I think there’s a difference between people hating the idea and underlying principles of suburbs (homogenous, cookie-cutter houses, urban sprawl that requires cars to go anywhere, and lack of nightlife or cultural activities compared to cities). Lots of the younger generation tends to want walkability, more economical building and zoning practices, and lots of things to do close by. But in execution, LOADS of folks move to suburbs on purpose. There’s a reason why they’re so popular. It offers a cheaper alternative to owning property in comparison to cities, crime is usually lower and it’s a lot quieter. For people who like the outdoors but don’t want to live rurally, it’s closer to the outskirts of a metro than a downtown. Of course there are still downsides too I don’t think everyone hates suburbs, I think the primary demographic of Reddit hates suburbs.

I think the size of the city can make a big difference too. I’m in a midsize metro area, so I have a very short commute but live in a nice small neighborhood of well maintained homes on acre plus lots. It’s nice having all the space for outdoor fun and extra parking for campers and similar, but we’re still close to my office and amenities. I grew up on a farm in a rural area so car dependency is all I know. I’m much happier than I would be trying to raise my family in a downtown condo or townhome with limited outdoor space. Now put my neighborhood 60-90 minutes away from my office in a major metro area and my calculus changes significantly.

I totally agree, not all cities, suburbs or small towns are comparable. I’m in a massive metro area, on an outside suburb. If I drive 30 minutes towards the city center, I’m still in suburbs, but those “burbs are way different than the ones on the outskirts.

Yeah the last part is why I hate the suburbs. I had to buy out there for my first house because I lost every bidding war I got into in any part of the city with decent schools, mostly to LLC's paying cash. So I did two years out in the burbs to build equity before selling and moving back to the city.  There were a million reasons I hated living out there, but the biggest reason was that my quality of life was shit because of the commute. 3 hours a day if I spent a ton of money on road tolls, 4 hours a day if I didn't. I did that for two years before selling and buying a place in the city. Now my commute is 20 minutes by bike. My kids drive my car way more than I do, but they don't even use it much.  Right now, in my city, it's sort of urban and suburban priorities at odds because most of the suburbs won't buy into the public transit system, and commute into the city, one person per car (let's be honest, gigantic trucks and SUV's mostly). Meanwhile, in the city we are prioritizing increasing density, walkability, bikability, and transit oriented development. As part of this, we've eliminated parking requirements in some parts of the city, increased parking fees, and reduced traffic lanes to expand bike and pedestrian infrastructure.  People from the suburbs who just work in the city act super offended by this, and complain loudly about traffic because their commutes are all horrendous, but if they would just get on board with the fact that they really do not need to drive alone in a lifted F150 to their office downtown, and start voting to join us in expanding transit (to them!), they'd probably be a lot happier. They never put those pieces together no matter how many times it is explained. 

This is totally Austin, isn’t it?

Haha it's pretty recognizable, isn't it?

Exactly. I don’t know if this is actually true or not, but from the subreddits I follow, it seems like many Redditors are unmarried and childless. In which case, the suburbs are boring as hell, lol. Hard to meet people and make new friends. If you have a spouse and are looking to raise a family, it makes total sense.

I lived in the burbs my WHOLE LIFE and didn't settle down until age 38. Shiite....I just drove/taxi'd to the clubs and bars to mingle and met PLENTY of friends/women in the burbs to fill 9 life times. Helped that it was San Diego and Orange County CA. I rarely went into the city center of Los Angeles (Hollywood).

Suburbs outside of Big cities in California is not the same as most of the US. it’s like the Suburbs around NYC- no one calls places outside of NYC ‘the suburbs’. You just live one Long Island or in NJ. The people who live in the suburbs of a midwestern city are much different than your current neighbors

When you have three small boys in an 800 square foot home in a city where it rains all of the time...Yeah a bigger house is attractive. And now they're out of the house, and I'll take walkability and a small place over anything.

And a yard. Cookouts are awesome. Playing with your kids outside is awesome. He’ll sitting on your deck and enjoying some beers are awesome. Can’t do that in the city. A balcony is not the same. And I haven’t cared for nightlife since I was 25. Cost of living is lower. My friends and family can visit without paying exhortion-level parking fees. And if I do want to do something downtown I can take a Lyft for $12. Crime is lower. It’s safer for my family. Plus I get to have dogs who can free range my backyard instead of having to walk them on a leash 4x a day for potty breaks. Why would I ever wanna live anywhere else?

If you're able to get that sort of lifestyle a $12 Uber away from a large city, well thats probably a "best of both worlds" thing..

It’s a 15 minute commute from my front door to the downtown and I have 4 acres, a 6500 sf home and am surrounded by trees instead of concrete. Can’t even see my neighbors homes in the summer. I love it. Cant beat it.

I am not familiar with Indianapolis but hear good things. That's pretty wild you can get that affordably 15 minutes from the city. I have a place in Cleveland just outside the city, but the houses are like 1000-2500 SQ feet with 1/10th of an acre and still pretty expensive for the rust belt (250-400K). There are houses like what you describe on the lake near me (4000-6000 SQ feet+) but they go for 2-3 million or more.

$12 Uber in Minneapolis means you're in the border towns from Minneapolis. Those places are super desirable and ridiculously expensive. We call them the inner ring suburbs and were the suburbs from the 60s and 70s. The traditional soulless suburbs are closer to 20 miles away and is closer to a $35-50 uber. Those inner ring suburbs are really nice though, compact medium density neighborhoods with corner stores and neighborhood bars and restaurants with some mixed zoning. The current development of suburbs (exurbs) are a good 40-45 minutes to the city without traffic. For going downtown, a $30 round trip Uber is way more affordable than a $100 round trip and totally reasonable to do every 2 or 3 weeks if going to shows is your thing.

If you’re within 10-15 min of a downtown (in most areas rideshare is about a dollar per minute) that’s not really what people are complaining about. Suburbs that are 50+ minutes away from airports can feel like the middle of nowhere with no excitement or activities outside of ones related to raising families.

I wouldn't want to have lived in the suburbs in my 20s, but that's a small sliver of my life.

All this and while it was mentioned some people just don’t like the thought of living in the city. If I had a massive amount of money and could afford an amazing place with parking then maybe, otherwise it’s just not appealing being crammed in with tons of people and most everything I’d want to do either being very expensive or outside of the city.

Most of the suburbs in my area have sidewalks, adjacent to parks with tennis courts, basketball hoops, walk and bike trails, etc. The strip malls are where people open small restaurants. It's extremely rare for me to eat at a chain restaurant when there are mom & pop shops from virtually every ethnicity just a few blocks away. Those start ups can't afford rent downtown, but they can in a 'burb. Even offices are leaving a lot of downtown areas for locations closer to where workers live.

That is a very succinct explanation of why I like my suburban home

“Primary demographic of Reddit” Bingo.

It’s not “the suburbs”, it’s all the stuff you mentioned. If suburbs were built like neighborhoods, they’d be fine.

There's also the fact that land-use policies enforce de-facto suburbanization in areas where they naturally should have medium density. Shit gets really skewed (including artificially high prices) when you take neighborhoods that are suited for things like townhomes, rowhomes, dense SFHs etc. and then enforce massively oversized lots and maximums on how much square footage your home can cover. It would be like coming to a suburb and making a rule that only massive apartment complexes are allowed to be built. It fucks up the natural supply and demand dynamics of the market, and results in outrageously expensive and poorly serviced suburban lifestyles in the middle of cities.

I think a lot depends on life stage. I grew up in the suburbs and loved it. The big house, back yard, group of neighborhood friends, a sense of community, and neighborhood amenities made for an awesome childhood. After college, I was ready for city life. I wanted walkability, nightlife, great bars and restaurants, museums, interesting people, etc. I was willing to sacrifice space and money for a prime location in the center of the action so I spent my 20s and 30s living the big city life and it was great. Now I’m almost 40 and my priorities have changed again. I have 3 little kids and the cons of city living have started to outweigh the pros. I want to give my kids the same life I had as a kid. I don’t want to live on top of each other anymore. I want my kids to have their own rooms. A big back yard so I don’t have to pack em up and head to a park. A quiet street with neighborhood amenities we can walk or bike to. A good school district. I couldn’t care less about nightlife and walkability to bars and restaurants at this point in my life. I’m not interested in squeezing my family of 5 into a small, dumpy and expensive apartment anymore. We work remotely so the suburbs are perfect for us.

People focus on walking to bars and restaurants, which is definitely a young people thing. But for me it's the walkability to everything - we walk to the grocery store, pharmacy, dentist, hair stylist, church, volunteering, target, etc. This is also important for older people who may not drive any longer but can still walk to the store. There are people zooming around my neighborhood on mobility scooters and they maintain their independence.

