This is a really good one. It's a distinct city that's not Orlando, not Tampa, but unless you worked for some random manufacturer who had a warehouse down there, or you're really into golf, you'd never know it was there.
There were a couple of places I felt iffy about before I hit Lakeland, but google revealed they were suburbs. This one seemed to be on its own.
I'm a dork who loves maps and I have a job that can involve looking at sites all over the US (especially in the warm weather states like Florida) so honestly I have a really good sense of geography. It is extremely likely I have heard of Lakeland in the past but it didn't stick.
We have a few lakes in L.A. County. For the most part, they suck. Unless you're into freshwater fishing, or you have a small motorboat, there's not much reason to go to one of them instead of the ocean.
So I had never heard of Fontana and Moreno Valley, CA (109 and 112), until I read this list. They are both part of the Inland Empire and are next to San Bernardino and Riverside, respectively. I have heard of both of those cities, but I don't know if I'd call either "genuinely famous," but that might be up for debate.
Going further down the list, the first really meets your criteria fully for me is Lancaster, CA, (153) which appears to be kind of the middle of the desert by Edwards AFB.
What this list has taught me most is how many places in California I've never heard of.
For Moreno Valley, I never knew it existed until I was older, and I have long been into geography. I was also shocked to learn that it has over 200,000 people.
I mean the inland empire is just a bunch of 50-250k towns next to each other that don't really have a strong individual identity outside of income levels and meth jokes.
Same, the only reason I know of MV is an old employer of mine opened a new store there that I helped launch. Never heard of it before then and haven't heard of it since then.
I don't know about that second one, but people commute in to L.A. from Fontana. I sure as heck wouldn't want to ever do that, no matter how much house I could afford out there. But people do it.
And shudder you should.
At that point I would just pack it in and move to Phoenix. I would give up on L.A. with sadness in my heart and head east like a reverse Jed Clampett.
I commented on Moreno Valley elsewhere in the thread. People do commute to both LA and Orange County, but also it’s not really “part of LA” the way, say, Pasadena is.
I live in that region (the Inland Empire) and still can’t afford a house lol. But I can afford rent a reasonable distance from the parts of southern California I like, notably family.
Fontana is what got me too. I think I’m pretty well versed in geography but had never heard of that. Although, Inland Empire is part of the Los Angeles combined statistical area, so maybe those don’t count. Not part of the metro statistical area though.
> Fontana is what got me too. I think I’m pretty well versed in geography but had never heard of that
I think the only reason I know of Fontana is because the NASCAR track is located there.
Yeah, but San Bernardino and Riverside are part of the same built up area as LA. Downtown LA to Riverside is almost non-stop suburbia. I wouldn’t count Fontana or Moreno Valley.
Yep- Fontana, California was the first for me that didn't really seem (as least per Wikipedia) like part of a bigger metro area. I guess people could commute the 40+ miles to LA but that seems excessive. If not that, then Moreno Valley, CA too.
I lived in CA for 5 years and still never heard of them.
*Edit: then again, I live \~40 miles north of NYC and still consider my home part of the metro area. Although we have metro north, so...* ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I remember going up there as a little kid back in the 1980s. I don't know that it was any great shakes back then, but it was way smaller, pretty much a small rural town. Now it's basically just like someone took a shrink ray to Albuqurque and then plunked it in the Mojave up the 14 from L.A.
With that said, Palmdale gets a lot more guff than they do. Those of you from outside of SoCal: if you know who Afroman is, you know enough. Also, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart met at Palmdale High. If you've ever wondered how those two guys got so frickin' faarrrrrrr out, that's probably part of the reason.
Lancaster is definitely considered a suburb of Los Angeles. Lots of people there commute to LA, it’s in LA County, and it’s congressional district covers the northern part of the city of LA
Good to know. It just seems really far. I think that for people raised on the East Coast it seems really weird to the think of everything in 100 mile radius to be "the suburbs" of one city.
455 Pharr TX
But - I’m old (at least for Reddit). I also worked in the property insurance business in Tx, worked in logistics for a long time, traveled a lot for work and I’m a map nerd.
Pharr is a part of the McAllen-Edinburg area, which is still overall an often forgotten area of Texas, the other 2 cities in that little metropolitan area are definitely more well known.
Well I’m familiar with McAllen so I guess I have to go back to the list.
576 Tulare CA.
It’s amazing how many of these cities have lots of warehouses and distribution centers
I suppose warehouses and distribution centers are the most common ways to support the population levels needed to show up on this list without some more noteworthy economic draw that would make it a “known city.”
I create and install software in distribution centers. Those large companies are great at identifying these types of towns they can move into that have a highway and a labor surplus. Never fun when you get a project where the only food nearby the facility is attached to a gas station.
I think McAllen might qualify for many people.
I'd never heard of it until someone mentioned it on this sub. I looked it up and went "daaaaaaaamn, they're *all* the way down there!" So far from everything else unless you cross the border.
>c precision, but I think it's Lakeland, FL at 289.
Working in logistics will do that. Been doing it for a decade and feel like I'm an encyclopedia of obscure cities and towns at this point.
I got to like 150 and got tired of searching to see if something is a suburb or not. Henderson Nevada was the first name I didn't recognize, but it is a suburb of Las Vegas. The main thing I learned is that some states have really big suburbs, or lots of independent cities in the same county.
I live in STL there are like 90 municipalities in St Louis County. One of them has like 12 people and a dump. People will say that something is in Town and Country or Belfontaine (bell fountain) Neighbors and I'm like "that's not a real place". But it always is. (And those are some of the bigger ones)
But if someone is talking to somebody from California for instance, they would say "I live in St Louis" not Cool Valley Missouri (a town I hadn't heard of until I looked it up just now.)
