Suburbs: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #726

by Carl Abbott

We live in the suburban era. Well over half of all Americans and two-thirds of Canadians live in suburbs. Tracts of suburban bungalows ring Sydney and Melbourne. Suburban apartments rise on the outskirts of Paris, Prague, Singapore, and Beijing. Nearly everyone has a strong opinion about suburbs. Folks who love dense cities scorn "suburbia," while people who like big yards dislike bustling sidewalks and subways. Social scientists argue whether contemporary suburbs are losing their luster or if a supposed back-to-the-city trend is a mirage--a debate that has been exacerbated by uncertainty over the effects of COVID-19.

A Very Short Introduction tackles two central What is the history behind a suburbanizing world? What does the suburban trend mean for society, politics, and culture? Two chapters describe the ways that the new technologies of streetcars, trains, automobiles, and internet have allowed the compact cities of Britain and the United States to grow into sprawling metropolitan regions. The following chapters explore the vertical suburbs of Europe and East Asia, improvised or do-it-yourself suburbs in both North America Latin America, and suburbs as places of employment. The book concludes by exploring criticism and praise of suburbs in popular sociology, fiction, film, and the Americanization of twenty-first century suburbs around the globe. The approach is rooted in history and geography, draws on all the social sciences, and highlights the ways in which suburbs are central to the ways that we understand the present and imagine the future.

160 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 2, 2023

Reviews

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I try to read at least two of these Very Short Introduction books a month. Which means that I essentially just pick one at random and read it. I used to do this on the Wikipedia page, generating a random article to read each day.

In a lot of ways, this book embodies that tactic. Suburbs are in the most random places but everyone knows one as soon as they are there. Certainly, economics play a central role for the building and growth of suburbia. Very rarely will you ever find an abandoned suburb for instance. Suburbs look different across the globe, especially considering that suburban homes and neighborhoods are not even native to the USA. Most people's first encounter with them in terms of historic print or video is in the 1950's wildly popular suburban centered TV show, like Leave it to Beaver, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and so on. This introduction explores all this and more - but I really needed a very, very short introduction to this topic because you can only read so much about suburbs.

[Gelaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

pleasantly surprised by this - found it informative and interesting to see how suburbs developed and progressed globally over the years. i think it did a great job of remaining unbiased and factual.
enjoyed the pop culture references that connect it to the themes discussed in each chapter; it helped provide more context and made it more fun to read.

"a modern suburb is neither one thing nor the other. It has neither the advantages of the town nor the open freedom of the country, but manages to combine in nice equality of proportion the disadvantages of both."

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suburbs: A Very Short Introduction (2023) by Carl Abbott is a gem of a book that succinctly surveys and summarises suburbia around the world. Abbott is an Emeritus Professor of Urban Studies.

The breadth of different suburbs covered by the book is fantastic.

The book starts with a nice metaphor of suburbs as something like peanut butter that is available in many places but is slightly different in many places. Abbott also points out that suburbs are now about 200 years old and even finds some much older references to new houses on the edge of old towns. References that will reappear are made to suburbs in fiction.

Abbott next looks at the growth of suburbs with tram and other rail transport in the 1800s. Then the change to suburbs enabled by the car is described. There are also fascinating descriptions of how people bought suburban blocks and built their own cheap shanty houses on them around the world. I knew people had done this in part of Melbourne but didn’t realise that this had been done in the US, Canada and in other places as well.

There is a chapter on vertical suburbs, those in Asia and in former Soviet countries. High rise suburbs are also a global phenomena and Abbott describes many of them.

The book also looks at how people have worked in suburbs and how Silicon Valley is a suburban area.

Abbott looks at the criticism of suburbs and shows that it has existed since the start of suburbs. Also he writes about how criticism of suburbia has come from the left and right. He also recognizes that much criticism of suburbia is a form of snobbery. But he also acknowledges that suburbs do have problems.

Suburbs : A Very Short Introduction is really a remarkably good book. Abbott has taken a subject that he clearly knows inside out and provided a fascinating, global summary of it all.

[Dann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I know that the book is a "very short introduction," its privileging of US history and context, and to a lesser extent of the Anglosphere and Western Europe, makes me uncomfortable to recommend the book to anyone as an introductory text to the topic. Examples from Eastern Europe and Asia (limited to China, Singapore, Korea, and Japan) are offered sparsely, either as evidence that Euramerican model spreads globally, or as exceptions to the enduring narrative of the US. References to movies, novels, and even songs are deployed througout the book. Some work by the virtue of illustrating the historical images and perceptions of suburban phenomena, but many of them seem alienating to reader outside Euramerica or even the US specifically. What's more concerning is that all these cultural references seem to be taken as legitimate resources to reconstruct the quintessence of the past. The author's liberal use of such cultural references thus appears uncritical, failing to acknowledge the imaginative dimensions of such materials that are meant to serve the artists' varied intentions rather than the purpose of objective documentation.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cities and city planning are not a tier-1 interest for me, but I'm always interested in the environment and in questions regarding the ways environments and people intersect. Learning about cities and suburbs is a natural outgrowth of that. Carl Abbott's book is a genuinely fascinating introduction, and does an excellent job merging statistical and scholarly information with popular culture referents that help make sense of the general ideas and scope of what he's trying to talk about and illustrate. I was really pleasantly surprised at how often he turned to films and novels to make a point, then backed that point up with other research. The book is still maybe a tad complicated at times, but overall does wonderful work in inviting consideration of the history, complicated present, and potential futures of suburbs, cities, and the people that inhabit both.

[Marlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of suburbs internationally was interesting. Abbott brought in a lot of references from books and movies, the cultural perspectives of what living in a suburb might be like.

[Chris Breitenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and engaging introduction to suburban development with a nice emphasis on international examples that challenge my own U.S-centric view.