Not to defend suburbs, but a well-designed suburb/exurb let's you access quite a bit in a reasonable amount of time. My old commute from the East Village to Tribeca, both in downtown Manhattan, was about 25-30 minutes by subway with a transfer. In the same time I could walk about half-way to work. This is a pretty normal commute in the densest part of the USA.

In the same time, I could get to a 20-30 mile radius around my parents house in suburban maryland (if my math is correct, this is 1200-2800 square miles). I could drive to downtown Baltimore, or downtown Annapolis, or close to DC.

If your _average_ driving speed from home to work is 60MPH you don't even live in the suburbs. You live in the country. For me, 1800 square miles of country through which one can drive at 60MPH (implying that it's totally depopulated) would not compare favorably with the amenities within half an hour of the East Village.

It's not quite fair to compare raw distance. Instead, consider comparing number of businesses or people within the East Village 25-30minute radius vs. the Maryland 20-30mile radius. I don't know about your area, but as a current East Village resident there's there's way, way more in that NY radius compared to my hometown's equivalent.

Not everyone wants to live within walking distance of the big towers.

And I'm completely in favor of personal preference. What rubs many urban dwellers is the gigantic subsidies heaped upon suburbs. I don't care where people live, as long as I don't have to pay for it.

Which gigantic subsidies did you have in mind?

Ten seconds of googling gives perspectives from either end of the political spectrum:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/the-conservative...

http://grist.org/cities/starving-the-cities-to-feed-the-subu...

I'm aware of the home mortgage interest deduction. If that was what thrownaway meant, they could have said so, and we could discuss that. "lmgtfy" isn't an argument.

Interestingly, that Grist article doesn't attempt to quantify how much of the deduction goes to city vs. suburban property owners, so it's hard to get a grip on how "massive" a subsidy it is vs. say, community development grants and public transit set asides.

Is there a summary argument that also takes into account the wealth transfer from poor tenants to rich landlords that is created by making everybody rent instead of buy? If interest and tax writeoffs are a ~$140bil/yr subsidy, are there economic or social benefits greater than $140bil/yr that make it worth it?

If landlords are making huge profits off people who are renting in the cities rather than buying in the suburbs, then those tenants have an arbitrage opportunity to buy condos or coops.

You have to have capital or someone who trusts you with capital to buy large things, though, which is exactly what the previously vilified federal subsidies provide.

Distance is less interesting in this context than time; in the same time it takes me to commute to The City, I can drive nearly 60 miles in almost any other direction. That makes a great number of exurban office parks a lot more accessible to me than a big city office tower.