Do You Live in an Urban, Suburban, Exurban, or Rural Area?
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  Do You Live in an Urban, Suburban, Exurban, or Rural Area?
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Poll
Question: Which of the following choices best describes the developed environment you live in?
#1
Urban
 
#2
Suburban
 
#3
Exurban
 
#4
Rural
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 80

Author Topic: Do You Live in an Urban, Suburban, Exurban, or Rural Area?  (Read 5856 times)
Oldiesfreak1854
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« Reply #50 on: September 22, 2014, 01:41:37 PM »

Rural.  Although there are some somewhat large cities surrounding me, my hometown is a farming community with about 5K people.  I live in the surrounding township, which is definitely rural.  If you go a few miles east of where I am, you'll end up in the boondocks.

Some people might call my area fringe.
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #51 on: September 22, 2014, 04:19:30 PM »

Are small towns "rural" or "suburban"?
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Not Great Bob
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« Reply #52 on: September 22, 2014, 06:05:03 PM »

Are small towns "rural" or "suburban"?

Rural, I would think -- though personally I'd argue that they should be a category of their own.
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politicus
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« Reply #53 on: September 22, 2014, 06:15:33 PM »
« Edited: September 22, 2014, 06:48:11 PM by politicus »

Are small towns "rural" or "suburban"?

Rural, I would think -- though personally I'd argue that they should be a category of their own.

The Census Bureau identifies two types of urban areas:

Urbanized Areas (UAs) of 50,000 or more people
Urban Clusters (UCs) of at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people.

“Rural” encompasses all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area.

So urban clusters (=small towns) are not rural, since they are a form of urban areas.

In Europe small towns are urban, I would think that was also the case in the US. It makes little sense to call them suburban.
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muon2
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« Reply #54 on: September 22, 2014, 10:40:19 PM »

Are small towns "rural" or "suburban"?

Rural, I would think -- though personally I'd argue that they should be a category of their own.

The Census Bureau identifies two types of urban areas:

Urbanized Areas (UAs) of 50,000 or more people
Urban Clusters (UCs) of at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people.

“Rural” encompasses all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area.

So urban clusters (=small towns) are not rural, since they are a form of urban areas.

In Europe small towns are urban, I would think that was also the case in the US. It makes little sense to call them suburban.


In the US urban has the sense of being a part of a larger metropolitan area. The Census definition of UC recognizes that there are pockets in rural areas that otherwise meet the technical definitions of urban. As I noted in my post earlier in the thread UC's that are close enough to provide significant commuters to a larger urban center could be exurbs if there's a lot of growth happening around them, but otherwise fit as rural in the urban/suburban/rural divide.
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memphis
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« Reply #55 on: September 22, 2014, 10:55:03 PM »

Small towns also have the urban and suburban divisions. Common features in a small town downtown area include a town square, a county courthouse or municipal offices, a post office, an (often unused) old single screen movie theater, the remains of an old shopping district that has long since been replaced by a suburban WalMart. And then on the fringes of the town, you have single family homes, often with large yards, and, in many cases, trailer parks.
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muon2
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« Reply #56 on: September 22, 2014, 11:07:05 PM »

Small towns also have the urban and suburban divisions. Common features in a small town downtown area include a town square, a county courthouse or municipal offices, a post office, an (often unused) old single screen movie theater, the remains of an old shopping district that has long since been replaced by a suburban WalMart. And then on the fringes of the town, you have single family homes, often with large yards, and, in many cases, trailer parks.

There's no question that a small town can areas of high-enough density to meet a technical urban definition. However, I doubt many people who live in the center of a small town like the one you describe would describe their neighborhood as urban. I know realtors would not use that term when marketing a house. The best description would be a small town in a rural area, but without that choice most residents would pick rural.
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Smash255
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« Reply #57 on: September 22, 2014, 11:49:06 PM »

the American distinction between urban/suburban/exurban

I tried to find a good definition on line.  There is of course an unconvincing entry on exurbs at Wikipedia, in an article which also defines urban sprawl, suburbs, and commuter towns.  