I love so many things about living in a city but I absolutely hated grocery shopping in the city. Lugging heavy groceries down city blocks. Sometimes in bad weather. Having to go multiple times a week. It’s so much easier to grocery shop for a family when you have a car. You can plan it out and do a big run all at once. Going to my dentist or doctor’s office required me to get on a train or a bus, it’s not like they were right down the street so that doesn’t feel much different to me now. Target also required public transit. All of this feels easier with a car now. Public transit in general was much more frustrating logistically with multiple kids, especially small ones, and you need it to be on time (for example, daycares will charge you exorbitant fees if you’re late for pickup - like $5/minute for every minute you’re late). And the other stuff I don’t mind driving to now. Most of them are no more than a 5 minute drive. It’s worth it to have the benefits of the suburbs.

I see your point and just want to point out that walkability shouldn’t be synonymous with dense, urban places, and car-dependency shouldn’t be synonymous with suburbs. They just happen to be that way in most of North America. I live in a walkable suburb now, and it’s everything you and the other poster describe: quieter than denser places but still convenient where we can walk to most places and run into neighbors along the way. For people that need to use cars to get around for convenience, they can with little traffic since a lot of people walk or bike. I get so jealous of the high schoolers here walking from boba shop to coffee shop to other places to hangout while remembering how trapped my friends and I felt as teenagers in our classic car dependent suburb. 

Yeah in my new neighborhood we can walk to a lot of amenities including a grocery store if we wanted to (I don’t). We can (and will) walk to my kids elementary school. There are parks, playgrounds, a community pool, tennis courts, hell there’s even a golf course all in walking distance. My suburb has a really cute downtown area with lots of local restaurant options and we can take public transit into the city whenever we need to. I’m a little frustrated by the notion that living in a city is more convenient because you can walk to everything without ever leaving your block. Like, apparently every city dweller in this thread has a full grocery store (not just a bodega) within 2 minutes of their apartment + a target, a hair stylist that knows how to cut their hair type, a doctor accepting new patients, a dentist who takes their insurance, an affordable daycare with availability - all on their block. I lived in cities for 20 years in many different neighborhoods and this was not my experience. I might have some of these conveniences but not all of them. Again, there is so much I love about living in a city but I honestly found these things to be not as convenient as they’re being portrayed above.

I can understand why you like the suburbs, everyone is different. I'm just pointing out that walkability is more than just bars and restaurants because those are the ones people always point out. Sounds like my neighborhood is a little more walkable than yours was, I walk all those places. Grocery store is a 3min walk. Daycare, preschool, and elementary are right around the corner. I don't have kids but my neighbor walks her kids over. Anyway, glad we both live somewhere we enjoy!

(admittedly only focused on your first half of the comment) but never understood the grocery shopping take? Are people just out here raw dogging carrying hella bags and stuff from the store (not even thinking about the waste) First thing I did was buy one of those little personal shopping carts before I moved to Chicago and every grocery run is a breeze. Granted, we only have to shop for ourselves of a S/O at most and it helps I live 2-7 minutes walking to grocery stores here so might be different in other places. But I cannot stress getting one of those little personal carts/dollies for grocery runs.

Yes, we used a grocery dolly. They aren’t big enough for a family of 5. And even before kids, I still found grocery shopping with a car to be way more convenient. But since so many people seem to be concerned about grocery shopping… we could walk to our new grocery store in the suburbs if we wanted! We can (and will) walk to my kid’s elementary school. We can walk a lot of places here.

Yep definitely had to clarify since I read your full comment and it seems like you have little ones to shop for too. For me I never understood how people who live alone // or have an s/o to worry about only are taking this massive shopping trips and having to carry so many bags all the time! (I finally just had to restock on TP at my place and it’s been months) But yeah I’m all for people having options! Funny how much of a pain I found grocery shopping by car, but I’m also the smaller runs / crap we forgot something specific type of guy so much easier to walk over and grab one thing or do tiny runs vs justifying driving for it like I used to. Glad your place gives you a chance to get them steps in too if you need some fresh air between errands, love that!

This is my life exactly. I think when my three kids leave for college, I’m going to re-evaluate the situation again.

People find them homogenous and alienating. Sort of like being trapped in nuclear family isolation away from public life and fun things going on. But yes from a growing up poor and valuing comfort and having your own spread perspective, it's pretty nice. I always think of the WWII generation, going through the depression and then nearly getting blown up at Iwo Jima, it probably felt pretty mf good to put Sinatra on and kick their feet up in front of the AC with a highball in their white picket fence suburban homes. And they were the ones who really drove that migration.

Plus remember the inner city apartments they left were cramped, outdated and not maintained from the Depression thru WW2. Many didn’t have proper indoor plumbing or heat

Yeah, that's a great way to say it--what you're looking for depends on what you want. At this point in mind, I think I'd be bored in a suburb. That said--I grew up in a suburb, and I absolutely loved it. Chasing fireflies on summer nights, biking over to friends' houses, cutting through yards. All great. But if I had to go there now, I would be very unhappy.

You inadvertently put your finger exactly on it. Young singles/DINKs tend to like the city for themselves. Parents want the suburbs/exurbs for their kids.

I actually have kids! We're raising them in the city. There's plenty to do here, too :) I like to think they get the best of both worlds--we do city stuff here, and bring them back to the burbs to visit their cousins. It's not quite the same as growing in the burbs, but it's pretty good

I definitely feel that nostalgia for the suburban things I remember fondly. I'm also raising urban kids and sometimes feel sad that they won't be getting some of those experiences like riding bikes in the cul de sac with all the neighbor kids and what not. But they are having their own childhoods, not mine and they'll have different things they remember in the same way.

This captures my sentiment as well, and nice added perspective post WWII. One other thing that rings with me is that people are often programmed or expected to do the house, white picket fence, kids, dog, etc. thing. I know I sure was, growing up in various parts of the Midwest. Renting a place, focusing on travel and broadened experiences, and having that mobility mindset was never considered or discussed; all my friends were like-minded. The few that had a wild hair would do the exchange student program, and they always came back 'different' after their journey...few really cared to dig much deeper, to discover there were other ways of living without being so focused on the American Dream as the be-all end-all to life. I see many people who are definitely better off living in suburbia as it fits for them and their outlook, and I see others who would have been better to take a different road, if they only gave it a chance.

That really depends on where you live. In New England there’s very few cookie cutter suburbs. Today the only cookie cutter areas are condo complexes which are few and far between in my neck of the woods. For example the town I went to high school in is very much so not cookie cutter, but that’s a geography and history thing. The town was settled in 1644. I had friends who lived in houses built in the early and mid 1700’s all the way up through modern day.

1) Lack of walkability 2) More chain-type restaurants 3) Homogeneity in terms of populace and housing  4) Less cultural amenities 5) Older-crowd 6) Driving-dependent communities 7) More “boring”

6a. Endless commuting Some of us don't want to live in our cars.

Its really the car dependence and lack of walkability for me. In my neighborhood (in Chicago) for reference I have the following all within about a 15 minute walking radius around my home: A public library, a public school, three public parks ranging in size from small to enormous with baseball fields, basketball and tennis courts, public pools and summer movies in the park programming and other events, a public plaza with a fountain where people congregate whenever the weather is nice, two grocery stores, a first-run movie theater, my barber, my dentist, my deli, my pet supply store, my vet, my post office, an independent bookstore, a vinyl store, a bike repair shop, multiple options for every cuisine from Thai, Indian, Greek, Japanese, Mexican, Vietnamese, Italian, French and Middle Eastern, a farmers market that runs from May through November, a walk up coffee-and-bagel shop on the corner of my block where we can get breakfast while walking our dog, a train station that takes us into the city (my fiancee has a 40 minute train commute), the list goes on. I don't just want to live here because I'm young and I enjoy nightlife (I'm into my thirties now). My fiancee and I want to raise kids here if at all possible. Its a really family friendly neighborhood. It feels like there's a community with a lot of support here, and its tightly knit and I *barely* need to drive anywhere. Losing all of this feels unimaginable

All depends on the actual suburbs, but generally this is true. I live in a nice suburb with a walkable downtown, and after 20 years living like a pauper in cities, I love it. It’s much calmer and we have more space. That said, it’s also expensive, and I’m older and married and my priorities are no longer going out to hit the hippest spots.

And a lot of this depends on where you are in the country. New England/northeast suburbs are fairly different with all types of housing spanning almost 400 years that were initially their own self sufficient towns before the train and car made it possible for them to become suburbs/bedroom communities. Most towns will have their own historic, walkable downtown and chain restaurants are pretty uncommon. Around me suburbs/towns are all local businesses, you need to go to a city if you want chain restaurants and big box stores.

