urban vs. suburban (and exurban?)

[megc]

I decided to move the topic on Astoria/suburban vs. urban here.

We definitely come from different perspectives, daisy.   

I don't consider Astoria to be suburban, and certainly wouldn't attach the term "suburbia", what with its strong negative connotations.  I've lived in what I think is the quintessential suburban area of the country, the single story tract home of Southern California.  And I've lived in Suffolk County on Long Island, which is also suburban bordering on exurban.  It troubles me to think that the presence of nature is thought of as distinctly suburban, whereas I believe there is nature even in the city, not to mention the inner city, like south central LA.  Squirrels and ants are everywhere, not to mention the ever present sparrow which lives in a variety of environments.  Pigeons are everywhere, too, and to me actually seem more of a city bird than anything. 

Astoria has single family homes, but those homes are also split into flats, and there's the big apartment buildings that are everywhere, even down by the park (thinking 23rd Ave and 21st Street), and even smaller apartment buildings (Ditmars near 19th Street).  Not to mention that set of giant apartment buildings near the power plant. 

For me, suburban areas also primarily bedroom communities, where goods and services are found primarily in the city further away, save for giant supermakets; big box stores are more exurban, but also suburban, so yes, Costco follows that (but as I said, I see it as an anomaly).  And the zoning is quite extreme in the suburbs, where residential and commercial don't necessarily exist one next to the other.   Suburban development eschews the concept of density, and is more accommodating to sprawl, although the exurban communities are more guilty of that.  There is lots of residential/housing in Astoria, but it's interspersed with commercial.

I also associate suburbs with "white flight" and for suburbs to be ethnically/demographically homogenous, which I don't find Astoria to be.  Sure there are cars here, but they are everywhere.  However, we don't have the ubiquitous cul-de-sac, which is another defining suburban element, I think used for traffic calming.  Suburbs also don't favor reasonable, if not convenient, public transportation, and emphasize car culture. 

I do agree that there are cities/towns in Queens that are more suburban, especially as you head toward Nassau County, which I see as fully suburban.  But I just can't associate Astoria with the term suburban.  I moved here with the perception that is wasn't suburban, but more urban.  Urban doesn't equal loud and fast always, too.  I think there are various kinds of urban, moreso than  suburban. Thanks, though, for your perspective.  I would be interested in hearing other views on this.


daisy said:

I grew up in upstate ny.  With lots of houses, cars, and huge department stores.  I feel in some subconscious way, I was drawn to Queens (not just Astoria) because it tends to remind me of life upstate.  I don't get this same feel from Brooklyn or the Bronx - although I'm sure the further you go out in these areas the more houses you'll find and the more suburban it will get.   Queens for the most part has more houses than apartment buildings (minus the new developments), parking spots next to those houses, and very huge department stores.  It is only now that the department stores are invading Manhattan but Queens had them for a long time.  Home Depot, Stop and Shop, Pathmark, NSW Warehouse, Sterns before Target, JCPenney, Costco, that huge Queenscenter Mall, etc.  I like Astoria because I find it's much quieter on scale than Manhattan (perhaps not Broadway but lots of other areas are quiet), people here actually know each other and smile on the street to one another, and it has a small town feel that I just don't get from Manhattan.  I lived in Manhattan 4 years, and it's nice and all, but I guess I felt a little isolated.  I've been in Astoria going on 9 years now, except for a short stint in Rego Park.  I've lived in a bunch of areas in Astoria and have traveled much of Queens by now.  Overall, this feeling I get is everywhere.  Yeah, there are sections of Elmhurst, Rego Park, and Jackson Hts I don't get this feeling from, but overall, I feel it's quite suburban here.  And considering the amount of wasps, ants, squirrels, birds other than pigeons, racoons, possums, and other animals you can see around here, it's suburbia to me.  People even hang their underwear out to dry on the clothesline here!  And for the most part, driving around Queens doesn't look quite so harrowing.  Also the holiday season here has a very small town feel as well.   The music and decorations and all.  Think opening scene in Gremlins.

But I stress that these are only my impressions, opinions, and experiences, and not everyone is likely to share them.  But hopefully, more than just me

[Harlan]

I think I agree with you, Meg. The single clearest aspect of Astoria that makes it "urban" and not "suburban" for me is that I can live here, quite happily, without a car. Farther out in Queens does seem to me to be significantly less dense, mid-20th century urbanism rather than late 19th-century urbanism, where cars really are necessary, however. But I wouldn't really call it suburban in the sense that the towns around Chicago are suburbs...

[megc]

This topic makes me want to watch Repo Man! 

[NYCMacUser]

This topic makes me want to watch Repo Man! 

I think it is exactly this, at least for me, that separates urban from suburban. The car.

