outskirts vs. suburbs vs. exurbs
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  outskirts vs. suburbs vs. exurbs
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Anzeigenhauptmeister
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« on: September 19, 2017, 04:37:04 AM »

What are the differences between those three terms?
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cinyc
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« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2017, 06:29:29 PM »

Great question.

I don't think there's any agreed upon definition of suburb or exurb, and the boundary between then is up for discussion. Sometimes, there's a parkland or greenbelt buffer between the two, like in the northern suburbs of NYC - I'd characterize Rockland, Westchester and maybe Putnam county towns as suburbs, and Orange and Dutchess county towns as exurbs, but in other places of the NYC metro where there is no clear demarcation, it becomes harder. For example, where do the exurbs start on Long Island? Probably somewhere in Suffolk County, perhaps where the main lines of the LIRR stop - but it's not clear.

Exurbs do tend to be more recent-growth areas, but not all recent-growth areas are exurbs, particularly in smaller metros.
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snowguy716
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« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2017, 06:41:36 PM »

I mostly hear outskirts to refer to the area near the edge of an urbanized area, whether it's a small town or large city.

Exurbs traditionally were long established cities that were not connected to the large, growing metropolitan area but itself began to grow rapidly as the metropolitan area expanded before eventually being absorbed into a continuous urban area.

Suburbs are generally connected to the main city in a metropolitan area and may or may not have been a town/city before they were developed fully and connected to the urban area.  In the case that they were their own community, they likely could be classified first as exurbs and then become "suburbs" as they become part of the continuous urban conglomeration.

So outskirts is more generalized while the other two have more specific definitions.
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« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2017, 07:07:59 PM »

Thanks you both for your answers. The gist of my question is which of the three terms are part of the referred-to city.

I always thought the outskirts of a city lie on the fringes within the city, the suburbs are towns abutting on the city, and the exurbs are towns/villages within the city's sphere of influence.
But since checking the definitions of those terms, I'm not so sure anymore about the validity of my assumptions.
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Smash255
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« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2017, 09:19:32 PM »

Great question.

I don't think there's any agreed upon definition of suburb or exurb, and the boundary between then is up for discussion. Sometimes, there's a parkland or greenbelt buffer between the two, like in the northern suburbs of NYC - I'd characterize Rockland, Westchester and maybe Putnam county towns as suburbs, and Orange and Dutchess county towns as exurbs, but in other places of the NYC metro where there is no clear demarcation, it becomes harder. For example, where do the exurbs start on Long Island? Probably somewhere in Suffolk County, perhaps where the main lines of the LIRR stop - but it's not clear.

Exurbs do tend to be more recent-growth areas, but not all recent-growth areas are exurbs, particularly in smaller metros.

As someone who has lived in Nassau County my whole life other than college, I'm tempted to say the Sagitkos Parkway is the dividing line on Long Island, but Route 112 is probably more realistic and an argument could be made for as far east as the William Floyd Pkwy.
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Tintrlvr
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« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2017, 09:24:19 PM »
« Edited: September 20, 2017, 09:34:14 PM by Tintrlvr »

I think "outskirts" is mostly synonymous with "exurbs". Both mean areas that are on the border between rural and suburban.

Exurbs have pockets of detached single-family homes with significant undeveloped spaces between. Suburbs have continuous stretches of detached single-family homes throughout their area with no significant undeveloped spaces other than parkland, but are less dense than urban areas and have only a small portion if any of their housing as attached, semi-detached or multi-family homes. Urban areas have a significant portion, sometimes but not necessarily a majority, of their housing in forms other than detached single-family homes (whether that's in multi-family homes, attached or semi-detached single-family homes or something else depends on the area).

This means that some places within a large city's boundaries might be suburban (or even exurban, rarely, when city boundaries are wildly overinclusive, such as Jacksonville, Florida) in certain cases, while areas outside of a large city's boundaries may still be urban (such as Cambridge, Massachusetts relative to Boston or Jersey City, New Jersey relative to New York City) in other cases.

For what it's worth, I think this definition puts the suburban/exurban boundary on Long Island further east than others placed it - eyeballing Google Maps, perhaps at NY-112, which seems to be about when you start getting significant amounts of land that is simply undeveloped.
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cinyc
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« Reply #6 on: September 20, 2017, 10:15:59 PM »
« Edited: September 20, 2017, 10:22:33 PM by cinyc »

Great question.

