Delineate the U.S. suburb: An examination of how different definitions of the suburbs matter

ABSTRACT

Scholars conducting empirical research on U.S. suburbs must develop their own definition of suburbia. In this paper, we operationalize three suburban definitions commonly used in the literature. Conducting census data analysis, we compare these definitions across several key characteristics and geography. We find, under all three definitions, residents in the suburbs have higher incomes, are whiter, and are more likely to be married couples with children than residents in urban areas. Yet, there are some important caveats to these suburban stereotypes. First, regardless of definition, most suburban households do not have children, and there are many poor people, renters and higher proportions of different racial and ethnic groups in suburbs. Second, there is strong evidence of variation within the suburbs themselves. For instance, inner suburbs are more like urban areas than they are like outer suburbs; and there is great variation along the urban/suburban spectrum. We suggest the U.S. Bureau of the Census develop a standard suburban definition to aid with the growing interest in the study of suburban dynamics and change.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Moos and Mendez (2015) applied their definition in a Canadian context using Statistics Canada census data. We include their definition because it is easily transferable given the comparability of suburbanization in both Canada and the U.S. and the similarity of available data.

2. We did examine the share of suburban (and urban) residents and housing with certain characteristics (e.g., “Twelve percent of suburban residents are impoverished”) but to reduce the length of the manuscript, we do not present the results here. Suffice to say, they are very similar to the results of our analysis of median characteristics.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Whitney Airgood-Obrycki

Whitney Airgood-Obrycki is a Senior Research Analyst at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Her research focuses on affordable and assisted rental housing as well as suburban neighborhood change. Her work is published in Urban Studies, Housing Policy Debate, and Environment & Planning A, and she contributes to the annual State of the Nation’s Housing report. Whitney holds a PhD in City & Regional Planning from The Ohio State University.

Bernadette Hanlon

Bernadette Hanlon is Associate Professor and Chair of the Bachelor of Science Program in City and Regional Planning at The Ohio State University. She specializes in the political economy of metropolitan regions, focusing on issues of community development, housing conditions and demographic analysis. She has published in several journals including, the Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Studies, City and Community, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and Environment & Planning A. Her most recent book is a co-edited volume, The Routledge Companion to the Suburbs.

Shannon Rieger

Shannon Rieger is a sociology PhD student at New York University (NYU). She conducts research on residential segregation, spatial inequality, and social cohesion in racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Before starting her PhD at NYU, Shannon worked as a Research Analyst at the Joint Center for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received a Masters in city planning from UC Berkeley, where she also completed her undergraduate education.