Palm Beach, Boca, and Hollywood are not suburbs

Palm Beach is definitely not a suburb. Its not like people live there and commute to work somewhere else in large numbers. Boca and Hollywood I would say are "suburbs", at least as much as Brookline is. I used to live in Brookline and lived walking distance to the Prudential Center in Boston. Do people consider Fenway to be a suburban stadium? It is a couple of blocks from the Brookline border. If Boca and Hollywood aren't suburbs then neither is Coral Gables. Most of the suburbs that people have mentioned aren't true "suburbs" in that many are at least someone functional on their own.

Coral Gables was a master-planned community, built as an exclusive enclave for the growing city of Miami. It was envisioned from its beginnings as a wealthy suburb, where the University of Miami would be located. I don’t know how it could be considered anything else but a suburb.

Boca is just suburban by nature in its layout, but it’s not a suburb of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, or West Palm. Hollywood fits the ‘suburb’ bill more accurately, as it’s a beach town that has just been engulfed into the whole Miami-Ft. Lauderdale mass. But no one who lives in Hollywood would ever say, “I live in a suburb of Miami” or “I live in a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale”. Hollywood’s it’s own thing. South Florida is just unique in its multi-nodality, with its largest city Miami not really being the hub for the area, given its location at the “end of the line” and the fact that all the cities were established and grew around the same time without any of them being dominant over the others.

It’s just different there. Many residents of the “Miami” metro area wouldn’t even say they are from or live in Miami, when asked. People who live in Boca or Ft. Lauderdale or west Palm wouldn’t say they are from Miami. Maybe they’d say South Florida. Whereas if someone was from Coral Gables, they would definitely (and rightly) say they are from Miami.

awesome post! :tup:

thanks for the tour of boston suburbia.

these are the kind of posts that makes threads like this so interesting.

Yeah, even though Chicagoland's size gives it scale and plenty of great commuter burbs, we just can't hold a candle to that New England charm. Those are nice tours above, and I just did a tour of Brookline, too, which I have yet to see in person (and now I can't wait to!).

^ i don't know that it's necessarily about racing places against each other.

for me, it's about celebrating more traditional pre-war development patterns in the burbs wherever we can find them, be it 19th century new england towns absorbed into a metropolis or early 20th century railroad burbs strung like little pearls across the prairie.

the bottom line is that i just enjoy seeing places like these. and there are only 4 metros in the US with large legacy commuter rail systems that have been in operation since the 19th century where you see this pattern of large-scale railroad suburb development radiating out over giant swaths of the metro area in all directions (NYC, chicago, boston, and philly).

I don't know Stockholm well enough to get into its suburbs yet.

For Copenhagen, where I lived until recently, I always liked Lyngby; had I stayed, I would have considered living there.

It has a charming main drag area, a major transit hub, and some beautiful streets.

Main street:

https://goo.gl/maps/L4svT6j9eNcEdim88

Lyngby Church (12th century):

https://goo.gl/maps/aMnRHDD3itQCh1MHA

Quiet streets:

https://goo.gl/maps/cqjcPZ1tmC5Mgw7y8

https://goo.gl/maps/ukRTYwuxn4kKWMiU8

https://goo.gl/maps/aUUxrudCNrhdedEE8

Hellerup is nice too:

Main street:

https://goo.gl/maps/2WDb3UK1sdsVm1Zc8

Nice houses and small apartment buildings:

https://goo.gl/maps/JeHzFxdMaiMeakTYA

https://goo.gl/maps/SkTho7rZMNKUZN2o8

https://goo.gl/maps/1GCsoXcFCRcHPecY7

The beach!

https://live.staticflickr.com/8457/7...a0c48c0f_b.jpg

I totally agree, by comparing I'm simply pointing out the differences, no "racing" involved.

Chicago's burbs reflect the later time in which they were built. Hence the different architecture and layout, as well as the wider streets.

Boston's burbs reflects its own time. It's nice to appreciate the differences

I like Oregon City alot. The old part is like a mini Astoria. Its built on a series of hill will a lower mainstreet down by the river and a hilly gridded section full of great Victorian homes.

Yeah guys, this is a great thread. I’m loving doing Streetview tours of these Chicago burbs. Streetcar suburbs are some of the best places in the country. Agreed you’ll find the best and most extensive numbers in NYC, Chicago, Boston, and Philly.

