According to this research, people in suburbs are, contrary to popular belief, more sociable than their urban counterparts:

Suburbanites are sociable, researcher discovers, by Daniel Weintraub, Mercury News: It is conventional wisdom in America that the suburbs are soulless places where people lack the kind of intense connections with one another that are almost inevitable in a vibrant, densely populated city center. Gated or not, the suburbs conjure up an image of bedroom communities vacant by day and filled at night with families locked behind their doors or in their own back yards, distant from their neighbors in both a physical and social sense.

That view has helped inform government policies that push for more housing density, public transit and centralization, while shunning what has become known as sprawl.

Now comes a University of California-Irvine professor with research that casts doubt on that wisdom... ''Social interaction is higher, not lower, in the suburbs,'' says Jan Brueckner, an economics professor and editor of the Journal of Urban Economics.

Brueckner and his co-author, Ann Largey, took data from a survey of 15,000 Americans and ... showed that, other things being equal, suburban residents have more friends and confidants, invite friends into their homes more often and have greater involvement in community groups. People who live in less-densely populated areas, Brueckner says, are more likely to join a hobby-oriented club, attend club meetings and belong to a non-church-related group.

For every 10 percent decrease in density, for example, the chance of people talking to their neighbors at least once weekly increases 10 percent, Brueckner found, and involvement in hobby-oriented clubs jumps 15 percent.

''This appears to invalidate one of the frequently heard criticisms of urban sprawl, that it's weakening the social bonds in our society,'' Brueckner told me. ''That's not the case, according to our results.'' ...

Brueckner still is not sure why people in more urbanized areas are less likely to interact. It could be, he says, that city neighborhoods offer more theaters, museums and other forms of culture and entertainment, giving residents less of a need to spend time with one another. The fear of crime could be keeping people from interacting more. Or, the crowding typical in an urban setting might lead residents to withdraw into their own space, seeking privacy.

''The old proverb may be true: 'Good fences make good neighbors,''' he says.

Brueckner's paper has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. His techniques will get serious scrutiny from colleagues... But he is confident that his results will hold up. And if they do, policy-makers will have to take notice.

Suburban development may complicate commute patterns and gobble up open space. But if Brueckner is right, sprawl does not deaden a community's social life. That's a conclusion that is ... worth taking into account as we evaluate the consequences of different patterns of growth.