It is not even feasible to own one in most parts of the City—meaning Manhattan Island. Most of Manhattan is now "No Parking/Standing 7 AM to 7 PM" so you have to have the ability to pay 2 rents per month; one for the car.

But small communities, like Astoria, are still car-friendly. I think we need a new word to describe what we are: something between urban and suburban. If Manhattan is urban, and Port Jefferson is suburban and Montauk is exurban, Astoria holds a rather unique place that is not the definition of any of the already accepted terms.

I *never* think of Astoria as urban. But, I also *never* think of her as suburban.

[anzubird]

But small communities, like Astoria, are still car-friendly. I think we need a new word to describe what we are: something between urban and suburban. If Manhattan is urban, and Port Jefferson is suburban and Montauk is exurban, Astoria holds a rather unique place that is not the definition of any of the already accepted terms.

there is a term- "outer borough"
of course, that is very NY centric.

But also, the beauty of cities is that they are not the same everywhere, so there are parts of the city that are all high rises and business districts, and parts that are mostly brownstones, and parts that are mostly small houses. Yet they are all parts of the city.

I am not sure how well your car definition works in cities other than NY. Mixed use and mixed income are good indicators too.

[okkichan]

Astoria is not suburban. Any place that has direct access to the MTA Subway System couldn't possibly be anything but urban. I've had stuck up Manhattan friends refuse to move to Queens because they consider it "suburban." I grew up in Port Jeff Station in Suffolk County, that is Suburban. Though the reach of development has begun to get as far as there now too. The soccer fields and woods of my youth are now all condo developements. And places like Great Neck, LI feel almost urban with their similarly styled brick apartment complexes, MTA LI busses, sidewalks filled with pedestrians and choking traffic. Who knows, maybe one day all of LI will look like the island of Manhattan.

what is this "exurban" term? something in between suburban and rural?

[daisy]

I know I'm a minority, but like I said, it's my opinion, experience, and impressions of Queens, not just Astoria.  Astoria is just one bit of the entire picture of Queens and what I was thinking of.  Queens is huge, and made up of many many neighborhoods.  I grew up in a very extremely diverse area of upstate ny, only an hour and a half north of here.  There are immigrants and many different colors there, and not very homogenous at all.   I'm not familiar with California or much of the rest of the USA as far as living there goes.  I find that there are huge department stores here, - and in Beacon, where I'm from, huge department stores are not that far away from where I lived either.  So I don't see a zoning conflict, at least up there.  In talking about Queens in general, there are tons of areas where having a car is absolutely necessary and at the very least helpful, and that would include many parts of Astoria.  If I lived near the park, as many people do, I would love to have a car, as many people do.   Anywhere near the water, and anywhere where the subway just does not reach.  Having to rely on a bus would drive me crazy.

Yes, perhaps as NYCMacuser said, there should be a term for something inbetween suburban and urban, because there are absolutely differences.  Beacon has bigger yards for example.  This of course is changing as people are selling their land just so more houses can be built.  But for the most part, excluding the new McMansions, houses are the same size.  Here they are more likely to rent out parts/floors of their houses, in Beacon - not so much.   And yes, I love that I don't have to have a car here if I don't want to - but am also very happy to be near enough to the subway so that this is possible.

I've never heard of the term exurbia until now, and am not sure what it means.  But I also don't consider where I'm from - Beacon - rural.  Therefore, it's suburban?  Not sure, but never liked labels to begin with, and don't automatically think suburbia is so negative.   And besides from the designated parks and planted trees in Manhattan I don't see much green there, not like here.  Not sure what to call Queens, but whatever it is, it's not that urban to me.

But either way, this is all subjective.  We are all of different experiences growing up, different perspectives on life, and such.   No biggie.

[NYCMacUser]

there is a term- "outer borough"
of course, that is very NY centric.

Waaaa, waaaaa, nooooooo I want something with a prefix and ends in -urban . . .

Let's see, we could be alterurban; antesuburban; circumurban; disurban;  ectourban; exourban; interurban; unurban . . . see anything you like? (BTW, I've intentionally left  double vowels together since it is no longer considered mandatory to hyphenate anti.

[lanseaux]

Daisy - you're from Beacon?  Jim and I were there last weekend!  We loved it - in fact, we were discussing just what Beacon was - is it a suburb?  Suburban?  Does an area have to be a true suburb of a larger city to be suburban?  We thought it was a little far to be a suburb, and settled on that it might be its own town or little city, with its own suburbs.  But I don't know.

I'd never call Astoria suburban, though.  It's a neighbourhood in New York City.  I also consider the accessibility of the subway and the ability to live without a car - even though Astoria is more car friendly than, say, Manhattan - part of what makes it urban.  Maybe it's a different urban than Manhattan, a different urban than Brooklyn (although not that much, really), but "urban" is not monolithic - in fact, it's defined partly by its very diversity.  So to me, Astoria is nothing other than urban.

