Oh, Da99YearOldMomInLaw's hacienda is nott in the'burbs' - it's in a smallish city - in the old section (built when the city was still an industrial and meat-packing powerhouse).
No, nott a 'burb' at all. Butt the city lotts were/are more spacious than the postage stamps that many olde lEast Coast cities have. DaUppaMidwess had/has a lott of open land, so the lott sizes can be bigger in 'newer' cities (as opposed to say Chicago witch was already densely built up by 1900).
The neighborhood is as hard-core blue-collar as you'll find. It's a nice small city - no rundown areas. Pretty mixed racially and ethnically. When I visit, it's like walking into an episode of Leave It To Beaver - the 'inner' city has a 1940s-50s feel to it. Dominated by old, large, red brick industrial buildings - with some of the ads painted on the sides faded in the 60 or 70 years that have passed since the brick walls were painted with the ad. Ads for old, long-GONE companies and products I've never heard of.
It's a cool little city in an old-fashioned kind of way. Has some fabulous dive-bar tavernas (which I thoroughly enjoy) - all walkable (or stumble-able) from Da99YearOleMomInLaw's estancia. Most things are close by - bike-able if nott walkable. A grocery store, a Dairy Queen (where DaSquaw worked in summers), a deli/butcher/carniceria/meat shop, three CONvenience stores (all walkable), a BBQ joynt, a barber/hairdresser (I gett my haircut there when I visit because DaSquaw went to skool with the woman who owns the shop), a Greek/gyro restaurant/shop/bar, two pizza places, etc. - all close by - as are parks.
And everbuddy on a street knows everbuddy else within 2-3 blocks of any direction. If you need help, a ride, to borrow a tool (or a pickup truck), you can count on multiple neighbors being happy to hepp you ~OUTT. Most people there have lived on the same street all or most of their lives. Very little mobility except in some Section 8 public housing several (mebbe 8) blocks away where rental tenants do turn over frequently.
Everbuddy is pretty welcoming - even to a dude with California license plates. That wood nott be the case in Texas, Colorado, Oregon, or Warshington. And definitely nott in Idaho or Montana!!!
Butt then again, that city and state have nott experienced a flood of former Californians as have the above-mentioned states for economic/taxonomic refugees fleeing the Pyrite State. So the resentment has nott built up ... yett ... for us California platers.
The only real prollems are the recent spate of burglaries/home invasions and the potholes in DaStreets witch are repaired every Spring butt are back every winter. OTOH, no graffiti - no evident vandalism - no 'flash mobs' - no homeless pooping on the streets or in the parks (HELLO, SAN FRANCISCO!!!!) - no beggars or bums - the alkies stick to the tavernas.
Only downside is Da99YearOleMomInLaw's manor is only a few short blocks from a fair sized railroad switching yard - which means that when a heavy freight goes by, the house shakes - and when they are busting up or making up trains - which can happen 24 hours a day! - there is lot of crashing and booming. Butt you really do gett used to it. I barely even notice it anymore when I visit. Butt when you're upstairs in the CONverted attic (that the DaDeceasedDadInLaw finished as two bedrooms), the shaking at night can be a bit earthquakish when a cuppla long strings of rail cars bash together as they're putting a train together - the combined intertia makes some pretty loud slam-crashing and a good shake-me-up when upstairs in a wood-frame house.
All-in-all, it's a decent place to live - butt for the weather.
And, best of all, Da99YearOldMomInLaw loves cardinals, and there are always some that visit the bird feeders - and she so enjoys watching them. These are the "northern cardinal" species - and I do nott think they are Catholics.
Butt nott a 'burb' as that term is understood by me. Definitely a city, albeit smallish.
