Suburbs are commonly defined as residential areas on the outskirts of a city or large town. Most suburbs in the U.S. are commuter towns with a prevalence of detached single-family homes. Many suburbs have some degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods. Mechanical transport, including automobiles and high speed trains, enabled the 20th century growth of suburbs, which tend to proliferate near cities with an abundance of adjacent flat land.

Etymology and usage

The word is derived from the Old French subburbe and ultimately from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub, meaning "under", and urbs, meaning "city". Important people tended to live on hills near centers of commercial and political activity, while the lower classes often lived in marginal areas. "Under" in later usage sometimes referred variously to lesser wealth, political power, population, or population density. The first recorded usage, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, comes from Wycliffe in 1380, where the form subarbis is used.

In the United States, Canada, and most of Western Europe the word suburb usually refers to a separate municipality, borough, or unincorporated area outside a central town or city. This definition is evident in the title of David Rusk's book Cities Without Suburbs (ISBN 0-943875-73-0 ), which promotes metropolitan government. U.S. colloquial usage sometimes shortens the term to 'burb, and "the Burbs" first appeared as a term for the suburbs of Chicago.Fact: date=April 2008

This division is not as prevalent in Ireland, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, where suburb merely refers to residential neighborhoods outside of the city centre whether they lie in a separate municipality or not. In Australia and New Zealand, suburbs have become formalized as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In rural areas of Australia their equivalent are called localities (see suburbs and localities). In Australia, the terms inner suburb and outer suburb are used to differentiate between the higher-density suburbs with close proximity to the city center, and the lower-density suburbs on the outskirts of the urban area. Inner suburbs, such as Te Aro in Wellington, Prahran in Melbourne and Ultimo in Sydney, are usually characterised by higher density apartment housing and greater integration between commercial and residential areas.

History

Prior to the 19th century, suburb often correlated with the outlying areas of cities where work was most inaccessible; implicitly, where the poorest people had to live. Charles Dickens used the word this way, albeit not exclusively, in his descriptions of contemporary London. Our modern usage of the term came about during the course of the 19th century, as improvements in transportation and sanitation made it possible for wealthy developments to exist on the outskirts of cities.