercity shoe boxes.

It also gives the parents space to get away from the kids, and their spouse ;O)

But year, outside of that it's quite boring.


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## bosman (Mar 8, 2007)

^^ I think it's also what you define as boring. My sister and her family (two kids) live in the suburbs in California, and their lives are very busy. The kids are involved in sports leagues, gymnastics, Boys/Girls Scouts, activities with the school, etc. The kids can walk to parks or the school playgrounds to play, and often play with kids in the streets in the neighborhood. My sister and brother-in-law also have barbeques and parties, etc. And, of course, if they want to go into the city for the museums and more excitement they can do that too. Frankly, I think they feel their lives are a little too busy, certainly not boring. That wasn't the life for me, though, so I moved from the suburbs to the city. However, I know a number of people in the city that live pretty boring lives...


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Stretch said:


> I may be misinformed, but in the case of a city like Paris, isn't the area of the city-proper extremely small - relatively speaking?





urbanfan89 said:


> ^Yes, the 75 is very small as the boundary follows the city walls that were built during medieval times.


That's not true at all. The 75 department, i.e. the administrative City of Paris, is much larger than the medieval city of Paris. The medieval city as enclosed by the walls of Charles V built between 1358 and 1383 (which enlarged the size of the city previously enclosed by the shorter walls of Philip Augustus built around 1200) encompassed exactly 4.38 km² (i.e. 1.69 sq. miles, or 1,085 acres). This was I believe the largest European city in walled area after Constantinople. The walled City of London encompassed only 1.3 km² (330 acres) for example.

The current City of Paris encompasses 105 km², i.e. an area 24 times larger than the medieval city of Paris within the walls of Charles V. The medieval city corresponds to the 3rd and 4th arrondissements in their entirety, the eastern half of the 1st and 2nd arrondissements, and the northern part of the 5th and 6th arrondissements. The medieval walls of Paris were destroyed by King Louis XIV in the 17th century because France had secured its borders and did not fear invasions anymore. They were replaced by the famous Grands Boulevards.

The current border of the City of Paris corresponds to the military fortifications built in the 1840s around the city. These fortifications were built contrary to common sense. Paris was one of the first European cities to destroy its walls in the 17th century, and one of the last to build new walls in the 19th century. The decision in the 1840s is due to prime minister Thiers and worried politicians who were afraid of a repeat of the 1814-1815 invasions at the end of the Napoleonic wars. A lot of people thought that military fortifications around a city made no sense in the age of the Industrial Revolution and massive fire power, but these stupid politicians built this last wall of Paris anyway. In 1860 the Paris prefect Haussmann enlarged the city and set its administrative borders along the 1840s fortifications. The city has not been enlarged ever since, which is why administrative Paris is nowadays so ridiculously small (but still 24 times larger than the medieval walled city).


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Stretch said:


> It seems to me that what are technically suburbs of Paris, many people would consider Paris, not necessarily suburbs? Please correct me if I'm wrong.


The word suburbs (literally sub = below, near; urbs = city) does not exist in modern French (although the English "suburb" comes from old French "suburbe", a word which stopped being used in modern French). In French there exists the word _banlieue_ but it has a different meaning than suburb. The _banlieue_ was historically the area within a radius of one league from a city (one league = approx. 3.2 km or 2.0 miles) where the proclamations of the city were read and over which the city courts had jurisdiction. The word comes from _ban_= proclamation (this meaning still exists in English in the phrase "banns of marriage") and _lieue_ = league.

The "banlieue" of the walled city of Paris extended from St Denis (non included) in the North to Cachan (included) in the South, and from Vincennes (included) in the East to Boulogne (included) and Neuilly (included) in the West. Stone crosses and milestones marked the borders of the _banlieue_. For those who know Paris geography, you can see that this area was larger than the area within a radius of 3.2 km from Paris. Paris medieval authorities extended the limits of their _banlieue_ beyond the official one league.

During the yearly religious procession from Notre Dame Cathedral to St Denis the bishop of Paris had authority over the procession till the outer limits of the _banlieue_ (somewhere near today's Stade de France), then an officer of St Denis Abbey was in charge. During royal funerals, the clergy of Paris carried the body of the king to the outer limits of the _banlieue_ where the body was left in charge of the monks of St Denis Abbey. At the time of the French Revolution, when they created French communes (municipalities), instead of creating a municipality of Paris extending to the outer limits of the _banlieue_, which would have been logical, they instead isolated the built-up area of Paris into a tiny municipality barely larger than the medieval walled city, and they divided the rest of the largely rural _banlieue_ into more than 30 municipalities. Haussmann extended the limits of Paris in 1860 but the current City of Paris is still smaller than the medieval _banlieue_.

In a modern sense, the _banlieue_ is any urban area that lies outside of an administrative central city. _Banlieue_ has thus an administrative meaning and not the geographical meaning of the English word "suburb". Neuilly, the very affluent community of Nicolas Sarkozy, is thus strictly speaking part of the _banlieue_ of Paris (because it lies just outside of the administrative City of Paris), but in English nobody would call it a "suburb" of Paris.