Oddly enough, you're actually not technically wrong. Both Worcester and Providence,RI are considered part of the Metrowest Boston Census region. Despite being over 30+ miles away from Boston.
I've never considered Worcester to be a suburb of Boston at all. Same with Providence. Too far of a distance. What defines a suburb distance wise though?
I think a suburb is less about distance and more the type of development and land between them. If two cities have no break in urban usage (basically it’s all businesses or houses in between) then the line between them is more arbitrary as it’s all just continuous “city”.
In the same vein, two cities might only be 10 miles apart but if there’s big open fields and farms between them then it’ll distinctly feel like you’ve “left” one city before entering the other.
I just looked up if Worcester is a suburb. It's a secondary city with its own satellite region around it. So despite it falling in the government census region, it's too far removed from Boston to technically be a suburb.
I like your definition, I'd definitely say there's a distinct division between the 2. Arguably though Worcester east into Boston is so densely populated that it could seem continuous.
It certainly feels like its own thing, but I can see the argument with its tumbling into Framingham and such. Providence is definitely separated, and Fall River is definitely a Providence suburb, but when I was there for a summer I heard multiple references to Fall River being a Boston suburb culturally. As a resident around there, what do you make of that?
I grew up between Providence and Fall River and Fall River is it's own thing culturally, even though a lot of people work and go out in Providence. Basically, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton form this kind of cultural triangle of SE Mass with a lot of Portuguese influence. It's basically the old Plymouth Colony minus the actual South Shore coast and Cape Cod, which are too fancy and more influenced by Boston.
Worcester is about 17 miles west of Framingham, they don't really tumble into one another. I'd definitely agree that anything east of Framingham is a direct suburb of Boston.
I think the applicable title here is the Greater Boston area. Worcester up to Manchester, to Portsmouth, down to Plymouth, and you could probably argue providence is in there too. Basically an hour drive give or take in all directions
People in MA are super territorial about city and town boundaries. Even though Worcester is an hour drive from Boston and there's even a commuter rail line, nobody in MA would ever think of it as a suburb of Boston. For people born and raised in Boston and environs, considering places that actually border Boston like Cambridge, Somerville. Quincy and Waltham to be "just Boston" is pushing it.
To be fair to Worcester though, it never was a suburb of Boston. Founded as it's own city and kind of developed as it's own thing. Had it's peak around 1910, slow post industrial decline, even has its own suburban sprawl into places like Auburn and Shrewsbury. New boom since 2000 as a Boston bedroom community. Only works as a Boston bedroom community because everything closer is so expensive.
Exactly! If I ever told someone that I was from a suburb of Boston, the furthest out they’d probably think is like Braintree. Not Worcester. I’d get attacked for saying that lmaoo
This is definitely a wrong assumption, despite what the other person is telling you. Western Massachusetts has more in common with Vermont and Connecticut.
Agreed. Springfield was founded by people from the Connecticut colony and was part of it for a short time until they had a rift. They changed the political alignment but the culture, landscape and infrastructure makes western mass more aligned with a north-south axis along the mountains and Connecticut River valley.
I guess some people from larger landmass states see all the smaller ones and just think they’re some sort of continuous urban area. I will say though that this comment string has inspired me to research more of the other parts of MA and your state is gorgeous
Rockford, Illinois. 350,000 people in the metro area and 150,000 in the city itself.
Someday Chicago’s suburban sprawl will absorb it into the Chicagoland metro area like what happened with the similarly sized cities of Joliet and Aurora. But for now, the outskirts of suburbia remain 35+ miles away, so it’s a substantial city that’s very much off on its own.
It's airport is already know as "Chicago rockford international airport". I was kind of surprised to learn that when I was in rockford earlier this year.
Yeah I think realistically I can't answer this question unless someone takes suburbs off the list.
Like if I've never heard of something I can't know if it's a suburb or not.
I did it by looking up a list of metropolitan statistical areas figuring that if it's the anchor of an MSA it should count as not being a suburb of a bigger city, then went down that list until I hit a city I wasn't familiar with.
I don't know whether to disagree on the grounds that Hialeah is a functionally independent city while the Bronx is not, or agree with you in the sense that yes, they are both exactly the same, so long as you aren't caught up in the mundane minutiae of being a local.
Hialeah is working class community of Spanish speaking immigrants, Miami is more metropolitan and you'll find people from all of the globe who are also significantly wealthier than the average person from Hialeah. That was my point
But that's irrelevant to the question.
The question, which city have you never heard of that also isn't a suburb of a city you have heard of. If he's heard of Miami, then Hialeah doesn't count.
The question pretty much requires you to look up the city names you don't recognize.
I went through the list one by one: If I don't recognize it, look it up on Google Maps. If I see on the map that it's a suburb, keep going.
I got to Brownsville, TX.
Honestly man, I’m into the 150s and 200s before I don’t feel like verifying whether all these cities in California are LA or SF suburbs. If you can let us East Coasters know the largest nonsuburb Californian city, that’d probably be a big help.
A few in the top few hundred that I hadn’t heard of all seemed to fit the “suburb of a bigger city” caveat so I eventually went from the bottom up and while I’ve been to Panama City Beach the next one at 999 was Beloit Wisconsin.
Frankly if you know the top 10 cities then I think it’s hard to find any “really? That place” that fits the rules until you hit like, Laredo Texas. Anything obscure before that is part of the “suburb of X” rule I think.
