Definitely more lively, and by genuine I mean there's less pretense and fewer divides.  I've lived in suburbia most of my life, and to me at its best it is an unacceptable compromise between urban and rural living, and at its worst I have seen unhappy status seekers striving to fit into their white bread/cookie cutter houses.

I'd be interested in peoples' comments on the various lifestyles, jump over onto my blog or post them here.  Where do you live, and why?

When people criticize suburbia, they are usually referring to communities where there is a sharp division between residential and commercial areas, and that are designed more for cars than pedestrians.  Modern villages are sometimes more remote and less populated versions of suburbs (i.e., people have to drive to the city or not-so-local strip mall for work, shopping, and entertainment), but villages used to be more self-sufficient.  Before the introduction of cars, they had to be!

I think the point is not urban vs. suburban, but how village-like your neighborhood is. When I lived in the suburbs, after three years I barely knew any of my neighbors because they always drove everywhere. My kids played in my backyard and occasionally at the park, but rarely found other neighborhood kids. When I moved to an apartment downtown I met a handful more neighbors, but not many. There were other kids in the building, but they rarely came out to play when my kids were in the courtyard. Now I live in a co-op. I knew several neighbors before moving in, more now, and am meeting more all the time. There is a pack of kids outside playing all the time and everyone watches out for them, so I feel relatively safe sending my kids out to play. When I was growing up, the most "neighborhood" feel I ever had was when we lived in one of the worst neighborhoods in town, but everyone knew each other all the kids played together.

I would argue that the situation I'm in feels more like a "real" neighborhood (i.e., more genuine) than my situation in the 'burbs, precisely because it is more village-like. For most of human history, as you say, people lived in small groups where they knew everyone in the group, and families all watched out for each other's kids. I wouldn't argue that being urban is a sufficient condition for that state of affairs, but (intentional communities aside) it may well be a neccesary condition.

That given, some suburbs have been designed to be small urban centers themselves. In that case, sure, you can get that "genuine" feel. But the bedroom communities, where eveyone is isolated from their neighbors, yeah that's always going to feel artificial. Because it is.

Comment by James Robertson

I don't think the construction type matters as much as you might think. I grew up in a suburb - acre minimum lots, no less. I spent my entire childhood playing with the neighborhood kids, and there were block parties every summer.

We don't know our current neighbors as well, but there are families here that do know many of the neighbors. Based on my observations, the glue required to generate a community is women. Men who work from home (like me) don't go out and meet people. The women who are home do. The organize the social events (until they moved, there was a woman down the road who had a Christmas cookie event every winter).

I'm not advocating for anyone to stay home who doesn't want to, just making an observation. Women do the ad-hoc work of creating a community. The less free time they have, the less community you get.

Jim is sort of right.  When I lived in the Cleveland suburbs for a couple of years, we saw a lot of the neighbors, and they of us.  Mostly, it was because the kids were friends with other neighborhood kids, and they were always moving back and forth between the various family abodes.  

This can only happen when you have a lot of stay-at-home parents.  In the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of DC, housing is so expensive that hardly anyone can afford a house unless both parents work.  As a result, the kids aren't home much either.  Their lives get highly scheduled, with swim teams, band, various clubs and lessons, etc.  Better that than leaving them at home alone.