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The Concept of Sustainable Economic
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June 1987
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7
The Nature of Cities
By CHAUNCY D. HARRIS and EDWARD L. ULLMAN
CITIES are the focal points in the
occupation and utilization of the
earth by man. Both a product of and
an influence on surrounding regions,
they develop in definite patterns in re-
sponse to economic and social needs.

Cities are also paradoxes. Their
rapid growth and large size testify to
their superiority as a technique for the
exploitation of the earth, yet by their
very success and consequent large size
they often provide a poor local environ-
ment for man. The problem is to build
the future city in such a manner that
the advantages of urban concentration
can be preserved for the benefit of man
and the disadvantages minimized.
Each city is unique in detail but re-
sembles others in function and pattern.
What is learned about one helps in
studying another. Location types and
internal structure are repeated so often
that broad and suggestive generaliza-
tions are valid, especially if limited to
cities of similar size, function, and re-
gional setting. This paper will be lim-
ited to a discussion of two basic aspects
of the nature of cities-their support
and their internal structure. Such im-
portant topics as the rise and extent of
urbanism, urban sites, culture of cities,
social and economic characteristics of
the urban population, and critical prob-
lems will receive only passing mention.
THE SUPPORT OF CITIES
As one approaches a city and notices
its tall buildings rising above the sur-
rounding land and as one continues into
the city and observes the crowds of peo-

ple hurrying to and fro past stores,
theaters, banks, and other establish-
ments, one naturally is struck by the
contrast with the rural countryside.
What supports this phenomenon? What
do the people of the city do for a living?
The support of a city depends on the
services it performs not for itself but
for a tributary area. Many activities
serve merely the population of the city
itself. Barbers, dry cleaners, shoe re-
pairers, grocerymen, bakers, and movie
operators serve others who are engaged
in the principal activity of the city,
which may be mining, manufacturing,
trade, or some other activity.
The service by which the city earns
its livelihood depends on the nature of
the economy and of the hinterland.
Cities are small or rare in areas either
of primitive, self-sufficient economy or
of meager resources. As Adam Smith
stated, the land must produce a surplus
in order to support cities. This does
not mean that all cities must be sur-
rounded by productive land, since stra-
tegic location with reference to cheap
ocean highways may enable a city to
support itself on the specialized surplus
of distant lands. Nor does it mean that
cities are parasites living off the land.
Modern mechanization, transport, and

a complex interdependent economy en-
able much of the economic activity of
mankind to be centered in cities. Many
of the people engaged even in food pro-
duction are actually in cities in the
manufacture of agricultural machinery.
The support of cities as suppliers of
urban services for the earth can be
summarized in three categories, each of
which presents a factor of urban causa-
tion : 1
1. Cities as central places perform-
1 For references see Edward Ullman, "A
Theory of Location for Cities," American
Journal of Sociology, Vol. 46, No. 6 (May
1941), pp. 853-64.
8
FIG. 1.-Theoretical distribution of central
places. In a homogeneous land, settlements
are evenly spaced; largest city in center sur-
rounded by 6 medium-size centers which in
turn are surrounded by 6 small centers.
Tributary areas are hexagons, the closest geo-
metrical shapes to circles which completely
fill area with no unserved spaces.
FIG. 2.-Transport centers, aligned along
railroads or at coast. Large center is port;

next largest is railroad junction and engine-
changing point where mountain and plain
meet. Small centers perform break of bulk
principally between rail and roads.
FIG. 3.-Specialized-function settlements.
Large city is manufacturing and mining cen-
ter surrounded by a cluster of smaller settle-
ments located on a mineral deposit. Small
centers on ocean and at edge of mountains
are resorts.
FIG. 4.-Theoretical composite grouping.
Port becomes the metropolis and, although
off center, serves as central place for whole
area. Manufacturing-mining and junction
centers are next largest. Railroad alignment
of many towns evident. Railroad route in
upper left of Fig. 2 has been diverted to
pass through manufacturing and mining clus-
ter. Distribution of settlements in upper right
follows central-place arrangement.
ing comprehensive services for a sur-
rounding area. Such cities tend to be
evenly spaced throughout productive
territory (Fig. 1). For the moment
this may be considered the &dquo;norm&dquo;
subject to variation primarily in re-
sponse to the ensuing factors.
2. Transport cities performing break-
of-bulk and allied services along trans-

