Some of us would like to think that suburbia everywhere is homogenized and indistinguishable from metro area to metro area, but is that truly the case?

Doesn't the appearance of a city's suburban area depend on the importance of that city and that city's wealth, as well? Is a city's persona reflected onto its suburbs?

Here's the question:

CAN YOU TELL THE IMPORTANCE OF A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY BY NEVER STEPPING FOOT IN THAT CITY, BUT JUST DRIVING THORUGH ITS SUBURBS?

To clarify, do the suburbs of Top Tier cities look different than the suburbs of lower tier cities....be that in transportation, housing costs (obvious one), density, shopping, education, culture, diversity, restaurants, enterainment, traffic, amenities,attractions, etc.?

Is suburban Baltimore fundamentally different from suburban NYC?
Suburban Cleveland from suburban Chicago?
Suburban San Diego from suburban LA?
etc.

Can you get a sense of how major a city is just by viewing and analyzing its suburbs?

define suburbia. Do you consider as suburbia as conurbated cities in the metro area of one major city? If so, how important would you consider Porto Alegre considering that these cities are in its metro area (and are all conurbated, as any sat pic can show). The cities are no more than 50km away from the main city.

Novo Hamburgo
http://img245.echo.cx/img245/8747/12828453nr.jpg
http://img10.exs.cx/img10/8503/103_0357.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/rogeriopenna/NH2/129_2902.jpg

São Leopoldo
http://www.cdl-sl.com.br/images/cidade.jpg

there are a few other cities in the metro with good skylines, but I am having bad luck finding pics. Anyway, what I mean is that, if just passing by a suburb (if you consider the cities above as suburbs) you would be able to tell the importance of the city, then Porto Alegre would probably be more important than many important american cities.

(just for extra info, Porto Alegre has 1,3 million people and its metro area has 3,7 million people.

CAN YOU TELL THE IMPORTANCE OF A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY BY NEVER STEPPING FOOT IN THAT CITY, BUT JUST DRIVING THORUGH ITS SUBURBS?

Can you get a sense of how major a city is just by viewing and analyzing its suburbs?
No, it's quite simple: while driving through a city i never received any objective facts or figures to form a good opinion about that city. ;)
The only thing you can say, while driving through a city is something about the size and even that doensn't tell the whole story.

But also, many people believe that skyscrapers represent economic wealth, which is also not true.

A good example is this map of the urban area's and the growth of them in my country, the Netherlands. Yellow spots are urban area's from before 1970, red is after 1970. In that case you can claim that the Dutch cities have gone suburban. But look at this map and the red spots, can you tell which are the major cities in the Netherlands?

http://www.rivm.nl/milieuennatuurcompendium/nl/images-figuren/0187p03k-04.jpg

I think LA has spawned some pretty prominent suburbs (if not just by who lives in them). Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, Malibu, orange county. These are suburbs that have really surpassed the main CBD (and so powerful in terms of LA that the CBD has been very neglected)

yes, in my experience, you can. north american metropolitan areas are amazingly polynodal in such that the business functions of the region are primarily performed in areas that are not in the CBD. in fact, in areas that bear little resemblance to a cbd or an exurban area. truth be told, several large metropolitan areas in the US have developed in a pattern that excludes the inclusion of a traditional CBD in the urban fabric. with that in mind, you may certainly view the prosperity, vibrancy, affluance, quality of life as well as the primary functions performed in a given region without ever having once set foot in or eye upon the CBD. additionally, the overwhelming majority of americans (not certain of the actual percentage) live, work, shop and generally tend to their daily affairs without the need of ever setting foot in the regional CBD.

In the United States, you often can. One can tell by driving through Chicago's suburbs, particularly the inner ones, that the city at the center is different than others in the Midwest, largely because of the huge double decker commuter rail trains that are coming to and from the city proper.