Talk:Commuter town/Archive 1

Travel to Work Area
I think the information available on Travel to Work Areas at, including the map at , would be a great help for this article. 172.142.220.125 (talk) 01:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Moses?
Considering what an impact Moses and his "renewal" of NYC had on NJ and the rest of the tristate area, shouldn't there be some mention of what sort of history bedroom communities have? Places like Summit exist in the way that they do because of Moses.---GanyBlack 14:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Get it on
frankly, i believe that people can get it on in bedroom communities, so i took out the phrase about "get[ting] it on" from this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dannown (talk • contribs) 22:20, 9 March 2005 (UTC)

List of bedroom communities
I don't know how many bedroom communities there are, or how one can clearly differentiate them in every case, but there must be a couple of thousand. Wouldn't it make sense to leave the list to a category and avoid getting a very long list here? --Leifern 18:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I second that notion. MrZaius  talk  13:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't have time to go through and categorize the list, but at least the list's been moved. If anyone has time to go through and replace it with a category, that would be preferable to having to manually a list like this.  MrZaius  talk  13:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

List cleanup
Mount Carmel, Illinois is quite distant (45 miles) from the only nearby metropolitan area, has one remaining factory that I know of, and massive coal power plant not two miles outside of its city limits. Those that do commute to employment centers outside of town go to three cities, two of which have populations of under 10,000 people. I'm removing it from the list. MrZaius talk  13:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Bedroom community v. Dormitory town
I am very unhappy with the redirect of dormitory town to the highly US specific bedroom community. The phrase dormitory town is used in the UK, and throughout the rest of the English speaking world; bedroom community would appear to be a US-specific term. I suggest that these articles be split, with a see also somewhere prominent in the article. Normally I am happy to go along with Americanisations but this is a singularly unfortunate exception; an English speaking non-US citizen redirected to bedroom community would be as suprised as I was to find themselves there. Sjc 04:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that 'bedroom community' is very striking to a British person, but it may be that 'dormitory town' is similarly odd to Americans. Why not push the more neutral 'commuter town' to the fore, and introduce the other two as regional alternatives? EmmaSmith 11:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd love to agree (never heard of bedroom community myself), however Bedroom communitry wins the fight 132.185.144.122 03:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It's less of a fight, more a case of catering to English speakers around the world, not just those in N. America. If people want to start a UK or a U.S. wikipedia they should go ahead and do that. As it is 'Bedroom community' is very much in minority use. Commuter town is the neutral English language term. Hakluyt bean 18:24, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

There are a ton of bedroom communities in the country, Kissimmee, Florida is one, housing a majority of workers from Walt Disney World, Concord, North Carolina is one, its growth has spurred big time as it is just outside of Charlotte across the county line. Christiansburg, Virginia would be considered one as it is near Virginia Tech and 20 minutes from Roanoke. All three of those places are county seats but growth of those places are based on cities and industries nearby and do not have too many big industries of their own. There are many other examples but these type communties can be county seats as well.

Unfortunately we ended up with a rather garbled article. The difference between a "suburb" and a "dormitory town" in UK usage is pretty clear: the former is a subdivision of a city; the latter a separate town whose population is largely composed of people who commute to the city. Compare Wimbledon or Clapham (suburbs of London) with Tunbridge Wells, Luton or Haywards Heath (dormitory towns of London). You wouldn't get this sense from the article, whose description of suburbs is almost incomprehensible. Grace Note (talk) 10:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Another typical, brainless Wikipedia "consensus". A casual inspection of the "What links here" list shows an overwhelming number of U.S. towns now linking to "Commuter town", when they originally linked to "Bedroom community", while many still link to "Bedroom community".  This illustrates how the "decision" process in Wikipedia generally results in the lowest common denominator.&mdash;QuicksilverT @ 14:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

US usage is apparently the opposite of the UK. In the US a "suburb" is a satellite city, so a subdivision of the main city can't be a suburb except informally. Instead you'd call it a "city neighborhood", or if it's large, perhaps a district or borough. A "bedroom community" is a certain kind of suburb, one that's overwhelmingly residential, with few local jobs. "Dormitory town" is not used and may not be understood (a dormitory is a building for housing students). "Commuter town" is not used either but is more readily understood, so it's better for an international article title. However, it should be noted that since the 1980s many suburbs have become significant job centers and attract reverse commuters from the city. Sluggoster (talk) 01:24, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Redirect
Bedroom community and dormitory town now redirect here. Commuter town seems the only term that is neutral and descriptive. Any violent dissent please add below :) Hakluyt bean 18:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal re: Exurb
I proposed that the article Exurb be merged into this one. They appear to be identical concepts. Grumpyyoungman01 12:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong Oppose - Commuter towns have been around since the 1900s. Exurbs and new. People in commuter towns work in cities. People in exurbs may work in cities, bur many work in other suburbs. Commutertows are someplace near cities. Exurbs have no realtion to cities. That is why so much has been written about them. No merege. futurebird 15:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - "The expression "exurb" (for "extra-urban") was coined in the 1950s, by Auguste Comte Spectorsky in his book "The Exurbanites", to describe the ring of prosperous rural communities beyond the suburbs that are becoming commuter towns for an urban area."
 * -"A commuter town, also known as a bedroom community (Canada and U.S. usage), dormitory town (UK, Commonwealth and Republic of Ireland usage), or less commonly dormitory village (UK and Commonwealth) is a community that is primarily residential in character, with most of its workers commuting to a nearby town or city to earn their livelihood."


