Suburbs
Residential areas on the outskirts of cities, shaped by transport and history.
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area which is predominantly residential and within commuting distance of a large city. Suburbs can have their own political or legal jurisdictions, especially in the United States, but this is not always the case, especially in the United Kingdom, where most suburbs are located within the administrative boundaries of cities. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central city or inner city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, suburb has become largely synonymous with what is called a 'neighborhood' in the U.S.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Playable stage
- First appears
- Katamari Damacy (2004)
- Developer
- Balmung Studio
- Publisher
- Namco
- Original platform
- PlayStation 2
- Setting
- Residential neighborhood with lawns
- houses
- and gardens
Lore & Background
Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries, as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting. The English word is derived from the Old French subburbe, which is in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub (meaning 'under' or 'below') and urbs ('city'). The first recorded use of the term in English according to the Oxford English Dictionary appears in Middle English c. 1350 in the manuscript of the Midlands Prose Psalter, in which the form suburbes is used.
Reader's Guide
In Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, suburban areas have become formalized as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an outlying residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality or unincorporated area outside a town or city. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the term suburb simply refers to a residential area outside the city centre, regardless of administrative boundaries.
Did You Know?
- The earliest appearance of suburbs coincided with the spread of the first urban settlements.
- The word suburbani was first employed by the Roman statesman Cicero in reference to the large villas and estates built by the wealthy patricians of Rome on the city's outskirts.
- In Australia, the distinctively Australasian suburb, with its loosely aggregated quarter-acre sections, developed in the 1850s and eventually became a component of the Australian Dream.
More in City, Cosmos & Stages
Elsewhere in Katamari Damacy
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