the "strong towns" stuff applies to newer exurbs and is totally inapplicable to established, mostly prewar streetcar suburbs. the Chicago suburbs he's talking about are not dependent on Chicago taxes and many of them are denser than most American cities
I expect so, yes: I have only lived in the newer suburbs that are entirely car-dependent.
And the main thing I'm saying in this thread is that when you call everything which isn't good urbanism "suburbs" you're conflating lots of things together.
one thing about suburbs that urbanists don't pay much attention to is that there are so many different ones in a metro area because they're basically a marketplace of municipalities and compete with each other (and with the city) on bundles of amenities and branding
I agree with you: “suburb” is a vague term that is easily confused. I don’t really understand the difference between what makes a town become a suburb or when it suddenly becomes a city. Population count is fairly meaningless if the city is a sprawl, because it still ends up feeling like a town.
I don’t even know if I could say suburbs = car dependent because in many of the cities where I’ve lived the cities are deeply car-dependent: for instance, in Oklahoma City there’s a section of downtown called “Automobile Alley” because it was a wide road of car dealers.