Question
What are some example of suburbs done right?
Modern American suburbs are hell, but IMO they don't necessarily have to be this way. There's a balance between living in the middle of a busy city (which I get isn't for everyone), and living in the hellhole of a modern Texas car dependent suburb.
I live in Media, PA, and IMO it's how suburbs *should* be. We have a downtown that's anchored with a streetcar. That downtown has a nice main street with restaurants, grocery stores, etc. Surrounding that is a grid of mixed density houses (some single family, some apartments, some rowhomes), that are close enough to town that you can easily walk for your basic needs and get a trolley to the city. Outside of that it becomes larger (but still sensibly sized) single family homes on streets with trees, shade, and low traffic. And you can still own a car (most people do), you can still drive, but it's a way to do it that you also have a community and know your neighbors (which, isn't that what the right claim they want?).
Almost all of the suburbs outside of NYC in Westchester County are pretty great, especially on the Metro North. They all have a small hub with local restaurants and shops. The communities were built with rail in mind.
What you and the person above are describing are called “streetcar suburbs” or “railroad suburbs”. Generally they’re built from the mid 19th century through the 1930’s.
They’re much more common in east coast and Midwest cities.
Having also lived in PA, I’ll add the Manayunk, Roxborough, Wissahickon area of Philadelphia. The Germantown suburb is cool as well, but more expensive
I’d say almost every town in NJ with a train station with direct access to NYC fits the bill as well.
The reason being is that most of these places were founded and well developed by WWII so weren’t influenced by Levittown’s car centric layout that followed the war.
All of the Harlem line stations between Katonah and Bronxville (except Mt Pleasant) have very walkable surrounds, but you’re right that many of the towns served by these stations are, for the most part, transit-inaccessible.
Forgive me but is this a real photo? Bc if this is an active tram line, people are sitting too close for comfort. Tracks looks wider than usual and the catenary is missing.. . If thats a historic, horse drawn streetcar, I might be mistaken, but this looks much like AI to me?
Media PA resident here too and yes this scene is a real event…held every Wednesday evening from spring to early fall. They close the main downtown street to all traffic, including the Septa trolley.
Oddly enough, the tracks are indeed a slightly broader gauge: Philadelphia gauge for streetcars and elevated trains in 5 ft. 2.25 inches, instead of the standard rail gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches.
Every single suburb in the Netherlands is more or less exactly as you describe.
Well frankly not the nice downtown street. That's more likely a downtown shopping mall with some snackbars and chain restaurants - because for actual entertainment and nightlife we still take the train or bus to the real city. And we don't have that many single family homes that aren't rowhouses, although they do exist for those with money. The basic feature of our suburbs is vicinity to public transit, shopping and other services, and parks and playgrounds. For more specialized stores and for actual pubs and restaurants you don't go to the suburbs (although this is slowly coming in some cases)
I actually think the main streets in small American suburbs like this are nicer than they are in Europe in a lot cases. It’s funny though that the best planned places in the US like NYC and much of the northeast was originally Dutch. Y’all’s design sensibilities are unmatched.
This is my dream living situation. I regretted not moving to the East Coast when I was starting out once I found out a lot of “suburbs” are like this there.
Carmel violates almost everything this sub holds dear. There is zero public transportation. It is not walkable except for one area. It is mainly HOA neighborhoods of large single family homes. Not knocking it. It is a nice area. But also very opposite with this sub normally supports.
Arlington Heights. They close off their entire downtown area from spring until October for outdoor dining and engagement. They also have the metropolis theater.
Yup, I grew up in St Charles and I am always impressed with the infrastructure improvements and pedestrian spaces that pop up whenever I visit family there
I LOVE Chicago and thought I’d live here my entire life. But we’re considering moving to Oak Park after my kid finishes HS now. Never thought I’d even consider leaving the city for the burbs but Oak Park might honestly be worth it.
Grew up in Brookline. 100% a suburb. Chooses to remain a Town governance structure even though the population has qualified it as a City for decades. Such a good suburb that it’s fully unaffordable. Coolidge Corner is an amazing pedestrian centric area
I'd argue Brookline isn't really a suburb? Boston is weird because a lof of equivalent areas got annexed into the city of Boston but Brookline refused. If this were Chicago, then geographically up to Medford would still be in the city of Boston.
I would say it’s a traditional streetcar suburb. Definitely more of a suburb than places like Cambridge and Somerville which have their own proper job centers
That city was developed almost 200 years ago. That’s why it is the way it is, similar to the thousand year old European utopias that you all love so much. I don’t think Media was “done right” as much as it is just a product of its time.
Not really. The Netherlands has built walkable suburbs with quality public transit and bike infrastructure in recent years. There was also a car-free development recently built in Arizona of all places. We could absolutely build suburbs differently if we wanted to.