I don't think there's any agreed upon definition of suburb or exurb, and the boundary between then is up for discussion. Sometimes, there's a parkland or greenbelt buffer between the two, like in the northern suburbs of NYC - I'd characterize Rockland, Westchester and maybe Putnam county towns as suburbs, and Orange and Dutchess county towns as exurbs, but in other places of the NYC metro where there is no clear demarcation, it becomes harder. For example, where do the exurbs start on Long Island? Probably somewhere in Suffolk County, perhaps where the main lines of the LIRR stop - but it's not clear.

Exurbs do tend to be more recent-growth areas, but not all recent-growth areas are exurbs, particularly in smaller metros.

As someone who has lived in Nassau County my whole life other than college, I'm tempted to say the Sagitkos Parkway is the dividing line on Long Island, but Route 112 is probably more realistic and an argument could be made for as far east as the William Floyd Pkwy.

The Sagitkos Parkway is a pretty decent dividing line - the Northern and Southern State Parkways end shortly after there (I guess the SSP technically becomes the Heckscher Parwkay to the east of it), and at least the Babylon Branch of the LIRR ends within. Route 112 would also take into account the main terminus of the Ronkonkoma Branch of the LIRR. The William Floyd Parkway is pretty far out, on the other side of a little bit of the pine barrens - and out of the urbanized area, at least on my map. I think the argument for that is tougher.
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muon2
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« Reply #7 on: September 20, 2017, 11:00:25 PM »

Exurbs are not used as a term in general speech. Most people who aren't involved with or read a lot in urban planning or politics would just use the outskirts to refer to the far suburban areas of a city. The term exurb became useful in urban planning documents to distinguish between the older suburbs from the decades immediately after WWII and the newer suburban areas built mostly in the last 30 years.
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Smash255
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« Reply #8 on: September 20, 2017, 11:31:02 PM »

Great question.

I don't think there's any agreed upon definition of suburb or exurb, and the boundary between then is up for discussion. Sometimes, there's a parkland or greenbelt buffer between the two, like in the northern suburbs of NYC - I'd characterize Rockland, Westchester and maybe Putnam county towns as suburbs, and Orange and Dutchess county towns as exurbs, but in other places of the NYC metro where there is no clear demarcation, it becomes harder. For example, where do the exurbs start on Long Island? Probably somewhere in Suffolk County, perhaps where the main lines of the LIRR stop - but it's not clear.

Exurbs do tend to be more recent-growth areas, but not all recent-growth areas are exurbs, particularly in smaller metros.

As someone who has lived in Nassau County my whole life other than college, I'm tempted to say the Sagitkos Parkway is the dividing line on Long Island, but Route 112 is probably more realistic and an argument could be made for as far east as the William Floyd Pkwy.

The Sagitkos Parkway is a pretty decent dividing line - the Northern and Southern State Parkways end shortly after there (I guess the SSP technically becomes the Heckscher Parwkay to the east of it), and at least the Babylon Branch of the LIRR ends within. Route 112 would also take into account the main terminus of the Ronkonkoma Branch of the LIRR. The William Floyd Parkway is pretty far out, on the other side of a little bit of the pine barrens - and out of the urbanized area, at least on my map. I think the argument for that is tougher.


Going off how built up or developed the areas are, I would say the Sagitkos is too far west.  Outside of some sporadic areas along the north shore (north of 25A), pretty much everything between the Sagitkos/Sunken Meadow and Route 112 is pretty heavily built up.  East of 112, the development is more here and there, especially north of the LIE.  South of the LIE it does push further east toward the William Floyd.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2017, 09:02:38 AM »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).
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Tintrlvr
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« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2017, 01:11:24 PM »
« Edited: September 21, 2017, 01:13:41 PM by Tintrlvr »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).

I don't think Peoria is big enough to even talk about exurbs. Maybe more to the point, its metro area isn't growing much. Exurbs exist mostly around large to very large cities where there is population growth on the fringes (even if there's not much growth/decline in the center - Detroit does have exurbs despite the metro area as a whole being stagnant).
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« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2017, 10:22:46 PM »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).

Do you consider Indianola a Des Moines suburb?
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Torie
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« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2017, 07:22:05 AM »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).