This is Neuilly:


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

Justme said:


> As pointed out, much of the loss was people moving to the "suburbs" and metro area. Also, keep in mind that "Greater London" is not the same as Greater Frankfurt or pretty much any other city, as "Greater London" is the name of the city proper. It has defined borders and is a council area. The metropolitan area (equivilent to your Rhein Main) extends out _from_ "Greater London".


Yeah i understanded it way ago^^ I meant if the building boom is occuring in inner London (the inner districts like City of L, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden, ...) or in outer London (Kingston, Barnet, Redbridge).


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## Booze (Jun 19, 2003)

Here in Mallorca we have many different kinds of suburbia.

First we have traditional residential suburbs along the Ma-13 highway near Palma. Another crossing highway is expected there in the near future.










Then we have heavy *sea*burbia in west Palma










Top class low density suburbia in the northern part of the island, there's a property there costing 50€ milion :crazy:










Then we have sub-suburbia, what I like to call suburbia 2.0 or "do the suburbia yourself". Since urban planning has traditionally banned suburbia, people has just restored ancient country houses and transformed them as main residence. Many times this has been made against very restrictive laws. The result has been an unstopable trend to occupie bucolical landscapes and peacefull areas since quality of life there is percieved to be unbeatable.










Typical restored houses are like this, made out of stone. All equiped with their, usually illegal, swiming pool:










In my city this effect is very visible in these pictures showing the registered properties and a brutal contrast of hiperdense center and hiperundense outskirts



















Quality of life in suburbia 2.0 is nice, but it's a bit scary to me.

Finally, I put this picture cause I just love it  Dispersed houses in the edge of a town, this is how suburbia looked like many centuries ago XD


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

brisavoine said:


> The word suburbs (literally sub = below, near; urbs = city) does not exist in modern French (although the English "suburb" comes from old French "suburbe", a word which stopped being used in modern French). In French there exists the word _banlieue_ but it has a different meaning than suburb. The _banlieue_ was historically the area within a radius of one league from a city (one league = approx. 3.2 km or 2.0 miles) where the proclamations of the city were read and over which the city courts had jurisdiction. The word comes from _ban_= proclamation (this meaning still exists in English in the phrase "banns of marriage") and _lieue_ = league.
> 
> The "banlieue" of the walled city of Paris extended from St Denis (non included) in the North to Cachan (included) in the South, and from Vincennes (included) in the East to Boulogne (included) and Neuilly (included) in the West. Stone crosses and milestones marked the borders of the _banlieue_. For those who know Paris geography, you can see that this area was larger than the area within a radius of 3.2 km from Paris. Paris medieval authorities extended the limits of their _banlieue_ beyond the official one league.
> 
> ...


Very interesting. Thanks for that information.

Just to correct your last point (in bold). Actually, every English speaking country generally has their own definition of "suburb". In Australia or New Zealand, the term "suburb" is used for _any_ residential area directly outside of downtown, so in effect Neuilly would be called a suburb of Paris. This can be seen even in Sydney, Australia's densest city where the inner suburbs have quite a high density such as Redfern, Potts Point, Newtown etc. These are very close to downtown (and walkable) but are still called suburbs. They do have the differentiation of being known as inner suburbs or inner city suburbs sometimes.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

Chrissib said:


> Yeah i understanded it way ago^^ I meant if the building boom is occuring in inner London (the inner districts like City of L, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden, ...) or in outer London (Kingston, Barnet, Redbridge).


Ok :O) Just to give it a comparison. 

Frankfurt (main council area) = Bornheim, Sachsenhäusen, Höchst etc
Greater Frankfurt = Bad Homburg, Mainz, Darmstadt etc

This is taking into account the term "Greater Frankfurt" as the Rhein Main Metropolitan area

London = Greater London (main council area) = Chelsea, Camden, Kingston, Barnet etc
Metropolitan London (equivalent to Rhein Main) = Watford, Reading, Chelmsford etc.

What I mean here, is that generally speaking, in English, the term "Greater xxcityxx" refers to either the wider metropolitan area or urban area, i.e. the adjoining or satellite cities that constitutes the whole entity. But for London this is different as the term "Greater London" came before the general usage term used elsewhere. Greater London is a council area just like the city of Frankfurt. 

It's an odd and confusing use of the phrase, but really is quite different. I guess like in most country's a "subway" means a metro or underground railway, except in Britain where it means a pedestrian underpass.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

@Booze. Excellent maps, thanks Booze. But I don't quite get this one. If the black splotches represent registered dwellings, why is the dense urban area not any denser in black dots? Some streets only show a couple of dwellings?


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Justme said:


> In Australia or New Zealand, the term "suburb" is used for _any_ residential area directly outside of downtown, so in effect Neuilly would be called a suburb of Paris. This can be seen even in Sydney, Australia's densest city where the inner suburbs have quite a high density such as Redfern, Potts Point, Newtown etc. These are very close to downtown (and walkable) but are still called suburbs. They do have the differentiation of being known as inner suburbs or inner city suburbs sometimes.