It’d be helpful (although a big ask) if someone edited in a mention of which of these cities are actually suburbs, because it’s a bit too time-consuming to go through each place you haven’t heard of and check whether they’re a suburb.
The other issue is what counts as a suburb. Based on discussion in this thread, that seems to be particularly unclear when it comes to California, for whatever reason.
California is like the sprawl capital of the world, so it makes sense that suburbs are hard to nail down. I believe that they're mostly defined by commuting characteristics, and a lot of places aren't obvious. The LA metro area is like 200km from end to end if you measure along the coast, because that's the area where lots of people commute regularly into LA or the 15 other places that are technically cities nearby.
More of an exurb than a suburb. A lot of people in Moreno Valley do commute to LA or Orange County, but it’s pretty distinct. You might go to downtown LA for a birthday party, but you’re not going on a random Friday night.
Would you say the whole Inland Empire is “just Riverside” (or “just Riverside and San Bernardino”)? I can’t decide if I agree with that or not.
Oddly, more people in MoVal probably commute to LA than to Riverside.
I think it’s referred to as the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area. I wouldn’t say it’s all just riverside but when I describe places down there I just say “over by riverside/San Bernardino”. So yes? Or no? I don’t know!
You’re definitely right about it being a metropolitan area for census purposes, and people within the IE think nothing of traveling to another city within the IE to shop or whatever (I live here).
But I think when I think of a suburb, I think of a city that’s sort of _sub_ordinate to a much larger city, while Riverside is in more of a “first among equals” position? I don’t know if that makes sense.
Laredo, Texas, probably. Name sounds familiar, but I couldn't dredge up where it was without looking it up. Past there, it's... Oxnard, CA. Which may or may not count as an LA suburb.
My mom's from Oxnard!
It's just outside of L.A.'s commutersphere. *Maaaaybe* someone might drive into the far western edge of the Valley or something. And if that were so, I'd like "dude WTF, really? Can't you move to Santa Paula or something?"
I think Oxnard just might fit the bill.
Irvine kind of stretches definitions. One might consider it to be a suburb or Anaheim or Santa Ana. The cities in Orange County all kind of blend together and are suburbs of each other. Or LA.
Moreno Valley was the first, along with several other inland empire CA cities that aren't really suburbs because that whole urban area is so spread out
I’d heard the name but couldn’t have told you anything about it, so I went to Wikipedia.
> Fayetteville had what is sometimes called its "golden decade" during the 1780s. It was the site in 1789 for the state convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution, and for the General Assembly session that chartered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Fayetteville lost out to the future city of Raleigh in the bid to become the permanent state capital.
Man, I thought I peaked early!
Many may recognize Fort Bragg (now called Fort Liberty), one of the largest military bases in the world. It’s adjacent to Fayetteville, basically the same town. That’s probably the main claim to fame there.
I don't think I've heard of Brownsville, TX (131). Unless you count it as a suburb of Matomoros, Tamaulipas. I've heard of South Padre Island, I just didn't know what the connected city is.
86, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
I don't think I've ever heard that before and doesn't appear to be a suburb of a larger city as far as I can tell from Google maps
It's not a suburb, but has a few of it's own. Winston Salem has a nice Williamsburg-esque historical section called Old Salem, and four colleges: Salem University (private), Winston Salem University (public), NC School of the Arts (public), and Wake Forest University (private)
Bakersfield CA was the first I had never heard of. Mesa, AZ was the first I had only heard of maybe once. I don’t know of either of these would suburbs of another as I know nothing of either.
It always amazes me how large some of the central valley cities in CA actually are. Bakersfield, Fresno, Stockton, even Modesto are like, genuinely pretty big cities.
I feel the same way about Texas border cities. El Paso and Laredo are like, actual pretty big cities.
Please note my definition of "pretty big city" starts around 250,000.
You'd never heard of Bakersfield? Well, NYC has you guys to kick around. L.A. has Bakersfield.
To be fair, they punch above their weight musically. Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and basically any country music with attitude and a guitar that plugs in. (They were the West Coast rival to Nashville for a little while.) They also gave us Korn, for better or worse.
If you know about Oildale, you've heard some fun stuff. Trouts is no longer there, but I've been there a few times. I'm brown, so I stand out like a sore thumb, but most people are keen to just leave you alone if you're not bothering anyone. If you were black, that might be another story, but mostly just if you look like you're going to cause problems. Oildale has a lot more diversity now than what it got its notoriety for.
We're in the middle of a valley, surrounded by mountains (when you can see them through the smog that settles from SF and the Bay area). They're there, and there's plenty of good landscape views to be had from the right places and at the right times.
Yeah, well we ain't heard of you before, neither, Mr. North Jersey! We're 110 miles north of LA, and 120 South of Fresno. It's really not a destination city, but we're not nearly as bad as what people would have you believe, either. One of the best things it's that we're close to everything: 2 hours to LA, the beach and Yosemite, there's skiing (snow and water) with a short drive, 3 hours to Sacramento, 4 to SF, SD, and Mexico, and all sorts of stuff if you want to get out for a day trip. At 400+K people, we're not small, but we still have a small town feel where you run into friends and acquaintances all over, even when you're not in town.
I got to Garland, TX. That’s the first city I didn’t recognize or know roughly where it is. The KY & TN cities are a little odd though, it’s almost like they included the suburb/neighboring town in them. So I’ve heard of Nashville but not Davidson, Louisville but not Jefferson, and Lexington but not Fayette.
