Do the suburbs exist? Discovering complexity and specificity in suburban built form

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers - Tập 34 Số 4 - Trang 475-488 - 2009
Laura Vaughan, Sam Griffiths, Muki Haklay, Catherine Emma Jones1
1Department of Geography

Tóm tắt

In human geography cities are routinely acknowledged as complex and dynamic built environments. This description is rarely extended to the suburbs, which are generally regarded as epiphenomena of theurbsand therefore of little intrinsic theoretical interest in themselves. This article presents a detailed critique of this widely held assumption by showing how the idea of ‘the suburban’ as an essentially non‐problematic domain has been perpetuated from a range of contrasting disciplinary perspectives, including those that directly address suburban subject matter. The result has been that attempts to articulate the complex social possibilities of suburban space are easily caught between theories of urbanisation that are insensitive to suburban specificity and competing representations of the suburb that rarely move beyond the culturally specific to consider their generic significance. This article proposes that the development of a distinctivelysuburbantheory would help to undermine one‐dimensional approaches to the built environment by focusing on the relationship between social organisation and the dynamics of emergent built form.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Ackroyd P, 2000, London: the biography

Anderson K, Post‐suburban Sydney: the city in transformation Centre for Cultural Research

Archer J, 2005, Architecture and suburbia, from English villa to American dream house 1690–2000

Augé M, 1995, Non‐places: introduction to anthropology of supermodernity

Berger B M, 1968, Urbanism in world perspective: a reader, 434

10.1016/0305-9006(96)88868-4

Bullard R D, 2000, Sprawl city: race, politics, and planning in Atlanta

Burgess E W, 1967, The city, 47

Calthorpe P, 1989, The pedestrian pocket book: a new suburban design strategy

Calthorpe P, 1993, The next American metropolis: ecology, community and the American dream

10.1080/03071027708567390

Carter H, 1983, An introduction to urban historical geography

Castells M, 1989, The informational city: information technology, economic restructuring, and the urban‐regional process

Clapson M, 1998, Invincible green suburbs, brave new towns: social change and urban dispersal in post‐war England

Clapson M, 2003, Suburban century: social change and urban growth in England and the USA

Connell J, 1974, Suburban growth: geographical processes at the edge of the western city, 77

Conzen M, 1960, Alnwick, Northumberland: a study in town‐plan analysis, Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), 27, 3

10.1016/j.cities.2006.05.003

Dennis R, 2008, Cities in modernity: representations and productions of metropolitan space, 1840–1930

Duany A, 2000, Suburban nation: the rise of sprawl and the decline of the American dream

Dyos H J, 1977, Victorian suburb: a study of the growth of Camberwell

10.1068/b303

Fishman R, 1987, Bourgeois utopias: the rise and fall of suburbia

Gans H J, 1967, The Levittowners

Garreau J, 1992, Edge city: life on the new frontier

Giddens A, 1984, The constitution of society – outline of the theory of structuration

10.5040/9781350048911

Glass R, 1989, Clichés of urban doom and other essays

Goldberger P, 1987, When suburban sprawl meets upward mobility, New York Times

Goldsworthy V, 2004, Revisions of Englishness, 95

Gordon P, 2000, Critiquing sprawl’s critics

Greater London Council, 1969, Greater London development plan: report of studies

Griffiths S, 2009, Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium

10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00117.x

Gwilliam M, 1999, Sustainable renewal of suburban areas

10.2307/621369

Hägerstrand T, 1982, Internal structure of the city: readings on urban form, growth and policy, 118

Hall P, 2006, The polycentric metropolis: learning from mega‐city regions in Europe

Hanley L, 2007, Estates: an intimate history

Hapgood L, 2005, Margins of desire: the suburbs in fiction and culture 1880–1925

Harris R, 1996, Unplanned suburbs: Toronto’s American tragedy, 1900 to 1950

Harris R, 2004, Creeping conformity: how Canada became suburban, 1900–1960, 10.3138/9781442627642

Harris R, 1999, Changing suburbs: foundation, form and function

10.1177/009614420102700302

10.56021/9780801838491

Hayden D, 2004, A field guide to sprawl

10.1080/09613210801928073

10.1057/palgrave.udi.9000077

10.1177/0096144205276993

Hubbard P J, 2006, The city, 10.4324/9780203392256

HubbleN2006Naked democracy and suburban pastoral: socio‐cultural perspectives on the suburbs Presentation to workshop on the Principles of zero carbon emission neighbourhoods in the contemporary suburban context