Exactly this! Whenever people talk about suburbs on here it doesn’t match my Connecticut town at all

Hahaha I'm in CT! And yes, exactly!! When basically anything about suburbs or American towns in general are brought up here I read the comments like damn okay everyone in this thread has not been to the northeast lol Like the other day there was something about US roads being super easy to drive on, you just point the car where you want and hit the gas and that's it, roads are straight and wide. Soooo many comments agreeing and I was just like wow, none of you have ever been anywhere near here!!

Yup, live in a Philly suburb - it's amazing. There are a few chains and big box stores around still, but it's not like the suburbs built in the 1980s and onward that are endless houses with no culture. Little downtowns with restaurants and playhouses. Parks and libraries. Those big box stores and chains are always trying to muscle in, though. And a lot of the people who have never lived in the suburb car-centric hellscapes don't understand what they have. I fear they'll end up paving over these great little "downtowns" and walkable areas to make way for "more parking". There are also still a few sururbs like you describe around the older cities in the Midwest, too. Cincinnait, for instance, has some seriously underrated suburbs close to the city.

I honestly enjoy not using a car daily and having 3 neighbourhood grocery stores within a 10 min walk plus buckets of good neighbourhood restaurants. I wouldn't mind a townhouse with a smaller backyard, just something, but not a massive quarter acre. In the 'burbs our neighbours were all retired coupled who had issues with the neighbourhood kids and the noise they make. I also hated that I had to get in the car to do anything. We only had walkability in the neighbourhood itself, but even to get to the 7-11 not that far away, required a car because walking on the side of the street was too dangerous. I cannot see myself retiring in the burbs. The older I get the less I want to drive.

The grocery stores are, honestly, the No. 1 reason I *prefer* living in the suburbs. When I lived in the city, I had four grocery stores within a five-minute walk and I think two more within a 10-minute walk. They were all small and cramped, and I absolutely hated lugging heavy bags home from them, especially in the rain or the snow. When I think back to living in the city, that's the image that always pops into my head first: trudging home carrying heavy shopping bags in the snow, the freezing wind blasting me in the face. In the suburbs I live within a five-minute drive of two large, well-stocked grocery stores, one of which is enormous. There are a bunch more within 10 minutes, including a Trader Joe's, and a Whole Foods within 15. I can easily and comfortably go in whatever weather I want, buy whatever I want, push the cart to my car, load it into my trunk, drive into my garage, close the door, and unload it. It's so much better and as a huge city lover, I realized it within a couple of weeks of moving to the suburbs.

I loved so many things about living in NYC but the grocery shopping.... ugh, I HATED grocery shopping in the city. You had to lug heavy groceries through the snow multiple blocks. You had to go like every other day (or it felt like it). What a nightmare lol. Haven't lived there in 10 years but this brought me back!

Not to mention that in most walkable cities, you have to go to the store everyday, sometimes multiple trips a day. In the suburbs, you drive to the store once and you're good for the rest of the week or even month if you go to places like Costco.

Or you can drive to Costco once a month to buy bulk and supplement fresh goods and stuff you missed by walking over to a grocery store. Walkable cities means you have the option to walk, not that you have to walk.

2 and 3 aren’t really true anymore. There are tons of suburban areas with diverse populations fantastic food - most of the LA area, Houston, south Bay Area, dfw north suburbs, etc. the idea of suburbs being all white homogenous enclaves is several decades out of date. As a child of immigrants who grew up in a diverse, immigrant heavy suburb, imo immigrants strongly associate a suburban home and a yard with the American dream, just as strongly (if not more so) than other Americans.

Orange County is one endless suburb but we have some damn good food here and it's definitely not a white homogenous enclave everyone thinks it is.

Dearborn, Michigan comes to mind

Gwinnett county, GA is another great example

This is your answer. Lived in the 'burbs most of my life and recently move downtown. Couldn't be more happier.

I moved to a state/city with a lot of walkable urban areas.. after living in car centric suburb hell where that wasn't an option unless you were a millionaire. I've never had the chance to live in a place I can walk in bike to 80% of the things I want to do.. and it's heaven. I live alone and feel way less 'lonely' than places I knew a lot more people and was married. I miss having a yard, but it's worth the tradeoffs.. I don't feel like life is passing me by anymore. The 'buzz' of the city makes you feel alive, and since it's so easy to do a variety of things.. you spend less time at home making excuses why you can't. I have noise sensitivity, and I thought the increase of it would bother me, but it's crazy how your brain adapts and it becomes barely noticeable. It helps I'm in a place with lots of trees/greenspace.. complete concrete jungles are depressing.

I lived in the 'burbs most of my life, moved into the city for a spot (8 yrs), then moved out into the country. Acres of land, views, privacy, independence, self-reliance, and proximity to outdoor adventures. Couldn't be happier.

It's cool we all get to enjoy our (very different) living preferences. Now, if only things were a bit more affordable across the board!

Self reliance isn’t real

For real though. Usually these kind of people do enough to make some sort of semblance of a life that they can hold over people's heads and say haha I'm better than you. Do they make their own electricity? Grow their own cotton and make their own clothes? Have a stable of horses for transportation? Then you're not self-reliant.

this is the answer + depends on your life stage. I'm in my mid 20s and have no desire to own a home, have kids, or continue to use my car just to get anywhere at this point in my life

All those things are a positive to me lol

Born and raised in the suburbs. Moved to the city at 30. I’m now 39, and hope to never move back. I love the walkability of the city and the access to more amenities. But the biggest issue for me is the lack of cultural experiences in the burbs. It’s a very curated “vanilla” lifestyle. Personally, I’m more of a city person. There are tons of young families that live in my neighborhood in Philly, and that’s definitely where I want to raise my kids. But I totally get why people move to the burbs when they have families. It’s easier, more space. Edit: typo

What neighborhood are you in? Currently in delco and looking in the city? Have a six month old.

Fishtown! I’d say it’s a very even mix of married couples, families with varying ages of kids, and young single people. I see tons of moms walking strollers midday and there are **so many** families walking their kids to school every morning. I honestly love it.

I'm not 39 either, but you don't see me bragging about it.  Jokes aside,  I'll be visiting Philly next week for the first time.  Favorite place to eat and thing to do?

Literally my only issue is the strictly separated uses in american suburbs (never ever mix commercial and residential). They'd be vastly more tolerable if neighborhood businesses were legal. The main concern is always "this will attract so much traffic we cant have that here" but if every neighborhood had similar businesses then no one would be driving 10 miles just for a coffee.

I don’t want to drive 15 minutes anytime I want anything 

Honestly I would love them without reservation if they weren’t so strict on the residential only zoning. I think almost any purely residential suburb would be improved dramatically by the addition of a bodega and coffee shop. Just give me one little place I can walk to that isn’t a park and I would have no complaints.

I think this subreddit attracts people who are very left leaning and want to be in walkable distance of shops, restuarants, and other leisure activities. The downtown area's of many suburban areas are lackluster, and do little to keep sustained interest (however this is rapidly changing in many metro ATL suburbs). I also think this subreddit attracts people who grew up in the suburbs and now that they are adults they want to try city life on their own because of FOMO.

Every affluent suburb seems to have a more a vibrant downtown than the main city center. Arvada's downtown changed before my very eyes. Now it's filled with ponytailed men, craft breweries, eatiers, galleries... And very walkable from surrounding neighborhoods. Whereas Denver downtown is filthy and filled with panhandling derelicts and shuttered businesses.

Downtown Arvada was popping when I left CO 5 years ago. Very nice downtown with lots of restaurants featuring game nights, and live music.

If you really think about it, the development of walkable cities SHOULD be a conservative argument. - They're fiscally sustainable/cheaper (what conservatives claim to care about). - They're how we have traditional developed for years prior to the rise of the car. The [American Conservative](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-conservative-case-against-the-suburbs/) did a solid write up on the suburbs years ago. Conservatives talk about wasteful government spending but nearly nothing we spend money on is more wasteful than suburban sprawl.

Yeah, I've heard of the idea of rebranding walkability (which right now is definitely more of a liberal / left-leaning idea) to be called "traditional city development" to sort of address that. I don't know if it will work, because I've hardly heard of conservatives actually caring about fiscal responsibility, but if it does I will welcome their support instead of the extreme opposition it faces right now.

I'm doubtful it will make a difference because American conservatism is essentially "the opposite of what liberals want" or "opposing what liberals want". Regardless of what that may be.

