| These is no definition of "suburb" just as there is no definition of "downtown". A suburb is just a part a city with less dense housing. You have: 1. Legal boundaries of cities, which are dependent on the state. Each state has a constitution that determines what the requirements are to be a city. Maybe it's only 10 signatures and filing fee. Maybe it's much more. There is also a well defined process for extending the boundaries. Outside the city you have unincorporated areas, but that's like places where you have to get water from a well and use a septic tank. That's not suburbs, it's country. 2. Because 1) is so random, government statistics office come up with their own definition of "statistical areas". There are metro-statistical area, and micro-statistical areas, and even these depend on which agency made the list. 3. Realtors keep their own definitions. 4. Things like advertisers and business have their own definitions depending on industry (e.g. media markets) 5. locals have their own definition. At the end of the day, you have to pick a list and work with it, knowing the pros and cons and how that affects your methodology. |
I think it's easy to overestimate how much you know about other states.