Urban dictionary defines Exurb as "Master Planned Communities that lay outside the ring of city suburbs. Exurbs are where people can live in big, crappily built houses on the cheap, pretend to be rich yet shop at Walmart, while they spend 2 hours a day commuting to and from their highly mortgaged cribs. A place where a trip to the grocery store is a social event that involves a 10 mile drive.Where Daddy feels pressure to lease his teen a BMW, while he makes mom drive the 10 year old mini-van."

Notwithstanding the fact that "crappily" is not an actual adverb, and overlooking the grammatical error consisting of the use of the transitive verb "lay" rather than the intransitive (and correct) verb "lie", I admit that some of this applies to me.  We live in a master planned community outside the ring of city suburbs.  On the other hand, my job is only about 25 minutes (9 miles) from my crib, and the big grocery store is only 2 miles away (smaller ones are much closer.)  There are several restaurants, a small grocery, my son's dentist, our athletic club with gym and pool, a park, auto fuel, and, significantly, a liquor store, all within 1000 meters from my crib.  Also, I don't have a BMW and my wife doesn't have a mini-van.  Moreover, we definitely do not "pretend to be rich."  Rather the opposite, in fact:  despite the many threads and posts on this forum that try to apply that term to all of us in the upper quintile, I object to the term being applied to me or to my neighbors.  Still, I have to admit that a trip to Wal-mart is definitely a social event.  

m-w.com has this to say about suburb:

1  a :  an outlying part of a city or town
    b :  a smaller community adjacent to or within commuting distance of a city


and this to say about exurb:

:  a region or settlement that lies outside a city and usually beyond its suburbs and that often is inhabited chiefly by well-to-do families

Citycomfortsblog makes the argument that the distinction between suburb and exurb is neither useful nor relevant.  Not sure I agree with that either.

I suggest the following:  If the community in the 3.14 square mile area immediately surrounding your crib has a population density of 5000 people per square mile or greater, then it is urban.  If it is less than 5000 but greater than 1000, then it shall be deemed suburban.  If it is less than 1000 but greater than 100 then it shall be deemed exurban.  If it is less than 100 then it is rural.  These numbers are arbitrary and random, of course, and someone can come up with numbers that correlate to something concrete--e.g., the population density above which you are likely not to have to walk more than a mile to the nearest McDonald's or to your child's elementary school--but I suggest making the distinction, if it is to be useful, based on wholly or primarily on population density rather than aggregate population or other factors.



I even think that is a bit subjective, because there are quite a few suburban areas with a higher density than that, (primarily the older inner-suburbs),

My community is 6,582 per sq mil,  other surrounding communities
7,134 per sq mi
6,155 per sq mi
5,962 per sq mi
6,023 per sq mi
7,700 per Sq mi

These are all in southeast Nassau County,
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« Reply #58 on: September 23, 2014, 03:58:46 AM »

Are small towns "rural" or "suburban"?

Rural, I would think -- though personally I'd argue that they should be a category of their own.

The Census Bureau identifies two types of urban areas:

Urbanized Areas (UAs) of 50,000 or more people
Urban Clusters (UCs) of at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people.

“Rural” encompasses all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area.

So urban clusters (=small towns) are not rural, since they are a form of urban areas.

In Europe small towns are urban, I would think that was also the case in the US. It makes little sense to call them suburban.


I meant more in terms of the options listed in the poll - it just seemed like the best fit that was available. Of course you're right that a small town is really an urban area - I'm not sure about the US, but in Australia, anywhere with a population of over a 1,000 and a density of over 200/km squared is considered urban - and I'd say that makes sense in terms of official designations. I just meant though, that in a more casual, general sense, people tend to view small towns as being "country" or "rural", at least in my experience.
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #59 on: September 23, 2014, 01:46:42 PM »

Yeah, "small town" definitely needs to be a thing.  My city has a resident population of about 24,000 (about 45,000 for daytime population) and isn't connected to any larger metropolitan area.  Per the CB its an "urban cluster" but I certainly don't feel like I'm living in a very urban environment haha   
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #60 on: September 23, 2014, 04:26:53 PM »

Temporarily in a rural area. From my window, I can look over a corn field during summer (no, it's not a corn country, they just decided to grow corn there, which is kinda amusing).

