Never been to an US residential area and only "know" them from tv shows. Are they really pretty much completely devoid of businesses as this article indicates? No grocery / mom and pop stores, bars, restaurants, hair dressers etc.? That sounds very inconvenient. I always assumed you'd get some basic commercial everywhere.
I grew up in a wealthy American suburb, the nearest grocery store was a 40 minute walk from my home, and I would have looked like a madman for simply walking on any street in the entire city because literally only beggars don’t ride cars. I’m glad to be living in Tokyo now!
This. Occasionally whenever I would walk the mile to our nearest grocery store (at least there was a sidewalk) my neighbor would see my while he was driving and offer to give a ride. He was always totally perplexed why I was walking and ask if my car was broken. There's an attitude especially prevalent in the south (USA) that only poor people who can't afford a vehicle walk.
I'm glad to now live in a human-scale city in Eastern Europe. There are three "western style" grocery stores with a 5 min walk and (not including all the low-cost high-quality locally-grown fruit and vegetable kiosks). It's a bit difficult to convey how much better (or natural, rather) this way of living is to my suburb friends and family back home without experiencing it first hand.
Some of the suburbs described here really baffle me, because of how unpractical it seems for a country that is otherwise quite focused on optimizing things for the "lazy" and businesses supposedly popping up and flourishing wherever there is opportunity.
I get that, if you have a car it probably doesn't bother you, but the amount of logistics to have your children and maybe elderly no longer able to drive shipped around for everything must be enormous? I don't have kids but just from remembering what me and my siblings did on ourselves (from getting hair cut to going to sport clubs) from kindergarten age onwards, by walking and later cycling. I'd have to hire a driver. I only remember ever been in the car as a kid when going to another city or weekend trips.
I grew up in South Florida and when I visit my parents, they are horrified when I insist on walking the quarter mile to the Starbucks in the corner. It's definitely a part of the culture here.
You're lucky you have retail that close. Many US residential neighborhoods are planned in such a way that you can't buy a can of coke within a mile of where people sleep.
Having lived in Japan, I get what you mean about the American suburbs sounding claustrophobic, but now that I live in a pretty typical, American suburban subdivision, ironically a lot of my neighbors would feel the same way about the idea of living in a dense city.
In terms of walking for leisure and exercise, some do, but not everyone. I see people walking/jogging/biking through the neighborhood throughout the day. But the rate at which people do is likely lower than those living in more urban areas. As mentioned by commenters above, just about the only reason to walk outside in the suburbs is leisure/exercise. The nearest non-residential area from me is about 1 mile away, and that's the city core, with some restaurants, dental offices, etc. The closest grocery is probably another half mile. And I'm far closer than most. I'd say the average distance to a non-residential area for most of the city's residents is closer to 2 miles, and the average distance to a grocery store is probably near 3.
But even strictly for leisure, there are likely fewer people walking here than other cities/countries. When I lived in Japan, I went walking because if you go outside, you are basically in the street. It incentivizes walking somewhere like a park, or a shop, or path, or somewhere interesting. In a neighborhood like mine, most people have large enough yards where they can easily relax there. You can throw a football or kick a soccer ball easily. Houses with kids will often have swing sets or trampolines in their backyards. I'm in Indiana, so I estimate no less than 40% of households have a basketball hoop in their driveway or on the street in front of their house. A lot of the things that drive you to walk places in denser cities simply don't exist. Walking outside becomes a decision to walk for the sake of walking, because most people already what they would be going to a park for at home (greenery, space, playground/sporting equipment, even pools are common), and you aren't going to be close enough to actually walk to many destinations.
Yes for sure Americans walk for leisure and casual exercise.
It's popular to imply Americans don't walk. It's true the culture is more pragmatic (why walk when I could drive and get more done), but it's not true that it's unusual to see people out walking on sidewalks, parks, and lakes.
My neighborhood has a walking trail around a small lake (takes 45 minutes to do a lap). There are 20-50 people walking it at almost anytime of day.
Hugely dependent on the region and age of the city, but yes. It is quite common to have to drive 5-10 minutes to get to the nearest shops, which are all concentrated in strip malls. Take a look at this satellite view of a Denver suburb: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9426077,-104.9504212,3545m/d...
I live about a mile from the middle of downtown in a mid-sized US city, in what is ostensibly one of that city's most walkable neighborhoods. I don't think there's a single mom and pop store within comfortable walking distance, the closest grocery store is about 3/4 mile away (though there's also a farmer's market about 3/4 mile away in the other direction), closest barbershop is about a mile away, etc. Lots of restaurants, bars, and breweries nearby though.
