Learn the definition of a suburban area and find examples of suburbs in the United States. Understand the origin and characteristics of the suburban communities.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Suburbs in The U.S | Definition & Examples
Table of Contents
Show
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between rural and suburban?
Rural areas have lots of open space and consist of small towns separated by a large distance of unpopulated countryside. The suburbs are more heavily populated with very little, if any, unpopulated open countryside.
What is an example of a suburban location?
The city of New York is located on the island of Manhattan between the East River and the Hudson River. To the north, west, and east of the city are dozens of smaller cities and towns that make up the suburbs of New York. The further away from Manhattan, the less dense the suburbs get until they reach the rural areas of upstate New York and Connecticut.
What is difference between urban and suburban?
An urban area is a very densely populated area, often will tall buildings and very little green space. People live and work close together, with many people sharing dwellings in buildings and businesses sharing offices. Suburban areas are less dense, and most people live in single family homes. There is more green space, and businesses often have their own separate buildings.
Table of Contents
ShowA suburb is an area on the outside of big cities and towns where people live. It's sort of in-between a city and the country. It's not super crowded with tall buildings, but it's not wide open space either.
 |
What is a Suburban Community?
A suburban community is generally made up of many people living in single family homes, and those homes are built close together. A single family home is a house that is occupied by only one group of people.
In the suburbs, the houses are often arranged into neighborhoods where homes are built. A neighborhood is a local area where people live and interact closely with each other. Neighborhoods have lots of houses close together, so most people have neighbors on all sides of them.
Besides homes, there are usually some other buildings in the suburbs as well. While most businesses, stores, and restaurants are found near the suburbs, there are often some small shops, gas stations, cafes, and schools there as well. Most children living in the suburbs attend a school that is also in the suburbs.
Suburban living is a term that people use to explain how daily life work when living in the suburbs. People who live in the suburbs usually work outside of the suburbs because suburbs are mostly houses. People often interact with neighbors because everyone is so close that it's easy to walk between houses.
Origin of Suburbs
The word suburb is made from two different word that originated in the Latin language. The word sub means under, and the word urbs means city.
At the beginning of the 1900s, cars were a very new invention and almost no one owned one. During this time, people generally lived in one of two places. They lived in big cities and worked in the same city or the lived in small towns and worked on farms or businesses within those small towns. There weren't many people living in areas on the outskirts of cities. The main reason was that the area that is now known as the suburbs wasn't a convenient location for most people to live when the ways to get around were on foot, by bicycle, or by horse-drawn carriage. The areas on the edge of cities were too far from the cities to live, but also too far from the country and small towns.
After the second World War, cars become more common, which meant that people didn't have to live in the actual city to work there. They could drive the car from their house to their job. The suburbs can trace their origin back to the dramatic increase of commuting. Commuting is traveling a distance to and from work and home on a regular schedule. Commuting allowed people from the country who wanted to work in the city to move closer and commute without having to live in the city. It also allowed people who thought the city was too expensive, noisy, or crowded to move away, but still keep their job in the city.
The process of a person moving from the city to the suburbs is called suburbanization.
Sprawl and the Peripheral Model
The quick growth and expansion from the center of a more populated area is called sprawl. The suburbs grew very fast because of people's ability to drive to and from work, but cars had to become available to regular people before commuting was possible. There are two major kinds of sprawl: urban and suburban.
- Urban sprawl is when the city gets larger and expands into the suburbs.
- Suburban sprawl is when the suburbs themselves expand out into the countryside.
Suburban sprawl can be described by four characteristics:
- Low Density - Buildings have more space between them than in an urban area.
- Separation - Homes and businesses are separated into individual structures.
- No Defined Center - There is no specific center, just many different business and residential areas.
- Complicated Infrastructure - Roads and streets connect in a way that flows due to unplanned expansion.
The peripheral model shows the way that suburbs expand out from the city in a ring shape that extends outwards like concentric circles. Think about the image of the planet Saturn. The city is like the planet, while the suburbs are like the rings.
 |
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
You must cCreate an account to continue watching
Register to view this lesson
Are you a student or a teacher?
Create Your Account To Continue Watching
As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you succeed.
Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons.
Try it now
It only takes a few minutes to setup and you can cancel any time.
Already registered? Log in here for access
BackResources created by teachers for teachers
Over 30,000 video lessons
& teaching resources‐all
in one place.
I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. It’s like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. I feel like it’s a lifeline.
Jennifer B.
Teacher
Back
Your next lesson will play in
10 seconds
The suburbs are a very different living and working environment from the city and from small towns in the country. In cities, it's easy to get from one place to another due to the fact that buildings are tightly compacted, but the suburbs are spread out. The sprawl of the suburbs lends to certain characteristics of daily life that are very different from the other types of communities.
There are three main characteristics of suburban living that are important in understanding the culture of the suburbs:
- Homogeneity - Due to the way suburbs expanded, there is often a very homogenous nature to the culture, income, and architecture of the suburbs.
- Socialization - The sprawl and divided nature of the suburbs lends to unique patterns of socialization.