Do you consider Indianola a Des Moines suburb?


It seems to be a law of Newtonian physics that Des Moines may not sprawl to the south.

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« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2017, 07:37:11 AM »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).


Do you consider Indianola a Des Moines suburb?


It seems to be a law of Newtonian physics that Des Moines may not sprawl to the south.



wow, it's almost like sprawl is simply following the Interstate's routes around the area or something.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2017, 08:10:00 PM »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).


Do you consider Indianola a Des Moines suburb?


It seems to be a law of Newtonian physics that Des Moines may not sprawl to the south.



wow, it's almost like sprawl is simply following the Interstate's routes around the area or something.
You will find little clusters of population near the exit/entrance ramps. Suburbs have particularly grown on the west and northwest along the I-35/I-80 overlap that form a loop around the city, while I-235 is the route through the city. The I-35/I-80 belt permits development of offices and shopping centers, which can in turn facilitate commuting from along the interstate.

You can commute 50 miles in an hour along an interstate (as long as you overlook those few days when facing a blizzard). You don't need many services - gas stations, and maybe a grocery store. Schools will add classrooms. If you need a dentist, or lawyer, or a car dealer, you can drive in to West Des Moines. You don't need employment.

Winterset and Indanola might be considered exurban. There distance from the interstates makes them a little harder to commute from, but there may be affordable houses and some jobs, and there is the attraction of living in a small town. One spouse might commute to Des Moines, or perhaps start to do so after they lose a job in the cities.
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Figueira
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« Reply #15 on: September 29, 2017, 08:21:49 PM »

I think of exurbs as areas that aren't connected to the city via a solid strip of urban land, but still are heavily economically tied to the city. I think this is more common in the West where there are a lot of reasonably dense urban areas with virtually empty land between them. Suburbs are just parts of an urban area that aren't politically part of the core city of that area for whatever reason (although in my experienced it tends to refer to smaller and often wealthier examples of those communities).

"Outskirts" I hear more in reference to small towns, and it refers to the rural area immediately outside of the town. If someone told me they were from the "outskirts of Boston" I wouldn't really know what they meant.
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muon2
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« Reply #16 on: September 29, 2017, 10:05:42 PM »

I think of exurbs as areas that aren't connected to the city via a solid strip of urban land, but still are heavily economically tied to the city. I think this is more common in the West where there are a lot of reasonably dense urban areas with virtually empty land between them. Suburbs are just parts of an urban area that aren't politically part of the core city of that area for whatever reason (although in my experienced it tends to refer to smaller and often wealthier examples of those communities).

"Outskirts" I hear more in reference to small towns, and it refers to the rural area immediately outside of the town. If someone told me they were from the "outskirts of Boston" I wouldn't really know what they meant.

Interestingly, if someone told me they lived on the outskirts of Boston I would assume a town near I-495 without a second thought. I went to school in the suburbs of Boston (ie near rt 128), but my in-laws are from just inside the outer ring of I-495. I've even heard them refer to their towns as on the outskirts of Boston.
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Torie
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« Reply #17 on: September 30, 2017, 07:43:18 AM »
« Edited: September 30, 2017, 08:01:24 AM by Torie »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).


Do you consider Indianola a Des Moines suburb?


It seems to be a law of Newtonian physics that Des Moines may not sprawl to the south.



wow, it's almost like sprawl is simply following the Interstate's routes around the area or something.
You will find little clusters of population near the exit/entrance ramps. Suburbs have particularly grown on the west and northwest along the I-35/I-80 overlap that form a loop around the city, while I-235 is the route through the city. The I-35/I-80 belt permits development of offices and shopping centers, which can in turn facilitate commuting from along the interstate.

You can commute 50 miles in an hour along an interstate (as long as you overlook those few days when facing a blizzard). You don't need many services - gas stations, and maybe a grocery store. Schools will add classrooms. If you need a dentist, or lawyer, or a car dealer, you can drive in to West Des Moines. You don't need employment.

Winterset and Indanola might be considered exurban. There distance from the interstates makes them a little harder to commute from, but there may be affordable houses and some jobs, and there is the attraction of living in a small town. One spouse might commute to Des Moines, or perhaps start to do so after they lose a job in the cities.

