Suburbanization is an interesting subject; I'm grasping all of its underlying principles quite clearly, but for some odd reason, I'm still struggling to define the type of environment I personally grew up in. I often hear about Sugarland and The Woodlands near Houston, or Grapevine and Plano near Dallas -- but what is Amarillo? It seems that half of the Texans I meet don't even know where Amarillo is!
Amarillo is known for the Cadillac Ranch and the 72 oz. steak challenge at the Big Texan, but aside from these two attractions, it's usually just another place to pass through along the historic Route 66. For the people who live there, it's more about the steak and cars. Amarillo is home to approximately 200,000 people -- myself included.
.... Whether it's a city or suburb is what I don't really know.
The 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. 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. Increasingly, "suburbs" are no longer
primarily residential areas. The growth of the suburban trend has led to environments that have become larger and more
economically important than the central city the suburb is attached to.
Perhaps the concept of the suburb is an outdated one. I often see "The City of Amarillo" plastered around Downtown,
but looking at the scale of Downtown Houston and Downtown Dallas in
comparison creates a striking contrast. Amarillo, in this case, would be more similar to the typical suburban character. I feel that I've grown up in a suburban area, but the correct classification seems to be a city. I ask myself, 'why is that?' It seems that the label for "the city" and "the suburb" is falsely understood. Do these words only represent a set of trends and statistics rather than a set of actual values? -- and if not values, then what do they represent?
You ask some very pertinent questions Julie! The differentiation between 'suburb' and 'urban' is one that is becoming increasingly difficult to determine. Like you said, South Central LA could be characterized as 'suburban' in parts of the neighborhood, but it is a decidedly 'urban' place. Perhaps your suggestion of values is a more acute measurement: it is the values of its residents, and their perceptions of their surroundings, which stand to define the distinction. What do you think?
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