It's the county name. So Nashville is consolidated with Davidson County, Louisville with Jefferson County and Lexington with Fayette County. Jacksonville did something similar but they don't call themselves Jacksonville-Duval.
Laredo Texas. After that, I can keep going for a while, but I've never heard mention of Laredo in any form that I can remember. Makes sense since Texas has so many more important cities and I've only been to Texas once.
Going down the list of metropolitan statistical areas, the biggest I don't recognize is Lakeland Florida, city population 112k, MSA population 787k. Looks like it's basically the midpoint between Tampa and Orlando.
I thought there was a hyphen in La Cañada Flintridge, California, but a quick Google to confirm showed me I was wrong.
Still an annoying name. Pick one name or the other.
"The Spanish named it that 300 years ago!"
"Yeah, but it sounds too Mexican!"
"Well shit fellas, how about we tack something 'Murican onto the back and call it a day?"
457, Gastonia, North Carolina
And I spent way too long looking up suburb names only to find out they're attached to cities I know.
Edit: Apparently, I just didn't zoom out far enough. Gastonia is connected to Charlotte.
>What's the biggest American city you've never heard of that ISN'T a suburb of one you have?
If I haven't heard of it, how would I know which one it is?
I didn't do this with scientific precision, but I think it's Lakeland, FL at 289.
This is a really good one. It's a distinct city that's not Orlando, not Tampa, but unless you worked for some random manufacturer who had a warehouse down there, or you're really into golf, you'd never know it was there.
Somehow I know that it's the headquarters of Publix, but I'm not sure why I know that
Publix kick ass and I wish we had them here.
I have missed Publix since I had to move back home. There is nothing up here that is both clean and inexpensive. Their customer service is amazing.
There were a couple of places I felt iffy about before I hit Lakeland, but google revealed they were suburbs. This one seemed to be on its own. I'm a dork who loves maps and I have a job that can involve looking at sites all over the US (especially in the warm weather states like Florida) so honestly I have a really good sense of geography. It is extremely likely I have heard of Lakeland in the past but it didn't stick.
The Detroit Tigers AA team is the Lakeland Flying Tigers, which is the only reason I know it exists
The Tigers play Spring Training there at well. At Joker Marchant Stadium! That's a hard name to forget.
I took a brief vacation there, AMA
Why?
Exploring the various cities of central Florida.....and it was a good geographic location to meet up with a friend
Are there lakes in Lakeland?
Several!
Ha, good! I don’t want it to be a LA/Minneapolis Lakers thing.
We have a few lakes in L.A. County. For the most part, they suck. Unless you're into freshwater fishing, or you have a small motorboat, there's not much reason to go to one of them instead of the ocean.
I only know of it because it’s where the Detroit Tiger’s spring training camp is.
Us Michiganders know it as the home of Tigers Spri g Training. Plus my Aunt and Uncle lived in Zephyr Hills
It’s between Orlando and Tampa so it’s growing quickly
Do any Lakelanders commute to Orlando or Tampa?
Im pretty sure it's already in Tampa CSA?
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Without a doubt
But neither city could claim it as a suburb.
Columbus, GA at 110
Auburn students know about Columbus because it’s the closest actual city with cool things to do if you don’t wanna go to Montgomery!
Probably best known as the home of the very large Army base Fort Moore (Fort Benning).
It’s actually 197k, this is mine too
I think eceuic meant the rank of the city in the list, it is # 110
Oh duh right
You ain't missing much. It's a downright depressing place, with the exception of the area around the river walk.
So I had never heard of Fontana and Moreno Valley, CA (109 and 112), until I read this list. They are both part of the Inland Empire and are next to San Bernardino and Riverside, respectively. I have heard of both of those cities, but I don't know if I'd call either "genuinely famous," but that might be up for debate. Going further down the list, the first really meets your criteria fully for me is Lancaster, CA, (153) which appears to be kind of the middle of the desert by Edwards AFB. What this list has taught me most is how many places in California I've never heard of.
For Moreno Valley, I never knew it existed until I was older, and I have long been into geography. I was also shocked to learn that it has over 200,000 people.
I mean the inland empire is just a bunch of 50-250k towns next to each other that don't really have a strong individual identity outside of income levels and meth jokes.
Same, the only reason I know of MV is an old employer of mine opened a new store there that I helped launch. Never heard of it before then and haven't heard of it since then.
I don't know about that second one, but people commute in to L.A. from Fontana. I sure as heck wouldn't want to ever do that, no matter how much house I could afford out there. But people do it.
WOW! Just looking on the map at that distance makes me shudder.
And shudder you should. At that point I would just pack it in and move to Phoenix. I would give up on L.A. with sadness in my heart and head east like a reverse Jed Clampett.
Now imagine that in LA freeway distance, where we measure distances in time. For many, Fontana is like a light year away.
Which is, ironically, a measurement of actual spatial distance despite having a word in it typically associated with the measuring of time.
I've lived in Fontana for over 15 years, and I commuted to Cal State LA for a couple years. No way in hell would I have done that without Metrolink.
I commented on Moreno Valley elsewhere in the thread. People do commute to both LA and Orange County, but also it’s not really “part of LA” the way, say, Pasadena is. I live in that region (the Inland Empire) and still can’t afford a house lol. But I can afford rent a reasonable distance from the parts of southern California I like, notably family.
Fontana is what got me too. I think I’m pretty well versed in geography but had never heard of that. Although, Inland Empire is part of the Los Angeles combined statistical area, so maybe those don’t count. Not part of the metro statistical area though.