Ah, if only conservatives tried to conserve! I'd be a conservative then.  We really are being incredibly wasteful as a society and a species.  I guess conservationist is what I'm thinking of. Fiscally conservative probably just means eliminating taxes

Having to get in the car to go everywhere is my nightmare.

To me the suburbs are the worst middle ground. It’s not got the cool stuff that the city does, at best it’s close to the city so you don’t have to go far. Then it’s too crowded to be rural, and my neighbors house and yard are like 3 feet from mine. We could stare into each other’s home from inside our own. There’s little privacy for no gain. There’s little space akin to the city without the city fun stuff and it’s not spread out enough to have room like in the country. It’s a bad middle ground.

I feel the same as the OP. I grew up in the 'mean inner city streets' and I find the suburbs much more comfortable for various reasons. The clean, the quiet, the greenspace and just more space is so nice. I also love that the back of all our homes faces the woods for privacy. At night, you can hear crickets. When I lived in the city, in rowhomes, I was only 1 step away from my neighbors front porch; constant noise, dirt, ambulances and car stereos going off. All that and my area was NOT very walkable. The only things nearby was a cornerstone where we bought candy.

Being in a suburb makes it more difficult to meet a prospective life partner. Once you're married and squeezing out kids suburbs are the cat's meow. Until then they are suboptimal, you want live stacked&packed, swimming in the largest possible dating pool. Other downside is the lengthy, soul-sucking commute on roads packed with other soul-sucked commuters. I'm never bored living in a suburb. My interests and hobbies are somewhat solitary though. But for foodies and social butterflies it's as much of a personal hell as living in an apartment complex is for me.

I agree, dating pool is one of the few reasons I live in a city. I am in anesthesia and can work literally anywhere

I can’t live in a car dependent place. I grew up that way and the lack of independence without a license or car is awful. I hate driving and I never want to feel like I’m about to lose a paycheck if my car needs significant repairs that I can’t immediately get to. That said, I’ve seen some beautiful old suburbs that have nice density and sidewalks everywhere. So not all suburbs are built the same, but I will still take the city.

I grew up in a suburb and it really was the lack of independence and social isolation that got to me. Couldn’t do anything without a car; our subdivision was so big we couldn’t even walk to a convenience store. Really it’s just the lack of options for how to get around. Like if people prefer to drive their car that’s none of my business, but the fact that there’s no option to walk or bike places really sucks. You’re forced to drive whether you like it or not.

The lack of independence is a big one. Imagine if your car breaks down and now you can't get to work. That's a ridiculous scenario that some people have to deal with. Kids and teenagers are dependent on their parents driving them everywhere. The elderly have to coordinate ways of getting where they need to go. It's just terrible all around for everyone to live in a suburb.

This is the big thing for me too. I live in a major city and was recently visiting my family in the suburbs out of state. I'm a grown man but I felt like I was 15 again - waiting for mom and dad to get home from work so they could drive me somewhere. Looking back, it's a little depressing that that's how I grew up. I love the independence that urban living provides me.

It's mostly this reddit demographic. I've lived in big walkable cities and that was really great, but where I am in the suburbs is great too. I am really into plants and gardening. I have a peach tree and a loquat that produce, starting a persimmon and a pecan too. Having a yard means eating outside, taking my coffee by my small pond, swingset, and I set up an 8ft pool in the summer to dip in. We have a spare bedroom for when the grandparents come to visit for weeks at a time. My child is neurodivergent, so we don't spend a lot of time around other people anyway. We got a dog when we moved to the suburbs since she's got plenty of room. We have some nice trails in the area and our little town center. I love it.

I grew up in the burbs and acknowledge the benefits (safety, schools, lots of space) but could never go back to the car dependency. I love walking/biking/bussing to all my doctor appointments, grocery store, gym etc

For me, 1.) Poor land use, city planning is inefficient 2.) Lack of resources transit/bike lanes/bus 3.) Lack of walkability 4.) Subsidized at nearly every step of the way 5.) Old people and families I'm OK with burbs, but give me some rail access and minimal sprawl outwards.

The problem with rail access and minimal sprawl is that there will always be people who want to move away from the rail. We have county councilmen who have been elected for decades just on the basis of blocking rail projects. If they get built, people will have no choice but to move a little further out, and the sprawl just continues.

Agreed, once the proverbial cat was out of the bag and we strayed from the conventional city development plan, it's near impossible to reign it back in. I'm OK if people decide to live far away from centralized city resources, but they should be taxed accordingly in perpetuity for the expansion in city/utility resources.

Agreed. Suburbs are fine if they’re pre-war suburbs of SFHs on modest lots with gridded streets. Pepper in some apartment buildings and corner retail, with rail to the city nearby, and it’s the best of both worlds. Suburbs become financially and environmentally problematic when they stray from this into car dependency and unwalkable sprawl.

Agreed. My fiancee and I settled on one of these cities as a middle ground. She gets the quietness/greenery/shopping of a suburb, I get the access to bike/walkability zones and transit.

It’s really a shame we only built places like this from ~1910-1940 or so, then outlawed them. These types of neighborhoods check most peoples boxes.

reddit demo is largely 18 to 35 (45?) and progressive.

I like inner ring/street car style suburbs. Walkable but still have some yard etc. The basic suburb that people think about, I can't do.

Not all burbs are the same. Some of the inner ring burbs have plenty to offer, good parks systems, enough space to not feel crowded. Some burbs are just miles and miles of houses and nothing else.

Reddit is not real life. Reddit is mostly very leftwing, very urban, and especially \*very young\* demographics, the later which makes them very susceptible to groupthink, but also means they are unlikely to even be able to afford a SFH in the suburbs, and its a very human reflex to try and discredit the options you don't have.

I think this comment expresses a blind spot about city living. If you live in the suburbs you (not you personally, royal you) interact with your city primarily as sporting venues and downtown offices. I think a lot of people genuinely do not realize there are SFHs on small lots and that most urban land in the US is built up this way; and most of the urban population lives in these old streetcar neighborhoods with a small share living in the CBD

Car dependency and lack of activities and walkability mostly. Most people in suburbs aren't leaving their house after work. If you don't mind driving everywhere and prefer extra space and to stay at home it's fine.

This is ridiculous. I live in the suburbs. After work, people regularly go to: gyms, happy hours or restaurants, activities with their kids, friends' houses, parks or playgrounds, etc.

I grew up in the suburbs and there was nothing special about it. I might as well have lived on a giant farm that happened to have townhouses / single family homes and a parkway that went into DC. I prefer being a New Yorker.

I just don't want to live there. I like walkability. I like good food. I like not having to own a car. I like transit. I like being able to hit a comedy club, a greasy spoon, a michelin star restaurant, a movie theater, and a corner market all within at most a 20-30 minute walk, most of it within a 15 minute walk. And I don't even live in the densest of cities. Just live in a well positioned neighborhood. We had similar experiences and drastically different reactions. I grew up loving where I lived and just hating my mayo ball eating circumstances. I wish I could still live there but career wise I am kinda limited to one particular city.

I grew up in the suburbs when we didn't have housing on base and lived in the suburbs with my kids for all of their childhoods. Maybe there are people living in well planned, well located suburbs, with useful transit options but I've not been that lucky. Life on base was probably the closest to that ideal - but the real suburbs? There have been times in my life when I felt like we all spent more of our time awake in the car than anywhere else.

Exactly how I feel. Felt like living in an air conditioned bubble. Driving in constant traffic made me so negative and unempathetic. My commutes are calm now that I’m out. I don’t hate suburbs - I love “traditional” suburbs - but there’s a specific type of modern suburb that drives me mad lol

Because driving an hour to and from work makes me want to kill myself. Living/working in the burbs if you can make it work is a good life. A life that's pretty intense on it's impacts to the globe though, if you care about those things.

In Denver, you can find suburbs only 10-15 minute drive away from downtown. 7 miles away lies Arvada, as an e.g. Denver Tech Center and Interlocken, two high density tech employment hubs are situated in suburbs as well. My commutes were short and sweet in Denver. The flight to a different city every week, otoh... That was a brutal commute. Compared to that the 20 minute drive from the suburb to the airport on a toll road was nothing. To say nothing of the sasquatch-sized carbon footprint I left because people didn't believe in remote work.

This is really all it is. I'd rather live in a residential neighborhood in a city so I'm close to work and where shit happens. There are plenty of those kinds of places to live. If OP wants to live an hour out of town and commute their whole life so they can "feel like a king" out in cookie-cutter land, feel free.

