Suburban Books - Page 6

Expanding Suburbia: Reviewing Suburban Narratives (Polygons)

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Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Essays -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Essays -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

During the last few decades suburbia has grown enormously and become a phenomenon attracting the attention of scholars as well as practitioners by whom it is seen as an increasingly significant and complex area of modern life. The essays in this volume consider a range of representations of suburban life from the late nineteenth century to the present day, including fiction, film, and popular music, drawn from America and Australia as well as Britain. They explore and challenge traditional views of suburbia so that, rather than a location of conformity and stereotypicality, it can be viewed as a site of social conflict, division, and ambiguity as well as a source of significant creativity across a range of cultural texts. The volume takes a thematic approach, considering the rise of suburbia, imagined and real suburbias, alternative suburbias: all of the essays have a strong historical dimension and the overall approach is characterized by interdisciplinarity.

Family and Class in a London Suburb

Peter Willmott

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An anthropological study that compares a central London neighborhood with a London suburb in terms of family and community life, mobility, social status, and social interaction. The main sources of the authors' information were sample interviews from the two populaces. The main themes of this book are the differences between the London suburb and the East End, and the differences between the middle and working-class residents.

SUBURBAN ALCHEMY: 1960S NEW TOWNS AND THE TRANSFORMATION O (URBAN LIFE & URBAN LANDSCAPE)

NICHOLAS DAGEN BLOOM

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 20th Century -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Communities
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Suburban

Editorial Review:

In Suburban Alchemy: 1960s New Towns and the Transformation of the American Dream, Nicholas Dagen Bloom examines the "new town" movement of the 1960s, which sought to transform the physical and social environments of American suburbs by showing that idealism could be profitable.

Bloom offers case studies of three of the movement's more famous examples—Reston, Virginia; Columbia, Maryland; and Irvine, California—to flesh out his historical account. In each case, innovative planners mixed land uses and housing types; refined architectural, graphic, and landscape design; offered well-defined village and town centers; and pioneered institutional planning. As Bloom demonstrates, these efforts did not uniformly succeed, and attempts to reshape community life through design notably faltered. However, despite frequent disappointments and compromises, the residents have kept the new town ideals alive for over four decades and produced a vital form of suburban community that is far more complicated and interesting than the early vision promoted by the town planners. Lively chapters illustrate efforts in local politics, civic spirit, social and racial integration, feminist innovations, and cultural sponsorship.

Suburban Alchemy should be of interest to scholars of U.S. urban history, planning history, and community development, as well as the general reader interested in the development of alternative communities in the United States.

The Suburban Racial Dilemma: Housing and Neighborhoods (Conflicts in Urban and Regional Development)

W. Dennis Keating

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Subjects -> Law -> Constitutional Law -> Discrimination
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Current Events -> Poverty -> Social Services & Welfare

Editorial Review:

Whether through affirmative housing policies or mandatory legislation, there have been numerous efforts to integrate America's neighborhoods, especially the historically white, affluent suburbs. Though much of suburbia has rejected such measures out of a fear of losing their communities to an influx of low-income, inner-city, and primarily African American residents, several metropolitan areas have been successful in creating greater racial diversity. W. Dennis Keating documents the desirability, feasibility, and legality of implementing housing diversity policies in the suburbs.

At the heart of this book is the troubling dilemma that the private housing market will inevitably resist race-conscious policies that can be effective only if embraced and supported by individual home buyers and renters, politicians, realtors, financial institutions, and insurers. In the Cleveland, Ohio, metropolitan area, pro-integrative policies have resulted in some examples of long-term racial diversity, particularly in Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.

Keating compares Cleveland's suburbs to suburbs around the country that have both failed and succeeded in reducing housing discrimination. While there have been occasional fair housing victories over the last three decades, Keating's analysis points toward strategies for greater progress in the future.

Suburban Style: The British Home 1840-1960

Helena Barrett

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Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> 19th Century
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Editorial Review:

At least half of Britain's population lives in suburbs, yet until recently the architecture and style of suburbia have been largely ignored or undervalued. This is an appreciation of the design features that form the suburban taste, from the High Victorian period when the first suburbs were built until after World War II. The book places suburban housing in its historical and social context, and is a practical guide to the authentic ways of restoring and preserving suburban houses, both inside and out. There is also advice on creating a garden in a style appropriate to the period of a house, a section on the movements and the people (such as Pugin and Morris) who have influenced suburban style, and a list of suppliers and stockists of items ranging from fireplaces and cornices to door furniture and railings.

Trouble in Paradise

Mark Baldassare

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Suburban

Visions Of Suburbia

R. Silverstone

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Editorial Review:

Suburbia--tupperware, television, bungalows and respectable front lawns--is always instantly recognizable though never entirely familiar. From the tight semi-detached estates of thirties Britain and the infenced and functional tract housing of middle America, to the elegant villas of Victorian London and the clapboard and brick of fifties Sydney, architecture and landscapes may vary from one suburban scene to another, but the suburb is the embodiment of the same desire: to create for the middle class middle cultures, middle spaces in middle America, Britain and Australia. Visions of Suburbia considers this emergent architectural space, this set of values and this way of life. The contributors address suburbia and the suburban from vantage points of production, consumption and representation. Placing suburbia center stage, each essay examines what it is that makes suburbia distinctive and central to contemporary culture.

Troubled Suburbs: An Exploratory Study

Judith Fernandez

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