port routes, supported by areas which
may be remote in distance but close in
connection because of the city’s strate-
gic location on transport channels. Such
cities tend to be arranged in linear pat-
terns along rail lines or at coasts (Fig.
2).
9
3. Specialized-function cities per-
forming one service such as mining,
manufacturing, or recreation for large
areas, including the general tributary
areas of hosts of other cities. Since the
principal localizing factor is often a par-
ticular resource such as coal, water
power, or a beach, such cities may occur
singly or in clusters (Fig. 3).
Most cities represent a combination
of the three factors, the relative impor-
tance of each varying from city to city
(Fig. 4).
Cities as central places
Cities as central, places serve as trade
and social centers for a tributary area.
If the land base is homogeneous these
centers are uniformly spaced, as in
many parts of the agricultural Middle
West (Fig. 1). In areas of uneven re-

source distribution, the distribution of
cities is uneven. The centers are of
varying sizes, ranging from small ham-
lets closely spaced with one or two
stores serving a local tributary area,
through larger villages, towns, and cit-
ies more widely spaced with more spe-
cial services for larger tributary areas,
up to the great metropolis such as New
York or Chicago offering many special-
ized services for a large tributary area
composed of a whole hierarchy of tribu-
tary areas of smaller places. Such a net
of tributary areas and centers forms a
pattern somewhat like a fish net spread
over a beach, the network regular and
symmetrical where the sand is smooth,
but warped and distorted where the net
is caught in rocks.
’
The central-place type of city or
town is widespread throughout t the
world, particularly in nonindustrial re-
gions. In the United States it is best
represented by the numerous retail and
wholesale trade centers of the agricul-
tural Middle West, Southwest, and
West. Such cities have imposing shop-
ping centers or wholesale districts in
proportion to their size; the stores are
supported by the trade of the surround-
ing area. This contrasts with many cit-

ies of the industrial East, where the
centers are so close together that each
has little trade support beyond its own
population.
Not only trade but social and re-
ligious functions may support central
places. In some instances these other
functions may be the main support of
the town. In parts of Latin America,
for example, where there is little trade,
settlements are scattered at relatively
uniform intervals through the land as
social and religious centers. In con-
trast to most cities, their busiest day is
Sunday, when the surrounding populace
attend church and engage in holiday
recreation, thus giving rise to the name
&dquo;Sunday town.&dquo;
Most large central cities and towns
are also political centers. The county
seat is an example. London and Paris
are the political as well as trade centers
of their countries. In the United States,
however, Washington and many state
capitals are specialized political centers.
In many of these cases the political
capital was initially chosen as a cen-
trally located point in the political area
and was deliberately separated from the
major urban center.
Cities as transport foci and break-of-
bulk points

All cities are dependent on trans-
portation in order to utilize the surplus
of the land for their support. This de-
pendence on transportation destroys the
symmetry of the central-place arrange-
ment, inasmuch as cities develop at foci
or breaks of transportation, and trans-
port routes are distributed unevenly
over the land because of relief or other
limitations ( Fig. 2). City organiza-
tions recognize the importance of effi-
10
cient transportation, as witness their
constant concern with freight-rate regu-
lation and with the construction of
new highways, port facilities, airfields,
and the like.
Mere focusing of transport routes
does not produce a city, but according
to Cooley, if break of bulk occurs, the
focus becomes a good place to process
goods. Where the form of transport
changes, as transferring from water to
rail, break of bulk is inevitable. Ports
originating merely to transship cargo
tend to develop auxiliary services such
as repackaging, storing, and sorting.
An example of simple break-of-bulk and
storage ports is Port Arthur-Fort Wil-
liam, the twin port and wheat-storage
cities at the head of Lake Superior;