Ok, but Neuilly has 16,381 inh. per sq. kilometer. I doubt even Australians would call a place with a density of 16,381 inh. per sq. km. a "suburb". For comparisons the most densely populated place in Sydney among those you named is Potts Point with 10,236 inh. per sq. km. Redfern has 9,149 inh. per sq. km. and Newtown 7,935 inh. per sq. km. And these are just pocket neighborhoods and not municipalities like Neuilly. In the urban area of Sydney the most densely populated municipality (LGA) is Waverley with 6,929 inh. per sq. km.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

brisavoine said:


> Ok, but Neuilly has 16,381 inh. per sq. kilometer. I doubt even Australians would call a place with a density of 16,381 inh. per sq. km. a "suburb". For comparisons the most densely populated place in Sydney among those you named is Potts Point with 10,236 inh. per sq. km. Redfern has 9,149 inh. per sq. km. and Newtown 7,935 inh. per sq. km. And these are just pocket neighborhoods and not municipalities like Neuilly. In the urban area of Sydney the most densely populated municipality (LGA) is Waverley with 6,929 inh. per sq. km.


Sorry, but that argument doesn't fit. 10,236 p/km² is still dense. If it became denser, I doubt very much that people would stop calling it a suburb there. The fact is as I simply stated it... In Australia and New Zealand, pretty much everything outside of downtown is called suburbs.

This point is proven by other cities in Europe less dense than Paris. Places directly outside of downtown and less dense than Potts Point, but they are still not called suburbs by Europeans.

There is no prize for debating something when you know you have it wrong. And please, you can't tell an Australian how their language works. You said that in English Neuilly wouldn't be called a suburb, and this is true for the UK and I would guess in the US as well (I believe they would call it a neighbourhood there?) But it is not the case in Australia.

There is no point in debating it. In Australian English, Neuilly would be called a suburb of Paris. Though most likely an "inner suburb".


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

10ROT said:


> From what I've seen in pics, a large portion of the Paris suburbs are quite dense.





Stretch said:


> It seems to me that what are technically suburbs of Paris, many people would consider Paris, not necessarily suburbs? Please correct me if I'm wrong.


In any city on Earth, as you move outwards from the center the density falls and eventually you reach what would be defined as suburbs by North American standards. Even an extremely dense city like Mumbai has suburbs with American densities, although of course these suburbs are very small compared to the very dense core of Mumbai where most people live.

For Paris I've made the following calculations. At the 1999 census there were 11,173,994 people living in the metropolitan area of Paris. If we use a North American approach and we consider that a suburb is a municipality/census subdivision outside the central city with a population density below 2,500 inh. per km² but above 200 inh. per km² (less than 200 inh. per km² being rural areas), then we get the following ratios (1999 census):
- "suburbs" of Paris: 2,345,923 inhabitants, i.e. 21% of the Paris metro area's population
- areas with density above 2,500 inh. per km²: 8,158,805 inhabitants, i.e. 73% of the Paris metro area's population
- rural areas (density below 200 inh. per km²): 669,266 inhabitants, i.e. 6% of the Paris metro area's population

In terms of land area we get the following ratios:
- "suburbs" of Paris: 3,159 km², i.e. 22% of the Paris metro area's land area
- areas with density above 2,500 inh. per km²: 1,200 km² , i.e. 8% of the Paris metro area's land area
- rural areas (density below 200 inh. per km²): 10,153 km², i.e. 70% of the Paris metro area's land area

Now if we use a more European approach and we consider that a suburb is a municipality/census subdivision outside the central city with a population density below 5,000 inh. per km² but above 200 inh. per km², then we get the following ratios:
- "suburbs" of Paris: 4,561,975 inhabitants, i.e. 41% of the Paris metro area's population
- areas with density above 5,000 inh. per km²: 5,942,753 inhabitants, i.e. 53% of the Paris metro area's population
- rural areas (density below 200 inh. per km²): 669,266 inhabitants, i.e. 6% of the Paris metro area's population

In terms of land area we get the following ratios:
- "suburbs" of Paris: 3,777 km², i.e. 26% of the Paris metro area's land area
- areas with density above 5,000 inh. per km²: 582 km² , i.e. 4% of the Paris metro area's land area
- rural areas (density below 200 inh. per km²): 10,153 km², i.e. 70% of the Paris metro area's land area

It would be interesting if people could calculate the same ratios for other European metro areas.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Here are examples of Parisian suburbs with North American densities (less than 2,500 inh. per km²):

Southern suburbs:









Eastern suburbs:









Northern suburbs:









Western suburbs:









Eastern suburbs:









Eastern suburbs:









Western suburbs:









Southern suburbs:









Eastern suburbs:


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

brisavoine said:


> Ok, but Neuilly has 16,381 inh. per sq. kilometer. I doubt even Australians would call a place with a density of 16,381 inh. per sq. km. a "suburb". For comparisons the most densely populated place in Sydney among those you named is Potts Point with 10,236 inh. per sq. km. Redfern has 9,149 inh. per sq. km. and Newtown 7,935 inh. per sq. km. And these are just pocket neighborhoods and not municipalities like Neuilly. In the urban area of Sydney the most densely populated municipality (LGA) is Waverley with 6,929 inh. per sq. km.