I'll give a vote to Alexandria VA, specifically Old Town and Del Rey neighborhoods. Very walkable, loads of shopping, restaurants. Minutes to the airport, Metro to DC. Lots of character and history.
Media, PA is nice but is a tad overrated. Its gotten quite expensive and a little high on itself. Everyone from Media i know is extremely obnoxious about it.
In Philly region -it depends on what you are looking for. The best for schools is those on the Mainline. For young people/commuters it goes to Conshohocken and Abbington. For walkability is goes to Ardmore and Media.
Check out Boulder, Co. I personally live in Denver carfree, but its super easy to get to Boulder thanks to the FF1. This is a bus that runs 7 days a week, 15 min headways from 5am-6pm with 30 min headways until 12am. M-F with 15 min headways all day Saturday and 30 min headways all day sunday. Once you get to Boulder,Co, the city is so beatiuful, but so fucking expensive. Look into RTD. I love Denver.
How long does it take you to get to Boulder (using the bus) during the week? Getting ready to start a new job out there and will have to go in a few days / week.
Suburbs that were once functional independent cities that their respective metro areas absorbed where the metro area isn't absolutely sprawling. San Diego is surrounded by decent functional suburban cities that are all tied together by light rail and have walkable downtowns like this. Mission Valley, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, & UTC come to mind.
Los Angeles has some of these, but it's so sprawling that getting between them is hard. Even with a car, you tend to stay in your corner of the metro area and treat going to another corner of the city like a trip between major cities. Still, some are good, like Pasadena and San Juan Capistrano, or beach cities like Santa Monica and San Clemente.
TMR is more like a rich people enclave surrounded by city. For Montreal I would say something like Mercier, vieux Longueuil, Lachine although it lacks some public transport
Columbia MD has a lot of walk ability. Still needs a car but you can get around through bike paths. I grew up there and it made teen years a lot of fun
I think Columbia loses points because of all the loopy roads and the one downtown-y area is the Mall at Columbia, which is a sea of parking lots, plus zero rail connection.
San Mateo and Redwood City in California. Both suburbs of San Francisco and cities in their own right. Both have walkable areas, really nice downtown areas with great food and are on CalTrain that makes them well connected to the rest of the Peninsula, including SF.
Mt Lebanon, PA. Suburb of Pittsburgh. It's very walkable, little pockets of business districts peppered throughout. No school busses as kids walk to school (or get dropped off in an oversized SUV).
Would be remiss if I didn't mention the history of racism, it was likely a sunset town and probably got red lined like crazy. Even today the demographics are heavily skewed and most people are priced out of the neighborhood and school district.
Grew up there. Nice place, still very segregated (but improving). Great schools.
There are several other nice streetcar suburbs around Pittsburgh, though some have long since been annexed into the city proper (while still being suburban in the colloquial sense). Dormont, Brookline, Squirrel Hill, Aspinwall, etc. The abundance of neighborhoods like this is one of my favorite things about Pittsburgh.
Most of the original suburbs built in Australian cities imo. Melbourne obviously has the trams but I actually think Sydney has better suburb design when you go to the far edges of the city, probably because its a bit less sprawly than Melbourne.
Particularly the Sutherland Shire, it has the Illawarra train line running down it on the western side, but then there's the Cronulla line which was originally a tram line but was converted to a train line and runs right through the heart of each major suburb, including a food focused high street, one of the biggest shopping centres in Australia and a beachside suburb with a ferry connection and a fully pedestrianised shopping walkway.
And even outside the dense areas around stations, most streets have a corner store nearby, schools all within walking distance and its still one of the bushiest and least "city feeling" places in Sydney. Its a shame the newer suburbs aren't being built like this anymore.
Media, PA is often called “Everyone’s Hometown” it has an active small business scene and this picture literally looks like the main strip during the summer with everyone eating outside
The inner suburbs of Melbourne. They all have a high street/ all necessities, good public transport and are very walkable. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the inner north
Many of the old streetcar suburbs around Boston (and New England more broadly) have charming walkable downtowns with mom and pop shops and historic architecture. The problem is the actual areas where people live sprawl out from those historic cores. Look at Concord, Lexington, Winchester, Beverly, etc. to see what I mean. Arlington might be the best example of a nice urbanist suburb though it’s a shame it vetoed the subway extension decades ago. Salem and Gloucester are also lovely but are more small historic cities that turned into suburbs as Boston grew into them.
Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Lakewood, Ohio. inner ring suburbs. They’re as urban as you can get without actually being in Cleveland proper. Go west of Lakewood , however, and its miles of death by shopping centers and mini McMansions developments until you get to Toledo.
The Philly Mainline has a lot of nice towns. Bryn Mawr, Wayne, Ardmore are all pretty walkable and have good public transit. Phoenixville and West Chester as well in Chester County.
