I've lived in Amsterdam for a decade, which I affectionately call the largest village I've ever lived. The Netherlands has no cities of 1M+, yet is one of the densest countries in the world. How? Its quite multi centered. There's a lot of 50-500k towns in close vicinity, each with their own facilities and economies. Because of proximity they're of course not independent, but they're definitely not suburbs. There are towns you could say are suburbs, where people usually commute by car, but somehow they're not nearly as car exclusive of American suburbs. Maybe its worth a closer look at this.