surrounded by unproductive land, they
have arisen at the break-of-bulk points
on the cheapest route from the wheat-
producing Prairi6 Provinces to the mar-
kets of the East. Some ports develop
as entrep6ts, such as Hong Kong and
Copenhagen, supported by transship-
ment of goods from small to large boats
or vice versa. Servicing points or mi-
nor changes in transport tend to en-
courage growth of cities as establish-
ment of division points for changing
locomotives on American railroads.
Transport centers can be centrally lo-
cated places or can serve as gateways
between contrasting regions with con-
trasting needs. Kansas City, Omaha,
and Minneapolis-St. Paul serve as gate-
ways to the West as well as central
places for productive agricultural re-
gions, and are important wholesale cen-
ters. The ports of New Orleans, Mo-
bile, Savannah, Charleston, Norfolk,
and others served as traditional gate-
ways to the Cotton Belt with its spe-
cialized production. Likewise, northern
border metropolises such as Baltimore,
Washington, Cincinnati, and Louisville
served as gateways to the South, with
St. Louis a gateway to the Southwest.
In recent years the South has been de-
veloping its own central places, sup-
planting some of the monopoly once

held by the border gateways. Atlanta,
Memphis, and Dallas are examples of
the new southern central places and
transport foci.
Changes in transportation are re-
flected in the pattern of city distribu-
tion. Thus the development of rail-
roads resulted in a railroad alignment
of cities which still persists. The rapid
growth of automobiles and widespread
development of highways in recent dec-
ades, however, has changed the trend
toward a more even distribution of
towns. Studies in such diverse locali-
ties as New York and Louisiana have
shown a shift of centers away from ex-
clusive alignment along rail routes.
Airways may reinforce this trend or
stimulate still different patterns of dis-
tribution for the future city.
Cities as concentration points for spe-
cialized services
A specialized city or cluster of cities
performing a specialized function for a
large area may develop at a highly lo-
calized resource (Fig. 3). The resort
city of Miami, for example, developed
in response to a favorable climate and
beach. Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and
dozens of nearby towns are specialized
coal-mining centers developed on an-
thracite coal deposits to serve a large
segment of the northeastern United

States. Pittsburgh and its suburbs and
satellites form a nationally significant
iron-and-steel manufacturing cluster fa-
vored by good location for the assembly
of coal and iron ore and for the sale of
steel to industries on the coal fields.
Equally important with physical re-
sources in many cities are the advan-
tages of mass production and ancillary
services. Once started, a specialized
11
city acts as a nucleus for similar or re-
lated activities, and functions tend to
pyramid, whether the city is a seaside
resort such as Miami or Atlantic City,
or, more important, a manufacturing
center such as Pittsburgh or Detroit.
Concentration of industry in a city
means that there will be a concentra-
tion of satellite services and industries
-supply houses, machine shops, expert
consultants, other industries using local
industrial by-products or waste, still
other industries making specialized
parts for other plants in the city, mar-
keting channels, specialized transport
facilities, skilled labor, and a host of
other facilities; either directly or in-
directly, these benefit industry and
cause it to expand in size and numbers

in a concentrated place or district. Lo-
cal personnel with the know-how in a
given industry also may decide to start
a new plant producing similar or like
products in the same city. Further-
more, the advantages of mass produc-
tion itself often tend to concentrate pro-
duction in a few large factories and
cities. Examples of localization of spe-
cific manufacturing industries are cloth-
ing in New York City, furniture in
Grand Rapids, automobiles in the De-
troit area, pottery in Stoke-on-Trent in
England, and even such a specialty as
tennis rackets in Pawtucket, Rhode Is-
land.
Such concentration continues until
opposing forces of high labor costs and
congestion balance the concentrating
forces. Labor costs may be lower in
small towns and in industrially new
districts; thus some factories are mov-
ing from the great metropolises to small
towns; much of the cotton textile in-
dustry has moved from the old indus-
trial areas of New England to the newer
areas of the Carolinas in the South.
The tremendous concentration of popu-
lation and structures in large cities ex-
acts a high cost in the form of con-
gestion, high land costs, high taxes, and
restrictive legislation.
Not all industries tend to concentrate

in specialized industrial cities; many
types of manufacturing partake more
of central-place characteristics. These
types are those that are tied to the mar-
ket because the manufacturing process
results in an increase in bulk or perisha-
bility. Bakeries, ice cream establish-
ments, ice houses, breweries, soft-drink
plants, and various types of assembly
plants are examples. Even such indus-
tries, however, tend to be more devel-
oped in the manufacturing belt because
the density of population and hence
the market is greater there.
The greatest concentration of indus-
trial cities in America is in the manu-
facturing belt of northeastern United
States and contiguous Canada, north of
the Ohio and east of the Mississippi.
Some factors in this concentration are:
large reserves of fuel and power (par-
ticularly coal), raw materials such as
iron ore via the Great Lakes, cheap
ocean transportation on the eastern sea-
board, productive agriculture (particu-
larly in the west), early settlement,
later immigration concentrated in its
cities, and an early start with conse-
quent development of skilled labor, in-
dustrial know-how, transportation fa-
cilities, and prestige.
The interdependent nature of most

