WHEN THE URBAN FRINGE IS NOT SUBURBAN*

Research on the history of suburbs tends to either disregard the fringe of urban development or locate it beyond the city limits. In this article I argue that compounding fringe and suburban development misrepresents the real differences between the two. I then examine the metropolitan regions of three major U.S. cities‐Baltimore, Buffalo, and Saint Louis in 1880 for evidence of how they differed. A consistent difference emerged between the residents of the suburban districts of a city and those of the presumed location of the fringe.