[billyboy]

From megc: "I also associate suburbs with "white flight" and for suburbs to be ethnically/demographically homogenous, which I don't find Astoria to be."

I agree with just about everything you wrote, except that.  This used to hold true, but certainly not in the last 10-20 years.  You're finding plenty of black, hispanic and asian families clearing out for the suburbs.  Wouldn't even say "clearing out" is the appropriate term -- in their minds, it's moving up, and in many cases financially, it is, and a victory of sorts.

Like I've noted in previous posts, I believe Astoria is on the slow-developing arc of gentrification.  Rent and real estate wise, this started happening in earnest right around the turn of the century.  One day soon, we're going to turn around and find studio apartments going for $1,200/month.  In effect, you're getting a "white flight" to Astoria right now, albeit we're talking younger white people without families who cannot afford, or are slightly too sane, to afford Manhattan.

One thing to keep an eye on is schoolyards, especially for elementary grades.  Notice the racial demographics which, unless we're talking the specifically Greek schools, are predominately hispanic and black.  Gentrification won't be a true reality here until you walk by a schoolyard and notice all the white kids, i.e., when people who moved here in the past 10 years feel comfortable enough to have and raise kids here, which hasn't happened yet.  I have friends in Williamsburg encountering this now -- meaning they're from the suburbs, used to clean/nice schools, and shocked to death over how awful both the education their kids are receiving in public school, and how rundown/over-crowded the school is.  That's the speed bump in gentrification!

But I definitely agree with you on most of your points.  I feel like I'm living in the city when I'm in Astoria, albeit a more quiet/much slower version than Manhattan.  And I like it that way.

[Jtrane]

I, too, grew up in the 'burbs of upstate NY.  And I definitely don't look at Astoria as representing the suburbs at all.  We have relatively reliable public transportation here.  As was mentioned before, if there's decent public transit to get you to other parts of the city so a car is not a necessity, the suburbs it is not.  Now NJ, particularly Bergen County, has the NJ Transit commuter trains.  But these are not for just zipping around different parts of the county.  They run on a tight schedule, and usually in hour increments.  And other than using these trains to get to the urban center for work, a car is a necessity there.  The fact that there are more houses than apartment buildings, I don't believe, disqualifies Astoria from being considered an urban area.  The fact that there are so many stores, restaurants, etc. within walking distance, I think, designates Astoria as being an urban area.  Keep things in context, also.  Manhattan is the ultimate urban center in the entire country.  Although Astoria is less of an urban environment compared to Manhattan, there is no denying that it is still an urban area relative to most other towns in the entire country.

[megc]

The exurbs are indeed beyond the suburbs.  It has been said that Bush won the 2004 election with support from the exurbs and rural areas, which are all traditionally "red."  I recommend reading this artice from the NY Times:
http://tinyurl.com/held2

"McMansion" is a term often used when discussing the exurbs.  I also believe small towns and suburbs/exurbs are not the same.  Exurbs also contain the planned community full of giant houses on land that is small in its ratio of land:house.

I agree with those that say that the car is a defining element of whether a place is urban or suburban.  It is almost impossible to live in the suburbs and have a manageable life without a car.

I would agree the Beacon is a suburb.  And remember, Queens is a borough made up of individual towns and cities.  Brooklyn was conceived and developed as a single entity, a single city, with distinct neighborhoods.  Manhattan the same way. 

Perhaps the beauty of Astoria is that you can find what you're looking for.  daisy looks for suburban element and finds them.  I look for urban elements/non-suburban elements and I find them.  I will also say that I find Astoria has a lot to offer that a suburb could never off me in the way of transportation, culture, and sense of community.  As daisy says, it's subjective.

[mcw]

I'm with daisy, from my own experience growing up in a suburb of Chicago (where we did have public transport, by the way), Astoria does seem a bit suburban to me, primarily because of the existence of the big box stores.  It's also distinct from Manhattan, in my mind, which is more densely populated and is the definite urban center in this area.  Maybe precisely because I grew up in a suburb, I find myself recreating the dynamic of where I live vs. the "city."

I wouldn't call Astoria a suburb necessarily, but it's somewhere in-between.  Urban sprawl, perhaps?

[lanseaux]

mcw, what big box stores are you referring to?  Not trying to be sarcastic - I just can't think of any, at least in my part of Astoria.  That said, even Manhattan has Home Depot.

[mcw]

I'm talking about the ones along Northern Blvd and in other places - Home Depot, Best Buy, Costco - in the Chicago area, these are concentrated in the suburbs.  I was surprised to see stores like these in Manhattan.  Maybe it has to do with the reliance of most New Yorkers on public transport - in Chicago, it's fairly common to own a car, even if you live within the city limits.