Exurbanization

A commuter town is a town whose residents normally work elsewhere, although they live, eat and sleep in these neighborhoods. The name also suggests that these communities have little commercial or industrial activity beyond a small amount of retail, oriented toward locals.

A commuter town may also be known as an exurb (short for "extra-urban"), or a bedroom community (Canada and northeastern U.S. usage), bedroom town or bedroom suburb (U.S. usage), a dormitory town, dormitory suburb, or less commonly a dormitory village (British English/Commonwealth/Ireland). The phrase "bedroom town" has also been adopted into the Japanese wasei-eigo word bed town (ベッドタウン, beddotaun).

Suburbs and commuter towns often coincide, but not always. Similar to college town, resort town, and mill town, the term commuter town describes the municipality's predominant economic function. A suburb, in contrast, is a community of lesser size, density, political power, and/or commerce comparative to a nearby community that is usually of greater economic importance. A town's economic function may change, for example when improved transport brings commuters to industrial suburbs or railway towns in search of suburban living. Some suburbs, for example Teterboro, New Jersey and Emeryville, California, remained industrial when they became surrounded by commuter towns; many commuters work in such industrial suburbs but few reside in them; hence, they are not commuter towns.

As a general rule, suburbs are developed in areas adjacent to a main employment center, such as a town or a city, but may or may not have many jobs locally, whereas bedroom communities have few local businesses, and most residents who have jobs commute to employment centers some distance away. Commuter towns may be in rural or semi-rural areas, with a ring of green space separating them from the larger city or town. Where urban sprawl and conurbation have erased clear lines among towns and cities in large metropolitan areas, this is not the case.

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