What's a suburb? I know its part of a town but what I don't understand?

Question

is why some suburbs have their own name as though they were another town/city altogether?

P.S. this is a serious question. I honesly and truly do not understand this.

Answer 1

Bob S is completely correct. for example, I live in a suburb, which in my area is the Metro area of New york. I live in NJ like 40 minutes outside of New York City, therefore I live in a suburb...

Answer 2

usually refers to a residential area adjacent to a big city

Answer 3

Traditionally a suburb is a residential area, one with limited economic activity, outside the limits of an older central city where the main jobs and economic activities are located. This is a concept dating to the medieval era when suburbs were places outside the city walls, usually inhabited by those considered undesirable and not allowed to live inside the walls.

In the United States usage of the terms "urban" and "suburban"  is quite arbitrary. Given differences in the way cities and metropolitan areas are governed, what is suburban in one city would be part of the central city elsewhere. In the Washington, DC area, where the central city is small in land area, the distinction still works with Rockville or Arlington, separate political entities, as some example suburbs of Washington. Los Angeles, covering an immense territory, has some suburbs like Pasadena but  also includes zones within its city limits which one could reasonably consider suburban, Van Nuys for example.

Increasingly suburbs, as the term is used in the US,  are no longer primarily residential areas. Some suburbs are larger and more economically important than the central city they are attached to. Fairfax County, VA is much larger in population, has more office space, more retail activity, and greater employment than Washington, DC, the city of which it is considered a suburb.

In short, the concept of suburb is an out dated one, for metropolitan areas are linked organisms. American metropolitan area governance is a chaotic and irrational mixture of often quite silly jurisdictions. Those jurisdictions are dependent on one another but not in the simple way that the terms "suburban" and "urban" might suggest.

Answer 4

The larger city or town you referred to would be considered URBAN so any lesser populated and/or industrious outlying areas of that city or town would be LESS URBAN hence the term SUB-urban.....the suburb.Because many people prefer to live away from the hustle and bustle of the highly commercial urban areas they move to the MOSTLY RESIDENTIAL outlying areas and create smaller governing bodies that by popular vote restrict commercial development. To define geographically the area regulated by this smaller locality a different name for the area governed is a necessity.

Answer 5

a suburb is within a town or city.

so there are many suburbs that make up a city/town just as there are many cities/towns that make up a state & many states make up a country etc