There were coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and the occasional movie theater among the suburbs I grew up in, sure, but they were all spread out and far away, tucked into little strip malls along the main roads - not really part of the neighborhoods people lived in.
I grew up partly in a suburb of New York. The towns around there date back 300 to 400 years, and feel like it. There are walkable town centers with coffee shops and train stations etc.
I also spent a few years in a suburb of Dallas. It was considerably newer, and wedged between a couple of highways. Everything depended on cars.
As I’ve moved around, I’ve seen lots of other points on the suburban spectrum. But for sure, the connotations of “suburb” are nearly uselessly vast.
Yes. From past HN threads, I've come to realize that "suburb" is so undefined that it can mean pretty much anything. We all agree Manhattan isn't a suburb and that remote agricultural land isn't a suburb either. But aside from those, everything else in between is someone's definition of suburb. So it's difficult to talk about it as it could mean any kind of place between those extremes.
From what I hear, time begins to return as they reach some amount of independence around 4-5. If you have more than 1, that’s a pretty big window.
That said, my daughter is incredible, and the issue isn’t that I don’t have any time. It’s that I choose spend as much of it with her as I possibly can.
When I get there, I can see a Walmart, a BestBuy, six pizza places, two dentist offices, three chain sandwich shops and a couple of grocery stores.
Everything I need. Nothing I’d ever be excited to go to. Plus I have to get back into the car.
I’ll just stay home in silence. My neighbours do too.