Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (2000)
By Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck

Synopsis: This book is basically the mission statement for New Urbanism, and is "a primer on how design can help us untangle the mess we have made and once again build and inhabit places worth caring about" (xiv). It's also a "study of two different models of urban growth: the traditional neighborhood and suburban sprawl" (3). This book is a plan for how to create good human environments, and provides an overview of the various problems of sprawl - how they were created by federal funding, how they are maintained, what sprawl looks like, and why it is bad. All of this is intermixed with elements of traditional neighborhood development in order to show a solution to the problem. The tone is definitely defensive, yet they do a good job of defending New Urbanism against critics who mock the "traditional" design. The authors basically say hey, that's what people want, and we have bigger concerns to be thinking about. Authors state that sprawl consists of 1) housing subdivisions, 2) shopping centers, 3) office parks, 4) civic institutions, 5) roadways. The problem is that sprawl separates and isolates all our vital functions, thus this book is an attempt to bring back a sense of holism. We have become fragmented and can combat this via design. The authors propose six rules of Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND): 1) 5-minute walk from edge to cente, 2) a center, 3) good street networks, 4) narrow, versatile streets, 5) mixed-use, 6) special sites for special buildings. The problem is that traditional suburbia lacks choice. We shouldn't let mistaken impulses/design of Modernist architectural solutions prevent us today from designing places to better help society. They say: "experiment on the rich, who can always move out" (53).

Interacts With:

Building Suburbia, Edge City (and Garreau claims edge cities are a way of re-integrating functions, but I'm not totally convinced), The Modern Urban Landscape
Hmm, this could be seen as yet another antidote to the fragmentation/alienation of modernity, as authors claim New Urbanism will bring a sense of re-unification and holism.

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (1991)
By Joel Garreau

Synopsis: In examining "the biggest change in a hundred years in how we build...cities" (xii), Garreau asks: What American values do Edge Cities embody, and are they places we will ever be proud of? Do Edge Cities really satisfy our longing for the good life? This is a journalistic account, and each chapter focuses on a different city or region, such as Detroit, Atlanta, Texas, Boston, Phoenix, and Southern California. He claims that while the phenomenon is new, they do embody timeless America values like individualism, mobility, and anti-urbanism. Edge Cities are places defined by tons of office and retail space - such as Bishop Ranch and Tyson's Corner, VA. He is undecided as to whether or not edge cities are "real cities," but does note that cities are always shaped by the "cutting edge" transportation of the time, and ECs are clearly shaped by the car. He also notes that cities are always a monument to the worship of something, and that ECs represent a reintegration of home, work, market, etc.

Interacts With:

In saying that ECs represent reintegration, could this then be seen as a counter-modernist plan? But it seems like such cities do not bring things together, they separate and categorize into different pockets of use. Could connect with lots of the pieces on this list, especially those that bemoan a loss of place:
Country of Exiles, Death and Life of Great American Cities, Variation on a Theme Park, J.B. Jackson (which a focus on understanding what's there as opposed to necessarily castigating it)

Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future

Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future (1984)
By Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan

Synopsis: This book examines past American visions of the future in order to show how those visions shed light on the values of their times; sees future visions as cultural artifacts. This is a coffee-table type book that sprang from a Smithsonian exhibit, and includes chapters on 1) Finding the Future (beginning with late 19th century - explores science fiction and utopian fiction, pulp magazines, futurism as linked to commodities, the rise of sci-fi tv and film); 2) The Community of Tomorrow (Progressive vision, "white city," City Beautiful, Garden City, 1939 World's Fair, FLW, Greenbelt Cities, Buckminster Fuller[city of the future as requiring blank slate]); 3) The Home of Tomorrow (rise of apartment homes yet obsession with futuristic single family homes, the rising appeal of mass-produced housing, streamlined style, high-tech kitchens); 4) Transportation of Tomorrow (rise of transportation innovation from 1880-1905, cars and planes, hopes and fears of nuclear power); 5) Weapons and Warfare of Tomorrow (WWI = weapons and electricity, 1920-30s = airplanes and war, WWII = massively destructive potential of weaponry). Authors argue that the future in the U.S. has increasingly moved from communitarian/spiritual utopias of the early days, to a "secular city of the capitalist future" in which most of the emphasis fell on the look of the future rather than the social plan. Argues also that American have long held a strong belief in "technological utopianism" - that "material means can ameliorate social problems and even perfect society" (xii). "The belief that machines, not politics, produce beneficial social change diverts people from initiating reforms that would truly distinguish the future from the present or the past" (xiii).

