1.4: Suburbia

For many, the word suburb conjures up an image of post-World War II single-family-tract homes, produces of the age of automobiles and superhighways. Yet one basic fact of American suburbia is that it has existed virtually as long as the nation itself. It is not the offspring of the car or, postwar federal mortgage insurance and freeway programs. Suburbia was a creation over the past two centuries by millions of Americans who wanted to pursue an economic endeavor or lifestyle incompatible with the policies or development patterns of central cities. The American suburb is a prime example of the nation's tradition of expansive freedom and mobility. Taking advantage of the abundance of peripheral land, entrepreneurs and home seekers in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' pursued their own particular aspirations in outlying communities. They laid out sprawling factories, estates, residential subdivisions, and shopping malls, creating a way of life not possible within the confines of the central city. Moreover, state lawmakers maximized the opportunity for local self-rule, allowing Americans in all types of outlying communities, whether densely or sparsely populated, industrial or residential, to fashion their destiny exempt from the dictation of central city rulers. Suburbia reflects the desire of Americans over the decades to do it their own way, to create alternative communities in pursuit of a profit or a dream (Teaford, 2008: 1).

Any discussion of suburbia would be remiss without the seminal thoughts on that subject by Jon Teaford, author of The American Suburbs that depicts the United States as truly a suburban nation. Majorities of Americans live in the suburbs, and a large share work, shop, and spend their leisure time there as well. Rural cities accounts for a dwindling proportion of the nation's population and business, as do the once preeminent central cities of our country. For example, the cities of Atlanta and Boston are home to only about ten percent of the people in their respective metropolitan areas, and the figures for other major cities is not much higher. New Orleans is another example of the loss of centripetal pull facing once dominant cities. Post Katrina New Orleans is now virtually surrounded by cities, as a collective, with populations a minimum of twice the populations of the former central city itself. In general, central cities are no longer central to the lives of most metropolitan Americans; the amorphous mass beyond the core city limits is the workplace, playground, marketplace, and bedroom of America.

For our country, the notion of city limits has been vital to the concept of suburbia. Unlike in Britain, where the term suburb refers to a peripheral area whether inside or beyond a major city's boundaries, in the United States the federal census bureau and most commentators have defined suburbia as that zone within metropolitan areas but beyond central city limits (Jackson, 1985). Because of the strong tradition of local self-rule in the United States, this political distinction between suburb and central city has been vital to discussions of suburban development, lifestyle, and policy. American suburbs are not simply peripheral areas with larger laws and more trees than districts nearer the historic hub. They are governmentally independent political units that can employ the powers of the state to distinguish them-selves from the city. With cities in control over land use planning and independent taxing and regulatory powers, they can individually mold their residential and business development. With separate school governments’ they can fashion an educational system suitable to the class aspirations of their residents. Any discussion of American suburbs must confront the rivalry and tension between the central cities and outlying jurisdictions. The American suburb is not just a neighborhood; it is a distinct governmental entity with all the coercive power necessary to fashion its own destiny.

Given suburban success in overshadowing the core cities, the term suburb has become problematic for contemporary America. In the twenty-first century, American suburbia is no longer ‘sub’ to the ‘urb’. In fact, many scholars and informed observers regard Americans as living in a - world where the concept of suburb is perhaps obsolete. Other alternative terms have begun to arise such as edge city, techno-burb, or urban realm, but the term ‘suburb’ survives in the American language and seems destined to remain part of the nation's vocabulary. Complicating the problem with nomenclature is the reality that the suburbs are a diverse collection of communities, embracing markedly different patterns of settlement. Some or older industrial communities; others are depicted by sleek, glass-encased office towers and glitzy shopping malls; still others are low-density, semi-rural retreats; and a large number are aging residential towns with single-family, detached houses on small lots. Thus, the communities we call suburbs are neither subordinate to the historic hub nor outwardly similar to one another in appearance, economic base, or social composition.

Despite their increasing independence and manifold diversity, the suburbs do share a common characteristic that distinguished them from the central cities and enables one to consider them as a distinct class. From their founding and throughout the history of their development, central cities have perceived themselves as regional centers - hubs that dominate their edges and extremities and compete with other great cities in the nation and the world. This view of their role was basic to the development of the urban empires of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries'. In addition, it underlay efforts to bolster the centripetal pull of older hubs during the urban renewal era. Even in the twenty-first century, it has been evident in the central cities' initiatives to maintain an emotional grip on a large extremity populace by securing or retaining professional sports teams and building the facilities for these symbols of big-league status. The ‘core city development’ focus is the notion of their centrality to the olives of a regional population.

The suburbs, however, are those unique communities where the driver for development was not the need or desire to be the city, the dominant hub of a region, or one of the great centers of the nation. They acquired the bulk of the nation's offices, retailing, and manufacturing space and the accompanying jobs, and some populous, rapidly expanding communities labeled boom-burbs grew to be as large as or larger than some of the older, better-known central cities. The suburbs welcomed the resulting tax revenues and did not necessarily discourage population growth or commercial development. Moreover, they grew relatively independent of the older core city, their residents having little concern for or interest in its welfare or problems. The underlying rationale in their development was not a desire to become one of the nation's great cities. Their leaders were fashioning principalities, not empires. Whether industrial suburbs, upper-middle-class residential havens, boom-burbs, or other types of communities, they did not aspire to be central cities, the focus of all metropolitan endeavors, or the rival of London, Paris, New York, or Chicago.

