Defining "Urban"

The question of what exactly is urban America has come up in several recent readings, including Witold Rybczynski's City Life. In his book, Rybczynski leads us through the history of urbanism in America to try to imagine what our future cities will look like. He proposes that American urbanism is based in change and restlessness. From the very beginning, this vast, open continent we live in has spurred the idea that we as a country and society can always grow and reach better horizons. Our definition of "urban," therefore, keeps changing. From the industrial age when the typical city came with access to power sources, overcrowding, pollution, and other qualities we traditionally associate with cities, to the decentralized city in which a condensed urban area is served by a series of less dense, or suburban, areas, our idea of what landscapes compose a city has changed with our changing desires as a society. 

The decentralized city itself is very much an American fabrication and my old stomping grounds, Chicago, acts as a perfect model for this type of urbanism. Chicago is a city of largely residential neighborhoods that surround and serve a downtown area (the word "downtown" originated in America). The idea behind this configuration was the idea that people want to work, shop and play in one location but live elsewhere as long as these two were closely linked by (public or private) transit. The question then becomes, does this elsewhere become part of the urban definition? 

Perhaps, to define urban as it applies to this country, we must also define suburban. Just the term, suburban has become a stereotype, where as the actual suburbs include many different types of landscapes. The only defining difference we have between urban and suburban is political: what politically lies within the boundaries of a city. The earliest planned suburbs were thought of as urban entities by their designers and often included urban elements belonging to big cities, just at a smaller scale.

 All of these images can be defined as "suburban" landscapes, is one considered more suburban than the other? 

(Sources: fp.images.autos.msn.com, www.newyork.com, www.homesandproperty.co.uk) 

As our definition of urban begins to change once again, there is a chance that these formerly "suburban" landscapes will become our new urban forms, or something close to them. After all, our definition of urban has always been a reflection of our changing desires for the type of environment we want to live in. With the current dissolution of the traditional nuclear family and a changing political landscape in America comes a desire for a more mixed experience in our physical environment-one that allows for a variety of services, interactions and a level of convenience not felt in traditional suburban locations. Indeed, our suburban areas stand to become much more pro-urban than ever before.