Baltimore should have some great ones too, no?

I know it’s pedantic, but for me Brookline is a true suburb while Cambridge and Somerville are core Boston. And this is why Brookline is so special; Cambridge and Somerville are two of the densest, most uniformly urban municipalities in the US, whereas Brookline ranges from this level of urbanity (Coolidge Corner at 60,000 pp sq mile) all the way to genteel New England rolling country club hills (Oak Hill at a few $30 million estates per sq mile), and everything in between, all closer to downtown Boston than anywhere in south Dorchester or Hyde Park are. And all thanks to Brookline’s historic repeated rejections of Boston’s merger plans.

I’ll Streetview link these later for you, but some other nice Boston streetcar burbs to check out that 1Boston didn’t already list up:

Classic streetcar burbs:
Arlington
Watertown
Stoneham
Melrose
Waltham

Streetcar city?
Lynn

Best once independent city which is now a streetcar suburb to visit in October:
Salem

For NY
Greenwich, Ct is the grand dame.

LA
Laguna Beach is just mesmerizing.

Chicago
Gotta go with Evanston, lakefront puts it over.

San Francisco
Sausalito is impressive.

Any Philly people here? Lets see some Main Line (correct?) suburb pics

Chicago is well represented here, so I'll do some other cities I'm familiar with.

Boston:

I'll go with Waltham (I don't think Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville or Chelsea count).
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3688...7i13312!8i6656

Milwaukee:

Slim pickings, but I think I'd go with Wauwatosa. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0493...7i13312!8i6656


Bay Area:

Palo Alto has nice aesthetics: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4445...7i13312!8i6656
although it's a bit too bougie. At least there are no longer like 20 Persian rug stores on University Ave like there were 10 years ago. I actually liked the California Ave strip more (https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4263...7i13312!8i6656) when I lived there. Not sure it really counts as a suburb though given all the jobs there.

I also like San Carlos's vibe: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.5052...7i16384!8i8192


Madison:

Not really a suburb (maybe) but Stoughton has a nice little downtown: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9167...7i13312!8i6656

Maybe one day it'll get rail service again: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9178...7i13312!8i6656

^ Wow, neat. I'd heard of Wauwatosa but never been there. Very charming indeed!

Here is a Philly suburb. West Chester PA. It's not the Main Line, but a dense, walkable town for you to look around. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9597...7i13312!8i6656

I recommend Scrolling to the right along high Street up to gay Street.

where are you getting that 60,000 number from?

the densest census tract i can find in brookline is tract 4009 at ~29,500 ppsm. that's still extremely respectable for a burb, but 60,000 ppsm is another level of urban.

but yeah, brookline is a weird hybrid. the 7 smaller northern tracts are all quite urban in the 20,000 -30,000 ppsm range, then you have 3 middle tracts in the 10-15,000 ppsm, and finally the two large southern tracts in the 2,500 ppsm range.

that's quite a density spectrum for a 6.8 sq. mile burb . i can't think of any burbs in chicago quite like that. i mean, like you said, there are full-blown country estates in the southern end of brookline that are a mere 4.5 miles from boston city hall. you don't see shit like that in chicagoland until you're like 20 miles outside of downtown.

yeah, Tosa is a solid streetcar burb, with cute little town center (emphasis on the "little").

i'd also nominate shorewood for milwaukee burbs.

take a google drive north up okland ave., the main drag of shorewood: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0892...7i13312!8i6656

and shady side streets of tidy bungalows: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0942...7i13312!8i6656

thanks for the tour from the other side of the pond! :tup:

not being terribly familiar with european suburbia at all, i have a question for you. are there suburban areas in europe that display that typical north american streetcar suburban feel, like that side street in shorewood that i posted above?

you know, detached houses on long thin rectangular lots organized on an orthogonal street grid, grass lawns out front, no front yard fences/hedges, sidewalk separated from the street by a parkway/tree lawn, etc.

it seems like most of the time when i see suburban residential side streets from europe, the whole arrangement just looks and feels so very different.


i guess what i'm asking is the north american streetcar suburb typology exclusively a north america thing?

Wow, oozing with charm. Does this town have an sort of rail transit stop?