Pete Saunders | Corner Side Yard
About a month ago I asked a simple question on Twitter, hoping to get Urbanist Twitter’s consensus opinion. I posted an aerial picture of a residential neighborhood (see above) and asked, “is this urban?” I was quite surprised by the responses.
I removed place names, streets and other giveaways so people would have at least some difficulty nailing down the location. I also gave a few details that could help with a decision – primarily single-family homes on 40-foot-wide lots, each with driveways and detached garages. An apartment complex that can be seen in the upper right of the photo, and a street on the left side lined with attached duplexes. A commercial strip about two blocks south of the picture’s center. No alleys.
I wanted to add a poll, but couldn’t add a poll and a picture in the same tweet. But it’s also true I didn’t want to pigeonhole any responses, giving respondents their opportunity to explain. But when I did my analysis of results after 56 comments I couldn’t believe what I saw …
43 percent said “definitely suburban”
21 percent were classified as “leans urban”
and 18 percent said either definitely urban or could be “leans suburban”.
Why was I surprised at the results? Because the aerial photo was of the neighborhood I grew up in on Detroit’s Northwest Side. I’d always considered it urban, even if it wasn’t that in the dense New York City-sense. To me, it was definitely not suburban.
A lot of respondents nailed the neighborhood character – narrow-lot single-family homes arranged on a grid, built following World War II. Others quickly nailed the city, a handful even nailed the exact area. But even as they agreed on character, they disagreed on neighborhood type. Was the neighborhood "urban or "suburban"? On the urban side …
"Definitely urban, judging from street plan"
"I say urban because if it was suburban, then streets with rows of houses would be blocked off from the main road and they would not be in a grid pattern."
"What’s the scale of those lots? That looks like a pretty dense single-unit neighborhood. Definitely urban."
And then on the suburban side …
"I’m not seeing any commercial (not even a corner store). Looks firmly suburban to me, regardless of the political jurisdiction it’s in."
"100%. Grass, single family homes, driveways, detached. This is the definition of suburbia. What’s the case for urban?!?"
"Primarily single family homes, single-use neighborhood, driveways and multiple car parking spaces per home all point to suburban-style development even if it's near the city core."
Clearly, what is considered urban or suburban is in the eye of the beholder. Just like the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about "obscenity" in the Jacobellis v. Ohio case in 1964, "I know it when I see it." But maybe we should develop some consensus around what exactly is or isn't urban (and suburban), based on a uniquely American standard, so we can speak the same language on this.
I see four problems that need to be addressed when it comes to establishing urban/suburban parameters.
First: when people are talking about what constitutes urban vs. suburban, they're generally talking about density.
Second: measures of density can be measured on a variety of scales, and it's not clear who's using what scale when people make a determination on density. Density can be measured at the metro, city, community, neighborhood or block level, and what's distinctly dense at one level may not be the case at another.
Third: New York City has long been established as the singular definition of urban in America. However, it stands out as a huge outlier among American cities. Without question there, much of New York holds the most densely developed land in America. But not enough attention is given to the fact that New York's density is in part achieved because of geography -- islands and peninsulas surrounded by water -- as it is by any belief in the virtues of density.
The last point is the inverse of the New York anomaly. Less constrained areas grew without such limitations, in a nation that values wide open spaces. There's a great deal of regional variation in what's considered urban or suburban, and it's got much to do with each place's history, culture, and time and place in American development.
Take these into account and it's easy to see how everyone can agree about what they see, but differ on how they perceive it.
If I were Leader of the "Urban Universe", I'd propose an urbanity scale based on density. I’d respect the densities of Manhattan, and even New York’s outer boroughs, but recognize them as the outliers they are in the American urban context. Here’s what I would propose …
I think this encompasses a reasonable view of American urban density.
For what it's worth, using this scale my old neighborhood would fit under the moderate urban category, with about 10,000 people per square mile, or six dwelling units per acre. It’s a level of urbanism/density that’s quite common in the Midwest, and can be found in many cities and suburbs throughout the region.