FWIW my suburban town has almost no chain anythings. I can walk to local coffee shops (have to drive to a Starbucks). We have an amazing collection of local restaurants covering almost every possible cuisine. We have a great library, rail trails, public forrest and green spaces, a local CSA my wife bikes to once a week to pick up our veggies, and much more.

I do agree that HN in general is too harsh on suburbs. However, I think this is quite far from typical, possibly as far as ufmace's post was from typical. Most suburbs are going to be in the middle somewhere.

I think we're talking about different things.

The kinds of suburbs people are lambasting here are almost by definition places where the only things in non-driving distance are houses and some basic amenities (schools, big box/grocery stores, maybe a library). Once you're to the point of having more than a couple of restaurants in walking distance (that aren't Perkins) that's not really what we're thinking of when we blast "suburbs."

I am not sure that the suburbs you are talking about are the same suburbs everyone else is talking about.

His experience sounds a lot like Tucson. Everyone else's in this thread sounds a lot like Phoenix. I've lived in both for multiple years.

The point is, not all suburbs are the same. Some are a lot nicer to live in than others.

Out of curiosity: would a bicycle solve that routine 2-3 and 4-5 miles walking problem?

Not outside of California. Cycling is a seasonal luxury in the northern states, and car-centric culture makes things extremely dangerous on roads where cyclists are neither expected nor welcome. The number of times I've been shouted at to "get on the sidewalk!" is astounding (riding on the sidewalk is actually illegal in most cities).

That isn't true.

Suburbs frequently have wide roads that make bike riding quite easy. They are also usually flat.

I don't know what you are doing to annoy car drivers, but I've biked a lot and have never been yelled at. (Or heard others yelling.)

I suspect this depends on where you're talking about. The actual residential streets are probably fine, it'll be the 'major' roads once you move from there where there's heavy traffic/people in a hurry where you might have more problems.

One of my friends has been shouted at several times cycling down a mile-road (i.e. 12-mile), that he should get out of the road.

Not really. I am a bit of a cycling enthusiast, but the roads in the type of places I'm talking about are designed for cars first, with anything else a vague afterthought, and it shows.

Main roads being 3+ lanes and with huge parking lots on each side and little to no sidewalks or pedestrian lights on traffic lights. Residential roads are wide and have the houses, trees, mailboxes, etc set way back, have no street parking, and also often have no sidewalks, or sidewalks that do strange things like start and end randomly. All of this creates kind of a feedback loop where the wide spaces encourage driving fast, and the usual lack of obstacles and good bike lanes and sidewalks discourages walking and cycling. The feedback is that the faster drivers and fewer other non-drivers tends to discourage anybody else from getting around any other way. Make it so that it feels nerve-wracking to cross the street or cycle a few blocks, and virtually nobody will do it.

Yes, my point was mostly that it's much sparser than a city proper in terms of things that have what I'd call culture to them, and that you're required to have some kind of vehicle to navigate it.

Of course, I wouldn't have felt comfortable riding a bike on the road there, so it somewhat mitigates how useful a bike actually is.

Not with kids involved

I know a family with two young kids that do not have a car. The use public transportation and try to live near a grocery store. They seem to be more of the exception than anything else. It's not impossible, just difficult.