Suburban living has long been a favorite punching bag for snooty center-city denizens and land-use experts who warn of the ecological and societal threat of sprawl.

But has "Suburbia" - the collective term for the thousands of family-oriented outliers that spring up around urban cores but aren't quite cities themselves - gotten a bad rap?

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center suggests it has. The survey reveals that suburbanites are far more satisfied with the communities they call home than their counterparts in urban centers and small towns - more satisfied, even, than folks living in rural areas far removed from city centers.

The survey also showed a connection between residents' satisfaction with their communities and their overall happiness. Forty-seven percent of those who said they were "very happy" also said they were highly satisfied with their communities, while barely 15 percent of respondents who said they were "not too happy" claimed to be highly satisfied with their communities.

While surprising to some, the Pew Research findings were old news to Jan Brueckner, a professor of economics at the University of California-Irvine in Orange County. Brueckner conducted a landmark study more than two years ago that basically reached the same conclusion: Suburbs have a lot more going for them than is commonly believed, including residents who feel more connected to their neighbors and are more civic-minded than those in urban environs.

Nor are the survey's results surprising to Gail Ortiz, communications manager for the City of Santa Clarita. Considered a suburb of L.A., Santa Clarita is nonetheless a community whose residents consider themselves fortunate to be removed from all the fuss and bother of their cousins to the south.

"It's just a better quality of life here," she says. "Typically, the suburbs are more family-friendly, there's more infrastructure, and more amenities and programs that cater to families and individual's needs. City Hall is very much in touch with our community and responsive to its needs. I think that in large metropolitan cities, you don't always get that."

The Pew Research survey results support Ortiz's comments. Conducted from Oct. 3-9, the survey found 42 percent of suburban residents were very satisfied with their community, versus 34 percent of residents living in large cities, 29 percent of rural residents and 25 percent of those living in small towns. The most satisfied suburban dwellers were those living in the western U.S. - 48 percent, compared to just 38 percent of their western big-city counterparts.

Ortiz says that along with more and better infrastructure and services, Santa Clarita residents also enjoy a more immediate connection with their city officials.

"The mayor has his own Facebook page, and he Twitters," she says. "You can run into him at the grocery store, chat with him about any problems you might have in your neighborhood, and the next day, your potholes are fixed. That level of care, that quality of life, is much higher in a suburban community than in the big city."

Brueckner documented that suburban feeling of closeness with City Hall was in a 2006 study. Working off data collected from 15,000 residents across the country, Brueckner's study found a direct relationship between a community's population density and its residents' level of community involvement. It also found that for every 10-percent drop in population density, the probability of neighbors talking to other neighbors at least once a week increases 10 percent. Bottom line: Suburbanites tend to feel more socially connected both with their fellow residents and their local government.

The study flew in the face of a core belief held by opponents of so-called urban sprawl, which is that development spread over too large an area causes a decrease in social relationships. Other arguments against sprawl include concerns that it contributes to environmental pollution, creates traffic congestion and consumes badly needed open space.

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