Brisavoine, in the Washington DC area, some municipalities which are as the district of Colombia (washington dc proper) are still called suburbs. Arlington or Silver Spring come to mind.

Of course, in area, most of these municipalities are not dense (detached houses), but then so is DC proper.

People who live in dense Silver Spring or Arlington districts right across the border with DC (river in the case of Arlington) are still called suburbanites and the people who live in DC detached houses are not. From what I recall, it's pretty much like Paris, although of course, the broad image attached to the idea of 'suburb' over there and 'banlieue' here are of course not the same.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

^^I love how people are ready to use any kind of argument to prove people wrong. Have you at least been to Washington DC ? I have. The areas you mention look definitely suburban, and are completely different from dense Neuilly. Last but not least, not all the District of Columbia is detached houses. The center of the District of Columbia is avenues and midrise buildings, very much like Neuilly. Which is not surprising considering that the DC was planned by a Frenchman who took his inspiration from Versailles. As for whether people call this or that a "suburb", in DC I have never heard people using the word "suburb". You live either in the district, or in Maryland, or in Virginia, that's how people refer to places in a broad way. But what I know is that no one over there would refer to something like Neuilly as a suburb. I can send pics of Neuilly to some of my friends from Washington and ask them if they think it is a suburb, but I think I already known the answer.


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## Booze (Jun 19, 2003)

Justme said:


> @Booze. Excellent maps, thanks Booze. But I don't quite get this one. If the black splotches represent registered dwellings, why is the dense urban area not any denser in black dots? Some streets only show a couple of dwellings?


I'd say it's a matter of my PC's capacity to process 15MB pdfs :lol: How I have german lectures, then I'll check

It can also be the case that in urban areas every "apple" has just a dot". My intention with the map was to make an example of suburbia 2.0 by showing how out of control this can be :yes:


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

brisavoine said:


> ^^I love how people are ready to use any kind of argument to prove people wrong. Have you at least been to Washington DC ? I have. The areas you mention look definitely suburban, and are completely different from dense Neuilly. Last but not least, not all the District of Columbia is detached houses. The center of the District of Columbia is avenues and midrise buildings, very much like Neuilly. Which is not surprising considering that the DC was planned by a Frenchman who took his inspiration from Versailles. As for whether people call this or that a "suburb", in DC I have never heard people using the word "suburb". You live either in the district, or in Maryland, or in Virginia, that's how people refer to places in a broad way. But what I know is that no one over there would refer to something like Neuilly as a suburb. I can send pics of Neuilly to some of my friends from Washington and ask them if they think it is a suburb, but I think I already known the answer.


(Tu te vexe à chaque fois que je te contredit, ne cherche pas forcement de l'hostilité la ou il n'y en a pas)

I lived in DC.

Central DC is indeed denser than Silver spring as a whole, but DC and Silver Spring have the same densities (3,481/km² and 3,136.5/km²), and Silver Spring and Arlington also have dense (on a north American scale) centers, just like DC although much smaller.

But the thing here is that if you live in an un-dense district inside the District of Colombia, you will not be considered a suburbanite. If you live in a similar one just outside of the city limits, it'll be considered the suburbs (although indeed people say Maryland/Virginia more often).

Of course none of these places, including most of DC, is as dense as Neuilly that was not the point really, I was giving this example to show that even in north america it can be about municipal boundaries as well.


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## Booze (Jun 19, 2003)

Justme said:


> @Booze. Excellent maps, thanks Booze. But I don't quite get this one. If the black splotches represent registered dwellings, why is the dense urban area not any denser in black dots? Some streets only show a couple of dwellings?


I've checked and it seems that in urban consolidated areas, they only add the number of floors allowed to build. When is u/c they add the property number and when its rural another one.

Number of floors allowed counts ground floor to. So 3 would be ground floor + 2.










I live somewhere here (in wintertime) :colgate:


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

eklips said:


> (Tu te vexe à chaque fois que je te contredit, ne cherche pas forcement de l'hostilité la ou il n'y en a pas)


(venant de ta part je n'ai jamais rencontré que de l'hostilité ; je n'ai pas le souvenir d'une seule fois où tu aies dit quelque chose de positif à mon endroit ; tu adores critiquer tout ce que je dis, avoue)


eklips said:


> the thing here is that if you live in an un-dense district inside the District of Colombia, you will not be considered a suburbanite.


And that's the thing which I doubt very much. If you live in Spring Valley or in Barnaby Woods, which are administratively inside the DC, you're as much in a suburb as in Bethesday, MD. But I will certainly ask my friends what they think, since you make such a point to contradict all I say.


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## urbanjim (Feb 22, 2008)

Does anyone have any pix of what might be considered "sprawl" outside any of the major German cities? I am most curious about Berlin.


