Moments from Suburbia: Contact

The word is derived from the Old French "subb urbe" and ultimately from the Latin "suburbium", formed from "sub", meaning "under", and "urbs", meaning "city", therefore suburbis would mean under the city. Important people tended to live on hills near centers of commercial and political activity, while the lower classes often lived in marginal areas. "Under" in later usage sometimes referred variously to lesser wealth, political power, population, or population density. The first recorded usage, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, comes from Wycliffe in 1380, where the form "subarbis" is used

Consigned to the wheelie bin at the end of the drive?

Half the population lives in suburbia but fewer like to admit it.
Car washing on a Sunday in front of a semi-detached mock Tudor home complete with twitching net curtains is the life it conveys, to repeated ridicule.
The image of a cultural wasteland between the vibrant, edgy inner city and the rural idyll was reinforced by 1970s comedies such as The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and The Good Life, and dramas like Abigail's Party.
But does this prejudice have any basis today or should it be consigned to the wheelie bin at the end of the drive?
By Tom Geoghegan BBC News Magazine

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