Having lived &amp; worked quite a long time in wildly different metro areas -- Santa Clara&#x2F;Mountain View, Indianapolis, Austin -- this article raises more questions for me more than anything.<p>What is a suburb, by the author&#x27;s definition? It seems like it&#x27;s an area outside the urban core of a city, I guess. But here in Austin, I&#x27;m buying a house away from the urban core of downtown, in a subdivision, but it&#x27;s in a largely undeveloped area 2-3 minutes by car (and 10-15 by bike, at most, thanks to the bike lanes that connect the subdivision) of a mixed-use development area with a lake, park, museum, shops etc. Is this suburban? I consider it suburban but I have trouble connecting what the author is talking about to this spot.<p>Now in Indianapolis, there were some suburbs. I lived in one growing up. It was indeed far from anything with absolutely no public transpo. Nowadays (I left in 2014) it&#x27;s slightly better, in terms of availability, as there is a metro bus service. But the accommodation for the bus routes is awful. It&#x27;s perpetually underfunded, the bus stops are often -- I am not joking -- in ditches, no shelters at the stops, etc., etc. It&#x27;s almost like the city has gone out of its way to make it clear the bus is for &quot;the poors.&quot; But what&#x27;s the fix? Decades upon decades of urban planning have reinforced this notion. So... what is to be done about it?<p>In South Bay, I rented a tiny apartment (~650sqft) for, at the time, the outrageous price of $1200&#x2F;mo. This was ca. 2008. I&#x27;m told such units are much higher now. In areas of such inflated housing prices, isn&#x27;t suburbia supposed to be a pressure valve? People move farther away from where they work and play in exchange for lower housing costs? I am out of touch with the housing scene in the Bay Area nowadays aside from the same articles everyone else gets on HN, so my question is an honest one. But the author&#x27;s disdain for suburbia -- supported by concrete reasons though it may be -- seems like it might not be so strident if he were living elsewhere.