(In the US, practically all the less densely settled area on the perimeters of cities are neighborhoods built by developers, but in Europe there are older cities where this isn't true.)
So now they are literally cookie cutter neighbourhoods.
1) Is any "development" part of suburbia?
2) What if there were multiple developers building the houses?
3) What if it is x miles from a town center?
4) What if the owners built their own houses in the development?
Let's get specific using the Boston area as an example.
5) Do you think any parts of Cambridge count as suburbia?
6) Do you think any of the following areas/towns count as suburbia: Revere, Brookline, Newton, Framingham, Wellsley, Waltham, Lexington?
And finally 7) if an area is just less densely settled does that make it just as unappealing as suburbia in your view?
If you'd seen Paul's west coast home, you'd know the answer to that :-)
The essay spends a few paragraphs on it, hence its relevance. That is certainly the same level of relevance of some of the other upvoted comments on this thread.
The usefulness is two-fold: 1) I think the essay suggests a very black and white picture of what is suburbia and what is not, yet does not define it at all. I am trying to get to the core of that definition (if there really is one). Pg responded to my question, but didn't make it that much clearer, hence the follow-up questions. And 2) if you believe the essay, you presumably want to avoid suburbia, so it would be useful to know what it is!
The essay suggests that the only reason people move to suburbia is to have kids. I'm totally unsure whether pg or anyone else would say I live in suburbia (I would guess so though), and yet I don't have kids nor moved here to have kids. And I don't think where I live is suffocatingly fake either.
The truth is there are many, many types of different living environments in the US and other countries, and not all places near but not in city limits are unappealing. The questions attempt to start to delineate which parts in particular are being attacked. Is this really an attack on geography or housing style or is it an attack on the average person who lives outside the city?