of the industries acts as a powerful
force to maintain this area as the pri-
mary home of industrial cities in the
United States. Before the war, the
typical industrial city outside the main
manufacturing belt had only a single
industry of the raw-material type, such
as lumber mills, food canneries, or
smelters (Longview, Washington; San
Jose, California; Anaconda, Montana).
Because of the need for producing huge
quantities of ships and airplanes for a
12
two-ocean war, however, many cities
along the Gulf and Pacific coasts have
grown rapidly during recent years as
centers of industry.
Application of the three types of urban
suppoyt
Although examples can be cited illus-
trating each of the three types of urban
support, most American cities partake
in varying proportions of all three
types. New York City, for example, as
the greatest American port is a break-
of-bulk point; as the principal center
of wholesaling and retailing it is a
central-place type; and as the major
American center of manufacturing it is
a specialized type. The actual distri-

bution and functional classification of
cities in the United States, more com-
plex than the simple sum of the three
types (Fig. 4), has been mapped and
described elsewhere in different terms.2 2
The three basic types therefore
should not be considered as a rigid
framework excluding all accidental es-
tablishment, although even fortuitous
development of a city becomes part of
the general urban-supporting environ-
ment. Nor should the urban setting be
regarded as static; cities are constantly
changing, and exhibit characteristic lag
in adjusting to new conditions.
Ample opportunity exists for use of
initiative in strengthening the support-
ing base of the future city, particularly
if account is taken of the basic factors
of urban support. Thus a city should
examine: ( 1 ) its surrounding area to
take advantage of changes such as
newly discovered resources or crops,
(2) its transport in order to adjust
properly to new or changed facilities,
and (3) its industries in order to bene-
fit from technological advances.
INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF CITIES
Any effective plans for the improve-
ment or rearrangement of the future
city must take account of the present
pattern of land use within the city, of

the factors which have produced this
pattern, and of the facilities required by
activities localized within particular dis-
tricts.
Although the internal pattern of each
city is unique in its particular combina-
tion of details, most American cities
have business, industrial, and residen-
tial districts. The forces underlying
the pattern of land use can be appre-
ciated if attention is focused on three
generalizations of arrangement-by con-
centric zones, sectors, and multiple nu-
clei.
Concentric zones
According to the concentric-zone the-
ory, the pattern of growth of the city
can best be understood in terms of five
concentric zones 3 ( Fig. 5).
1. The central business district.-
This is the focus of commercial, social,
and civic life, and of transportation.
In it is the downtown retail district
with its department stores, smart shops,
office buildings, clubs, banks, hotels,
theaters, museums, and organization
headquarters. Encircling the downtown
retail district is the wholesale business
district.
2. The zone in transition.-Encir-

cling the downtown area is a zone of
residential deterioration. Business and
light manufacturing encroach on resi-
dential areas characterized particularly
2 Chauncy D. Harris, "A Functional Classi-
fication of Cities in the United States," The
Geographical Review, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan.
1943), pp. 85-99.
3 Ernest W. Burgess, "The Growth of the
City," in The City, ed. by Robert E. Park,
Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick D. Mc-
Kenzie (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1925), pp. 47-62; and Ernest W. Burgess,
"Urban Areas," in Chicago, an Experiment in
Social Science Research, ed. by T. V. Smith
and Leonard D. White (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1929), pp. 113-38.
13
FIG. 5.-Generalizations of internal structure of cities. The
concentric-zone theory is a gen-
eralization for all cities. The arrangement of the sectors in the
sector theory varies from city
to city. The diagram for multiple nuclei represents one possible
pattern among innumerable
variations.
by rooming houses. In this zone are
the principal slums, with their sub-