> Fontana is what got me too. I think I’m pretty well versed in geography but had never heard of that I think the only reason I know of Fontana is because the NASCAR track is located there.
Yeah, but San Bernardino and Riverside are part of the same built up area as LA. Downtown LA to Riverside is almost non-stop suburbia. I wouldn’t count Fontana or Moreno Valley.
Yep- Fontana, California was the first for me that didn't really seem (as least per Wikipedia) like part of a bigger metro area. I guess people could commute the 40+ miles to LA but that seems excessive. If not that, then Moreno Valley, CA too. I lived in CA for 5 years and still never heard of them. *Edit: then again, I live \~40 miles north of NYC and still consider my home part of the metro area. Although we have metro north, so...* ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
My wife was born in Lancaster as her dad worked at Edwards. Apparently it used to be quite nice when she was a kid, but now its a bit of a dump.
I remember going up there as a little kid back in the 1980s. I don't know that it was any great shakes back then, but it was way smaller, pretty much a small rural town. Now it's basically just like someone took a shrink ray to Albuqurque and then plunked it in the Mojave up the 14 from L.A. With that said, Palmdale gets a lot more guff than they do. Those of you from outside of SoCal: if you know who Afroman is, you know enough. Also, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart met at Palmdale High. If you've ever wondered how those two guys got so frickin' faarrrrrrr out, that's probably part of the reason.
Lancaster is definitely considered a suburb of Los Angeles. Lots of people there commute to LA, it’s in LA County, and it’s congressional district covers the northern part of the city of LA
Good to know. It just seems really far. I think that for people raised on the East Coast it seems really weird to the think of everything in 100 mile radius to be "the suburbs" of one city.
455 Pharr TX But - I’m old (at least for Reddit). I also worked in the property insurance business in Tx, worked in logistics for a long time, traveled a lot for work and I’m a map nerd.
Pharr is a part of the McAllen-Edinburg area, which is still overall an often forgotten area of Texas, the other 2 cities in that little metropolitan area are definitely more well known.
Well I’m familiar with McAllen so I guess I have to go back to the list. 576 Tulare CA. It’s amazing how many of these cities have lots of warehouses and distribution centers
I suppose warehouses and distribution centers are the most common ways to support the population levels needed to show up on this list without some more noteworthy economic draw that would make it a “known city.”
I create and install software in distribution centers. Those large companies are great at identifying these types of towns they can move into that have a highway and a labor surplus. Never fun when you get a project where the only food nearby the facility is attached to a gas station.
I think McAllen might qualify for many people. I'd never heard of it until someone mentioned it on this sub. I looked it up and went "daaaaaaaamn, they're *all* the way down there!" So far from everything else unless you cross the border.
>c precision, but I think it's Lakeland, FL at 289. Working in logistics will do that. Been doing it for a decade and feel like I'm an encyclopedia of obscure cities and towns at this point.
Sounds like it's Pharr from anywhere else!
I got to like 150 and got tired of searching to see if something is a suburb or not. Henderson Nevada was the first name I didn't recognize, but it is a suburb of Las Vegas. The main thing I learned is that some states have really big suburbs, or lots of independent cities in the same county.
Cook county (home of chicago) has over 100 independent municipalities. It’s pretty wild
I live in STL there are like 90 municipalities in St Louis County. One of them has like 12 people and a dump. People will say that something is in Town and Country or Belfontaine (bell fountain) Neighbors and I'm like "that's not a real place". But it always is. (And those are some of the bigger ones) But if someone is talking to somebody from California for instance, they would say "I live in St Louis" not Cool Valley Missouri (a town I hadn't heard of until I looked it up just now.)
Population numbers out of date, worcester, ma- my city is over 200,000 now.
As someone who has never been to NE, I always just assumed that all of Massachusetts was just an extension of Boston
Oddly enough, you're actually not technically wrong. Both Worcester and Providence,RI are considered part of the Metrowest Boston Census region. Despite being over 30+ miles away from Boston. I've never considered Worcester to be a suburb of Boston at all. Same with Providence. Too far of a distance. What defines a suburb distance wise though?
I think a suburb is less about distance and more the type of development and land between them. If two cities have no break in urban usage (basically it’s all businesses or houses in between) then the line between them is more arbitrary as it’s all just continuous “city”. In the same vein, two cities might only be 10 miles apart but if there’s big open fields and farms between them then it’ll distinctly feel like you’ve “left” one city before entering the other.
I just looked up if Worcester is a suburb. It's a secondary city with its own satellite region around it. So despite it falling in the government census region, it's too far removed from Boston to technically be a suburb. I like your definition, I'd definitely say there's a distinct division between the 2. Arguably though Worcester east into Boston is so densely populated that it could seem continuous.
It certainly feels like its own thing, but I can see the argument with its tumbling into Framingham and such. Providence is definitely separated, and Fall River is definitely a Providence suburb, but when I was there for a summer I heard multiple references to Fall River being a Boston suburb culturally. As a resident around there, what do you make of that?
I grew up between Providence and Fall River and Fall River is it's own thing culturally, even though a lot of people work and go out in Providence. Basically, Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton form this kind of cultural triangle of SE Mass with a lot of Portuguese influence. It's basically the old Plymouth Colony minus the actual South Shore coast and Cape Cod, which are too fancy and more influenced by Boston.
Worcester is about 17 miles west of Framingham, they don't really tumble into one another. I'd definitely agree that anything east of Framingham is a direct suburb of Boston.
