Defining Suburbs: An Evaluation and Comparison of Four Methods

Suburbs are currently the focus of much research because they are the arena for many contemporary social, economic, and political issues. Yet definitions of what constitutes a suburb remain elusive, and there is no consensus in the literature on best practice approaches. This article presents a side-by-side comparison of four methods of defining suburbs for quantitative research (Cooke and Marchant 2006 Cooke, T. J., and S. Marchant. 2006. The changing intrametropolitan location of high-poverty neighbourhoods in the U.S. Urban Studies 43 (11):1971–89. doi: 10.1080/00420980600897818.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Hanlon and Vicino 2007 Hanlon, B., and T. J. Vicino. 2007. The fate of inner suburbs: Evidence from metropolitan Baltimore. Urban Geography 28 (3):249–75. doi: 10.2747/0272-3638.28.3.249.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kneebone and Berube 2013 Kneebone, E., and A. Berube. 2013. Confronting suburban poverty in America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. [Google Scholar]; Anacker, Niedt, and Kwon 2017 Anacker, K. B., C. Niedt, and C. Kwon. 2017. Analyzing segregation in mature and developing suburbs in the United States. Journal of Urban Affairs 39 (6):819–32. doi: 10.1080/07352166.2017.1305730.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The comparison was conducted with data from the one hundred largest metropolitan areas in the United States using multivariate analysis of variance. The four methods were evaluated based on how well they capture the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic variability between urban and suburban areas and within suburban areas themselves. The results indicate that political boundaries of the inner city and regional variation in metropolitan structure are important characteristics that need to be considered when selecting a suburb definition for quantitative, comparative research on suburbs. This article highlights the strength and weaknesses of each method and recommends which method works best in various geographical contexts.