merged regions of poverty, degradation,
and disease, and their underworlds of
vice. In many American cities it has
been inhabited largely by colonies of
recent immigrants.
3. The zone of independent working-
men’s homes.-This is inhabited by in-
dustrial workers who have escaped from
the zone in transition but who desire to
live within easy access of their work.
In many American cities second-genera-
tion immigrants are important segments
of the population in this area.
4. The zone of better residences.-
This is made up of single-family dwell-
ings, of exclusive &dquo;restricted districts,&dquo;
and of high-class apartment buildings.
5. The commuters’ zone.-Often be-
yond the city limits in suburban areas
or in satellite cities, this is a zone of
spotty development of high-class resi-
dences along lines of rapid travel.
Sectors
The theory of axial development, ac-
cording to which growth takes place
along main transportation routes or
along lines of least resistance to form
14

a star-shaped city, is refined by Homer
Hoyt in his sector theory, which states
that growth along a particular axis of
transportation usually consists of simi-
lar types of land use (Fig. 5). The
entire city is considered as a circle and
the various areas as sectors radiating
out from the center of that circle; simi-
lar types of land use originate near the
center of the circle and migrate outward
toward the periphery. Thus a high-rent
residential area in the eastern quad-
rant of the city would tend to migrate
outward, keeping always in the east-
ern quadrant. A low-quality housing
area, if located in the southern quad-
rant, would tend to extend outward to
the very margin of the city in that sec-
tor. The _migration of high-class resi-
dential areas outward along established
lines of travel is particularly pro-
nounced on high ground, toward open
country, to homes of community lead-
ers, along lines of fastest transporta-
tion, and to existing nuclei of buildings
or trading centers.
Multiple nuclei
In many cities the land-use pattern
is built not around a single center but
around several discrete nuclei (Fig. 5).
In some cities these nuclei have existed
from the very origins of the city; in
others they have developed as the

growth of the city stimulated migration
and specialization. An example of the
first type is Metropolitan London, in
which &dquo;The City&dquo; and Westminster
originated as separate points separated
by open country, one as the center of
finance and commerce, the other as the
center of political life. An example of
the second type is Chicago, in which
heavy industry, at first localized along
the Chicago River in the heart of the
city, migrated to the Calumet District,
where it acted as a nucleus for extensive
new urban development.
The initial nucleus of the city may be
the retail district in a central-place city,
the port or rail facilities in a break-of-
bulk city, or the factory, mine, or
beach in a -specialized-function city.
The rise of separate nuclei and dif-
ferentiated districts reflects a combina-
tion of the following four factors:
1. Certain activities require special-
ized facilities. The retail district, for
example, is attached to the point of
greatest intracity accessibility, the port
district to suitable water front, manu-
facturing districts to large blocks of
land and water or rail connection, and
so on.
2. Certain like activities group to-

gether because they profit from cohe-
sion.5 The clustering of industrial cit-
ies has already been noted above under
&dquo;Cities as concentration points for spe-
cialized services.&dquo; Retail districts bene-
fit from grouping which increases the
concentration of potential customers
and makes possible comparison shop-
ping. Financial and office-building dis-
tricts depend upon facility of communi-
cation among offices within the district.
The Merchandise Mart of Chicago is an
example of wholesale clustering.
3. Certain unlike activities are detri-
mental to each other. The antagonism
between factory development and high-
class residential development is well
known. The heavy concentrations of
pedestrians, automobiles, and streetcars
in the retail district are antagonistic
both to the railroad facilities and the
street loading required in the wholesale
district and to the rail facilities and
4 Homer Hoyt, "City Growth and Mort-
gage Risk," Insured Mortgage Portfolio, Vol.
1, Nos. 6-10 (Dec. 1936-April 1937), passim;
and U. S. Federal Housing Administration,
The Structure and Growth of Residential
Neighborhoods in American Cities by Homer
Hoyt (Washington: Government Printing Of-
fice, 1939), passim,
5 Exceptions are service-type establishments

