[lbo-talk] Oh dear, LBO patronises Europe again (was Let's Build)

[Wendy Lyon]

On 10/17/06, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Taking Britain, a majority of Britons live in Suburbia, not cities. And that
> trend is pretty common across Europe. Those who big up European cities are
> kidding themselves - or rather they have not seen the edges of those cities.
> Nor could they, since their edges generally blend into the adjoining cities.
> Europe is a continent of conurbations, with varying densities between inner
> city, suburb and exurb. Pretty much like America, in fact.

I wonder how much of this disagreement has to do with differing
definitions of "suburb".  In Britain and Ireland (I don't know about
the rest of Europe) it can be used to describe any residential
neighbourhood outside the immediate city centre, whereas the usage I
always heard in America was that the suburbs begin where the municipal
boundaries end.