Excellent response, JPPerry!

I wish most of this debate could be reframed as "human-scale design" vs "car scale design" ... city per se and suburb per se are often only relevant as municipal categories.

Municipal categories are still important when it comes to equitable distribution of tax base, etc, but when talking about quality of life and sustainability, we're really talking about design -- the way things are built -- not what legal boundary a house or business lies within.

Some suburbs have excellent urban design, esp the 1920s streetcar suburbs, while there are also some post-war neighborhoods within large-city boundaries that have wholly car-dependent design.