There are plenty of very livable US college towns with medium-density downtowns, condos for far less than $1M, plenty of green space, and streets I'd feel comfortable letting my kids (if I had any) ride their bikes around. Bloomington, Indiana, Madison, Wisconsin, and Davis, California (granted, that last one isn't as affordable as the others) come to mind among places I've been to. I imagine places like Ann Arbor, Michigan and Champaign, Illinois rank up there too.
Those aren’t suburbs to you? Sure the main commercial street (maybe a few blocks total) isn’t, but Ann Arbor is 90% suburban single family homes.
It’s like San Mateo. The Main Street is more dense but very few choose to live there. It’s mostly endless single family homes.
Hell, I’d call a good part of SF “practically” suburban. Sunset is mostly block upon block of single family homes with maybe 1 corner store within a 10-15 min walk. Transit is easy on a narrow strip, otherwise you’re screwed without a car.
I personally don’t see much difference between that and what people rail against as suburbs.