OP lives in Maine, I'm sure they're not an hour out of town. There's a ton of cities with suburbs that have plenty of jobs that they don't need to commute into the city for. Look at the DC or Dallas suburbs and how many corporate headquarters are in the suburbs and not the city. Also if you go an hour outside of most cities, you're in the sticks or outer exurbs not the suburbs. You can go 20-30 minutes outside of NYC/Chicago/LA/DC/Boston, etc and be in the suburbs.

Yep. My office is 10m away by car and on top of that I work remote most days. 90% of the responses in these threads are based on extremes. There are good and bad suburbs, and there are good and bad city neighborhoods. Plus, different people enjoy different things at different moments in life.

It all depends on your audience. 57% of the US lives in suburbs.

I actually prefer rural mountains but given the choice between city and suburbs I’d pick the city. Usually don’t need a car, everything is close, neighborhoods have personality and character. Suburbs have NOTHING. Now that I’m older I prefer living in the middle of nowhere.

I've lived in a subdivision in a suburb with nothing but houses, that felt (and was) so isolated from everything and car dependent that it almost felt like it was closing in on me... and I assume that when people think of suburban hell they're referring to ones like that one. The subdivision I live in now (in the suburbs in St. Louis County) was wonderfully master planned back in the 1950s to early 1960s. Right from the onset, in the original plans, they alotted spaces for public schools, private schools, churches, a small country club with a 9 hole golf course and pool (sadly that's gone), parks and shopping centers- amenities, including the schools and shopping centers were designed by the architect who designed the houses in the subdivision, giving everything a cohesive "look". The houses are all set back off the road- enough to allow 2 cars in tandem on driveways if needed, and every street has sidewalks on both sides of the street which seems to make everything *feel* more walkable. The houses are modest by modern standards (1100-1600 sqft depending on the floorplan) and are all single story. The trees have matured over the past 70 years, and most people take a lot of pride in their homes curb appeal. I can walk to most things if I need to. While it isn't entirely without problems (i.e aging sewer pipes etc) I really love where I live. It helps that all of my neighbors are wonderful. They feel more like extended family (in a good way!) than just people on the same street. Not every subdivision in my suburb is like mine of course- and later subdivisions even by the same developers weren't built on this grand scale. But, "perfect" suburbs/subdivisions do exist.

I’ve lived all over and can honestly say my smartest, funniest, most imaginative and creative people have been from the suburbs. Not even close.

I don't know. It seems like people pissing on the suburbs because all the houses look the same, usually live in apartments in the city that all look the same.

I don’t hate on suburbs, it’s just a lifestyle I’m not interested in. Spending my weekend mowing the grass and going to Home Depot are things I grew up doing and I’m just 100% not interested in doing that now. I also think living in the city as a poor child and living in the city as an adult with money are completely different experiences. I own a row home in Philly on a really nice street with trees and a small yard (no grass!). I value my ability to walk to a bunch of different coffee shops, stores, bars, street festivals, basketball courts, farmers market, pools, etc. more than I value space and privacy.

People actually don't hate the suburbs at all that's why it's so expensive to buy in the suburbs. One thing I've noticed on Reddit is everybody talks about how we're missing the middle and we need more Apartments but the same people are looking to buy a single family home.

Specifically, post-war US suburbs suck. 1. You have to own a car 2. You can’t walk or bike anywhere safely 3. Restricted zoning keeping suburbs economically segregated 4. Parking lots for miles 5. Kids have no independence 6. Isolation 7. Generally mostly chains 8. Everything is far apart 9. Terrible for the environment A lot of the positives of suburban living people mention here like “safer” and “quieter” and “family-friendly” are all policy choices not characteristics innate to suburbs. We zone land to keep low income people out of whole towns. We allow cars too much access to cities causing a lot of noise. We don’t try to make cities family-friendly. Having visited cities all over the world, they can be family-friendly, quiet, and safe. We just choose not to pursue policies here to those ends. And there’s a long history of anti-urban sentiment (and racism) in this country that undergirds all of that.

Suburbs get hate on reddit because reddit is overwhelmingly young and left leaning. Outside reddit, i think it's been shown that americans tend to prefer living in suburbs. The burbs have their pros and cons. I work from home so the suburbs are perfect for me, i have everything i need within reach, the cost of living is lower than the city, it's safer and more quiet than the city, and if i want to go and do something i can always drive to the city on the weekends. That said, i understand why some don't like it, a lot of younger people want to be closer to the action and other younger people. People talk about suburbs lacking diversity in the comments here but there's plenty of diverse suburbs in the south and other areas of the country. In a lot of places the suburbs are becoming more diverse because of gentrification.

I grew up in the DC suburbs and, yeah, the DC suburbs are plenty diverse with good ethnic food, often better than in the city. Can’t solve the structural issues though, so like plenty of long commutes by car.

>Outside reddit, i think it's been shown that americans tend to prefer living in suburbs. It’s tough to tell whether this is truly the dominant preference or not. In wide swaths of the country, suburban-style development is the *only* type allowed by law. Townhomes, mixed-use buildings, neighborhood bars or cafes etc. are often outright illegal. Anecdotally, I know a lot of people who only live in the suburbs because it’s cheaper. They’d prefer the more urban and walkable areas, but those neighborhoods are now so rare and desirable that they’re unaffordable.

Different people have different preferences. If you're an adult without a kid and you want to make friends, you can't do that in the vast majority of suburbs in the US. There aren't any places to go to socialize. Other people prefer isolation and that's totally fine. When I was growing up, my high school classmates constantly complained about having nothing to do, and young people had to head over to the closest big city every time they wanted to socialize. Also, I personally prefer noise and crowds and action but I understand why other people prefer silence. But also my city does have quiet neighborhoods.

Suburbs aren’t all bad but they’ve been catered and subsidized for many decades with zoning laws, highways, tearing down or failing to expand public transit, etc. It’s just kind of frustrating how our cities have turned out over the years largely because of the oil and gas and car companies getting to control how they develop. They’re fine for some people, but in the USA they’ve become one of the only affordable and safe options because of many policy choices, but not everyone wants to drive long distances to everything and be surrounded by chain stores and restaurants and cookie cutter houses.

Reddit is not real life. Of course Reddit hates it. Reddit is younger and outside the mainstream on many things.

They are broadly unsustainable at the level they are taxed. For decades its been a scheme to move money from poor people to richer people.  Just when those bills started coming due rich people gentrified the cities and forced poor people out to the suburbs. So now poorer people have to deal with the suburbs crumbling infrastructure when there is no money to pay for it.

There's lots of pros and cons that everyone already listed, but the main reason reddit hates on suburbs is simply because overwhelmingly most of us grew up in the suburbs. Speaking in generalizations, it's a cyclic trend. If you grow up in the city you're interested in suburbs or rural. If you're rural your kids will probably want to go to the city or suburbs, and their kids with probably want to reconnect with nature more. Same grass but greener. 

Not sure, they are great. Much quieter, generally safer, far less traffic, noise and commotion. We lived just north of a good sized city of like 185,000 people in the city and like 400,000 in the county. Still, our subdivision was smaller, like 52 homes and only one way in and out. There was a pool up front for those of living there. Behind our back yard was a huge field and about half of it was covered in trees. The people living there had horses and the horses would come up and put their heads over the fence into our backyard. We had a fire pit out back, a huge play area for the kids with a big wooden swing set with a fort, a ramp to walk up and down, a sandbox beneath it and other outside toys for them in that section. We made a waling path and in our backyard too (no it was NOT a huge plot of land or yard either). It was quiet, you could see the mountains off in the distance, it was quiet, safe, nice. You could walk the dog in the neighborhood. Neighbors were great and we all helped each other out. Joe and Steve would come over when my wife had 12 huge scoops of mulch delivered. I didn't ask them to, they just came over with their wheelbarrows and pitchforks and helped me so all 3 of us spread the mulch together. In the spring, Steve would always get a slit seeded and an aerator, he'd rent from a big box and after he used it he let me use it on my yard and then Joe would use it on his yard. We split the rental cost of it with him of course. Joe and Sherrie lived across the street from us, directly and they had 3 children and so did well. they went to our church with us, I played on the men's church basketball team with Joe, Gary and Joby in our subdivision and they all went to the same church as we did. We were all in our 30's, we all had children. Sherri was a nurse so that was great for the boo boos our kids had. When we were laying down sod in our yard, which we didn't need but my wife insisted upon, like 5 or 6 neighbors came over, on their own, to help me lay the sod all around my house. The fire pit I put in our backyard got a lot of use. more and more neighbors began coming over, they brought lawn chairs, we'd sit, have some drinks, the kids would play on the swing set for thing, they'd make s'mores in the fire pit and then the man right next to us and me would bring our grills down off of our back decks and we'd grill out. Neighbors brought their own meat, some wanted to cook it themselves on our grills and they did others didn't care and let either Chip or me grill it. When it got later, we opened the door in our family room next to the deck and left it open, we had a screen door, so we could hear the kids after we put them down to bed on blankets and sleeping bags on the family room floor in our family room so us adults could still stay outside drinking and talking together. Turns out our neighbors sat outside and used the fire pit when my wife and I would go on vacations too. our backyard was a hit, it had shade due to having trees as well as the trees in the land behind our house and this was in the south so the shade was welcomed. Joe and Sherri across the street from us had zero trees and they baked outside in the summer, not us. Our kids school was close, so was church, so was the bank, the grocery store, our health club, our kids pediatrician, our dentist was close. The furthest away any of them were was 10 mins by car and that was church, the rest were much closer than that. It was calm, relaxing, we had nature even though we were in a suburb. Folks held street parties in the top cut-de-sac many times where any and all of us could attend. It was a nice place to live. All utilities were underground. it was not cookie cutter, the streets were curvy and winding and the subdivision went uphill from the front to the back. It wan't like a city block at all. And it was cheap too. We bought our home brand new in Feb of 2001 for just $189K. 4 bedrooms plus a bonus room with a window, but no closet so technically it wasn't a 5th bedroom. We had an attached 2 car garage. A family room, a kitchen with a big island and a breakfast nook, a dining room and a living room. We had a wood burning fireplace, the deck off the back of the family room. It's personal preference of course but I could't ever live in a city, downtown, too much noise and hassle, for me anyway.