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

brisavoine said:


> (venant de ta part je n'ai jamais rencontré que de l'hostilité ; je n'ai pas le souvenir d'une seule fois où tu aies dit quelque chose de positif à mon endroit ; tu adores critiquer tout ce que je dis, avoue)


D'une part ce n'est pas parce que je répond à ce que tu écris que je le fait contre toi, seulement contre ce que tu dis. Et si c'est vrai que ce que tu raconte et la façon dont tu te comporte m'énerve souvent, je ne m'en cache pas, je considère aussi que tu es un des forumers les plus interessants de ssc, je ne m'en cache pas non plus. Pour la simple et bonne raison que tu prend toujours le temps d'argumenter, donc ne personnalise pas à outrance stp, si quelqu'un d'autre avait dit ca j'aurais fait la même remarque.
Les 3/4 de mes posts sur ssc sont probablement des réponses à des trucs avec lesquels je suis pas d'accord, parfois ca tombe sur toi, c'est comme ça.



> And that's the thing which I doubt very much. If you live in Spring Valley or in Barnaby Woods, which are administratively inside the DC, you're as much in a suburb as in Bethesday, MD. But I will certainly ask my friends what they think, since you make such a point to contradict all I say.



To give you a personnal example, I knew a bunch of people who lived right in DC, right next to Silver Spring and who were categorical about not living in suburbs, even if they lived in large detached houses.

And more generally, I never heard anyone refer to anything inside the city as being suburbs while they would for (even dense ones, such as downtown bethesda) maryland and virginia.


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## bosman (Mar 8, 2007)

^^ If you're talking about the US, then I would say the term "suburb" generally refers to municipalities, and has nothing to do with densities. If you live within the core-city city limits, you're usually not considered living in the "suburbs", but if you live in a separate city surrounding the core city, then you are. There's always exceptions, though. For example, here in the Boston area, if you referred to people living in Cambridge (a dense city across the river from Boston) as "suburbanites", they would not appreciate that.


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## urbanjim (Feb 22, 2008)

The roots of the term "suburb" came from the Latin "suburbium", meaning simply "an outlying part of a city". 
Over the years, the word "suburb" took on different connotations, depending on the era and in what region the term was being used. 

From the Online Entymology Dictionary: "Close to crowds but just beyond the reach of municipal jurisdiction, suburbs in 17c., especially those of London, had a sense of 'inferior, debased, and licentious habits or life' (e.g. suburban sinner, slang for 'loose woman, prostitute'). By 1817, the tinge had shifted to 'inferior manners and narrow views.' "

On today's usage (from Wikipedia): "...while both the French word 'banlieue' and the English word 'suburb' both refer to residential areas on the outer edge of a city, in everyday usage their meanings can be quite different. In the United States, the word 'suburb' generally connotes areas of low-density, detached or semi-detached housing, inhabited by the middle and upper classes, whereas in France the word 'banlieue' is more frequently used to describe areas of low-income apartments and social housing.' "

It's interesting that the same word has been used to describe "inferior, debased" people as well as the upper class.


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## Randwicked (Jan 29, 2004)

brisavoine said:


> Ok, but Neuilly has 16,381 inh. per sq. kilometer. I doubt even Australians would call a place with a density of 16,381 inh. per sq. km. a "suburb". For comparisons the most densely populated place in Sydney among those you named is Potts Point with 10,236 inh. per sq. km. Redfern has 9,149 inh. per sq. km. and Newtown 7,935 inh. per sq. km. And these are just pocket neighborhoods and not municipalities like Neuilly. In the urban area of Sydney the most densely populated municipality (LGA) is Waverley with 6,929 inh. per sq. km.


I've heard Australians refer to Greenwich Village, NYC and Pigalle, Paris as 'suburbs'. The term here can be directed at almost any part of a city.


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## Poska (Sep 12, 2004)

I would say Toulouse, France has been really sprawling American style for 2 decades now. If you look at the western suburbs today, its sprawling like crazy.
And with a population growth of 2%/year for the metropolitan area its not gonna stop.


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## jarbury (Aug 20, 2007)

Come on guys this isn't a "Barcelona is bigger than Madrid... not Madrid is bigger than Barcelona!" thread. Please take your regional grievances to some other thread. Comparing city and region sizes is irrelevant when it comes to sprawl, as I've pointed out above. 

Looking at those pics you've posted Friedmann, I wouldn't necessarily categorise those developments as sprawl. You've mostly got multi-unit dwellings of apartments and townhouses, the place is fairly high-density. At least one has a railway track going through the middle of it (so hardly auto-centric) while most seem to show a mixture of land-uses beyond simply residential development. 

The wikipedia page offers some useful insights: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_sprawl



> Nonetheless, some urban areas have expanded geographically even while losing population. But it was not just US urbanized areas that lost population and sprawled substantially. According to data in "Cities and Automobile Dependence" by Kenworthy and Laube (1999), urbanized area population losses occurred while there was an expansion of sprawl between 1970 and 1990 in Brussels, Belgium; Copenhagen, Denmark; Frankfurt, Germany; Hamburg, Germany; Munich, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland, albeit without the wholesale dismantling of public transit systems that occurred in the United States.


A growing urban area coupled with a declining population is a pretty damn good indicator of sprawl I think.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

jarbury said:


> A growing urban area coupled with a declining population is a pretty damn good indicator of sprawl I think.