such as some grocery stores, dry cleaners, and
gasoline stations.
15
space needed by large industrial dis-
tricts, and vice versa.
4. Certain activities are unable to af-
ford the high rents of the most desirable
sites. This factor works in conjunction
with the foregoing. Examples are bulk
wholesaling and storage activities re-
quiring much room, or low-class hous-
ing unable to afford the luxury of high
land with a view.
The number of nuclei which result
from historical development and the op-
eration of localization forces varies
greatly from city to city. The larger
the city, the more numerous and spe-
cialized are the nuclei. The following
districts, however, have developed
around nuclei in most large American
cities.
The central business district.-This
district is at the focus of intracity trans-
portation facilities by sidewalk, private
car, bus, streetcar, subway, and ele-
vated. Because of asymmetrical growth
of most large cities, it is generally not

now in the areal center of the city but
actually near one edge, as in the case
of lake-front, riverside, or even inland
cities; examples are Chicago, St. Louis,
and Salt Lake City. Because estab-
lished internal transportation lines con-
verge on it, however, it is the point of
most convenient access from all parts
of the city, and the point of highest
land values. The retail district, at the
point of maximum accessibility, is at-
tached to the sidewalk; only pedestrian
or mass-transportation movement can
concentrate the large numbers of cus-
tomers necessary to support department
stores, variety stores, and clothing
shops, which are characteristic of the
district. In small cities financial insti-
tutions and office buildings are inter-
mingled with retail shops, but in large
cities the financial district is separate,
near but not at the point of greatest
intracity facility. Its point of attach-
ment is the elevator, which permits
three-dimensional access among offices,
whose most important locational factor
is accessibility to other offices rather
than to the city as a whole. Govern-
ment buildings also are commonly neat
but not in the center of the retail dis-
trict. In most cities a separate &dquo;auto-
mobile row&dquo; has arisen on the edge of
the central business district, in cheaper
rent areas along one or more major
highways; its attachment is to the high-

way itself.
The wholesale and light-manufactur-
ing district.-This district is conven-
iently within the city but near the focus
of extra city transportation facilities.
Wholesale houses, while deriving some
support from the city itself, serve prin-
cipally a tributary region reached by
railroad and motor truck. They are,
therefore, concentrated along railroad
lines, usually adjacent to (but not sur-
rounding) the central business district.
Many types of light manufacturing
which do not require specialized build-
ings are attracted by the facilities of
this district or similar districts: good
rail and road transportation, available
loft buildings, and proximity to the
markets and labor of the city itself.
The heavy industrial district.-This
is near the present or former outer edge
of the city. Heavy industries require
large tracts of space, often beyond any
available in sections already subdivided
into blocks and streets. They also re-
quire good transportation, either rail or
water. With the development of belt
lines and switching yards, sites on the
edge of the city may have better trans-
portation service than those near the
center. In Chicago about a hundred
industries are in a belt three miles long,
adjacent to the Clearing freight yards on
the southwestern edge of the city. Fur-

thermore, the noise of boiler works, the
odors of stockyards, the waste disposal
problems of smelters and iron and steel
mills, the fire hazards of petroleum re-
16
fineries, and the space and transporta-
tion needs which interrupt streets and
accessibility-all these favor the growth
of heavy industry away from the main
center of the large city. The Calumet
District of Chicago, the New Jersey
marshes near New York City, the Lea
marshes near London, and the St. Denis
district of Paris are examples of such
districts. The stockyards of Chicago,
in spite of their odors and size, have
been engulfed by urban growth and are
now far from the edge of then city.
They form a nucleus of heavy industry
within the city but not near the center,
which has blighted the adjacent residen-
tial area, the &dquo;back-of-the-yards&dquo; dis-
trict.
The residential district.-In general,
high-class districts are likely to be on
well-drained, high land and away from
nuisances such as noise, odors, smoke,
and railroad lines. Low-class districts
are likely to arise near factories and
railroad districts, wherever located in
the city. Because of the obsolescence

of structures, the older inner margins
of residential districts are fertile fields
for invasion by groups unable to pay
high rents. Residential neighborhoods
have some measure of cohesiveness.
Extreme cases are the ethnically segre-
gated groups, which cluster together al-
though including members in many eco-
nomic groups; Harlem is an example.
Minor nuclei.-These include cul-
tural centers, parks, outlying business
districts, and small industrial centers.
A university may form a nucleus for a
quasi-independent community; exam-
ples are the University of Chicago, the
University of California, and Harvard
University. Parks and recreation areas
occupying former wasteland too rugged
or wet for housing may form nuclei for
high-class residential areas; examples
are Rock Creek Park in Washington
and Hyde Park in London. Outlying
business districts may in time become
major centers. Many small institutions
and individual light manufacturing
plants, such as bakeries, dispersed
throughout the city may never become
nuclei of differentiated districts.
Suburb and Satellite.-Suburbs, ei-
ther residential or industrial, are char-
acteristic of most of the larger Ameri-
can cities.6 The rise of the automobile
and the improvement of certain sub-