Yes. It's very normal to not have any business within a 30 minute walk (or more), and even if you did want to walk there... it's also normal for there to be kilometers of roads without sidewalks. They just don't bother.
Often the businesses get crammed together on some busy streets with fast-moving traffic, large parking lots, and few sidewalks.
It depends. There are different types of cities in the US. In general, if we're talking about suburbs, there are businesses but they are usually all centered at the same place. Usually referred to as the city center. This can be a smaller or big center, depending on the town. Then there are towns that have those big shopping plazas you usually have to drive to. The city center concept is much nicer in my opinion.
Businesses also tend to line the major roads (or at least be clustered at major intersections) whether it's city or suburb. And suburbs are apparently planned to have major roads running through them with fairly regular spacing.
A greater shock for many is the complete lack of footpaths/sidewalks virtually anywhere outside of commercial districts or inner-most metros.
The idea of walking anywhere is insane. To get from a typical suburb to the nearest business district or strip mall would usually require walking several miles along the shoulder, with frequent illegal crossing of arterial roads.
Indeed, where I live, sidewalks are not obligatory with new construction, so it's up to the developer whether there's even a sidewalk at all. It's not uncommon to see a sidewalk out front of one building or development, then a segment with no sidewalk, then one where the sidewalk picks up again.
This isn't my experience. I lived in a few different suburbs and there were always sidewalks. The only place I've been to where I really noticed their absence is smaller cities in New England. I always assumed it was due to the fact that the weather precluding walking so much of the time anyway.
And of course in other places in the world where cities are old and streets are too small for sidewalks. Back streets in such places are comparable to alleys in the US.
It's only due to the local governments not requiring developers to build sidewalks. Most modern cities require any new or modifications to implement sidewalks.
The Northeast has a lot of old places that you will see small strips of sidewalk and then no sidewalk, and then sidewalk again. Because they force the new construction to have it, but the stuff that was already there won't.
When I was consulting in Oaks PA I tried to walk from my hotel to the local pub. It wasn't particularly far, but walking along unlit and unpaved tracts of land wasn't particularly appealing.
I would have walked if there were any affordances at all, but ended up driving more often than not.
You get all kinds, possibly depending on when the town was established. For many of the Chicago suburbs, there is a defined "business district" where most of the restaurants, bars, barbershops, etc are. This may very well be a couple of streets that run all the way across town. Frequently, every 4th or 8th street is "arterial", and the bulk of the businesses will be on those streets. So you have a few to several blocks of "internal" streets where there is indeed only residential housing.
No, as a US citizen, they are not anything like described above.
An American suburb is, basically by definition, never more than 15 minutes drive from a grocery store, a doctors office, a dental office, some sort of clothing store, at least one bar, at least one restaurant (usually 2+), at least one hair dresser, etc. It will usually all be ugly (strip malls are common), but it will be affordable and economically sustainable. You can walk or bike anywhere (sidewalks are usually nicer than in the UK), but usually only car-based public transit is actually convenient (mainly because suburbs prioritize saving cash, and car-based public transit is always the cheapest transit).
If you truly need to drive 40+ minutes to get to a grocery store, you don't live in a suburb. You are either in an exurb, or just plain rural area.
I'm not sure why. The drive for me in Michigan to get to the nearest grocery store, was not meaningfully different than it was from, say a random suburb in the UK to get to the nearest Tesco.
The crucial point is that such a grocery trip basically requires a car. Meanwhile the rest of the world is used to having businesses within walkable reach.
15 minutes drive seems quite far away to get to anything. The residential area where I grew up in had all the basics within 10-15 minutes walk. From kindergarten age to finishing secondary school I could do almost everything on my own by walking or cycling there. I rarely had to have and adult driving me. Before turning 16 I was pretty much only ever in a car or public transport for weekend trips to the mountains or going to another city. While the car is certainly convenient, it takes someones time to drive it.
For any given population density how the suburbs looks varies WILDLY based on the specific area and the economic/demographic situation since 1950.
In some places you'll have continuous miles of nothing but housing. In others it's an organic "spread out and up" from a core area. It basically comes down to what the local economy can support and the level of development that happened between 1865 and 1945.
Having hard cutoffs from "most residences are apartments/duplexes/multi-family, businesses on every corner" to "residences and residences only, 99% single family" to "tractors commonly seen on the road" is pretty distinct to the areas surrounding major cities that were formerly sparsely populated until they were built out rapidly in the 1950s through 1970s.