It's odd though that development has not gone south along I-35 south of I-80.  And the NE corner of Madison County has never been developed much, even though it is quite near to Des Moines. The county line seems to be some sort of barrier. It reminds me of the county line between LA and San Bernadino counties, where in LA is the city of Pomona that has been around a long time, and is densely built, and Chino next door which was dairy farms until quite recently. The streets just stopped at the county line.

But I see a bridge is being built across the Raccoon River that might jump start things.
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Figueira
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« Reply #18 on: September 30, 2017, 11:20:20 PM »

I think of exurbs as areas that aren't connected to the city via a solid strip of urban land, but still are heavily economically tied to the city. I think this is more common in the West where there are a lot of reasonably dense urban areas with virtually empty land between them. Suburbs are just parts of an urban area that aren't politically part of the core city of that area for whatever reason (although in my experienced it tends to refer to smaller and often wealthier examples of those communities).

"Outskirts" I hear more in reference to small towns, and it refers to the rural area immediately outside of the town. If someone told me they were from the "outskirts of Boston" I wouldn't really know what they meant.

Interestingly, if someone told me they lived on the outskirts of Boston I would assume a town near I-495 without a second thought. I went to school in the suburbs of Boston (ie near rt 128), but my in-laws are from just inside the outer ring of I-495. I've even heard them refer to their towns as on the outskirts of Boston.

Well I don't live near Boston, so I'm not trying to use my Massachusetts avatar to prove that I'm an authority on this. You might be right.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #19 on: October 02, 2017, 01:19:02 AM »

Winterset and Indanola might be considered exurban. There distance from the interstates makes them a little harder to commute from, but there may be affordable houses and some jobs, and there is the attraction of living in a small town. One spouse might commute to Des Moines, or perhaps start to do so after they lose a job in the cities.

It's odd though that development has not gone south along I-35 south of I-80.  And the NE corner of Madison County has never been developed much, even though it is quite near to Des Moines. The county line seems to be some sort of barrier. It reminds me of the county line between LA and San Bernadino counties, where in LA is the city of Pomona that has been around a long time, and is densely built, and Chino next door which was dairy farms until quite recently. The streets just stopped at the county line.

But I see a bridge is being built across the Raccoon River that might jump start things.

By railroad, Winterset and Indianola were fairly isolated.

1902 Railroad Map

The railroads west are tied to the Mississippi River crossings (Burlington and Rock Island) and Burlington is south of Madison and Warren. If you look closely, there were (proposed) interurban railroads from Des Moines to both Winterset and Indianola (they are in black only). Had they been built, there might have developed a commuter culture. and perhaps suburbanization to the south of Des Moines.

The Rock Island dips down to the east of Des Moines, so the I-35/I-80 loop around the city replaces the direct route through the city. I-80 west of the city follows the railroad, so there are smaller towns that can provide a bit of infrastructure for residential development (water and sewer plants mostly and schools), since the developer would build the lines and roads.

I-35 was developed in virgin territory, US-65 goes south to Indianola, and it appears that US-65 was just to create a north-south route down the middle of the first tier of states west of the Mississippi. I-35 was intended to connect established cities (Duluth-Twin Cities-Des Moines-Kansas City-Wichita-OKC-DFW-Waco-Austin-San Antonio-Laredo) where there had never been a transportation corridor.

The Des Moines and Raccoon rivers appear to have guided development towards the west. While the Capitol is to the east of the river, the downtown area is to the west, and there is enough flooding to push residential areas away from the river.

Des Moines Wikipedia, scroll down to density map

Business jobs exceed government jobs (this is why Minneapolis is bigger than St.Paul), and eastern Des Moines is chopped up by rail yards (similar to (north)eastern Minneapolis. Jobs with the railroad and associated industry will be lower paying than in the insurance business. The Des Moines River prevents expansion northward, pushing it more to the northwest. The Raccoon River blocks direct southward expansion, leaving a small area southeast of downtown and south of the Raccoon. The airport makes the area less desirable as a residential area.

Because of the angle of the Raccoon River, West Des Moines can expand slightly southward, and is more SSW (or maybe WbyS) of Des Moines. It appears that the I-35/I-80 north and west bypass facilitated westward expansion of West Des Moines and Urbandale, rather than triggering the expansion. You can build offices and commercial areas along an interstate, and provide jobs with commuting from the east and west. I-235 has facilitated commuting downtown.