- Resources - The types of resources and jobs in the suburbs are very different from the cities and leads to commuting trends that don't occur in the city.
Homogeneity in the Suburbs
Homogeneity occurs when something is all of the same kind or type. This happens in the suburbs on different levels and can occur with regards to race, income level, education level, and many other traits. The following table explores some examples of homogeneity in the suburbs.
| Homogeneity | Description | Information |
|---|---|---|
| Race | The suburbs outside many metropolitan areas tend to be majority white, though it is changing to a degree. | When people began moving out of the cities, it was the people with money who could afford to purchase a house in the suburbs. In the 1950s, those people were almost all white. |
| Income | The suburbs in different areas generally have an income level that is required in order to be able to afford a home. | Since the variety of homes usually starts much higher than rent in an urban area would cost, only certain people could buy single family homes. |
| Consumption | There is often a homogeneous level of consumption in the suburbs due to people wanting to fit in with the neighbors around them. | There is a saying about the homogeneous nature of the suburbs: Keeping up with the Joneses. This term suggests that people want to consume to the level of the neighbors. This mindset keeps the consumption levels more of the same. |
It's important to understand that the single most influencing factor and homogeneity of the suburbs is socio-economical.
Socialization in the Suburbs
Socialization in the suburbs looks a lot different than it does in the city. Cities have distinct neighborhoods and communities, but they are closer together and more easily accessible.
In the suburbs however, socialization looks very different. A neighborhood or community can be very large, and getting from one to another can be difficult. This sprawl of distance leads to people socializing with their immediate neighbors that reside in the same small area.
When the concepts of homogeneity and the limitations of socialization are taken into consideration, it's easy to see why socializing in the suburbs is generally done with people who are the same. While the internet and social media have made it easier to socialize with those outside of a person's general neighborhood, it's still a very common practice to be friends with the immediate neighbors because of the difficulty of getting to other parts of the suburbs.
Opportunities and Resources in the Suburbs
One of the main reasons the suburbs came into existence was from the desire to live outside a major urban area, but still have access to the resources that a city had to offer. The suburbs provide its residents with access to a wider variety of resources and job opportunities.
Both cities and suburbs have access to retail, restaurants, and businesses, but the suburbs have access to other resources that the cities lack or have very little of. The list below describes the opportunities and available resources in the suburbs.
- Green spaces - There is much more access to green spaces in the suburbs in the form of parks, playgrounds and sports fields. Also, most suburban homes have lawns.
- Easier Access - Retail stores are larger and less crowded. The lack of crowds makes it easier to gain access to needed resources.
- Space - The suburbs offer more space for the money spent, whether in rent or in the purchase of a home.
- Schools - Many urban schools don't live up to the standards of suburban schools due a list of socio-economical factors.
- Safety - The suburbs tend to have a significantly lower rate of crime than the large cities. This is due to socio-economic factors as well as the sheer difference in population density.
- Job Opportunities - Because of suburbs' proximity to the city which it sprawled from, there is a greater opportunity for jobs, because with a car, one can work in the suburb or in the city if one is willing to commute. If they are not willing to commute, the job opportunities in the suburbs themselves are significantly less than the city.
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
In the beginning, suburbs developed and sprawled out of the major cities across the United States. As the country continued to grow, suburbs began spreading from the smaller cities and even larger towns.
When trying to understand how the suburbs work, it's important to discern the difference between a city population and a metro population. A city population is the number of people that live in the city proper, and the metro population includes the surrounding suburbs. Take the example of New York City. The official population of New York City in 2021 was approximately 8.3 million people, but the population of the Metro New York area is 18.8 million people. There are cities in the U.S. where the city proper is quite small, but the metro area is massive due to significant suburban sprawl.
The following describe examples of suburbs of major cities and smaller cities around the United States.
| City | State | Approx. Population | Approx. Metro Population | Towns in the Suburbs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portland | Maine | 67,000 | 540,000 | Scarborough, Westbrook, South Portland |
| Boston | Massachusetts | 620,000 | 4.3 million | Cambridge, Arlington |
| Chicago | Illinois | 2.6 million | 8.8 million | Winnetka, Oak Park, Evanston |
| Atlanta | Georgia | 500,000 | 5.9 million | Hapeville, East Point, Vinnings |
| Los Angeles | California | 4 million | 12.4 million | Hollywood, Compton, Beverly Hills |
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
A suburb is an area of lower density population that surrounds a large city or town. Suburbs consist of many single family homes that are usually arranged into groups called neighborhoods. The suburbs began popping up after World War II when people began to own cars and could commute into the city for work. Suburbanization is when people from the city move into the suburbs. When the suburbs get built up, they have to take land from what was rural, open land. This process is called suburban sprawl. When cities begin to expand, they move into the suburbs. This process is called urban sprawl. The suburbs can be described using the peripheral model, which shows the suburbs as a type of ring around the city.
