Comments on: What is Suburbia?

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:52:52 +0000

Good comment Eric. Hamo, it raises for me the question of how you’ve often spoken of suburbia – as if many of us aspire to be here or even have a choice. I enjoy your comments because they provoke thought and challenge my assumptions but, for me, urban and country living are actually aspirational. As one of the 80% of Aussies in the cities, I’m stuck in the burbs.

Which brings to mind Tom Hanks in The Burbs.

Look forward to your journey into the soul of suburbia.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:51:04 +0000

I’ve often thought it odd that people refer to suburbia as if it’s something different. Like Perth, most of Adelaide (where I live) would be described as suburban – one asks “what suburb do you live in?” – so I’ve thought of it as the default location, with the urban core as the ‘different’ place.

From what I’ve read, many US cities might be different in this regard, with larger urban areas and with poorer people living in urban areas while in Aust the outer suburbs tend to be poorest.

I have a keen interest in geography, and have written a couple of articles on where geography meets mission. (lots of maps, inc one of Perth)
http://home.exetel.com.au/eric5014/geomiss/

By: blog one another

blog one another — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:22:37 +0000

Mission: Silicon Valley…

Andrew Hamilton, or “Hamo”, has begun to blog a series focusing on suburbia — though in fact he has been blogging for years about the challenges of mission in the suburbs. In What Is Suburbia? he initially puts forth a geographical understanding of …

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:09:24 +0000

This looks like a great class. Keep the posts coming. I too am looking for a definition on surburbia

By: Paul Loeffler

Paul Loeffler — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:41:51 +0000

I am interested in those definitions, though they may be slightly different in different areas of the world. If I lived in Washington State, Urban would definitely be Seattle/Tacoma. I live in Montana, whose total state population doesn’t even come close to Seattle’s. (We still have less than 1 million people.) So, does Missoula – one of the top 3 most populated cities in the state at slightly less than 90,000 – fall into the urban category because of the comparison to the rest of the state, or, as you said, are there other ways to define urban, suburban, and rural? I live in an unincorporated town 8 miles south of Missoula – a bedroom community to Missoula, as it’s called. Would it be considered rural because of its size, or suburban because of it’s proximity and role in housing Missoula workers (much like a suburb of Seattle would be)? And, being so close to the urban center of the area, I’m discovering still how that plays into youth ministry, as all our kids attend school in Lolo (the town we live in), until high school (grades 9-12), then are bussed into Missoula. Great thoughts so far. I won’t be able to read or comment often, but I look forward to stopping in when I can to walk through this discussion with you.