Suburbs aren't in other countries

I've been to Europe many times, and one thing that I rarely see is suburb communities. In America, thats all you see. Not even in Europe, but in Africa, Asia, and even South American, there aren't that many suburbs, most countries don't even have them at all. Sure there are the occational London suburbs, but even those are small compared to the U.S. It seems the U.S. is all suburb, country, and some times cities. If you compare our cities to other european cities, they do not dominate. In Spain, a city by the name of Orense, (Grandma's house it up there) or Ourense, has a population of about 110,000-120,000, and it looks more like a city then lets say philly. I was puzzled when I went there and found out the population. It felt much more. Then i relized thre are no suburbs there. Villages, but thats it. Village-country-city, thats there layout. Same goes for portugal. Thats why European cities beat American cities. So my question is why aren't there suburbs in most countries? Do people like living in apartments, or mabye cant afford a house?>