I live in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex which has close to 7 million people only about 1.3 million of which live in Dallas with another 800,000 or so who live in Fort Worth. The rest live in surrounding towns and cities. For the most part the people don't only live in those suburban areas but work in them as well. The suburban areas tend to have much lower population densities than cities but they still tend to be well developed and are not rural. In fact with the exception of really end high stores the suburbs usually have better shopping. People mostly live in single family dwellings in large planned neighborhoods and drive to literally every place they go or they live in large sprawling two to three story apartments and drive everywhere they go.

Suburbs are much maligned by the hipster urban class but they have a lot of room and if you chose correctly great schools and low crime rates. Most of the out of control crime rates you hear about in the US takes place in urban area. Suburbs in general tend to be great places to raise families and the cities tend to be dirty and violent with a few high end urban areas for young people who like the urban life style and don't have school age kids and people rich enough to pay for private schools. In my opinion the biggest draw back to suburbs is they tend be dominated by big box stores and chain restaurants and they tend to have a very generic feel with one look and feeling a lot like the other. Part of it is these areas are simply so new and were built all around the same time. 100 years ago the Dallas Fort Worth area was mostly cattle so most of it is new and the majority of growth in the last 30 years has been to the north so town like Frisco have 100,000 people, most of who mover there since 1995. As these areas mature they tend to get more caricature though not always in a good way.