In a recent survey led by Trulia’s Chief Economist Jed Kolko, 2,000 adults were asked to define where they live as either urban, suburban, or rural.
It turns out that many residents of city’s along the sunbelt defined their neighborhoods as suburban, even though, according to political boundaries, they are still within a city. This has to do with the population density – the less dense an area is, the more it feels like a suburb.
Cities like New York and Chicago yielded a zero percent response from residents who say they live in a suburban ZIP code, despite less dense neighborhoods in New York City’s Queens or Chicago’s Jefferson Park.
Meanwhile, the cities of Nashville, El Paso, Texas, and Charlotte, N.C., had more neighborhoods that residents identified as suburban.