[larryett]

It is absurd to say there is no place to walk in the suburbs. People just walk on the suburban streets. Most suburban streets are obviously not the highway. I just got back from a walk in the suburbs and passed 5 other people out for their morning walk. I don't think I even passed a car.

My impression of mall walking is that it was largely used by people when the weather was bad.

[bluejekyll]

One thing missing in a lot of suburban places is the ability to walk to do chores.

Out of curiosity, what destinations do you have within 15 minutes of walking? Can you buy milk? Go to the bank? Have access to a coffee place? Etc.

It’s nice to have walking paths, but so many new developments in the US seem to actively make walking a poor option (beyond exercise). The roads in many of these areas even if there is a store nearby are upwards of four or five lanes across, and then the stores are setback behind huge parking lots without much protected walking from the street to the store.

[eropple]

> One thing missing in a lot of suburban places is the ability to walk to do chores. ... what destinations do you have within 15 minutes of walking? Can you buy milk? Go to the bank? Have access to a coffee place? Etc.

This represents in part a terminology clash, I think, and I think it impacts the discussion a lot. "Suburb" means different things in different parts of the country. I live on the edge of what you'd call "suburbs" around Boston, and yes to all of these; my morning routine is to walk about 7-8 minutes down to the nearest convenience store for a morning beverage and maybe a bagel. It's next to my bank, across the street is a coffee shop and a couple of nice bars. Maybe five minutes past that is a liquor store, an Indian food market, and my auto mechanic.

I can be in downtown Boston, by train, in 30 minutes, but unless I throw on a backpack and walk 2.5 miles round-trip I'm not going to the hardware store or to a full-size grocery store. Which I do, when I have the time, but here's where the overlap with more conventional "suburbs" happens: when I'm walking somewhere, nobody else is. It's totally doable and totally reasonable, even in bad weather, but the locals don't have that mindset, so they don't do it.

Much of what folks like Strongtowns talk about is actually represented pretty well in my New England town, but we're the "burbs" because we're outside the city proper. On the other hand, I've been to places like Des Moines, IA, and the suburbs are just car parks as far as the eye can see.

[jjav]

> One thing missing in a lot of suburban places is the ability to walk to do chores.

Within 15 minutes walk of my very suburban house there are two supermarkets, two pharmacies, many restaurants (some fast food but also real restaurants), multiple coffee shops, movie theaters, library & post office, hardware stores, other misc stores, multiple banks & credit unions and other things I'm forgetting to list.

One question I've asked in these threads in the past is where are these suburbs where you can't get to anything except by driving half an hour? I'd be curious for specific place names that I can look up in maps to get a sense of what they're like. Because having mostly lived in suburbs, I've never experienced that. There's always walkable destinations in all suburban areas I've seen. Could someone post a few addresses of these unwalkable suburbs?

I've also lived in a rural area, and yes there a car was essentially a must to go anywhere. I could and did sometimes walk (was young and bored) but it was more than an hour walk to anywhere. But that was definitely rural, we had many acres of forest, certainly not a suburb.

[niftich]

Norfolk / Virginia Beach, VA:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/36.7727569,-76.0409875/Harri...

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/36.7651538,-75.9875131/ALDI,...

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/36.695792,-76.2014209/Harris...

Charlotte, NC:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.1699757,-80.7776553/Publi...

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.3178445,-80.8026925/Food+...

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.1256141,-80.764483/Harris...

Oklahoma City:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.5530786,-97.5514845/Walma...

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.4038959,-97.5743727/Cash+...

Las Vegas:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/36.2812358,-115.1554982/Smit...

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.9958535,-115.1523847/Walm...

[jjav]

Great links, thanks!

The North Carolina ones I wouldn't quite consider a suburb, given the large forested areas and huge lots, that's pretty rural already.

The VA and OK ones are good examples! At least the roads seem nice for cycling.

Las Vegas seems particularly hellish, with the heat probably wouldn't even cycle these routes.

[niftich]

Perhaps it's a terminology issue. No one in the visible map frames of the Charlotte links would consider themselves to live in a 'rural' area. Sure, their neighborhood might be pleasant and quiet, and there's abundant tree cover, but the mapped path is alongside houses the entire time. The linear density is high. In a rural area, there exist lots with generous road frontage that interrupt the linear sea of homes.

This is a nearby area that those residents would agree is rural: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3612637,-80.3818699,5696m/da...

[jjav]

Yes, there is certainly terminology ambiguity on what "suburb" is.

To me the huge lots, big setbacks of houses away from street and major forest cover, isn't a suburb. The new link you posted seem more like farmland, not rural housing.

To me a suburb is where houses or townhouses (but no highrises) are packed next to each other in small lots.

But yes, it would be useful to have more specific definitions of housing densities instead of dumping everything that's not farmland or Manhattan into "suburb".