The suburbs are the product of a different mentality from that underlying the central cities, and that mentality survives to this day. Suburbia's multitudinous communities have rendered the older notion of the city largely obsolete and have created the amorphous metropolitan regions of today where there is no dominant single focus for the lives of residents throughout the area. They are not subordinate to the ‘urb’; but they are subversive to the whole concept of the ‘urb’, the commercial and cultural focus of an extensively populated edge extremity and thus perhaps are deserving of the title suburb after all. Their gain marks the victory of the amorphous metropolitan mass over the focused metropolis of the past. They have supplanted the concept of the city as a center with the now prevailing notion of the city as a fragment.

In the United States, then, the ‘suburbs’, are not peripheral complements to the city; instead, they have largely superseded the city, creating a new center-less world where the old, clear-cut boundaries between urban and rural commuters traveling in every direction have dissolved and the long-standing centripetal pull of downtown has diminished to a faint tug. Americans have liberated themselves from the city and fashioned a post-urban nation with population spread over vast regions and commuters traveling in every direction. The diverse communities beyond the central city limits may have little in common, but together they have reconstituted the settlement patterns and lifestyle of the nation, subverting traditional notions of the city.

This subversion has elicited choruses of complaints and few concepts have been so roundly damned or assumed such pejorative connotations as that of the suburb. For years, the literate classes of the city with a discouraging lack of perception or imagination smeared the area beyond the central city as a bland, homogeneous zone producing dull drones in look-alike houses whose culinary tastes tended toward a Big Mac and who deemed a chrome plated car high art. Consuming miles of virgin countryside, draining wetlands, leveling forests, displacing endangered flora and fauna, portraying suburbanites as shallow hoards wreaking havoc with civilization and nature. Critics identified ‘suburban sprawl’ as a major national problem, a blight threatening the environment and the general welfare of American society. Recognizing the subversive nature of the suburban trend, central city mayors repeatedly blamed their problems on uncaring residents beyond the municipal limits, and generally, stereotyping suburbanites as selfish, materialistic, exclusive, and indifferent to the problems of the nation and the world (Teaford, 2008).

In truth, the suburbs include some of the most densely populated communities as well as areas zoned to accommodate more horses than humans. Suburbia reflects the ethnic diversity of America more accurately than the central cities, providing homes for a variety of races. It comprises slums as well as schools as well as mansions, main streets as well as malls, skyscrapers as well as schools. Some suburbs are particularly gay-friendly; others are planned for senior citizens. Some suburbs are synonymous with fine schools; others are examples of educational failure. Traveling though the suburbs one sees a full range of experience, a diversity of lifestyles, a rich variety of built forms and environments. Comprising a majority of Americans, suburbia is not a homogenized haven that is undifferentiated from other communities. It is a vivid mosaic composed of all the varied fragments of life and society.

Some suburbanites who spend their entire lives in the suburbs seem to believe some of the conventional stereotypes that clash with the reality around them. Moreover, these stereotypes influence the nation's public policy debates. Central city officials continue to exploit traditional conceptions of an essential hub surrounded by bedroom communities, claiming that their core jurisdictions re-quire the bulk of public aid and concern. Many suburbanites continue to view their turf as refuges, decrying the traffic, commerce, and influx of diverse people who seem to shatter this long-standing and beloved image. Suburbanites cling to a stereotypical suburban-ness long after the stereotypical community of single-family homes with happy families comprising two heterosexual parents and two amiable children has disappeared. Similarly, leaders of the historic hobs attempt to perpetuate a sense of their communities' centrality decades after the department stores have moved to suburban malls and downtown movie palaces have yielded to outlying multi-screen venues. Metropolitan Americans in both the central city and suburbs clutch at dreams that are increasingly incompatible with the changing reality.

Economic development in the great metropolitan regions of America as well as governance of those regions now centered in suburbia. American business has moved to the suburbs, and the suburban response to commercial development is a significant factor in the nation's recent economic history. The willingness of suburbanites to welcome additional business has markedly influenced commercial decentralization. Suburban business incentives and tax policies can prove a boon to certain businesses deemed desirable where as other commercial concerns might struggle to find a suburban site. The complex maze of suburban government reveals adaptations of the government structure to suburban needs and desires. Characterized by a strong belief in grassroots rule and government tailored to the citizenry, American suburbia has developed a public sector baffling to many but satisfactory to millions of residents and taxpayers. Suburban government may be difficult to comprehend but it has worked for many decades and continues to do so (Teaford, 2008).

Other significant issues are housing and the barriers to equal access to the suburbs. Though the suburbs house a broad range of people, including both the rich and the impoverished, a major concern of the early twenty-first century is housing ‘affordability’ and whether the American dream of a single-family home may prove beyond the reach of a growing share of the citizenry. Often criticized for their exclusionary policies, which effectively bar moderate and low-income citizens, many residential suburbs in the twenty-first century may well increasingly become the domain of the fortunate few or they may become the home of the unfortunate many who have heavily mortgaged their futures in a desperate bid to secure a suburban home no matter the cost. From the traffic jam of morning commuters to the tranquility of suburban evenings, the nature of metropolitan life will depend on the planning of suburbia, decisions about ‘what’ and ‘how much’ land neighborhoods should consume, and how it may be developed. Thus, knowledge of the evolution, development, policies, and plans for small communities is essential to understanding the region.