 * If two articles can't differentiate themselves in their introductions, how can you justify that they are significantly different from each other? Grumpyyoungman01 10:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - If anything, commuter town should be merged into Exurb. 128.174.68.130 (talk) 17:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"Comment" - Agree with previous opposition. The concept of exurban development in present day has evolved from what it was in 1950s just like anything else in this world. At that time accessibility to urban centers was the dominant factor in driving land use change (just like before it was being closer to the productive land...and so on... see Huston, 2005)but now there are other factors that have come to play. Think of the transformation of 2nd homes (cottages) in nature rich areas (like Central Ontario, Great Lakes States, foothills of western mountains)into "McMansions". Fuelled by advances in IT, people can live anywhere and "tele-commute". Likewise, the wealthy retirees and their quest for nature/semi-rural life has paved way for more of these kinds of developments. Some recent researches have also shown that these new "exurban" developments are not necessarily positively correlated with the accessibility to urban centers, in fact sometimes it is negatively correlated. However, accessibility to nature areas (being closer to water bodies, parks etc) was important factors. Thus, bottomline, all commuter towns may be categorized into exurban but all exurbs may not be commuter town. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jepayotyai (talk • contribs) 14:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Exurb merged
The merge was before my time and in principle I dislike it, on grounds that "commuter town" means a place whose residents work elsewhere, for example the Maple Grove of the photo, which is a commuter town and a bicentric suburb but not an exurb. However, the old article did a poor job of defining its topic, and didn't deserve separate status. What I'd like to do in the next few weeks is tighten the definitions, choose a few good examples, and clarify other aspects of the section and of this whole commuter town article. Perhaps then the merits of a distinct "exurb" article will be more obvious. Jim.henderson 15:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Planning
I made some slight changes at the end of the first paragraph in this section...believe its wording now reflects a MORE subjective viewpoint (saying that inner suburbs are "constrained" by "Conservative inner-city politics" to me is both a gross generalization and an opinion on a matter that has a lot more complexity than that. What I am mostly interested in, though, is what this paragraph is implying...it seems to be confusing "municipal boundaries," "city proper," and "metropolitan area" as meaning the same thing. 206.223.242.160 06:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Umm, is this change meant to imply that inner city resistance to big box retailers is often due to "greenfield" considerations? Far as I see, such questions are seldom raised, since retailers practically never find such sites anyway.  Conservatives there offer quite other objections to economic change.  Of course, this is not a central city article, but still it should be careful not to give false impressions in its comparisons.


 * And yes, the older words indeed confuse the definitions of different kinds of places. Jim.henderson 22:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

At this time the entire last paragraph of the "Planning" section is not sourced at all, and lends a heavy weight toward original research material. I am deleting the entire last paragraph. Feel free to restore it with appropriate references. 75.134.26.34 (talk) 04:16, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Section On Paradise Drive
I can't see why this section should stand as such (i.e. WP:WEIGHT). It is just one book on the subject, but it is given the weight equal to other sections, although it is a short one. While it deserves to be mentioned, I think it should either be considered notable enough to have its own article (albeit, right now, a stub) or not notable enough to have its own section and thus form part of a bibliography. I would suggest, for a starting point, simply renaming the section "Bibliography" (or "Further reading") and leaving the content as it is, to be expanded.

Opinions please. Si Trew (talk) 10:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Commuter towns in the USA
I found a source: WhisperToMe (talk) 00:11, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Leinberger, Christopher. "The Death of the Fringe Suburb." (Opinion) The New York Times. November 25, 2011.
 * Mozingo, Louise A. "To Rethink Sprawl, Start With Offices." (Opinion) The New York Times. November 25, 2011.

By country
I think that this article needs to be sectioned up by country, as the reasons for dormitory towns, while they have certain characteristics in common are largely influenced by national policy and local circumstances.

For example in Britain dormitory towns and Villages initially sprung up around railway stations. As most travel was by horse drawn vehicles away from the railways, and it was impractical to leave a horse all day at a railway station, there was a tendency to live within walking distance of the station. In countries where development took place after the advent of the motorcar the criteria are different.

In Britain with the introduction of car and initially the more important motorised bus, encouraged ribbon development because building along a pre-existing road is cheaper than infilling areas. Green Belt zoning laws in Britain were introduced to stop ribbon development, which in overcrowded England was threatening to make very many main road into one long ribbon of development between many cities. The policy of the encouragement to infill villages and towns rather than building on the artery roads or green field sites was a major factor in developing the further development of dormitory towns initially built around railway stations.

It may be in other countries that similar pressures produced a similar development but it is more likely that local conditions, means of transport, and government policies have created commuter towns for other reasons and hence why I think that the current structure of this article could be improved. -- PBS (talk) 10:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Dr. Berliant's comment on this article
Dr. Berliant has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"This article is mostly historical and literary. It would be nice to have some economics. The basic theory here (for example mill towns) is due to Mirrlees, and Solow and Vickery."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Berliant has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : Berliant, Marcus & Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 2015. "Equilibrium commuting," MPRA Paper 63504, University Library of Munich, Germany.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 02:58, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Typo? Shouldn't Ref.1 translation be "Bedroom Towns"?
Typo? Shouldn't Ref.1 translation be "Bedroom Towns"? When I click through the link the result read: bedroom towns. Swoolverton (talk) 08:41, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Suburbs, exurbs, absurbs
I would suggest "absurbs" for commuter towns which are absurdly far... 128.100.122.177 (talk) 17:45, 10 October 2017 (UTC)