In his book, Richardson Dilworth takes the familiar argument that cities use development policy to compete for residents in our fragmented metropolitan areas and flips it on its head. In Dilworth's account, development policy is an important causal factor in the creation of the fragmented metropolitan areas in which this competition occurs. His detailed historical accounts of how communities in New York and New Jersey in the late 1800s dealt with issues of incorporation, consolidation, and annexation speak to current interest among urban politics scholars in patterns of suburbanization and the politics of regional coordination. By providing interesting accounts of how a good goes from being defined as private to public (e.g., water, gas), this book may also interest public policy scholars more generally.

Through detailed historical analysis of annexation and incorporation campaigns in New York and New Jersey during the late 1800s, Dilworth demonstrates that infrastructure systems played a key role as both motivators and enablers of suburban autonomy. On the one hand, the development of infrastructure (waterworks, gas, sidewalks, roads, sewers) in central cities offered an incentive for surrounding municipalities to agree to annexation to the central city in order to receive similar levels of infrastructure. On the other hand, the process of infrastructure development as it unfolded in central cities worked to foster fragmentation rather than consolidation in two key ways. First, engineering and construction expertise that was developed through work on central-city infrastructure projects was then available to suburban governments that could choose to develop their own infrastructure systems. Technological improvements developed in central cities helped bring infrastructure costs within reach for smaller jurisdictions. Second, infrastructure projects were a rich source of patronage and corruption for machine politicians. Scandals surrounding the use of these public works projects to provide private benefits to local elected officials helped fuel resistance to consolidation on the part of surrounding suburban communities.

After developing this general argument, Dilworth uses the historical case studies to flesh out the evidence and to offer a few important revisions to the central argument. In some instances, corruption and mismanagement problems in the surrounding communities themselves meant that resistance to annexation did not emerge in the same ways that it did in other suburbs. So, for example, Long Island City residents supported annexation to New York (pp. 74–79) and Hudson and Bergen Cities supported annexation to Jersey City (p. 118) because their own machine politicians had generated large debts without developing an adequate infrastructure system.

The example of Newark also provides an interesting addition to the argument. Newark's failure to aggressively pursue a municipal water supply led to development of a private water company. The existence of this private water company then facilitated the independence of surrounding communities, who could obtain water from the East Jersey Water Company rather than relying on Newark. This deprived Newark of a powerful tool for getting surrounding communities to agree to annexation.

In making the connection between infrastructure development and municipal boundaries, Dilworth's argument focuses on the role of “city officials, residents, and other private actors” (p. 181). However, it is clear from the case studies that state government was also a pivotal actor—both in shaping incorporation/consolidation decisions and in shaping infrastructure development. For example, the New York state government enacted legislation incorporating new cities (Long Island City, p. 76) and consolidating existing ones (Greater New York, p. 90). The New Jersey state government created regional special districts, which reduced the central city's leverage over annexation decisions (Newark and the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, p. 180); created commissions charged with the task of designing and mapping street systems (Bayonne, p. 132); and passed city charters that granted the power to tax for the purpose of providing infrastructure (Jersey City, p. 114). In his introduction, Dilworth argues that an advantage of his cases is that the cities are spread across two states, allowing him to compare “city infrastructural development … across different contexts” (p. 7). Yet he ultimately says very little about these varied state contexts and how they may have impacted the relationship between infrastructure and suburbanization. In addition, he does not say much about how this relationship may have worked outside New York and New Jersey, in states where the timing of infrastructure development and suburban boundary formation may have been different.

Another important dimension in the case studies is the role of ethnicity and class. Dilworth makes two key arguments in this regard. First, he argues that class and ethnicity were not decisive factors in incorporation decisions—in some instances, the need for infrastructure led to acceptance of consolidation, despite class and ethnic differences, and in other instances, existing infrastructure development led to resistance to consolidation, despite class and ethnic similarities (p. 5). Second, he argues that “suburban infrastructural development was vital to the physical separation between city and suburb. The costs incurred in infrastructural development might prove that a suburban municipality was in fact unable to maintain its independence, and suburbanites could thus not afford to express their nativism through municipal boundaries” (p. 178).

Given these arguments and the central role that population characteristics play in most discussions of municipal fragmentation, it would be helpful if Dilworth provided more information about the class and ethnic composition of the communities in his case studies. While he does at times make note of whether towns were similar or different in this regard, I would have liked more detailed information to assess these claims myself. A key part of his argument is that fear of corrupt machine politicians in the city drove the suburban desire to remain separate. However, it is not always clear whether rejection of the central city was based on actual knowledge of the way in which corruption had characterized infrastructure development in the city or if concerns about corruption were really a shorthand for concerns about immigrants. For example, discussing suburban resistance to consolidation with Newark, Dilworth writes that “suburbanites' nativist fears were probably indistinguishable from fears of central city political machines” (p. 186). Similarly, he argues a number of times that a separate identity fostered by infrastructure development helped fuel the resistance of some suburban communities to consolidation, but again the role of ethnic and class differences in fostering a separate identity has to be considered as well. More systematic attention to the class and ethnic makeup of these communities would help untangle these different influences and strengthen his argument.

Although I would have liked more attention to the role of state governments and class and ethnic differences, Dilworth largely succeeds in making a case for the important role that infrastructure development played in shaping the contemporary metropolitan environment—at least in New York and New Jersey. The Urban Origins of Suburban Autonomy is a thought-provoking book that should be of interest to anyone concerned with the modern-day consequences of suburban development.