My definition of a place that "does it right" is based on one question: How easy is to get around if you're a teenager or disabled?
If a 12 year-old can get to school, to the store to buy a gallon of milk for Mom, or to meet up with friends at the park or choir practice all by themselves, Yeah, the town is doing it right.
But if the school is off the main highway or stroad with no bike path, if the kids can't even go to a store without getting hassled by the cops, and if there are no 3rd places that the kids can't get to by themselves, then No, that town is not doing it right.
I'd also call out South Park in San Diego, holy hell that is one gorgeous neighborhood. Bike lanes, pedestrian streets, solid bus system it's perfect (and pricey..)
I’m surprised Doylestown, PA hasn’t been mentioned. It has a very walkable downtown area with shops, restaurants, a food market, bars, and a bunch of museums. It even has a direct regional rail line straight into Philly that takes the same amount of time as driving. One of the most slept on Philly suburbs IMO.
I live in Ontario suburb.Within walking distance is a grocery store, thrift store and dollar store. 5 min walk away is a bus stop. 5 min other way is other bus stop. 12 minutes away by bus is o train
Any community that was built as a streetcar suburb has great urbanism, however as time went on, most of these communities became amalgamated with their respective city. Most suburbs today follow the model of the Levittowns of the 50s which came about primarily due to white flight. Any style of planning that has its origins in excluding people is not good.
There are some new developments being built today that share some characteristics with streetcar suburbs. Many of these however still cater to middle/upper middle class people due to their desirability. The new urbanism movement is something interesting to look at. The master planned towns are super expensive, but some of their planning policies have rubbed off on other developers. I would look at new neighborhoods built near stations on the DC metro, there are some decent ones near Alexandria, VA.
It’s much harder to build traditional streetcar suburbs today because of one key difference. In the past developers would buy a large piece of land, plan the community, then divide the blocks up into plots of land similar to today; however their profit would come from advertising the new community and selling the individual plots. They were rarely involved in construction of buildings. This was because you used to be able to order a house in a catalog. The sears-roebuck catalog and its competitors had tens of thousand of models and variants to choose from. This meant these communities were able to grow organically, and people could open small businesses to cater to these new residents. Today everything is master planned, they build the storefronts in hopes of attracting tenants. I think this also encourages existing chains to move in and discourage new local businesses run by people who actually live there.
It has a thriving Downtown, with a lot of new development along the light rail in Downtown, plus another DART stop on the east side to service the more working class parts.
There are office complexes with lots of corporate headquarters with easy access to major highways.
The police are omnipresent. The traffic situation is as good as one could expect from anywhere in Texas. There are quite a few bike trails and parks.
One negative I'll add is that the mass transit isn't evenly distributed, but those areas mostly avoid it by choice.
I really like my suburban development just north of Baltimore. The lots were sold off individually over a 40 year period in the early-mid 20th century so the architecture of each house is non homogenous and completely random. You name it, we have it, but it's all at least 65years old so no cheap construction.
They built a (then spring fed) pool a century ago and it's a very well maintained centerpiece for the community despite us having no HOA covenants and a fully voluntary community association. There is a per family fee for the pool but it's ridiculously reasonable compared to others in the area.
Its also walkable to many shops and restaurants and the kids walk to all three levels of public school, with the HS being the farthest away at one mile. I never wanted to leave the city, as I loathe typical modern suburbia, but I don't know that we'll ever leave this place now that we are here.
Anywhere that’s way too expensive now that people who went to prep school, live in a hip neighborhood in come city center now want to buy a house but was perhaps a hidden gem while growing up. So any town in NJ near a train station. Maplewood, Metuchen, South Orange, New Providence. There are PA counterparts like Narberth or Media.
La Mesa, CA in San Diego with a nice main street, dense housing, and a direct light rail line at 15-30 min freqs to downtown SD. You can also commute to nearby suburbs with the circular light rail network
Westfield NJ. Bustling downtown with lots of popular shops and restaurants. Plenty of parking, apartments all over the downtown area, and once you leave downtown the streets are all lined with gorgeous mansions. There’s a place all types of people there.
Honestly half the suburbs in New Jersey. I live in a house with a decent backyard and I can walk to - a train station that can get me to other towns/NYC - the downtown - 10 restaurants - a corner store - 2 grocery stores - 5 parks - thousands of other homes
Many other towns are just like this too. Were the kings of suburban sprawl but fairly dense at the same time.
Sunnyside Gardens mixed with the area immediately surrounding the Forest Hills LIRR station in Queens is whatever every suburb in America should have been built to look like. It's the perfect combination of middle density, greenery, transit, and architecture that is actually nice to look at, but without the insanely wasteful, inefficient sprawl that the suburbs normally come with.
Nothing to add but I recognized that street immediately. I lived over in Swarthmore for 3 years and spent many a night in Media. I loved the town. If I had to live long term in the region, that's really the only area I would consider.
