Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000For almost two centuries Americans have been moving to the suburbs in search of affordable family housing, unspoiled nature, and small-town sociability--only to find that their leafy new neighborhoods are part of the growing metropolitan sprawl. It is to this contested cultural landscape, where most Americans now live, that Dolores Hayden draws our attention. From nineteenth-century utopian communities and elite picturesque enclaves to early twentieth-century streetcar subdivisions and owner-built tracts to the vast postwar sitcom suburbs and the subsidized malls and office parks that followed (on a scale that earlier builders could never have imagined), Hayden reveals the cultural and economic patterns that have brought us to the present. She explores the interplay of natural and built environments, the complex antagonisms between real-estate developers and suburban residents, the hidden role of federal government, and the religious and ideological overtones of the "American dream" embedded in the suburbs. Hayden asks hard questions about who has benefited from the suburban building process and about "smart" growth and "green" building. And she makes a strong case for the revitalization of existing neighborhoods in place of unchecked new growth on rural fringes. Few readers will see our ubiquitous suburbs in the same way again. |
Contents
Three Borderlands | 21 |
Seven Sitcom Suburbs | 128 |
Eight Edge Nodes | 154 |
Copyright | |
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acres advertising affluent Alexander Jackson Davis American Dream Andrés Duany Andrew Jackson Downing architects Architecture areas automobile Beecher big-box stores borderland builders building built Cambridge cars Celebration Chicago City commercial construction cost cottage Davis Dolores Hayden Downing's economic Edge City edge nodes electric Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk federal gardens Gross growth machines highway historian History Hopkins University Press horsecar Ibid included Jackson kitchen land landscape Levitt and Sons Levittown live Llewellyn Park located lots mail-order house malls Mass metropolitan middle-class mortgage National neighborhoods older suburbs Olmsted owners Park Forest picturesque enclaves places planners projects railroad real estate development regional residential residents roads rural fringes Sears Seaside single-family houses sitcom suburbs Smart Growth social space Sprawl streetcar suburbs streets subdivision subsidies suburban Suburbia telecommuting tion town tract Tysons Corner United Urban village Washington women workers York
References to this book
Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress ... Setha Low No preview available - 2003 |
Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from Census 2000, Volume 3 Alan Berube,Bruce Katz,Robert Lang No preview available - 2006 |