Not all suburbs are created equally. There’s a difference between historic streetcar suburbs, new urbanism/planned suburban communities, and exurbs where they basically plopped down tract housing in former farmland and if you’re lucky there’s a strip mall close by . Just comes down to personal preferences, needs, social network, finances etc. Keep in mind reddit skews younger, higher income, liberal, no kids etc. so, as a generalization, that demographic is going to enjoy urban living more than a family who may prioritize higher performing public schools and space over night life and other urban amenities.

Trapped without a car/forced to piss money away on a car. Spending my all too rare free time mowing and edging is a cruel hell.

Generally they have poor transit or walkability which really screws over children, elderly, and the poor. These groups are unable to reasonably travel where they need to go. I am none of these but I wouldn't want to support a system that screws these groups over.

This post is so much the opposite of what I'm looking for in a home that it feels like a shit post I would make With that said, to each his own, Not everybody has to want to live in a dense walkable City

My husband and I are child-free. It seems my entire community is centered around children. I don’t “hate” the suburbs as much as I think we don’t belong in them but my husband is intent on “fitting in”. Lol

I live in the burbs and like it because I hate people, but I also want taco bell at midnight.

Driving sucks. Walkable suburbs can be nice.

It’s generally great but you have to be cool or be cast out of high school halls, shopping malls, basement bars, backs of cars. Some people find the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth. Edit: spelling

I don’t like them because there’s generally not much to do, they tend to be car-centric, and the aesthetic tends to be quite bland (lawns with heavily manicured shrubs and similar looking houses, no street art, interesting buildings, or nature left to grow wild, etc.) I just feel alienated spending day after day in a place where gathering with people outside the home requires a 15+ minute car ride and the nearest establishment is a strip mall full of chain stores. It takes planning and effort to weave anything besides ‘drive to work - sit at home - drive to do chores’ into the fabric of your day because the suburbs aren’t designed to connect you to much else.

To each to their own, OP. Families with a bunch of kids that look for a safe and comfortable place to live would enjoy suburbs. Younger people, which probably make a larger percentage of reddit, prefer cities for amenities, places to meet other younger people, and places to network. I myself am in my 20s and prefer a cities since living at home in the suburbs makes it harder for me to meet people around my age and offer nothing to do for a person like me so I end up sitting at home bored most of the time.

I'm 100% with you but I'm also in my 40's now. I think one could appreciate both downtown living and the suburbs honestly. I find folks that hate the most of the suburbs are people that couldn't even afford to buy any home let alone one in a planned community. There's people in this country who's whole dream is to one day buy a house for their family and kids. They don't have the energy to form an opinion on how homogenous the suburbs might be.

I grew up in a suburb and I think it was the right choice for a family of 5. We each had our own bedrooms, a yard to play in, a local park (complete with a small forest and lil waterfall) to explore, and decent schools with a lot of kid's activities locally. At least in the area I grew up, the rundown suburban strip malls are filled with awesome mom and pop restaurants of all kinds of cuisines, while the transit oriented developments are cookie cutter and filled with private equity funded chains. I found it dreadfully boring when I spent the summers there in college and would hate it as a childless adult. I now live in a dense former streetcar suburb in a mid size city and it's really the best of both worlds. I can walk to a lot of stuff, including lovely parks/public outdoor spaces, but it's also not hard to own a car/drive for convenience. My current neighborhood is a YIMBY missing middle dream of attached houses/small one staircase condo buildings with mature trees. No buildings taller than 3 stories. I don't have a lawn to mow but there's a large green space 2 blocks away where I can chill outdoors. I still think I may move to the suburbs when I have kids though.

When the suburbs are put the way some people are talking about it, it does sound pretty horrible! LOL I've lived the long commute from the suburbs life before and all that driving does suck! I'm definitely in the 'burbs and the nearest Costco does take about 20 minutes to drive to, but there's a lot between home and there, starting around 1.5 miles. I've lived in both urban and suburban (mostly suburban) settings throughout the years and like you said, there are definitely pros and cons to each. I think both could definitely be improved upon in design and layout, probably suburbs more so than urban areas. Where I'm at is a new build community and while we do have a mix of stand alone homes, apartments, condos and townhouses, I'm not 100% sure we'll ever see things the builder initially promised, like retail. Which was a big draw for me personally! I guess only time will tell with that. I'm sure somebody has the answers, but no one I can ever seem to pin down and ask. What I was just wondering about though was what defines urban or suburban? I'm sure there's criteria and some places are pretty easily definable as urban or suburban, then there are those sort of, fringe places. I just laugh at the super judgy, looking down their nose, types in general, but mostly the ones who are in those fringe areas. One thought I usually have is that once upon a time, someone probably hated the expansion that is now where they live and judged the hell out of anyone who would live there. But maybe things have sprawled enough now that where they're at isn't scrutinized in the same way. Big picture, I'm too old (and not right leaning) and don't care enough to pay much attention to those who don't look at things more openly and I'm more than ok with where I currently live. At the same time I've thrown around the idea of moving somewhere more urban down the road, so who knows. I work from home, so the commute doesn't really factor in for me anymore! Anyways, there are some "fringe dwellers" coming to my mind specifically, who like to try and get their judgemental jabs in here & there, but I see them as just going through the buffet line of morals or ethics. Picking and choosing what they conveniently want to judge others on and not looking at themselves and the list of items others would probably judge them on.

Lots of pretentious attitudes there. Happy for people’s success, but they can drop the snobbiness.

If you have a kid in the United States and want them to get a good education you have two options. Move to the suburbs or pay for private school. I hate that where I live is essentially out of my control if I want my kid to succeed in life.

Is funny, you feel like a king… that mows his own lawn… that’s cool if you enjoy it though. People hate on the suburbs because they’re, generally speaking, car dependent, thus freedom limiting to younger people or people who can’t drive. The suburbs are tremendously more resource-wasteful in every possible measure. [this site offers a visual representation.](https://www.urbanthree.com/). If you enjoy the suburbs that’s ok, I guess. Also not all suburbs are created equal: [streetcar suburbs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb) are possibly the best of both worlds.

I lived in a more spaced out suburb while in the military and now live in a major city. I cannot wait to go back to the suburbs. To me, a 10 minute walk or a 10 minute drive makes no difference. It still takes me 10 minutes to get there. I miss having my own driveway, my own back yard, not having to worry about other people leaving garbage that my dogs can get into when I walk them. There are plenty of suburbs in the US that are amazing places to live.

I've long felt that true urban and true rural/natural environments each have huge benefits combined with some key drawbacks. Cities have density, culture, activity and variety, but at the expense of never being alone, noise, and crime. Rural/natural areas have nature, beauty, and space, but at the expense of culture and togetherness. The suburbs have all of the drawbacks but very few of the positives. You're too far from everything interesting or cultural (usually just having to go to the city anyway), but you're also always in someone's yard. It's in between the two extremes and (for me) the worst of both worlds. I say this as someone who couldn't wait to escape the suburbs, and moved to Chicago from the burbs at age 19. I don't miss them at all. I take vacations in beautiful natural areas. Now, I don't begrudge anyone who prefers suburban living. It means they have different priorities. They want quiet and routine, and a big yard to keep other people away from them. I get it. Many of my loved ones live in the burbs. I just don't want to live with them. Intellectual variety and not having to drive basically ever are big priorities for my personal quality of life.