Due to the nature of the suburbs and how they formed, there tends to be a lot of homogeneity in the suburbs. The single over-arching similarity is socio-economical status. The suburbs also present its residents with more green space, more space for one's money, less crime, and better schools. Suburbs are usually included in what is called a metropolitan area. The metro area includes the major city along with the outlying towns that make up the suburbs. The largest suburbs in the country can be found outside New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Video Transcript
Suburbs
Charles lives just outside of a city in an area where there are a lot of houses but not much else. He likes that it's quiet and that he can still go into the city if he wants to see a sporting event or go to the theater.
Charles is living in a suburb, or outlying district of a city, and like many people, Charles lives in the suburbs but works in the city. He commutes in every day to work and then goes home in the afternoon.
Let's look closer at suburbs in the United States, including the suburbanization movement, the peripheral model of suburbs, and issues of segregation in suburbia.
Suburbanization
Charles lives in the suburbs, as do a lot of people, but Charles' grandparents lived in the city. In fact, most people in their generation lived in the city!
A hundred years ago, living in the suburbs was not the popular choice. Most people either lived in cities or in small towns, but few chose to live in the outlying districts of the city. It was just too difficult; if they worked in the city, it was hard to get to work if you lived too far away.
In the years leading up to World War II, though, suburbs rose in popularity as people began to own cars. Cars meant that they could live in the suburbs and work in the city and that they had a way to get to and from work.
The popularity of the suburbs really boomed after World War II when an interstate system and demand for new homes increased the rate at which people moved out of cities. Suburbanization, or a migration from the cities to the suburbs, was a major hallmark of the years after World War II, and so, people, like Charles, live in the suburbs even though their grandparents didn't.
Peripheral Model
As we've talked about, the suburbs are the outlying districts of a city. Often, suburbs are separate towns that border a city, and sometimes they are part of the city but just the furthest parts.
Urban expansion, sometimes called urban sprawl, involves a city expanding via suburbs. For example, Charles lives in the suburbs of a city. When he was a kid, there weren't very many suburbs, just one or two, but now, there are many, many suburbs as more people move to the area, and the city and existing suburbs become more and more populated.
Closely related to urban expansion is suburban sprawl, which happens when the suburbs expand into rural communities. As more and more suburbs become crowded, new suburbs crop up in what used to be farmland. Take Charles: when he was a kid, the suburb he lives in was right between the city and farmland, but more suburbs have grown, and now there are many suburbs between him and farmland.
The peripheral model explains how a city is often surrounded by a large ring of suburbs all linked together via a beltway. So, in Charles' case, the city is at the center, and the suburbs surround it on all sides. Then, more suburbs surround those, and so on. The peripheral model works well on cities, like the one where Charles is, that have had lots of urban and suburban sprawl.
Segregation
Charles loves the suburb where he lives. There are a lot of great things about it: it's more quiet than the city, but he can still access all of the great things that are available in the city. He loves his neighbors and generally has a great time.
But there are some negatives about the suburb, too. The biggest problem that Charles has with where he lives is that everyone there is similar to him. They all have the same type of jobs, and most of them have the same color skin.
Segregation has been a problem in suburbs since they became popular in the mid-20th century. For many years, both legal and illegal racial segregation was common in suburbs, where whites tried to keep their suburbs all-white by refusing to sell houses to non-white families. Today, though race is not an obvious factor in real estate transactions, there are still demographic differences among races in cities and suburbs. For example, more white people than African Americans still live in suburbs, and city centers still have more African Americans than whites.
However, the largest segregation today is socioeconomic segregation. Remember that Charles and his neighbors all have similar jobs. There are doctors and lawyers and business professionals. They all make about the same amount of money.
Sadly, many economically disadvantaged people today are forced to live in center-city neighborhoods that offer fewer amenities and less well-maintained housing because richer people are taking up the housing in the suburbs. This is a trend that many cities are trying to address but one that is still a major problem in many suburbs and cities across America.
Lesson Summary
An outlying district of a city is called a suburb. In the years before and after World War II, as cars became more popular and interstate systems were developed, many people moved to suburbs in a migration known as suburbanization.
The peripheral model explains how a city is surrounded by a ring of suburbs, which happens via urban expansion, or urban sprawl, as a city becomes larger and expands into nearby suburbs, and via suburban sprawl, as suburbs expand into nearby rural land.
Finally, suburbs have always had an issue with segregation: first, racial segregation, which was particularly prevalent in the mid-20th century, and more common now, socioeconomic segregation as richer people move to the suburbs and poorer people are left in city centers.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completing this lesson, you should be able to:
- Define suburb
- Explain what led to suburbanization
- Describe the peripheral model
- Summarize the historical and modern-day problems with segregation in suburbs
To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account
Register to view this lesson
Are you a student or a teacher?
Unlock Your Education
See for yourself why 30 million people use Study.com
Become a Study.com member and start learning now.
Become a MemberAlready a member? Log In
BackResources created by teachers for teachers
Over 30,000 video lessons
& teaching resources‐all
in one place.
I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. It’s like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. I feel like it’s a lifeline.
Jennifer B.
Teacher
Back
Suburbs in The U.S | Definition & Examples
Related Study Materials
Explore our library of over 88,000 lessons
Browse by subject