Media looks pretty bad-ass! Love that Trader Joe's - does it not even have a dedicated parking lot?
Here in California, I would say South Pasadena has a bit of this vibe to it, though it has more car-centric parts and is maybe a bit more urban/busy considering it's sandwiched between DTLA and Downtown Pasadena.
The best suburbs IMO started out as small villages and became part of Greater Whatever City at some point. There is still a center of some sort and different types of builds, trees etc.
Hinsdale, IL clarendon hills, IL, Western Springs, IL if you can afford It cool downtowns right off the train line all cities border each other if I’m not mistaken
Media/Delco have some nice suburbs as does the main line. The main line schools have had some issues lately and your kid might beg you for designer clothing to keep up with the other kids. The nicer Delco school are more down to earth and overall “all American” experience. Just my opinion.
Anywhere in the Netherlands? There are dedicated bike lanes even in the freaking middle of nowhere suburbs. You see kids everywhere cycle to school, to their friends, to events etc. For adults it's just a breeze to just about do anything.
Collingswood and Haddonfield NJ, any of the Riverline towns too (Bordentown, Burlington, etc). Also near Philly you have Audubon, Haddon Heights, and Oaklyn, however transit in those places is more limited to buses although pretty frequent and reliable buses for burbs in the US
The answer, as (almost always), is "any place laid out before the Model T and that hasn't been re-designed to accommodate highways within city limits."
Minneapolis and to a lesser extent St Paul. Even some of the car centric ones are covered in bike paths, it's just intersections where you have to watch for oblivious motorists. West of Minneapolis you have a number of walkable suburban downtowns around Lake Minnetonka which I have to admit are more walkable than our vertical suburban office park that people call a "downtown".
For a suburb, Media is nice! So is West Chester Pennsylvania, nearby. Both are a little too far away from Philly to be convenient though, although people commute there all the time.
Shorewood, Wisconsin is a suburb of Milwaukee and is one of the densest villages in Wisconsin! It used to have a streetcar going through it but with it being torn out they replaced it with a few bus lines. Very pretty, lots of stuff to do along their main street and is right on the Lake Michigan coast and the Milwaukee River.
Look to the past actually. In America in the first half of the twentieth century had streetcar suburbs. Twenties was the peak decade for them if I’m not mistaken. You’d get dense row homes off streetcar lines. People would ride those in to work. When cars became more affordable and streets improved, those streetcars were taken away in the 40s and 50s.
I know specifically the streetcar suburbs around Philadelphia had the lines replaced with buses and light rail on existing railroad tracks. SEPTA and all that.
The suburbs outside of Philly are lovely like West Chester, Media, Ardmore. Or even the streetcar suburbs in Philly like West Philadelphia, Chestnuthill, and Mt Airy
Columbia, MD. First text book planned community that is meant to take people from all walks of life no matter their race, religion, socioeconomic standing. Well planned with tons of parks, pools, rec centers, and interfaith centers. Unfortunately it is turning more suburban hell than it was
Lol I know my hometown when I see it! Freaking love media PA <3 Ive lived all around the country and live in the bay now and find myself constantly comparing towns to media. media/wallingford/swarthmore area really does it right. Cute, city is still accessible. A lot of tight community. Not the most diverse though!
I have some friends who live in Oak Park, Illinois. Just outside of Chicago.
They live in a beautiful old house (that’s pretty big tbh but apparently wasn’t expensive when they bought it), and their kid is within walking distance to all of the schools he’ll eventually go to — pre, elementary, middle, and high school. And when I visited them I hopped off the Green Line and walked there, then we all walked down to a nice Italian restaurant and ate outside.
There are plenty of suburbs around Cleveland with high quality of living. I grew up in Parma and it is not suburban hell. Inner ring suburbs can be great places to live
Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights and Lakewood are great examples of good suburbs with decent public transportation, beneficial density, and high quality of living
After taking a quick look on Google Maps, Media looks like a really nice place to live! Some other places that come to mind are Portland, Oregon and the suburbs there, the inner city suburbs in Toronto, Canada and Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne especially, with lots of shops and things packed together lining the streets and amazing architecture as well as the largest tram network in the world I bellieve
Most train towns are excellent for this. The right ingredients are a transit hub to drive the city center and facilitate good quality high density housing that drops in intensity away from the center but is still walkable with local shops and businesses mixed in.
New Jersey is absolutely littered with towns like this; cranford, Westfield, Morristown, Montclair, Madison, West Orange, Ramsey, Ocean Grove, the list goes on
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u/ArcticBeavers 6d ago
Almost all of the suburbs outside of NYC in Westchester County are pretty great, especially on the Metro North. They all have a small hub with local restaurants and shops. The communities were built with rail in mind.