This is exactly why I said that European cities have already sprawled. Most of those problems associated between 1970 - 1990 in Germany for example were due to the division of Germany into two countries. Since then 17 years and reunification has passed under the bridge and so I'd say that Wikipedia is a very poor source of information with regards to the current state in European cities despite the report being produced in 1999. It's very hard to quantify sprawl these days.

Those "railway lines" you see in Friedmann's pictures I think are either straβenbahn or Stadtbahn lines rather than actual rail lines as they don't look like heavy rail lines.


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## Unionstation13 (Aug 31, 2006)

Doesn't suprise me. No one is safe from sprawl.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

In regards to sprawl, I've seen from Google Earth that in Europe, particularly Scandinavian countries (and Denmark in particular; it sprawls too much for being just a 5 milions country!) seem to sprawl over a very large area in a similar manner the US does (but slightly denser; especially Copenhagen, Stockholm).. while Britain has a layout similar to the American one, it's slightly better planned (even though I don't like the "cul-de-sac" type) and denser; at the same time Britain is one of the countries where apartments are not much considered.. However I guess that nations with a low density in Europe are, in general, more prone to sprawl.. Netherlands has had the best planning, although, I really hate the futuristic modernistic look.. come on, at least avoid this creepy design for houses!


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

I also forgot France; this nation seems to sprawl similarly to Denmark, if not worse! Especially Southern France is becoming an urban jungle as even foreigners want their holiday villa there.. Germany planning is denser, however it appears less planned for the future compared to others (like NL and even UK)


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

AmoreUrbs said:


> In regards to sprawl, I've seen from Google Earth that in Europe, particularly Scandinavian countries (and Denmark in particular; it sprawls too much for being just a 5 milions country!) seem to sprawl over a very large area in a similar manner the US does (but slightly denser; especially Copenhagen, Stockholm).. while Britain has a layout similar to the American one, it's slightly better planned (even though I don't like the "cul-de-sac" type) and denser; at the same time Britain is one of the countries where apartments are not much considered.. However I guess that nations with a low density in Europe are, in general, more prone to sprawl.. Netherlands has had the best planning, although, I really hate the futuristic modernistic look.. come on, at least avoid this creepy design for houses!


Stockholm is mainly built around railway lines and actually consists of mostly apartments (3/4 of accommodation in Stockholm are apartments). The overall density of the Stockholm urban area is around 3,500 people per sq km. This is not US style sprawl at all. Satellite imagery only gets one so far when looking at density and sprawl. The modal split of Stockholm is also heavily geared towards public transport - far moreso than most cities in western Europe (with around 44% public transport and only 33% cars with the rest walking or cycling). 

Between Denmark and Sweden there are vast differences in planning.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Yeah sorry, indeed Sweden seems to sprawl less than Denmark; I've seen pictures taken from street level and this confirms what you're saying.. However Denmark seems indeed to sprawl for large areas, and I suspect this has to do with the flatness of its territory..


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Both France and Denmark has sprawl, but it's nothing compared to auto-centric sprawl of Anglo-Saxon countries.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

LtBk said:


> France has sprawl, but it's nothing compared to it's Anglo-Saxon counterparts.


That's sure, however it seems slightly less dense/planned compared to NL/Germany etc.; especially Southern France sprawls too much (Toulouse and Marseille for example)..


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## Christian347 (Aug 7, 2004)

Sprawl here is nothing compared to the US. Although Danish cities aren´t as dense as e.g. Italian and Spanish cities we still have fewer cars per capita than most Western European nations due to having the highest car prices in Europe. 

Copenhagen has a quite big and quite dense core for a city of its size.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Not to mention an extensive mass transit system for Copenhagen.


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## VITORIA MAN (Jan 31, 2013)




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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

^^ Vehicles per person doesn't give an impression of their use, though. Many households here use the car at the weekend for a trip out of the city, but don't use it during the week.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Svartmetall said:


> ^^ Vehicles per person doesn't give an impression of their use, though. Many households here use the car at the weekend for a trip out of the city, but don't use it during the week.


That's not something unique for Sweden.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Galro said:


> That's not something unique for Sweden.


No, it isn't, but it was an illustration that high car ownership doesn't have to mean high utilisation rates.

This is in contrast, however, with much of the UK and the whole of Australia/New Zealand (countries I have experience with) where car ownership are at similar levels to Sweden, but utilisation rates are markedly higher - one only needs to look at the modal split of Auckland to get an impression of how much more pervasive car use there is (hint: it's split is in the 90th percentile for car use for mobility).


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

LtBk said:


> Both France and Denmark has sprawl, but it's nothing compared to auto-centric sprawl of Anglo-Saxon countries.


If we exclude UK because France sprawl is more auto-centric and auto dependant than UK sprawl.
Many UK cities sprawl began in the early 20th century with the trains, usually it is a train station that made an area became a suburbs.
In France where sprawl is mostly post second war, developement have been made around the car.
France was the first european to experiment out of town malls, big hypermarket and big box stores.

Don't let Paris and its large suburban rail system fooling you, this is the exception in France.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Having just driven around France and specifically taken note of such things I'd say that the UK and France are fairly similar in sprawl terms, though France does have maybe a little more big box retail than over here.

