Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900

by Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Sam B. Warner

In the last third of the nineteenth century Boston grew from a crowded merchant town, in which nearly everybody walked to work, to the modern divided metropolis. The street railway created this division of the metropolis into an inner city of commerce and slums and an outer city of commuters’ suburbs. Streetcar Suburbs tells who built the new city, and why, and how.

Included here is a new Introduction that considers the present suburb/city dichotomy and suggests what we can learn from it to assure a livable city of the future.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Urban Studies, Urbanism, American History, Cities, Urban Planning

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Sam Bass Warner, Jr., is Visiting Professor of Urban History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900, Sam B. Warner, Jr. chronicles the rapid proliferation of suburban housing developments enabled by new transportation technologies and streetcar routes built in the Boston area during the final three decades of the nineteenth century. He chose three towns in the Boston metropolitan area—Dorchester, Roxbury, and West Roxbury to analyze. Using illustrative maps, photographs of homes and churches, and other statistical evidence, Warner identifies two qualities that made Boston of 1900 a unique landscape to its preceding eras: “its great size and its new suburban arrangement" (153). The single greatest determinant in shaping the land were the streets—particularly the streetcar lines that allowed for middle class and upper class businessmen to reside in a more “rural ideal” landscape and commute to work in the city center. The adoption and development of streetcar rail lines by large institutions and individual investors/homeowners transformed Boston from a merchant “walking city” of 200,000 inhabitants in 1850 to an industrial metropolis of over 1,000,000 people by 1900 by expanding the convenient daily travel radius of the city from 3 miles to 10 miles (1).

This period had no laws of zoning regulations. The relative uniformity and “presence of houses of similar cost and style encouraged a man to build his own house in keeping with existing ones:” a sort of de facto residential zoning pattern emerged (156). This transformed the physical landscape of area dramatically. Boston of 1900 was functionally split in two with “an industrial, commercial, and communications center packed tight against a port, and an enormous outer suburban ring of residences and industrial and commercial subcenters” (153). In many ways, Warner has revealed a case study demonstrating how the twentieth century automobile suburban American landscape came to be: it inherited its form and structure from nineteenth century streetcar suburbs. Given the fact that he conducts thorough fieldwork and cautions against the knee-jerk reaction of modern critics to label suburban sprawl as insidious landscapes, it is surprising that this was written in 1962. It predates the Historic Preservation Act of 1966 that precipitated much more extensive survey work of residential homes that Warner is interested in and it tempers suburban sprawl criticism early on—as condemnation for this landscape pattern only continued to accelerate in subsequent decades. Although his conclusion admits the negative community consequences of the suburban development of Boston, Warner clarifies the fact that “the late nineteenth century [streetcar suburbs] created a widespread sense of achievement” (157). They were intentionally shaped in order to promote middle class living for as many as could “make it” financially to a certain degree.

Perhaps the most suspicious part of this otherwise remarkably clever book was the chapter on “A Selective Melting Pot.” While Warner clarifies that the restrictive racial covenants of the twentieth century American suburbs were not at play in this time period and region, his overall analysis seems a bit limited. He asserts that the basic pattern organizing the whole suburban metropolis was income and other than that all were “mixed together with little regard to national origin" (46). While I expect his point is to emphasize some surprising nationality mixing, he does so at the expense of a more rigorous consideration of social exclusion. He does end with a general summarizing conclusion that the suburban environment created by our capitalistic economic system resulted in the socioeconomic segregation and class warfare of the 20th century. So yeah, in the end he is quite critical of suburban landscapes.

Another critique pointed out by my professor is the ill-use of photos. He is an urban historian but not an art historian. He tacks them on but does not engage with them in his writing, which is a missed opportunity/disappointing.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is straight forward: Warner describes the process of suburbanization between 1870-1900 in Boston, Mass. Warner is focusing on a period of time that most contemporary American's would not equate with the process of "suburbanization", but it is this very approach that makes "Street Car Suburbs" so interesting.

Warner shows that the street cars and suburbs were both linked to the increasing wealth in the Boston area after the civil war. Capital was looking for places to be invested and both the wealthy and middle class found it in their interest to lay the foundation for suburban growth. The wealthy developed street car lines. In response, many members of the middle class engaged in small scale suburban "developments". Perhaps it the small scale of the street car suburb that will most intrigue the modern reader.

For the most part, the builders of street cars didn't develop the housing market. One explanation for this seeming discepancy is that the mortgage market for residences was most primitive during this time period. Warner shows that most of the small scale "developers" carried the mortgages of the buyers of their newly developed properties! This is a far cry from our world of today!

Warner's photos of various homes are excellent, and they make a fine counterpoint to the text. This book is an interesting treatment of a little known period of American suburban development.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was in my personal transit-and-urban-studies library for about six months before I finally got around to reading it. When I finally managed it, though, it was still every bit as good as I expected. Some of my interest, admittedly, comes from the fact that I lived in Boston for five-and-a-half years and have a particular interest in the city. I learned a lot about the specific history of Boston neighborhoods and parts of the city's street grid. It would've been cool had the author focused on areas I knew better---Somerville and Cambridge---but the reality is that people ignore Dorchester and the Roxburies (his study area) far too much.

As a more general study of the streetcar suburb phenomenon, I also thought the book was very good, though I'm not sure how well the effects discussed here would have applied in other cities without Boston's particular geography and cultural background. I'd be interested in seeing similar studies about the Chicago suburbs, or Philadelphia or Baltimore's, for example. Still, a wonderful book.

[Andrew R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I agree with previous reviews that have remarked upon the surprising progressiveness of this book. I found the study of growth in Boston to be comprehensive, weaving together centuries of trends in an easily digestible volume. The book could have been improved with more easily discernible maps and figures--the wonders of modern day color printing would have come in handy--and with, as mentioned in an earlier review, more interaction with the graphics the author chose to include.

References to the present state of Boston also would have been appreciated. What is the state of the "towns"? How is the city divided today? (i.e. the different officially designated neighborhoods, many of which derive from the historical processes mentioned in this work.

I'm also curious as to why Hyde Park was not mentioned in any detail-- though the town joined Boston in 1912, it surely underwent some of the same processes as did the other three former towns.

I now want to read his unpublished thesis....

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed study of Boston's growth pattern, 1870-1900. Originally written in the 1960s and revised in 1978 the book has that 1970s social scientific feel to it. Lots of data and numbers to bolster the qualitative claims. I enjoyed it and would love to carry the book around Boston to study the various housing described within.

[Kristie Helms · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed it -- I've become fascinated with the history of our 1918 house and how it came to be built in the location and time that it was constructed. This book provided a bit more context around that -- phenomenal amounts of growth in Boston in the 50 years leading up to the first World War. Interesting read with great illustrations/photos.

[Barbara Kurze]

Excellent book for understanding the late 19th century development of Dorchester and Roxbury. Good use of photos and maps. Good information on using early census data.

[Hubert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually a fairly detailed local history of how neighborhoods and suburbs development. A bit dry and academic, but solid knowledge gained. Warner emphasizes the role of class, society, and natural surroundings in determining how a neighborhood eventually develops. Serves also as a history of real estate in a very specific period in Bostonian history, namely the transition into the industrial revolution. Serves as a model of how research can be performed at a local level.