Title: Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States
Author: Kenneth T. Jackson
Year of Publication: 1985
Thesis:
Comparing data transnationally, Jackson argues that U.S. nationals' (and especially affluent elites') preference for living in rural areas with detached housing and home-ownership developed alongside government subsidies and interventions largely geared to support a commuting, homeowning, affluent, and racially exclusive suburb, making a series of interventions and collaborations appear as a natural development. Wealthy suburban emigrants had an outsize influence in the social and physical structure of these communities, which he argues, were emulated by others.
"It suggests that the space around us —the physical organization of neighborhoods, roads, yards, houses, and apartments—sets up living patterns that condition our behavior." (intro - no page#)
Time: Largely Postwar Era
Geography: U.S.
Organization:
Introduction
- In 1980, 40% of Americans lived in suburbs.
- Suburbs as symbol of rising middle-class
- Not all that easy to pin down what "suburban" means beyond an ideology
- Ex: There are ethnic suburbs, poor and rich suburbs, etc.
- Suburban density in U.S. compares b/c town & country feel similar vs. continued density next to large open spaces in non-U.S. suburbs (comparing to wealthy nations)
- Ownership (at this time 2-3x other European nations)
- Income, education, etc. tend to be higher in suburbs vs. city areas - this stands in contrast to other areas where inner cities tend to be reserved for the wealthy & poorer people commute (South Africa, Western Europe, Brazil as examples)
- Commute time also inverse relation to non-U.S. countries
- Discusses some of the issues with terms such as density (shifts in meaning over time)
1. Suburbs As Slums
2. The Transportation Revolution and the Erosion of the Walking City
3. Home, Sweet Home: The House and the Yard
4. Romantic Suburbs
5. The Main Line: Elite Suburbs and Communter Railroads
6. The Time of the Trolley
7. Affordable Homes for the Common Man
8. Suburbs into Neighborhoods: The Rise and Fall of Municipal Annexation
9. The New Age of Automobility
10. Suburban Development Between the Wars
11. Federal Subsidy and the Suburban Dream: ow Washington Changed the American Housing Market
12. The Cost of Good Intentions: The Ghettoization of Public Housing in the United States
13. The Baby Boom and the Age of Subdivision
14. The Drive-in Culture of Contemporary America
15. The Loss of Community in Metropolitan America
16. Retrospect and Prospect
Appendix
Notes
Index
Type: "Intellectual, architectural, urban... transportational history, public policy analysis" (no page # - return to enter)
Methods:
Sources:
Historiography:
Keywords:
Suburb (uses comparison against non-U.S. geographies:
- lower population density
- home-ownership (affluence)
- living in the home
- commuting to work
Themes:
Critiques:
Questions:
Research Questions:
"This book attempts to account for the divergence of the American experience from that of the rest of the world. How and why did Americans change their assumptions about the good life in the industrial and post- industrial age? Why did the metropolitan areas of the United States decentralize so quickly? What technological and ideological forces created the peculiar shape of the modern metropolis? Have the spatial patterns of American cities—with all they imply about aspirations and ideals—resulted from or caused a set of social values and political policies favoring suburbanization? To what extent has deconcentration involved sacrificing urban facilities in return for maximizing private space? This book then investigates the dynamics of urban land use, the process of city growth through the past, and the ways in which Americans coming together in metropolitan areas have arranged their activities." (no page # - return to add)
Quotes:
"Suburbia symbolizes the fullest, most unadulterated embodiment of contemporary culture; it is a manifestation of such fundamental characteristics of American society as conspicuous consumption, a reliance upon the private automobile, upward mobility, the separation of the family into nuclear units, the widening division between work and leisure, and a tendency toward racial and economic exclusiveness." (return for page #)
Notes:
From: A Tale of Four Cities - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_p8-hzfHxM