The other anglophone countries I've been to, USA and Australia have considerably more than either.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

It appears to me that France wanted to follow the American model (although this last one is definitely much and much more of a mess) in regards to suburbs; It has more space (much less pop. density than UK, Germany and even Italy) so had the capability to do it (with its consequences, however).. as I said, Southern France (which I take in consideration as I've been in and around Nice, the closest city to Italy) at some points looks Californian, especially because of the architecture of the many detached houses.. in general the city proper seemed also "emptier" (and some streets even with only immigrants) than what I'm used to with Italy (however esp. Northern and Central Italy is experiencing more and more people wanting a detached house close to the city..)


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

^^ In the second half of the 20th century, the urban growth in France has switched from the industrial Northern France to the more sunny Southern France and more recently to Western France.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

And it seems Southern France is also growing too as a whole.. there's a lot of potential there; I would like to see Marseille, Toulouse and other cities in general growing to the extent of being able to balance with Paris .. France is really beautiful, and it's sad that sometimes everything is too centered around the capital.


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## VITORIA MAN (Jan 31, 2013)

from spain


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Galro said:


> I think most of the "western world" started sprawling prior to motorways. At least that was the case for Norway. Here, on these air photos from 1937, can you see just how much Oslo had already sprawled by then.
> 
> http://kart.finn.no/?lng=10.71116&lat=59.93638&zoom=14&mapType=historicalm-Oslo-1937
> 
> And there were even more sprawl outside of the muni borders, which are not visible there.


This makes sense as Norway has a rather low density.. however I think the majority started following similar trends more after WW2; that's especially true I think for Italy, Spain and France..


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

Flanders= sprawl, houses all over the place, cities and towns have no boundries. Line developments cut up the open landscape in tiny pieces of open country side.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

AmoreUrbs said:


> This makes sense as Norway has a rather low density..


Norway is a large country areal wise, but very little of it is suitable for building houses on. If you remove the mountains, the fjords, the glaciers and other things that stands in the way for human inhabitation, then you are no longer left with a particularly large area. It's not without reasons most Norwegian cities are crammed down along a fjord, in a bay or similar places. Oslo have more ample with space than most places in Norway though. 


AmoreUrbs said:


> however I think the majority started following similar trends more after WW2; that's especially true I think for Italy, Spain and France..


Could be.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Galro said:


> Norway is a large country areal wise, but very little of it is suitable for building houses on. If you remove the mountains, the fjords, the glaciers and other things that stands in the way for human inhabitation, then you are no longer left with a particularly large area. It's not without reasons most Norwegian cities are crammed down along a fjord, in a bay or similar places. Oslo have more ample with space than most places in Norway though.
> 
> 
> Could be.


That's true as well.. however many village or cities outside of Oslo in those inhabited parts were small compared to Western standards (population wise) so it helped.. The same could be said in many parts of Italy and France, where the many mountains are a major "obstacle" (like Southern France heavily populated in the South, especially Provence, because blocked from the mountains in the north etc.)


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

AmoreUrbs said:


> Never advocated "tall" and excessively dense suburbs, actually these are far from being the calm solution that a family is looking for.. yet something like the Dutch and German way is what's better to implement.. a mix of rowhouses/detached houses/apartments not very tall rather well put together and implemented, without excesses, that make good use of space.. I'm not against suburbs, I'm rather against the American way of suburbs and in general the unplanned, messy, corporate ones, and very soulless.. Space is not an infinite resource, and preservation of countryside is very important, we should NOT underestimate this factor just for the sake of living in a big villa and all the many useless excesses of the 21st century


BTW, those suburbs I was talking about are dense, but not _extremely_ dense. For example, Clichy-sous-Bois, an infamous commie-block suburb, has a density of 7,5k per square km, while Paris proper is almost 21,3k. The planners actually tried to be rational, the towers are fairly spaced out. The problem with these suburbs were cause rather by lack of transport connections, and poor architecture (towers without elevators, if you can believe that).
Other than that I agree with you, mixed and balanced suburbs that look and feel more urban that rural but encompass all types of lifestyles are the way to go.


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## particlez (May 5, 2008)

Sprawl is built because it is profitable. Some areas sprawl worse than others, but its potential is always there--because it is profitable, or potentially profitable.

"If" lower density single family homes were to pay for the actual costs incurred (water, electricity, sewer construction, upkeep, and sundry expenses, sprawl could be justified from a "libertarian" perspective. But since these costs are so easily hidden, deferred, or externalized, the actual developers and homeowners of sprawl derive a subsidy from the inhabitants of the more centrally located, higher density areas.

Low density, balloon frame housing also has the cheapest construction costs/area. Ironically it's also held up as the most prestigious and consequently often fetches a premium selling cost. All sorts of windfall capital gains are also derived from upzoning greenfield into the urban realm--and a million different tax cheats as well.

Ideally you'd have heavy urban planning regulations, and a vigilant and informed populace to defend against these types of practices. But unfortunately the profit motive often overrides the common good.


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## Ribarca (Jan 28, 2005)

VITORIA MAN said:


> from spain


People in Spain are the least likely in Europe not to have a direct neighbor. Is there any cultural reason for people preferring to live in a dense area. Space does not seem to be a constraint (except perhaps for the Barcelona area).