urban commuter rail lines in a few of
the largest cities have stimulated sub-
urbanization. Satellites differ from sub-
urbs in that they are separated from the
central city by many miles and in gen-
eral have little daily commuting to or
from the central city, although eco-
nomic activities of the satellite are
closely geared to those of the central
city. Thus Gary may be considered a
suburb but Elgin and Joliet are satel-
lites of Chicago.
Appraisal of land-use patterns
Most cities exhibit not only a com-
bination of the three types of urban
support, but also aspects of the three
generalizations of the land-use pattern.
An understanding of both is useful in
appraising the future prospects of the
whole city and the arrangement of its
parts.
As a general picture subject to modi-
fication because of topography, trans-
portation, and previous land use, the
concentric-zone aspect has merit. It is
not a rigid pattern, inasmuch as growth
or arrangement often reflects expansion
within sectors or development around
separate nuclei.
The sector aspect has been applied
particularly to the outward movement

of residential districts. Both the con-
centric-zone theory and the sector the-
ory emphasize the general tendency of
central residential areas to decline in
6 Chauncy D. Harris, "Suburbs," American
Journal of Sociology, Vol. 49, No. 1 (July
1943), p. 6.
17
value as new construction takes place
on the outer edges; the sector theory
is, however, more discriminating in its
analysis of that movement.
Both the concentric zone, as a general
pattern, and the sector aspect, as ap-
plied primarily to residential patterns,
assume (although not explicitly) that
there is but a single urban core. around
which land use is arranged symmetri-
cally in either concentric or radial pat-
terns. In broad theoretical terms such
an assumption may be valid, inasmuch
,as the handicap of distance alone would
favor as much concentration as possible
in a small central core. Because of the
actual physical impossibility of such
concentration and the existence of sepa-
rating factors, however, separate nuclei
arise. The specific separating factors
are not only high rent in the core, which
can be afforded by few activities, but

also the natural attachment of certain
activities to extra-urban transport,
space, or other facilities, and the ad-
vantages of the separation of unlike
activities and the concentration of like
functions.
The constantly changing pattern of
land use poses many problems. Near
the core, land is kept vacant or retained
in antisocial slum structures in antici-
pation of expansion of higher-rent ac-
tivities. The hidden costs of slums to
the city in poor environment for future
citizens and excessive police, fire, and
sanitary protection underlie the argu-
ment for a subsidy to remove the blight.
The transition zone is not everywhere a
zone of deterioration with slums, how-
ever, as witness the rise of high-class
apartment development near the urban
core in the Gold Coast of Chicago or
Park Avenue in New York City. On
the fringe of the city, overambitious sub-
dividing results in unused land to be
crossed by urban services such as sew-
ers and transportation. Separate politi-
cal status of many suburbs results in a
lack of civic responsibility for the prob-
lems and expenses of the city in which
the suburbanites work.
Edward L. Ullman, Ph.D., a geographer, is at present on active
duty in Washington as

a lieutenant, USNR. He has served on the faculties of
Washington State College and
Indiana University. Urban geography is one of the fields in
which he has made previous
contributions.
Chauncy D. Harris, Ph.D., assistant professor of geography at
the University of Chi-
cago, is on leave for active military service as a first lieutenant
in the United States Army.
He has been a member of the faculties of Indiana University and
the University of Ne-
braska and has written several papers in the field of urban
geography.
Looking for History in “Boring” Places:
Suburban Communities and American Life
Michael P. Marino
The College of New Jersey
IN HER COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS of the topic, Anita
Danker
defines local history as “the study of the past as played out in
individual
communities, regions, and states.” She further argues that the
incorporation
of local history into a curriculum can help engage students by
providing
a local context to promote understanding of abstract historical
events.
As she notes, local history can show students “how the town or
city in