I'm expecting to return to Warsaw, an urban area where I was born and lived most of my life, next October
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« Reply #61 on: September 23, 2014, 06:46:07 PM »

Small towns also have the urban and suburban divisions. Common features in a small town downtown area include a town square, a county courthouse or municipal offices, a post office, an (often unused) old single screen movie theater, the remains of an old shopping district that has long since been replaced by a suburban WalMart. And then on the fringes of the town, you have single family homes, often with large yards, and, in many cases, trailer parks.

There's a very distinctive small town downtown that exists just about everywhere in Minnesota that has a four digit population. It's basically like a strip mall, but with all local businesses, usually something like some real estate office, accounting or law firm, sometimes even a dentist, and also bars together. And usually some quirky gift shop type places. Even most of the suburbs have "downtowns" along the lines of this.

Small towns in southwest Minnesota also sometimes have a weird type of parking I've never seen anywhere else, basically instead of the standard parking lot you find in most strip malls or the diagonal parking you find at most of the type listed above, they instead have parking in the middle of the road and then you can walk to the businesses on either side. I have never seen it anywhere east or north of Mankato.
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memphis
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« Reply #62 on: September 23, 2014, 08:05:16 PM »

Small towns also have the urban and suburban divisions. Common features in a small town downtown area include a town square, a county courthouse or municipal offices, a post office, an (often unused) old single screen movie theater, the remains of an old shopping district that has long since been replaced by a suburban WalMart. And then on the fringes of the town, you have single family homes, often with large yards, and, in many cases, trailer parks.

There's a very distinctive small town downtown that exists just about everywhere in Minnesota that has a four digit population. It's basically like a strip mall, but with all local businesses, usually something like some real estate office, accounting or law firm, sometimes even a dentist, and also bars together. And usually some quirky gift shop type places. Even most of the suburbs have "downtowns" along the lines of this.

Small towns in southwest Minnesota also sometimes have a weird type of parking I've never seen anywhere else, basically instead of the standard parking lot you find in most strip malls or the diagonal parking you find at most of the type listed above, they instead have parking in the middle of the road and then you can walk to the businesses on either side. I have never seen it anywhere east or north of Mankato.
Not sure if this is exactly what you are talking about, but they do the parking in the center thing along Broad Street, which is a major road, in Philadelphia. It was very surprising to me the first time I saw it. Maybe some of the Philly area posters can comment further about this further.
http://goo.gl/maps/3ETng
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #63 on: September 24, 2014, 12:48:46 AM »

Small towns also have the urban and suburban divisions. Common features in a small town downtown area include a town square, a county courthouse or municipal offices, a post office, an (often unused) old single screen movie theater, the remains of an old shopping district that has long since been replaced by a suburban WalMart. And then on the fringes of the town, you have single family homes, often with large yards, and, in many cases, trailer parks.

There's a very distinctive small town downtown that exists just about everywhere in Minnesota that has a four digit population. It's basically like a strip mall, but with all local businesses, usually something like some real estate office, accounting or law firm, sometimes even a dentist, and also bars together. And usually some quirky gift shop type places. Even most of the suburbs have "downtowns" along the lines of this.

Small towns in southwest Minnesota also sometimes have a weird type of parking I've never seen anywhere else, basically instead of the standard parking lot you find in most strip malls or the diagonal parking you find at most of the type listed above, they instead have parking in the middle of the road and then you can walk to the businesses on either side. I have never seen it anywhere east or north of Mankato.
Not sure if this is exactly what you are talking about, but they do the parking in the center thing along Broad Street, which is a major road, in Philadelphia. It was very surprising to me the first time I saw it. Maybe some of the Philly area posters can comment further about this further.
http://goo.gl/maps/3ETng

Beat me to it.  I was thinking the exact same thing.

It's one of Philly's more... inexplicable traditions.
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