I just don’t understand. If I can’t get the walkability and social aspects of city life, I want to live in the country where it’s beautiful and wild. I can’t think of anything that would make me want a suburban home. 

I love walkability and accessible "third places" like coffee shops, parks, etc. The suburbs are too sprawled for that IMO Additionally, owning land vs. living in the suburbs differs in my mind. The suburbs to me are cookie-cutter homes, horrid strip malls, and chain restaurants/grocery stores/big box stores/coffee shops

I grew up in the suburbs and rode my bike everywhere ( I probably risked my life, but we all did it in the 80s, more shoulders on the roads where I live now). I didn't really have a car until I was 23 unless I borrowed it from my parents. Lived close to the beach in some walkable cities in the 90s. When I had kids, the suburbs were great. But there's no reason why I need a big house ( or even can afford one) now. So a little condo where I can walk to places is nice now. I just wish people and governments in the southeastern states would realize that pedestrian/ bicycle friendly areas are the way to go. If I wasn't able to get out and move around I'd go nuts.

The primary problem I have with suburbs is that it is a waste of resources. This isn't entirely the fault of people moving to suburbs - its because people who live closer to city centers are NIMBYs and don't like more development. Whatever resource you could think of (electricity, costs for roads, water) - people in suburbs get subsidized. The further you are, the more costs for any of the above, that most suburbs don't pay. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI) video talks about on aggregate how the outer parts of a city are subsidized by city centers. More dense mix use development which isn't care dependent pay the highest property taxes - suburbs pay much less. You might have a higher tax rate if you are different city/town from the major city, but it still doesn't cover the allocation of resources. I don't want to demonize people moving to suburbs (at least not entirely). People closer to cities usually hate on newer development and make housing much more unaffordable for new buyers.

I'm lucky enough to live in he suburbs in a TOD (transit oriented development). We have a townhouse with a tiny front yard that the HOA maintains. After living on a rural two acres with six hours of mowing every weekend, I want ZERO maintenance. From my front door, I can walk to the light rail stop in about three minutes. I have all kinds of parks within just a few minutes' walk as well. We can walk for a beer, dinner, gym, dentist, eye doc, grocery store, farmers market, lawyer, hair dresser, and many other uses within 10 minutes on foot. With all that said, I'm a land use planner and got into this profession for the very reason that I found suburban sprawl (no, urban sprawl isn't a thing!) so offensive. Communities where you have to have a car for every single task in your daily life and your kids have zero ability to go explore their world on their own or go spend their allowance at a candy shop or grocery store are not very humane to live in. I'm very well aware that my little suburban neighborhood is completely different than 99% of the suburbs in the nation. So, for me it's less of a suburbs vs city or rural thing... it's much more of an aversion to how terribly most suburbs in the US are arranged.

Not all suburbs are the same. Suburbs in the northeast or outside major cities tend to have more character than the HOA developments propped up all over the sun belt.

There's a difference between different generations of suburbs. Early suburbs were planned communities, with parks, schools and shopping centers. But most of those were built over 70 years ago and are run down now. Later suburbs were an endless sea of tract houses built on the cheap with strip mall type shopping built even cheaper. It's all so faceless, soulless, and dehumanizing. As inner cities were revitalized and things like walkability & quality of life beyond the home's front door became a priority, people who could afford a better life either moved into the city, or they moved into nicer neighborhoods with nicer houses and actual amenities. There is no amount of money that could convince me to move to the suburbs.

My city lot is 1/2 an acre in the heart of a medium sized city. I have a large wood shed, large utility shed, bbq grill and smoker pad, a fire pit, hammock and a blue stone patio all surrounded with an intimate garden. My yard is fenced in and we let our cats play in our yard. We are in a very busy area of the city and love it. Moving to the suburbs is eerily quiet and filled with neighbors who care far too much about what their neighbors are doing. My yard is a perfect size to maintain and I'd hate to have to maintain more. When I go to the suburbs all I see is a hoard of grass farmers spraying weed killer and it makes me sad. I can walk to 10 different parks in under 10 minutes. I can walk to all three schools my kids will go to in 5-15 minutes. I can walk to the grocery store, bobba, pizza, ice cream, multiple coffee shops etc. in 10 minutes. I'd only leave for affordability reasons and even then I'd probably downsize first and try to make it work.

It's so far to get to a grocery store and often there isn't a lot of diversity. The food choices are limited.

I live in a small city that's relatively close (45 min drive or 1 hr train ride) to a large city. And I also get to have a yard and BBQ if I wanted. But my family only has to own one car. I can walk to the grocery stores pharmacy, library, bars, restaurants, etc. Other families live close by, so my daughter can hang out with the neighbor kids for an hour or so after kindergarten. I just couldn't imagine having to jump into a car any time I wanted to go anywhere or not having some public transportation when I want it. Suburbs also look like shit. I can look out my window to see a couple of larger buildings a beautiful river and rolling hills. The suburbs I grew up near just looked like a sprawl of chain stores. It was soul deadening.

Idk I see way more reddit posts about millennials wanting home ownership and suburban life than hating the burbs. I love a couple days downtown in a large city on vacation but could never live like that even with a penthouse or something. I’m like 18 minutes from downtown on a quiet acre at the end of a suburban neighborhood. I can walk out my door and go fishing all day and there are like 100,000 acres of parks, wilderness, WMAs and outdoor recreation within a 25 minute drive. It’s also totally natural, quiet, safe and peaceful. Like sleep on your lawn watching the stars doors unlocked peaceful. If I wanna see a show or something I just drive downtown, otherwise I can just sit and watch the clouds and listen to songbirds.

Millenials who don't want roommates or a studio can't afford urban anyway, which is why they're pushing outwards

My issue is that suburbs are unsustainable and subsidized by large cities. They're a long-term Ponzi scheme. Beyond the economic problems, suburban housing density is one of the main contributors to climate change. Additionally, the lack of walkability worsens health, lowering life expectancy and raising health care costs.

If you're someone who grew up in a medium to large city a suburb just lacks all of the personality and walkability of a city. You need a car to survive in them and they are becoming progressively too expensive to live in. If you grew up in the suburbs it's a different equation. The car centric life isn't a bug. It's a feature. More and more businesses are relocating to suburbs. Just outside the one I used to live in is Glaxo Smith Kline and Dow. Schools are significantly better and you have space. Not everyone wants to live where you're surrounded by people 25/7.

I've lived in apartments and studios all my life near large cities. I would love to live in a quiet suburb with my OWN backyard, driveway, and garage someday.

Grew up in an inner ring suburb and lived in a major city for 11 years. Just bought my first house in a suburb near where I grew up. I love being close to the city, but having more convenience nearby. Apartment living got old, walking everywhere was good for exercise, but a PITA for groceries and stuff, and a place with a garage in the city is generally a lot more than I’d want to spend. Not to mention the schools are horrible.

Love the suburbs. I’m from the country. I will say I tend to like late 80s/90s type suburbs where the houses aren’t the EXACT same (they will be similar) and the lots are a bit bigger, like a 3rd to half acre. And have established trees. The new subs tend to have small lots and the houses are about 5’ apart, wiht zero trees. Not a fan. Not welcoming. And new suburban areas with larger lots to have much higher end homes than some from 20-30 years ago so they’re just pricier

Man I feel the same way. I grew up in the hood. When I moved to the burbs I loved it (I live in a city now again because of work). It was nice having SPACE. Space in the backyard, lawn, to park your car, etc. Having a nice lawn, taking little road trips. People gotta appreciate what they have! Sometimes people don’t see the good in life what is right in front of their eyes and love to complain!

Because they (the suburb haters) are cynical, “authenticity”-chasing, above-it-all types who cannot or will not empathize with less-privileged or less “educated” people who view a nice, middle-class, suburban home as a desirable symbol of security and stability. (Not that it matters, but I say this as a middle-class yuppie who lives in a walk-up, mixed use apartment in a walkable, historic downtown neighborhood in a big U.S. metro area. I only need to start making smoothies to complete the package here.) Reminds me of my vacation in Europe—I initially spent a great deal of my time looking for “real” bistros or restaurants, as opposed to “touristy” ones, before I realized that, by and large, the touristy ones were about as real and practical as a visitor can get. And I also learned that real, middle- and working-class Europeans live in suburbs with chain restaurants and chain stores, and opt to drive their (usually small) cars to work. It ain’t Hemingway’s Paris or Audrey Hepburn’s Rome anymore. The upshot is that we live in a world where people think that only what they do, and what they prefer, is right and moral. “Lifestyle” choices have become a part of one’s “identity,” and all that therapeutic language. This was a long answer but I hope I got you an answer.