Interesting Specifics:

Utopian fiction was hugely popular in U.S. from 1880-90s.

We generally look at the future in terms of commodities (11).

1929 = Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House.

1938 = Orson Wells' War of the Worlds radio show.

1952 = First Hydrogen Bomb

1957 = First nuclear power plant in the U.S.; Shippingport, PA.

Interacts With:

Maybe other books about World's Fairs or different vision of the future.
David Wojcik
Rem Koolhaas (for the different proposals for future cities).

Building Suburbia: Green Fields And Urban Growth, 1820-2000

Building Suburbia: Green Fields And Urban Growth, 1820-2000 (2003)
By Dolores Hayden

Synopsis: This book is a history of suburban development from 1820-2000, with the theme that the suburbs represent the triple dream of "house plus land [nature] plus community" (8). The book looks at what she deems to be seven historic patterns of suburban neighborhood: 1) Borderlands (1820s - ; picturesque style ala Andrew Jackson Downing with a focus on landscape and lots of plants, flowers; Catherine Beecher and the idealization of women's sphere and sacred domesticity); 2) Picturesque Enclaves (1850s - ; "were the most important secular manifestations of a wider communitarian movement whose adherents believed that building a model community in a natural setting led the reform of society" (45); Llewellyn Park, NJ (1857), Riverside, IL (1869, but Frederick Law Olmstead); 3) Streetcar Buildouts (1870s-1910s; followed transport lines yet still close to center; big push for homeownership); 4) Mail-Order and Self-Built Suburbs (1910-; rise of pre-cut catalogue houses ala Sears; increased zoning and planning; federal involvement in the 1930s); 5) Sitcom Suburbs (1940s - ; FHA loans; racism and sexism; Levittown and Lakewood; cult of consumption and domesticity); 6) Edge Nodes (1950s - ; rise of strip malls and car-centric living; Interstate Highway Act; rise of malls; Title VII New Towns like Columbia, MD; chain stores and big boxes; 7) Rural Fringes (rise of telecommuting and the dispersal of homes; rise of "valhallas" - fancy nature-infused spots). Ends with a brief discussion of nostalgia and futurism as embodied by Seaside and Celebration (nostalgia), and "smart houses" and digital houses (futurism) in which technology will play an even bigger role. We should value older suburbs as well, and the search for more democratic forms in the future will be political.

Interacts With:
The Celebration Chronicles, The Modern Urban Landscape, Brave New Neighborhoods, Behind the Gates,
Is a very straightforward and non-political survey of suburban history in the same spirit as Relph's Modern Urban Landscape. Hayden of course does have a little bit of preservationist's bent, esp. at the end.

The Modern Urban Landscape

The Modern Urban Landscape (1987)
By Edward Relph

Synopsis: The purpose of this book is "to give an account of the development of the appearance of cities over the last 100 years in order to explain how they have come to look as they do" (2). Hence, the focus of his book is on appearance. Four factors account for the look of twentieth-century cities: 1) architecture, 2) technological innovations, 3) planning, and 4) social developments (7). Begins by detailing the rise of electricity and new technologies in the late 19th-century and the utopian hopes they inspired; moves to various planning movements such as the City Beautiful Movement and Garden City Movement, and the rise of planning and zoning which led cities to be seen as "efficient factories;" the First Machine Age (1900-40s) and the impact of the car on the landscape; Modernism and the International Style (1920s); the Second Machine Age (1940s-50s) and the rise of nuclear imagery; the rise of postwar planning which sought the separation of functions; corporatization/commodification of cities via themed spaces, etc.; late-Modernist glass boxes; the rise of postmodern architecture and urban design. This book is not argument-driven, but rather is explanatory. A simple overview of basic urban design.

Interacts With:
Is ultra-mild, non-Marxist. More explanatory than anything else.
For a more politicized take on some aspects, see:
Landscapes of Power, Brave New Neighborhoods
Building Suburbia