Suburbs are currently the focus of much research because they are the arena for many contemporary social, economic, and political issues. Yet definitions of what constitutes a suburb remain elusive, and there is no consensus in the literature on best practice approaches. This article presents a side-by-side comparison of four methods of defining suburbs for quantitative research (Cooke and Marchant 2006; Hanlon and Vicino 2007; Kneebone and Berube 2013; Anacker, Niedt, and Kwon 2017). The comparison was conducted with data from the one hundred largest metropolitan areas in the United States using multivariate analysis of variance. The four methods were evaluated based on how well they capture the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic variability between urban and suburban areas and within suburban areas themselves. The results indicate that political boundaries of the inner city and regional variation in metropolitan structure are important characteristics that need to be considered when selecting a suburb definition for quantitative, comparative research on suburbs. This article highlights the strength and weaknesses of each method and recommends which method works best in various geographical contexts.

中文翻译：

---

定义郊区：四种方法的评估和比较

郊区目前是许多研究的焦点，因为它们是许多当代社会、经济和政治问题的舞台。然而，郊区的定义仍然难以捉摸，关于最佳实践方法的文献也没有达成共识。本文对定量研究中定义郊区的四种方法进行了并排比较（Cooke 和 Marchant 2006；Hanlon 和 Vicino 2007；Kneebone 和 Berube 2013；Anacker、Niedt 和 Kwon 2017）。使用多变量方差分析对来自美国一百个最大都市区的数据进行了比较。这四种方法是根据它们捕捉城市和郊区之间以及郊区本身内部的种族、民族和社会经济变异的程度来评估的。结果表明，在选择郊区定义进行郊区的定量比较研究时，需要考虑内城的政治边界和大都市结构的区域差异。本文重点介绍了每种方法的优点和缺点，并推荐了哪种方法最适合各种地理环境。