alt Hacker News> "Suburban cities" is a very funny concept to me.
An example near and dear to me is Portland. Although there is an urban core, so some people would claim it is not in fact a suburban city, the footprint of the city is dominated by single family homes. And generally not the endless modern tract variety, either.
Most of the area of London is family homes. It is surrounded by commuter towns too.
The difference might be that the suburbs and commuter towns have local centres.
People still use cars, but they use them less and for shorter journeys.