Commuting is periodically recurring travel between a place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. Regarding occupation, it is also colloquially called the journey to work. By extension, it can sometimes be any regular or often repeated travel between locations, even when not work-related. The modes of travel, time taken and distance traveled in commuting varies widely across the globe. Most people in least-developed countries continue to walk to work. The cheapest method of commuting after walking is usually by bicycle, so this is common in low-income countries but is also increasingly practised by people in wealthier countries for environmental and health reasons. In middle-income countries, motorcycle commuting is very common.
Ring Road, Vienna, Austria, June 2005
Commuters on the New York City Subway during rush hour
Rush hour at Shinjuku Station, Tokyo
Traffic jam in Baltimore, Maryland
A suburb is an area within a metropolitan area which often contains most of the area's economic activity, which may include commercial and mixed-use. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate political entity. The name describes an area that is either more or less densely populated than an inner city. In many metropolitan areas suburbs rise in population during the day and are where most jobs are located; being major commercial and job hubs, many suburbs also exist as separate residential communities within commuting distance of a larger city. Suburbs can have their own political or legal jurisdiction, especially in the United States, but this is not always the case, especially in the United Kingdom, where most suburbs are located within the administrative boundaries of cities. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central city or inner city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, suburb has become largely synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in the U.S., but it is used in contrast with inner city areas.
Nassau County on Long Island, New York (above) is emblematic of the continuous sprawl making up the inner suburbs of New York City, in contrast with Monroe Township, New Jersey (below), characteristic of an outer suburb, or exurb, of New York City, with a lower population density.
Weilerswist, a suburb of Cologne, Germany
Männistö, a suburban neighborhood in Kuopio, Finland
Saaristokaupunki (Archipelago city), a new suburban area in Kuopio, Finland