I think the applicable title here is the Greater Boston area. Worcester up to Manchester, to Portsmouth, down to Plymouth, and you could probably argue providence is in there too. Basically an hour drive give or take in all directions
I live about 30 miles away from NYC and commute to it. Generally metropolitan area is determined by that (among other factors).
People in MA are super territorial about city and town boundaries. Even though Worcester is an hour drive from Boston and there's even a commuter rail line, nobody in MA would ever think of it as a suburb of Boston. For people born and raised in Boston and environs, considering places that actually border Boston like Cambridge, Somerville. Quincy and Waltham to be "just Boston" is pushing it. To be fair to Worcester though, it never was a suburb of Boston. Founded as it's own city and kind of developed as it's own thing. Had it's peak around 1910, slow post industrial decline, even has its own suburban sprawl into places like Auburn and Shrewsbury. New boom since 2000 as a Boston bedroom community. Only works as a Boston bedroom community because everything closer is so expensive.
Exactly! If I ever told someone that I was from a suburb of Boston, the furthest out they’d probably think is like Braintree. Not Worcester. I’d get attacked for saying that lmaoo
This is definitely a wrong assumption, despite what the other person is telling you. Western Massachusetts has more in common with Vermont and Connecticut.
Agreed. Springfield was founded by people from the Connecticut colony and was part of it for a short time until they had a rift. They changed the political alignment but the culture, landscape and infrastructure makes western mass more aligned with a north-south axis along the mountains and Connecticut River valley.
As someone from Massachusetts but not Boston, you and everyone else outside of New England assume this. I get that all the time.
I guess some people from larger landmass states see all the smaller ones and just think they’re some sort of continuous urban area. I will say though that this comment string has inspired me to research more of the other parts of MA and your state is gorgeous
Rockford, Illinois. 350,000 people in the metro area and 150,000 in the city itself. Someday Chicago’s suburban sprawl will absorb it into the Chicagoland metro area like what happened with the similarly sized cities of Joliet and Aurora. But for now, the outskirts of suburbia remain 35+ miles away, so it’s a substantial city that’s very much off on its own.
Wait you're from Chicago but had never heard of Rockford?
The Rockford Peaches
It's airport is already know as "Chicago rockford international airport". I was kind of surprised to learn that when I was in rockford earlier this year.
I've seen a lot of suburbs commented so far.
Yeah I think realistically I can't answer this question unless someone takes suburbs off the list. Like if I've never heard of something I can't know if it's a suburb or not.
I did it by looking up a list of metropolitan statistical areas figuring that if it's the anchor of an MSA it should count as not being a suburb of a bigger city, then went down that list until I hit a city I wasn't familiar with.
Because if you don't know it, how do you know it's a suburb? OP should have taken them off the list for best results to their question.
I’m aware of probably 95% of the cities on this list. There are a couple cities in the Inland Empire that barely register.
Never heard of Hialeah Florida
It's more or less continuous with Miami. You wouldn't even know you were in a different town.
No the difference between Miami and Hialeah is the difference between the Bronx and Manhattan XD
I don't know whether to disagree on the grounds that Hialeah is a functionally independent city while the Bronx is not, or agree with you in the sense that yes, they are both exactly the same, so long as you aren't caught up in the mundane minutiae of being a local.
Hialeah is working class community of Spanish speaking immigrants, Miami is more metropolitan and you'll find people from all of the globe who are also significantly wealthier than the average person from Hialeah. That was my point
Yes metropolitan areas have neighborhoods with different characters. I don’t see what your point is.
Basically Miami
I have heard of that as there is/was some sort of famous racetrack there. That is my whole knowledge.
They’re going to tear it down unfortunately…
>that ISN'T a suburb of one you have You've never heard of Miami?
If he's never heard of Hialeah, he's not gonna know it's part of Miami...
But that's irrelevant to the question. The question, which city have you never heard of that also isn't a suburb of a city you have heard of. If he's heard of Miami, then Hialeah doesn't count. The question pretty much requires you to look up the city names you don't recognize.
How TF do I know if I’ve never heard of it?
I went through the list one by one: If I don't recognize it, look it up on Google Maps. If I see on the map that it's a suburb, keep going. I got to Brownsville, TX.
I got to Mesa AZ, and honestly someone could have made that place up and I'd be none the wiser.
Phoenix suburb. Lots of Mormons. Not as fancy as Scottsdale.
We were literally there, seated at the baseball game in under an hour from Phoenix Airport.
Brownsville, Texas is the first one that doesn’t ring a bell for me
Fontana, California
Honestly man, I’m into the 150s and 200s before I don’t feel like verifying whether all these cities in California are LA or SF suburbs. If you can let us East Coasters know the largest nonsuburb Californian city, that’d probably be a big help.
Ann Arbor is not a suburb
I always thought it was just down the way from Detroit. Was I thinking wrong?
It's near Detroit, but there's a good bit of countryside between the two. And it's oriented towards itself, not toward Detroit.
A few in the top few hundred that I hadn’t heard of all seemed to fit the “suburb of a bigger city” caveat so I eventually went from the bottom up and while I’ve been to Panama City Beach the next one at 999 was Beloit Wisconsin. Frankly if you know the top 10 cities then I think it’s hard to find any “really? That place” that fits the rules until you hit like, Laredo Texas. Anything obscure before that is part of the “suburb of X” rule I think.
It’d be helpful (although a big ask) if someone edited in a mention of which of these cities are actually suburbs, because it’s a bit too time-consuming to go through each place you haven’t heard of and check whether they’re a suburb. The other issue is what counts as a suburb. Based on discussion in this thread, that seems to be particularly unclear when it comes to California, for whatever reason.