There is a south and east loop, and an effort to have it redesignated as an interstate highway (it is claimed that if it shows as an interstate on GPS, it will make Des Moines look like a real metropolitan area, and also enhance sales of freeway frontage (apparently I-435 frontage is more sexy than IA-5 frontage). The loop south of the airport, should provide easier access to West Des Moines from I-35.

Des Moines has annexed south to the Warren County line. Microsoft is planning a major data center in West Des Moines south of the Raccoon River. The data center will be Microsoft's largest, and third in WDM. It is south of the Raccoon River on the Madison-Warren line, and just west of I-35. WDM is proposing to build an extension of the southern bypass west of I-35 (Veterans Parkway) which would connect to your bridge which is part of the Grand Prairie Parkway.

In 1950, Des Moines had 177K persons, and WDM was the only visible suburb with about 6K. Other towns, if they existed had 500-2K or so. Des Moines now has 215K, with most of the growth happening between 1950-60 and 2010-2016.

But during the post-WWII the suburbs to the west have exploded: West Des Moines 65K, Urbandale 43K, Johnston 21K, Waukee 20; Clive 18K, and Grimes 12K. Incidentally, the city limits are reminiscent of the suburbs in Johnson County, Kansas where the cities have expanded westward and southward to avoid being cut off from growth opportunity. It appears that West Des Moines has expanded southward to avoid Des Moines getting to the south of it.

Ankeny to the north, now has 59K. It has access direct access via I-35. It is physically separate from Des Moines. I don't know whether this is due to coal mines in the area with the possibility of tunnel collapses, or some other causes.

Altoona to the northeast 18K and Norwalk to the south 11K have suburban growth patterns, but this is much more recent than the western suburbs, so they are 40 to 50 years behind. Norwalk is an exception to no growth to the south.

Overall, Warren County has had strong growth. It surpassed its 1900 peak by 1960 and has continued to grow (about 20% since 2000). Indianola has about tripled since 1950. It has direct access to Des Moines via US 65 and 69, and its high school plays in the largest division (48 largest high schools in Iowa). I would consider this an exurb. Not directly adjacent to Des Moines, but commutable, and growth based on that.

Madison County might surpass its 1900 peak by 2030. Winterset is about twice as far as Indianola from Des Moines, and is considerable distance from the interstate.
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« Reply #20 on: October 02, 2017, 07:21:40 AM »

I remember my grandmother saying she took the railroad from Winterset to Indianola to get to Simpson College. That would have been from 1903 to 1907. She bemoaned that the RR was gone (she hated automobiles, and never learned to drive).  It must have been that green line that shows up on the map.

I guess that new Microsoft plant and the new roads and bridge will change a lot in the NE corner of Madison County in time.

Interesting Jimrtex. Thanks. It still puzzles me though that development did not flow south along I-35. It has been there for a long time now.
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« Reply #21 on: October 02, 2017, 01:58:01 PM »

I remember my grandmother saying she took the railroad from Winterset to Indianola to get to Simpson College. That would have been from 1903 to 1907. She bemoaned that the RR was gone (she hated automobiles, and never learned to drive).  It must have been that green line that shows up on the map.

I guess that new Microsoft plant and the new roads and bridge will change a lot in the NE corner of Madison County in time.

Interesting Jimrtex. Thanks. It still puzzles me though that development did not flow south along I-35. It has been there for a long time now.
Some interesting tidbits, I had come across:

George Washington Carver attended Simpson College, about a decade before your grandmother. He later went to what is now Iowa State.

Indianola is named for Indianola, Texas which was an early port, that was wiped out by two hurricanes. All that is left is a spreading oak. The founders of the Iowa town had read a newspaper account of the camels being unloaded there. This was an experiment by the US Army during the time Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War. I went to the McDonald Observatory for the solar eclipse. Fort Davis is on the plain below the Davis Mountains where the observatory is located. A video of the history of the fort included an account of the Camel Corps. As one might expect, the narrator of the video was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. When the fort was reactivated after the Civil War, the enlisted soldiers were mostly Buffalo Soldiers, hence Abdul-Jabbar's selection as narrator. He had a kind of interesting outfit, which was evocative of a military uniform, but not military.

