It was about time Oxford University Press included the subject of suburbs in its popular series of Very Short Introductions. Depending, of course, on how suburbs are defined, the majority of people in prosperous nations now live in such places. That may even be true of more urbanized countries in the less-prosperous parts of the world, although suburbs in places like China, Brazil and India usually look nothing like the Anglo-American reality, let alone the stereotype.
The American urban historian Carl Abbott has done a fine job compressing this large topic into 140 small pages (20 less than the publisher’s website claims). Readers of this journal will be pleased that he gives full due to history. This is important because the built environment endures, often to this day. Indeed, in time, suburbs become city neighbourhoods and, collectively, define the urban environment. As Abbott points out, the site of London’s Globe theatre was once suburban. He makes a brave stab at covering the bigger globe, bringing in examples from Montreal to Moscow, not forgetting Gary, Indiana and Guayaquil. And he writes engagingly, bringing in the products of popular culture to illustrate, especially, the stereotypes.
Sensibly, he organizes the book both historically and then topically. After brief acknowledgment of early fringe developments, two chapters track the evolution of the commoner sorts of Anglo-American suburbs from the eighteenth century through to the present. Looking further afield, the next three chapters speak about the high-rise developments that characterize Eastern European, Russian and Chinese suburbs, not to mention Singapore and the Parisian banlieues; the ‘improvised suburbs’, often owner-built and poorly serviced, which were once present around North American and European cities, but which are now concentrated overwhelmingly around cities such as Lima in the developing world; and the mostly working-class settlements, planned and unplanned, that grew up on urban peripheries as industries decentralized.
Until that point, the account has been fluid, but largely neutral in tone. Abbott then turns to the criticisms that have commonly been levelled at suburbs, the bland homogeneity that many supposedly embody. Here, especially, he draws on music, fiction, movies and TV programmes to illustrate the negative aspects, including anomie, sprawl, congestion and environmental consequences. He counterbalances these to only a limited extent by noting the features which, after all, suburbanites have long sought: more affordable housing along with the greater interior and exterior spaces that offer privacy and better opportunities for children’s play. A brief concluding chapter considers the current scene, where American-style gated communities and decentralized developments have been spreading worldwide, the latter inspiring labels that range from Edge Cities to post-suburban.
There is little here that should surprise urban scholars, including historians. After all, this is in a series directed primarily at the general reader. That said, those familiar largely with British and North American suburbs may find useful, if brief, introductions to developments elsewhere. I happen to have spent some time thinking about Chinese cities lately, and was struck that the works Abbott recommends for ‘further reading’ on the subject are among those that I have found most useful.
There are a few small omissions and quirks. There seems to be no reference to the neighbourhood unit, and indeed no index entry for planning. Perhaps reflecting press policy, the referencing system is less helpful than it could be. More generally, Abbott’s take on suburbs has its biases. Here, it is helpful to contrast it with Roger Keil’s comparable, if more academic, survey: Suburban Planet (2017). Keil, given his intended readership, includes more discussion of theory. In particular, he aligns his account with recent discussions of ‘planetary urbanisation’, drawing on the ideas of Henri Levebvre. Abbott barely touches on this, perhaps because he is unpersuaded of its utility. Geographically, Keil mentions more European examples and develops a fuller global coverage, unsurprising since he had just headed up a seven-year project on the subject. (Full disclosure: I was involved in that project.) But Keil’s account is less accessible and less grounded historically: he makes no reference, for example, to the works of H.J. Dyos or Ken Jackson. Abbot’s and Keil’s surveys, then, are complementary more than competitive. Together, they provide a fine introduction to the subject, including how it has been treated in the media and by academics.
We need more surveys of the sort that Abbott provides. There is surely a general appetite for what urban historians have to say, but few of us try to satisfy it. Perhaps that is because publishers show too little interest. As yet, Oxford’s series, which runs to more than 700 titles, includes no survey of cities, neighbourhoods or housing. Maybe we should lobby them. And by ‘we’, I especially mean historians who, by and large – and speaking of stereotypes – have been encouraged and trained to create narratives that are both engaging and truth-seeking. A simple recipe, but all-too-rare.