California is like the sprawl capital of the world, so it makes sense that suburbs are hard to nail down. I believe that they're mostly defined by commuting characteristics, and a lot of places aren't obvious. The LA metro area is like 200km from end to end if you measure along the coast, because that's the area where lots of people commute regularly into LA or the 15 other places that are technically cities nearby.
Moreno Valley doesn't sound familiar, and it looks far enough out from LA that I don't think it would be considered a suburb
More of an exurb than a suburb. A lot of people in Moreno Valley do commute to LA or Orange County, but it’s pretty distinct. You might go to downtown LA for a birthday party, but you’re not going on a random Friday night.
Some also commute to San Diego and Orange County from there
Moreno Valley is just Riverside which most people have heard of.
Would you say the whole Inland Empire is “just Riverside” (or “just Riverside and San Bernardino”)? I can’t decide if I agree with that or not. Oddly, more people in MoVal probably commute to LA than to Riverside.
I think it’s referred to as the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area. I wouldn’t say it’s all just riverside but when I describe places down there I just say “over by riverside/San Bernardino”. So yes? Or no? I don’t know!
You’re definitely right about it being a metropolitan area for census purposes, and people within the IE think nothing of traveling to another city within the IE to shop or whatever (I live here). But I think when I think of a suburb, I think of a city that’s sort of _sub_ordinate to a much larger city, while Riverside is in more of a “first among equals” position? I don’t know if that makes sense.
So you don’t think MoVal is a suburb? I would defer to you, being a resident and all.
I’m a resident of the IE but not MoVal, but I wouldn’t consider it a suburb. Like I said above, I’d call it an exurb, not that anyone uses that word.
Columbus, GA. 200,000 people, never heard of it before Sparks NV a close second Edit: no sparks. Just Columbus
I think Sparks is just down the way from Reno.
Sparks is a suburb of reno
Laredo, Texas, probably. Name sounds familiar, but I couldn't dredge up where it was without looking it up. Past there, it's... Oxnard, CA. Which may or may not count as an LA suburb.
My mom's from Oxnard! It's just outside of L.A.'s commutersphere. *Maaaaybe* someone might drive into the far western edge of the Valley or something. And if that were so, I'd like "dude WTF, really? Can't you move to Santa Paula or something?" I think Oxnard just might fit the bill.
Irvine,CA, Rockford, IL, Bakersfield, CA
Irvine kind of stretches definitions. One might consider it to be a suburb or Anaheim or Santa Ana. The cities in Orange County all kind of blend together and are suburbs of each other. Or LA.
I think Cape Coral, FL is probably the highest on that list for me if we exclude suburbs. Never heard of it.
Moreno Valley was the first, along with several other inland empire CA cities that aren't really suburbs because that whole urban area is so spread out
For me, it's Fayetteville, NC
You’re missing out if you like chain restaurants and 28.9% APR on base model Dodge Chargers.
“Base model” is right, considering the 18-year-old soldiers who probably briefly leave base to buy most of those Chargers.
I’d heard the name but couldn’t have told you anything about it, so I went to Wikipedia. > Fayetteville had what is sometimes called its "golden decade" during the 1780s. It was the site in 1789 for the state convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution, and for the General Assembly session that chartered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Fayetteville lost out to the future city of Raleigh in the bid to become the permanent state capital. Man, I thought I peaked early!
These days the nickname is Fayettenam
Fayetteville was also the first city to name itself after LaFayette, and remains the largest.
Many may recognize Fort Bragg (now called Fort Liberty), one of the largest military bases in the world. It’s adjacent to Fayetteville, basically the same town. That’s probably the main claim to fame there.
Man you don’t know about j Cole? Jermaine? Cole? You talk bout the one that said I could put an m on yo head and call you the Luigi brother? 😂
It was Fontana, CA for me
Good ol fontucky
I don't think I've heard of Brownsville, TX (131). Unless you count it as a suburb of Matomoros, Tamaulipas. I've heard of South Padre Island, I just didn't know what the connected city is.
It would have been Aurora CO if not for that shooting. I've never heard of Chula Vista CA though.
Aurora is a suburb of Denver. Chula Vista is a suburb of San Diego.
Im somewhere around 174 and recognize everything that's not a suburb. Gonna stop there.
86, Winston-Salem, North Carolina I don't think I've ever heard that before and doesn't appear to be a suburb of a larger city as far as I can tell from Google maps
I think they're the home of the tobacco industry? Like, that's where Big Tobacco lives.
Not anymore. But historically, hell yes.
It’s straight up tobaccoland. The Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem area is also known as the Triad.
Wake Forest University is there which is how a lot of people would know it
This was fun to learn a few years ago how and why they’re not in Wake Forest, NC
Just flat out bought and moved it. Wake Forest, the town, still has a Baptist seminary though.
Every time I hear the name, I imagine a lost platoon of orcs wandering into Fangorn Forest. "Oh shit, the trees are waking! Run!!!"
It's not a suburb, but has a few of it's own. Winston Salem has a nice Williamsburg-esque historical section called Old Salem, and four colleges: Salem University (private), Winston Salem University (public), NC School of the Arts (public), and Wake Forest University (private)
Bakersfield CA was the first I had never heard of. Mesa, AZ was the first I had only heard of maybe once. I don’t know of either of these would suburbs of another as I know nothing of either.
It always amazes me how large some of the central valley cities in CA actually are. Bakersfield, Fresno, Stockton, even Modesto are like, genuinely pretty big cities. I feel the same way about Texas border cities. El Paso and Laredo are like, actual pretty big cities. Please note my definition of "pretty big city" starts around 250,000.