There is a consolidated school district on the Warren-Madison line that is officially named the Interstate 35 District, serving Truro, New Virginia, and St.Charles. If nothing else I-35 facilitates busing of students to a central location so there could be a comprehensive high school.
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Torie
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« Reply #22 on: October 03, 2017, 08:05:56 AM »
« Edited: October 03, 2017, 08:45:23 AM by Torie »

My grandmother's oldest brother Caleb found Carver sick laying on the ground along a road. He had moved from Kansas to Winterset because the college in Kansas would not admit blacks. He got a job as a cook at downtown hotel in Winterset and fell ill. My great grandmother was a folk doctor, so the brother took Carver home to mother, who nursed him back to health over the summer. She told her oldest son that George would share Caleb's bedroom. Caleb said he did not want to share his room with a black. He mother said that is fine Caleb, you will spend the summer sleeping in the barn, while George uses your bedroom, so Caleb spent the summer in the barn. That fall, my great grandparents and some others in Winterset arranged for Carver to be admitted to Simpson College. And based on that familiarity, that is where my grandmother went to college too, and met her future husband. Absent the Carver saga, I suspect grandmother would not have gone to Simpson, and I would not exist.

The road to the west of the family farm is named Carver Road, and a photograph of the barn where Caleb spent the summer is below. The farm house was torn down, and replaced by a new home by my grandmother in the 1950's, but the barn still stands. I hope to preserve that barn somehow given its historical provenance.

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vanguard96
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« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2017, 10:29:24 AM »

I think of exurbs as areas that aren't connected to the city via a solid strip of urban land, but still are heavily economically tied to the city. I think this is more common in the West where there are a lot of reasonably dense urban areas with virtually empty land between them. Suburbs are just parts of an urban area that aren't politically part of the core city of that area for whatever reason (although in my experienced it tends to refer to smaller and often wealthier examples of those communities).

"Outskirts" I hear more in reference to small towns, and it refers to the rural area immediately outside of the town. If someone told me they were from the "outskirts of Boston" I wouldn't really know what they meant.

Interestingly, if someone told me they lived on the outskirts of Boston I would assume a town near I-495 without a second thought. I went to school in the suburbs of Boston (ie near rt 128), but my in-laws are from just inside the outer ring of I-495. I've even heard them refer to their towns as on the outskirts of Boston.

Boston itself is a small city - with places like Cambridge, Allston and so forth identifying closely with Boston.

Then you have the places inside the 128 ring that are strongly affiliated with Boston and long had both commuter rail and metro stops. Places like Newton, Milton, and so on. Further out on 495 you have places like Franklin, Ashland, Mansfield and so forth that have a commuter rail station but are typically a leafy, suburban 'bedtown' which some people say outskirts when referring to Boston.

I grew up in North Attleboro and we seemed to have more affinity with Providence, RI than Boston though some of our neighboring towns closer to 495 - like Foxboro and Mansfield were closer with Beantown just a few miles away to the edges of these two towns. In that we bordered RI and I-295 and that it took less than 20 minutes to get to Downtown Prov and almost 40 on a good day to Downtown Boston.

In SE Michigan for exurbs I would say a place like Howell, MI - where it is a good 30-40 minutes from the more densely settled suburbs where the office park type jobs are and a good 1 hr plus on most days to downtown and people do things like ride share. It is definitely a small town / city area that has some separation from the metro area but due to all the people working and visiting there it is very connected with it. These are not as common in the Northeast's Megalopolis between Metro Boston and Metro DC but are quite common in much of the rest of the country. The terms is more for academic purposes and in writing and not used in common spoken language.

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« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2017, 08:34:32 PM »

Personally, I never really use the term "exurb."  If a city/town/village/whatever is anchored around a "major city," then it is that city's suburb.  Inner, outer, whatever; it's a suburb.  I appreciate the clarity that suburb vs. exurb provides some people, however.  Additionally, there is probably a cutoff for me where at a certain point I feel silly calling somewhere a suburb due to the cultural connotations the word has.  For example, West Des Moines is absolutely a suburb of Des Moines, but I feel kind of goofy calling Morton a "suburb" of Peoria, because it has more of a small town feel (even though, objectively, Morton really IS a "suburb" of Peoria).

Wow this is weird. I found footage of a show in Morton!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s9BkNZ91u8
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