[Jumps into the deep end of the swimming pool. 
And yes, most of my examples are from Chicago and its suburbs, because that’s what I’m familiar with.]
I think there’s a lot of talking past each other in this thread, which seems to arise from conflation of concepts, which in turn seems to arise out of understandable defensiveness.
First, IMHO we need to take identical houses and chain stores/restaurants off the table as a point of distinction. There are Walgreens on seemingly every major intersection in Chicago, and the bungalow belt neighborhoods were mass-built with row after row of identical houses. We should also take crime off the table: as someone else noted, some of the worst areas in metro Chicago are suburbs, and there are many relatively safe neighborhoods with lots of middle-class families in the city of Chicago (Edison Park, for instance).
I heartily agree with the people who have noted that for purposes of criticizing suburban living and supporting urban living that urban doesn’t necessarily mean “the municipality with the central business district for the metro area” and suburban doesn’t necessarily mean “municipalities outside that city”. :rolleyes: There are suburban areas that don’t sprawl, and I imagine there are areas nominally inside city limits, in the Sunbelt for instance, that do sprawl.
To me, sprawl or suburban living means fastidiously separated land uses, large residential lots, few if any sidewalks; generally, a zoning and land use pattern that requires one to drive pretty much everywhere. To me, urban living means relatively mixed land uses, consistent sidewalks, and the ability to make a fair chunk of one’s trips (not all, necessarily) on foot or by bicycle. In short, IMHO if you can walk to a grocery store or restaurant or the library without taking your life into your hands, the area is urban/non-sprawl, and if you can’t, it’s suburban sprawl. Or to put it another way, many urban dwellers have a car but they’re not paralyzed without one.
I would hazard a guess that a majority of the area of Chicago zoned and used for residences is single-family detached houses, including the aforementioned Bungalow Belt. As others have mentioned, there are similar swaths of Queens, in the City of New York proper, that are mostly single-family houses but with stores, other amenities, and public transit within walking distance. These places aren’t considered suburban merely because everyone isn’t living in high-rises. :rolleyes:
I grew up in a house in a suburb bordering Chicago, where the lot sizes are identical to the adjoining city neighborhood with straight streets on a grid pattern and consistent sidewalks on both sides of the street. The town doesn’t have a proper downtown, but commercial uses aren’t kept separate from residential, and when I lived there plenty of people walked to the park, to the library, to school, to the mall – which is enclosed but across a narrow side street from houses. Were it not for the different street signs and lamp-posts, I doubt many people passing by on the main streets would know where the city ended and my suburb began.
I live in another Chicago suburb now, and it has some truly suburban portions. But the area where I live is the old downtown around the commuter rail station, with a mix of condo or apartment buildings and houses, with a commercial area around the train station, and consistent sidewalks on both sides of the streets. I have a car and find it useful but not an absolute necessity for daily living.
The commuter rail lines leading out of Chicago are lined with old pre-WWII suburbs with a commercial downtown and a surrounding walkable neighborhood of single family houses. Step off a train in Hinsdale, for instance, and there are very few multidwellings and many of the houses are absolutely huge. Nobody’s going to mistake Hinsdale for midtown Manhattan. :rolleyes: And yet one can eat dinner, or buy a cup of coffee, or get a haircut, or go to the library with a brief walk that doesn’t involve walking in mud or crossing eight lanes of flying traffic. Notably, most if not all of these prewar walkable suburbs have truly suburban portions as well. Naperville, to use another example from elsewhere in the thread, has a thriving downtown and residential area walkable from the main train station and mile after mile of sprawling subdivisions where only the desperate or foolhardy walk anywhere.
Most people criticizing suburbia don’t want everyone to give up their car or live in apartment buildings. If you live in a house in a suburb and have a car, but you don’t have to drive everywhere – and especially if you’re not kvetching about having to chauffeur your children everywhere – it’s not you we’re criticizing. 