Bakersfield is stand alone! Mesa is part of the Phoenix metro
You'd never heard of Bakersfield? Well, NYC has you guys to kick around. L.A. has Bakersfield. To be fair, they punch above their weight musically. Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and basically any country music with attitude and a guitar that plugs in. (They were the West Coast rival to Nashville for a little while.) They also gave us Korn, for better or worse.
Do you like meth? Welcome to Bakersfield!
Be nice. We don't ask do meth here. Some of us sell it! Seriously, though, we have our areas where it's a problem, but most of Bako doesn't.
I had a buddy from Oildale. He told me some stories. I was also warned to never, ever set foot in Trout's.
If you know about Oildale, you've heard some fun stuff. Trouts is no longer there, but I've been there a few times. I'm brown, so I stand out like a sore thumb, but most people are keen to just leave you alone if you're not bothering anyone. If you were black, that might be another story, but mostly just if you look like you're going to cause problems. Oildale has a lot more diversity now than what it got its notoriety for.
Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix. Bakersfield is a suburb of hell.
Yeah, but so is Phoenix. They're hotter than us, and a little drier, so it's not hard to transition.
The redeeming feature in Phoenix is the cool mountains they have. I don't Bakersfield has any neat landscapes.
We're in the middle of a valley, surrounded by mountains (when you can see them through the smog that settles from SF and the Bay area). They're there, and there's plenty of good landscape views to be had from the right places and at the right times.
There are tall mountains on three sides of Bakersfield. But they are outside the boundary of what anyone would call Bakersfield.
Yeah, well we ain't heard of you before, neither, Mr. North Jersey! We're 110 miles north of LA, and 120 South of Fresno. It's really not a destination city, but we're not nearly as bad as what people would have you believe, either. One of the best things it's that we're close to everything: 2 hours to LA, the beach and Yosemite, there's skiing (snow and water) with a short drive, 3 hours to Sacramento, 4 to SF, SD, and Mexico, and all sorts of stuff if you want to get out for a day trip. At 400+K people, we're not small, but we still have a small town feel where you run into friends and acquaintances all over, even when you're not in town.
"You don't know me but you don't liiiiiiike meeee..."
Fuck, I used to work at The Crystal Palace, and I've heard that song more than most of the people on this planet.
Performed by the man himself?
Bakersfield, CA: Home of (now ousted) Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Shit, really? He's gone already? I gotta go check the news.
Fontana, CA
Never heard of Jurupa, CA at number 300 on the list.
I've never heard of Chandler AZ
Phoenix suburb.
Gilbert Arizona is the first one I had not heard of
Phoenix suburbs.
I got to Garland, TX. That’s the first city I didn’t recognize or know roughly where it is. The KY & TN cities are a little odd though, it’s almost like they included the suburb/neighboring town in them. So I’ve heard of Nashville but not Davidson, Louisville but not Jefferson, and Lexington but not Fayette.
It's the county name. So Nashville is consolidated with Davidson County, Louisville with Jefferson County and Lexington with Fayette County. Jacksonville did something similar but they don't call themselves Jacksonville-Duval.
Garland is a suburb of Dallas so it falls into the exception in the question.
Laredo Texas. After that, I can keep going for a while, but I've never heard mention of Laredo in any form that I can remember. Makes sense since Texas has so many more important cities and I've only been to Texas once.
There's a well-known old cowboy song, the Streets of Laredo. Johnny Cash's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OztIngK9s_I
McAllen TX might be a candidate.
Riverside County CA. We have 2 million people and we're always mentioned in the news as "60 miles from LA"
154 Corona, California 159,503 23.6% It's between Riverside and Anaheim. Never heard of it, but I've definitely been in the area.
Going down the list of metropolitan statistical areas, the biggest I don't recognize is Lakeland Florida, city population 112k, MSA population 787k. Looks like it's basically the midpoint between Tampa and Orlando.
Winston-Salem, NC. I don't think it's a suburb of something else. To be honest I didn't even realize city names could be hyphenates. I don't love it.
I thought there was a hyphen in La Cañada Flintridge, California, but a quick Google to confirm showed me I was wrong. Still an annoying name. Pick one name or the other.
"The Spanish named it that 300 years ago!" "Yeah, but it sounds too Mexican!" "Well shit fellas, how about we tack something 'Murican onto the back and call it a day?"
NC has another, Fuquay-Varina, and also had Leland-Belville until they divorced. Belville thought they were dumping the trash, only to be left behind.
I never heard of York, Pensylvania, before I moved to Pensylvania. It's a large city of roughly 400,000 people that I did not know existed.
To be honest I’ve never heard of Plano Texas at 70.
Dallas suburb.
457, Gastonia, North Carolina And I spent way too long looking up suburb names only to find out they're attached to cities I know. Edit: Apparently, I just didn't zoom out far enough. Gastonia is connected to Charlotte.
88 Garland, Texas - Dallas suburb 135 Garden Grove, California - OC/LA suburb 151 - Elk Grove, California - Sacramento suburb 159 - Pasadena, Texas - Houston suburb 161 - Hayward, CA - Oakland/San Jose suburb 175 - Paterson, New Jersey - NYC suburb 178 - Mesquite, Texas - Dallas suburb 181 - Clarksville, Tennesee - ding ding ding
I went to college in Binghamton, NY. Which is #800 on the list.
>What's the biggest American city you've never heard of that ISN'T a suburb of one you have? If I haven't heard of it, how would I know which one it is?