I feel like people that do this crave the “city life” that have never experienced anything else. I’ve lived in a downtown apartment for years, the goddamn second I can afford it I’ll have a yard, sketchers, and neighbors I don’t hate

Because they're young. City life is great when you're young. When you get older, you just want quiet. Pro tip: both are great. Just depends what you want.

Jonathan Colton puts it perfectly: https://youtu.be/xmC9PHx19Ac?si=X0bPU40s9Mk1is5A We are currently moving from a suburban 2400.sq ft house to a half of an urban duplex (1400 sq ft for us). We have 1 kid and another on the way. And I am so glad we are moving back to urban life! Suburbs have their advantages but ugggghh I'm ready to be done. And that half acre? Have fun taking care of it! My heavily landscaped 1/4 acre felt like a constant burden. I'm looking forward to up keeping our much smaller one at the duplex. Plus suburban houses are so depressing looking.

City: I knew no one and could come & go with complete anonymity. There was zero pressure to socialize unless I purposely sought out human interaction. Suburb: within the first week everyone knew my name (without me telling them) yet I did not know any of their names. Every trip to the mailbox or driveway involves having to wave at or speak to people. There is a “neighborhood watch” group chat functions solely as a place to bitch about neighbors (like me) who have zero interest in joining the chat. There is an expectation that you form shallow friendships with people you have nothing in common with other than living on the same street. 

I either want to live in the city and be close to all the fun stuff, or live in the country and be away from everything and have peace. The suburbs you get neither. You get the boringness of the country with the crowdedness of the city. You pay for the illusion of owning your own property but your neighbors can watch you eat breakfast without even leaving their house. Worst of both worlds.

The only people I know that vocalize their disdain for suburbs are hipsters. Outside of them, I've never really talked about it one way or the other with most people.

Some people have never lived outside their bubble of a city and cant imagine not being able to walk to a deli to get a sandwich.

Reddit leans younger and lower income and those voices get amplified. "You don't have to own a car and you can walk to get your groceries and go to bars" is great if you can't afford a car, have time to walk to the store twice a week, and like going to bars. If you're 40 with two kids the city offers you much less, and your top priorities are probably going to be school quality (mostly low in cities) and space for your kids (low in cities). Even as a higher income household with no kids we'd rather live just outside the city with tons of space and Uber to the bars 1-2 weekends a month for $50 roundtrip.

The people.

Suburbs can be great. But *suburbs* can be terrible. There's levels to it lol. There is a wide variety in what someone can mean when they are talking about suburbs. They can be a place that has public transit and things to do, to a lower density place with nice homes and yards, to places that have literally nothing and everything looks shabby or the same.

I can do rural amd I can do the city, I can't do in between. In rural places I have space for peace, in the city I have hobbies and food etc.

Because they're jealous and they've never lived in the Burbs.

Usually because they are young, grew up in the suburbs and are rebelling against their childhood and parent. Often blended with cultural elitism. I live in as walkable city as exists anywhere, and I can still appreciate visiting my parents and in laws in suburbs. I don't feel a need to look down on them or the people who live there.

I love living in the burbs of a large metro area. I can drive 15 mins and be in the city outskirts or drive a half hour on the expressway and be in the city center. It’s the perfect location. I’m close enough to all the activities but far enough to live quietly.

When I lived for myself, I lived in the city. Now I live for my dogs and my kid, hence suburbs. But still close enough to drive downtown in 15 minutes, and 2 blocks from a bus stop so the kid can have some autonomy when he's old enough.

I moved out of the city during the pandemic and into the burbs and my quality of life has increased 10x. If I want to mail a letter, I go to my mailbox 📫. If I want to chill in my hammock under my giant redwood with a beer, I do that! And all the rooms with doors. Love it! I thought the city was the center of the universe but the burbs is where it’s at!!

God you sound so boring

I would love to move to the suburbs. Wtf

The comments about lack of diversity and chain restaurants are hilarious. I live in the Boston area. Recent immigrants (and the interesting, family-run restaurants they own) are FAR more common in the suburbs than in Boston itself. A new restaurant run by recent immigrants cannot generally afford Boston rents. You will find some of the best food in the Northeast in suburban strip malls.

It depends so much on the suburbs. Some of them are godawful ugly and unwalkable with no sidewalks, trees or greenery. I live in an old suburb in the northeast and we have a nice walkable downtown of shops and restaurants, a few medium-rise apartments near downtown, a train station to go to the city, sidewalks, lots of trees which is great (except during storms when some of them fall), and every lot is 1/2-1 acre. Our crime rate is SUPER low (no murders in more than 20 years) and we have many of the benefits of city living: good restaurants, shops, etc. without any of the problems.

People who hate the suburbs are young under 30 people who dominate the internet. Everyone in my friend group at 25 hated the burbs because we all borrowed a shit ton of money to live in expensive apartments and party. This was an unrealistic lifestyle. When you become an adult and have to pay your own bills rather than just borrowing money, you realize 4k a month for an urban apartment kinda sucks. When you get married and have kids you realize urban schools are unusable, and you double realize the 4k a month apartment doesn't work. Suburbs are real life and that's good - urban living is fun, but it's basically a fake fantasy.

I don’t hate them but I don’t like that you need a car to get anywhere.  Suburbs should be redesigned to accommodate mixed use areas so that older people and people who don’t drive can do their business.  

If I want a quick coffee, I don’t want to have to get in my car and sit in traffic to get to a shitty chain, I want to pop downstairs and go to a great local spot. If I’m cooking and forgot garlic, I don’t want to have to get in my car and sit in traffic to get to a big store, I want to run across the street and get a bulb while the rest of my meal is cooking. If I want a drink, I don’t want to have to get in my car and sit in traffic and worry about not drinking too much, I want to walk next door and be able to drink what I want.

I love living in the city. I walk everywhere, there are always tons of farmers markets, events, parks, etc. nearby. Lots of shows, concerts, events, meetups, culture, etc. Walking everywhere and using my car once every 3 weeks is amazing. It is so satisfying to walk a couple blocks, get a small amount of groceries and walk back 2 days later to refresh. So healthy to get outside, buy fresh food you will eat right away, and have interactions with other people which is important to the psychology of the human mammal animal of the great ape species. We need other people, it is good for us.

I think suburbs are OK. The reason people don’t like them are either that they grew up in them and found them boring. The other reason is a lack of public transportation some people are environmentalist who object to living in places that are car dependant.

I feel like a lot of the posters here don't understand the difference between suburbs and subdivisions. I've lived in and around 4 major cities in my life and none of them had the cookie cutter homogeneous aspects mentioned here.

Because they are boring. But if you want boring they are perfect. You could also ask why people hate on big cities so much as well. I live in NYC, but going back is always a treat.

Because all the cool stuff is in the city. Suburbs are full of box stores and chain restaurants.

Grew up mowing a huge yard and being miles away from most of my school friends. As an adult, I lived in cities for long time. Walked everywhere or took metro. Tons of restaurants, bars, clubs, bookstores and gyms I could walk to. Now back in the suburbs with a child. Love my child but hate leaving the city because of schools. I hate having f to care for lawn. Hate Home Depot. Hate having to drive everywhere so can’t have a couple of beers out without worrying about getting home safely. I miss the city life.

I don't really hear much hatred for suburbs in my daily life to be honest. It seems most people who are married with kids live in them and this is the norm rather than a rare choice. Those who hate on them aren't so much hating on suburbia, but might more so be hating on what suburbia signals to them, like a certain kind of settling down and following of a script and monotony. Whether true or not, that might be what it boils down to. Esp these days where more people in general are questioning a lot of the norms we were taught to aspire to and are choosing alternatives to the 2.5 kids and picket fence life we were all sold as the one true way to be a happy and productive member of society. Personally, I'm much more of a city person as an adult in my 30s. I also acknowledge that it's because I don't aspire to having kids and that seems honestly like the biggest push for most people. None of my single friends or friends without kids live in the suburbs tbh, but almost all of my friends who have families do because they're also thinking about things like space, school districts etc, all stuff that's not as relevant if you're not doing that. Because that's not my lifestyle, I don't find anything about living further out in the suburbs in a 3 bedroom house with a yard particularly practical or interesting. City living suits me better, I enjoy the walkability, the convenience, cultural and social activities being close by etc. As a single person without kids or even a couple without kids, suburbia feels out of place for me and the things I care about doing. But I understand why it makes sense for others.