Hunt T, 2004, Building Jerusalem: the rise and fall of the Victorian city

ITC (Independent Transport Commission), 2004, Suburban future

Jackson A A, 1973, Semi‐detached London: suburban development, life and transport, 1900‐39

10.1017/CBO9780511625503

H H Johnson, 1974, Suburban growth: geographical processes at the edge of the western city

Kelly B M, 1993, Expanding the American dream: building and rebuilding Levittown State

10.1515/9781400848973

Lampl P, 1968, Cities and planning in the ancient Near East

Lang R E, 2003, Edgeless cities: exploring the elusive metropolis

Lang R, 2007, Boomburbs: the rise of America’s accidental cities

Lefebvre H, 1991, The production of space (originally in French, 1974 as Production de l’espace)

10.1080/0042098984871

Marsh M, 1990, Suburban lives

10.2148/benv.32.3.267

Massey D B, 2005, For space

Massey D S, 1993, American apartheid: segregation and the making of the underclass

10.1016/j.physa.2008.02.041

McLuhan H M, 2002, The mechanical bride: folklore of industrial man

10.1017/S096392680700466X

Miller M, 1992, Raymond Unwin: garden cities and town planning

Mumford L, 1940, The culture of cities

Mumford L, 1961, The city in history

10.1177/10780870222185469

NairnI1955OutrageArchitectural Reviewspecial issue June

Nairn I, 1956, Counter‐attack against subtopia, Architectural Review

Nicolaides B, 2002, My blue heaven, life and politics in the working‐class suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965

Nicolaides B, 2006, The suburb reader

10.4324/9780203454626

Pellow D N, 2002, The Silicon Valley of dreams: environmental injustice, immigrant workers, and the high‐tech global economy

10.1057/9780230625389

10.1111/j.1475-5661.2007.00247.x

10.1086/339122

Pred A, 1990, Making histories and constructing human geographies

10.1145/358916.361990

Riesman D, 1950, The lonely crowd: a study of the changing American character with R Denney and N Glazer Yale

10.4324/9780203380581

Silverstone R, 1997, Visions of suburbia

Sinclair I, 2002, London orbital: a walk around the M25

Soja E W, 1990, Postmodern geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory

Soja E W, 2000, Postmetropolis: critical studies of cities and regions

Spiers M, 1976, Victoria Park, Manchester: a nineteenth‐century suburb in its social and administrative context

SSTC (Towards Successful Suburban Town Centres Project)200609University College London (http://www.sstc.ucl.ac.uk/profiler) Accessed 30 March 2009

Steuer M, 2002, Urban Sprawl: A Philosophical Investigation

Stilgoe J R, 1989, Borderland: origins of the American suburb 1820–1939

The Daily Telegraph2006Going down in the world(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3349707/Going‐down‐in‐the‐world.html) Accessed 30 March 2009

The Guardian2008aA sign of the times in Bankruptsville USA14 June (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/14/subprimecrisis.useconomy) Accessed 17 August 2009

The Guardian2008bReview Section 12‐13The Guardian14th June

Thorns D C, 1972, Suburbia

10.1080/1357480022000039385

Urban Taskforce, 2005, Towards a strong urban renaissance

10.2148/benv.32.3.281

Vaughan L, 2009, Proceedings of the Seventh International Space Syntax Symposium

Warner S B, 1978, Streetcar suburbs the process of growth in Boston 1870–1900, 10.4159/9780674044890

Webber M, 1970, Cities and space: the future use of urban land

Webster R, 2000, Expanding suburbia: reviewing suburban narratives

WhiteJ2005Trouble in Arcadia: The London suburbs 1840 to the present day successful suburbs paper presented to Successful Cities Conference 3rd February 2005 Arts DepotFinchley London Borough of Barnet

Whitehand J W R, 1999, Changing suburbs: foundation, form and function, 76

Whitehand J W R, 2001, Twentieth‐century suburbs: a morphological approach

10.1068/b12997

Whitehand J W R, 1992, Urban landscapes: international perspectives, 227

Whyte W H, 1956, The organization man

10.7208/chicago/9780226896267.001.0001

Williams R, 1975, The country and the city

Young M, 1962, Family and kinship in East London