Originally Posted by
Machka
No. Suburbs in Europe, Canada, and Australia tend to be a bit more small towns which have been swallowed up by the main centre. They are a more or less a collection of small towns all joined together. They've got a shopping area somewhere roughly in the middle of each suburb where you can get your groceries, mail letters, visit your doctor, take a book out of the library, and go to church.
In Australia, the word "suburb" just means "neighbourhood". Rowan and I live in a lovely little suburb 4 km from the CBD which is also a suburb, and we're looking at moving to one of the suburbs a little further out. Some of the things we like about our current suburb are how close two shopping areas are (about 2 km and 2.5 km away) and there we can get anything we want ... groceries, hardware, clothes, jewellery, household goods. There is a library nearby, medical centres, post office, and a delicious little bakery. As we consider a move, we have observed the same things in the new suburbs as well.
That's not saying a version of the US-style suburbs don't exist in Europe, Canada and Australia, but not the extent that they do in the US.
Also Europe has an excellent transportation system.
As for sidewalks on roads leading out/into the big city ... ummm ... not sure what you're talking about there.
Machka
Thanks for the info.Never been anywhere but USA Canada Mexico-and not out of USA since 1958.
So the main difference between "our suburbs" and European Aussie suburbs is
The MAIN STREETS on our "suburbs" are several miles long and "covered with"
strip malls gas stations old beat up motels various businesses
European and Aussie "Suburbs" have shopping areas centralized in the middle of the "living areas" and are within walking distance of "most folks"
I can see why the European cities didn't develop post war USA style suburbs- no demand no $$ populations depleted a bit-2 wars-fuel expensive
But Aussies-car lovers (saw Mad Mad and Crocodile Dundee-taught me everything I know about Aussies)-
Why no USA style suburbs for car crazy Aussies ??
PS Our suburbs formed along important roads leading in and out of our big cities-so naturally they had linear shopping areas.
Cheap land nice and cheap housing for the soldiers coming home from WW2 producing the baby boom-
and we had the cheap reliable cars and cheap fuel to drive to them and to shop on the main drag
Europeans were broke and fuel was expensive-and their populations WEREN'T expanding( were depleted a bit)
But Aussies-why no suburbs??