>>1463393>>1463440In Europe most suburbs are like that, since they evolved from smaller towns around a larger town. So you usually get a somewhat denser suburb-downtown with mixed use, and a bit further out the low-density residential area. These suburb downtowns also usually have a train station at the center, which helps keep density up and businesses going.
I've always thought that LRT would be a good fit for many american cities to link up suburbs, with an at-grade ROW, signal priority, and stops a bit further away outside downtown, you can achieve speeds very close to a subway, but at lower cost and capacity. You'd only need to very slightly densify the suburb cores, like changing those tacky strip malls with their huge parking lots into a mixed use area with maybe a public square or park, a few medium rise apartment buildings, keep the shops ofc and put parking underground instead. Seems like a low effort initial improvement for suburbs. And you still can keep a lot of low-density suburbs for those who prefer that.
