What this paper, “Penurbanizing: The Outer Suburbs Redefined” does, is introduce the concept of penurbia and scrutinize its role in contemporary North American suburbanization. In very broad terms, I argue that traditional division of urban borderlands into suburbs and exurbs gives a picture which lacks a great deal of descriptive texture. These classifications – suburbs and exurbs – based on statistical, demographic, physical, and jurisdictional characteristics are really too diverse to lump together once scrutinized.