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## VITORIA MAN (Jan 31, 2013)

its a question of prize


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## El_Greco (Apr 1, 2005)

Exterminate all sprawl.


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## orlando01 (May 3, 2010)

The Northwestern Portugal, specially ia a radius of 70 km around Porto it has a big sprawl problem, with many people ( + 3 000 000) and activities aligned in the national roads .

Those National roads in some cases are full of roundabouts, traffic lights, sidewalks and other urban signs.

The reason, beyond the lack of regional planes, its also a consequence of being always a very populated area with many villages, towns and cities.

So the suburbs instead of being "new cities" are just the strecht of already existent localities.

To explain better, see this map of 1900, and in Iberian Peninsula ithis area its the most densely populated.
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/lheurope/eur096.jpg

To see the chaos of the area check the olf GM.


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## Nolke (Oct 25, 2003)

Ribarca said:


> People in Spain are the least likely in Europe not to have a direct neighbor. Is there any cultural reason for people preferring to live in a dense area. Space does not seem to be a constraint (except perhaps for the Barcelona area).


I think there's indeed a cultural reason: not that people actively demanded to live in blocks but rather they found it natural while other Westerners would have found it unpleasing (for whatever reason, I'm not sure what). So urbanists adapted to a model of compact cities which was also more profitable for them since these dense developments were either public or received public aid from the 50's to the 70's. That made it really profitable.

More factors: a low motorisation rate until the late 70's, a particularly rapid urban growth that obliged to create many many homes in few time and, in some cases, contraints to urban expansion such as the ubiquitous mountains or the high prices for agricultural lands surrounding cities because of their scarcity (thanks to those mountains) or, in many regions, simply because of the vast size of the plots.

So it's a varied mix... (Btw, if there's one exception to this it's rather Madrid).


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

The UK has some what limited its sprawl with green belts but this lead to the construction of entire 'New Towns'. Not sure if that was better then just extending the sprawl outwards with the existing rail network.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

AmoreUrbs said:


> This makes sense as Norway has a rather low density.. however I think the majority started following similar trends more after WW2; that's especially true I think for Italy, Spain and France..


True but France is a quite diverse country and the development of France is not uniform.
Northern France has been urbanized earlier than the southern France.
I think that many of Lille sprawl is pre WW2 but the large majority of Toujouse sprawl is post WW2.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Minato ku said:


> True but France is a quite diverse country and the development of France is not uniform.
> Northern France has been urbanized earlier than the southern France.
> I think that many of Lille sprawl is pre WW2 but the large majority of Toujouse sprawl is post WW2.


Yeah, indeed; I noticed how the houses seem to be different according to the local architecture, this is pretty cool.. for example, in the South it goes with a Mediterranean style, with Tuscan-like villas, while in the North we have the black roofed houses of Brittany, the mixed-styled houses of Paris, in Nord-Pas-de-Calais red brick houses reminiscent of the Low Countries architecture (and some particular parts even seem to remind the Dutch planning), while in Alsace they pretty much remind those found in Germany.. in general the North planning seemed more "ordered" compared to the South, and the houses have less wasted space in-between..


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## Wapper (Feb 24, 2011)

I'm not sure that's true. Nord-Pas-de-Calais at least is a sprawling mess that is very similar to Belgium.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Wapper said:


> I'm not sure that's true. Nord-Pas-de-Calais at least is a sprawling mess that is very similar to Belgium.


It seems especially close to the Belgian borders to go really terrible.. but as a whole, Northern France seem to be more contained (excluding that part which I did not check well), although also sprawling..


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

In Italy the sprawl is really chaothic with pratically no coordinated planning

For istance this is Milan sprawl from aerial pics









by Santa_









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by Santa_


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

^^ I agree.
I don't like this type of sprawl, I prefer the sprawl with less unbuilt space between urbanized area.


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## VITORIA MAN (Jan 31, 2013)

from my city , vitoria (E)


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

C'mon you know what I meant: English speaking countries (and others as well) imagine the countryside with few people around, or only just some houses around, while for Italy (and Ireland it seems) it's more something "to be lived in", even something in between of a suburb and green..


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Jonesy55 said:


> What is 'the anglo-saxon mind'? :nuts:
> 
> Do you think that somebody in SE England has the same conception of what is 'rural' or 'remote' as somebody living in the Arizona desert?


"mindset".. By mistake I divided them, causing confusion..


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

The concept of rural is different depending the area and country and more expecially the density.
A rural area in South East England will be almost seen as urban in most of France.

I think we should not forget the particularity of the country to calculate urban area and not use the same methodology everywhere.
It would lead to having some exagerated cities in dense region.


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## Wapper (Feb 24, 2011)

I agree. It's interesting to compare extreme cases like Belgium and the USA. I know that there is a huge difference in area, but overall Belgium is a country that has almost no empty wpace while the US still has many empty areas. Many US suburbs (large areas of the cities) would be considered rural in my country, while in the US there is no doubt that they are urban. I think it is easier to make a clear distinction between rural, urban and suburban areas in a country like the US than in my country.


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