[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".