[ericmay]

They’re wrong on the scale but correct in the essence. 3 miles away, no bike access, that means you’re driving. No shops, restaurants, or anything lives in the suburban housing area.

> there are two supermarkets within a 5 minute walking distance

That’s very nice and quite rare, especially for newer suburbs. Some of the older ones had a little Main Street or some grandfathered in stores and shops. Prices are extremely high accordingly compared with other suburbs.

[jjav]

> They’re wrong on the scale but correct in the essence. 3 miles away, no bike access, that means you’re driving. No shops, restaurants, or anything lives in the suburban housing area.

I'm still curious where all these suburbs are that have nothing but houses for 3 miles or more?

Was trying to find some examples and looks like Mesa,AZ is the worst in this sense in the USA:

https://www.planetizen.com/node/92835/americas-largest-subur...

Looking at it in google maps it is indeed sprawling with houses. But I couldn't find a spot in the various neighborhoods where one would be more than 3 miles walk away from a supermarket. The worst I came up with was 2 miles to a supermarket. But then I zoomed in and saw a restaurant only 1 mile away.

Not a thorough research for sure, just spent a handful of minutes on it.

But assuming the article is correct and Mesa is the worst of the sprawl and given I didn't find it easy to find houses more than 3 miles away from (food) businesses, I'm thinking the OP statement that "In American suburbs it's typical for there to be nothing but houses within a 3 to 5 mile area" is quite an exageration.

Am I wrong? Can anyone name a handful of these neighborhoods?

[lost_soul]

Take a look a the I15 corridor north of Escondido in San Diego county. There are neighborhoods there farther than 5 miles from services.

[jjav]

I looked at the mountainous (seems like it on maps) region between Escondido and Temecula.

That doesn't look like suburbs, although there are a handful of housing developments. But these are not in the outskirts of an urban area like a suburb, these are more rural and not attached to any city.

Yes, sure, once you go outside cities into semi-rural or rural regions, it's easy to be way more than 5 miles from shopping.