What Is a Suburban Settlement?
Simply put, a "suburban settlement" is a suburb. Literally, it isn't "sub-urban." Suburban communities are adjacent to urban areas. Suburban settlements have many names, including "bedroom communities." The explosion of suburbs has profoundly affected American society and economics.
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The Urban Center
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Urban centers, historically, have been commercial centers. Early urban areas weren't just places of manufacturing jobs, but the markets for a mostly agrarian economy. As the industrial revolution unfurled, urban centers pulled workers from rural areas and farms with promises of guaranteed work.
The Birth of the Suburb
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As transportation infrastructure grew, suburbs sprouted on the outskirts of the urban center. They grew with the availability of inexpensive cars and gasoline. Real estate near the urban center, which had commercial value, was more expensive. Relatively inexpensive real estate and the ability to maintain an urban job, created suburbs. Suburbs, subsequently, grew into cities themselves.
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The Ebb of Urban Centers
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Every city was once a boomtown; growth is what made it an urban center. With commercial growth came a host of social and economic problems from crime to the urban decay that followed business cycles and shifting industry. Once-thriving urban centers often became undesirable. Urban centers remained employment centers, but workers moved outside the urban areas to suburban settlements where they could live, while working in town.
Suburbs in City Planning
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"New urbanism" is an influential trend in city planning. It sounds counterintuitive, but the concepts of new urbanism are being applied to suburbs. Whether they are new, planned communities or suburbs undergoing renewal, suburbs more often have a designed center, transit hub, high-density multi-use dwellings, and open spaces. Ironically, this kind of community retrofit is known as "urban renewal."
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- Photo Credit Suburb buildings design image by Boguslaw Mazur from Fotolia.com
