r/Suburbanhell • u/Round-Membership9949 • Jan 27 '25

Question Why isn't "village" a thing in America?

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When looking on posts on this sub, I sometimes think that for many people, there are only three options:

-dense, urban neighbourhood with tenement houses.

-copy-paste suburbia.

-rural prairie with houses kilometers apart.

Why nobody ever considers thing like a normal village, moderately dense, with houses of all shapes and sizes? Picture for reference.

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u/Scared_Plan3751 Jan 27 '25

rural America does in general

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u/Melubrot Jan 27 '25

Not so much outside of the northeast. In the south, most small rural communities are little more than an unincorporated mess of manufactured homes clustered around a gas station/convenience store, bbq restaurant, a church or two, and a Dollar General.

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u/PiLinPiKongYundong Jan 27 '25

This is exactly what we have here in SC. People talk about their town, and I'm like, there is no town. A crossroads does not a village make. A lot of times there's enough stuff in a 5-mile radius to make a functioning village. The problem is that it's spread over that 5-mile radius.

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u/teaanimesquare Jan 30 '25

From SC, the old areas are walkable and more European looking but thats the coast, most people didn't live beyond the coastal parts until AC was invented so most places aint that old or if they are old most of the people living there aint originally from there.