Hacker News Reader

The definition of what a suburban area is in North America vs. Europe are so different they really need different words.

A typical suburb in the US will have no public transportation, and be so sprawled out that bicycling or walking between places would be impossible for a working adult.

View on HN

"Exurb" isn't used enough to describe American suburbs, but is certainly appropriate. Suburban sprawl got so bad that the original suburbs of a lot of cities, that were built with public transit in mind, today Americans think of as "city core" or "inner city" and don't even recognize as suburbs anymore. Meanwhile most of what Americans imagine suburbs to be are more accurately exurbs, and exurban living is seen as more normal than the traditional relationships between cities and their suburbs for a number of unhealthy reasons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com