FWIW my suburban town has almost no chain anythings. I can walk to local coffee shops (have to drive to a Starbucks). We have an amazing collection of local restaurants covering almost every possible cuisine. We have a great library, rail trails, public forrest and green spaces, a local CSA my wife bikes to once a week to pick up our veggies, and much more.
I do agree that HN in general is too harsh on suburbs. However, I think this is quite far from typical, possibly as far as ufmace's post was from typical. Most suburbs are going to be in the middle somewhere.
The kinds of suburbs people are lambasting here are almost by definition places where the only things in non-driving distance are houses and some basic amenities (schools, big box/grocery stores, maybe a library). Once you're to the point of having more than a couple of restaurants in walking distance (that aren't Perkins) that's not really what we're thinking of when we blast "suburbs."