which their school is situated was touched or affected by the
course of
the nation’s defining moments.”1 Her book Multicultural
Social Studies:
Using Local History in the Classroom provides a number of case
studies
to illustrate how teachers can incorporate local history into their
own
classrooms. These case studies focus on interesting things
happening in
interesting places. For example, one chapter addresses the
Salem Witch
Trials in Massachusetts, another examines the birth of country
music in
Nashville, a third discusses the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution
in Rhode Island. This focus on the exceptional is also found in
William
Leuchtenburg’s book American Places: Encounters with
History, a volume
whose chapters mainly address locations such as Gettysburg,
Monticello,
Graceland, the Grand Canyon, and Princeton University’s
Nassau Hall.2
This focus on distinctive places and exceptional events is a
worthwhile and
important way to connect local issues to wider historical
themes. It is also
a pedagogical premise that can engage and interest students.
However, this
emphasis on exceptional events (or “regular” peoples’
interactions with
The History Teacher Volume 47 Number 4 August 2014
© Society for History Education

490 Michael P. Marino
exceptional events) means that many towns and communities
invariably
get left out of the story. What can be said about the histories of
places
that have no famous buildings, where no famous people lived,
or where
no famous events occurred?
The purpose of this article is to provide further insight into how
local
history can enhance a history curriculum. However, rather than
focus on the
exceptional, it will use things found in suburban communities to
show how
suburbs can inform wider understanding of American history
and culture.
It is intended to help teachers in suburban areas use their own
communities
as a basis for historical study and analysis, even though no
battles, protests,
or famous events may have occurred in these places. While
suburbs are
often derided for their banality and lack of distinctiveness,
history can
be found within them, and this history is vital to understanding
life in
modern America.
The importance of suburbs is significant because the census of
1990
revealed a profound demographic truth—more people now live
in suburbs
than in cities and rural areas combined.3 Most American

adolescents live,
attend school, and come of age in suburbs. Using these
communities as
historical resources can help these students better understand
the scope of
American history and place their lives in historical context.
The use of this
local connection in classrooms also promotes, as Robert Stevens
argues, a
“Deweyan” approach that personalizes the curriculum and
allows students
to see how their own lives relate to distant historical events.4
Furthermore,
Douglas Selwyn contends that much of history is “hidden” and
that
different aspects of historical knowledge are often suppressed,
ignored, or
deemed insignificant.5 Local history can act as a vehicle
through which
this hidden history can be accessed, helping students better
understand
how their lives have been shaped by historical events. Local
history also
allows historical understanding (and history teaching) to move
away from
politicians, battles, and diplomacy towards social and cultural
history as
well as the history of everyday life. This helps broaden a
curriculum to
include perspectives and stories often not touched upon in
history classes.
The discussion here will focus on seemingly mundane aspects of
suburban
life, such as houses, cars, and roads, to show how these
communities can
serve as entry points for wider understandings about American

history,
culture, and society. The first section of this article addresses
the issue of
housing; the second section discusses road and highways; and
the third
section depicts the changing nature of suburban demographics
to illustrate
how America’s population and living patterns have evolved over
time.
Instructional ideas and lesson plans are included for each of
these sections
to assist teachers in thinking about ways to incorporate the
history of
suburbs into history classes.
Suburban Communities and American Life 491
Life in the Suburbs: Housing
The most distinctive and identifiable aspect of suburban life is
the
house, and suburban communities are mainly characterized by
the homes
within them. The traditional suburban home would seemingly
offer little
of interest to historians or students of history. Rather, it has
mainly served
as a metaphor for the dull and tedious nature of suburban life.6
Many
books about suburbs, for example, feature aerial photographs of
suburban
communities and use the repetitive similarity of the landscape
to make a
subtle critique about life in these neighborhoods and the people

that would
choose to live in them. The humble suburban home—mundane
as it may
look to passersby—nonetheless acts as a medium through which
much
can be learned about life in America after World War II. The
discussion
here focuses on two particular examples of suburban
architecture, the
“Cape Cod” and the “Ranch.” These two types of homes were
the
most widespread architectural styles found in early post-WWII
suburbs
(constituting the two types built in the first Levittown, for
example) and
serve as a way to understand the ideology and motivations that
produced
suburbanization.7 Moreover, although these styles are by
today’s standards
somewhat dated, they have nonetheless established principles
that
undergird suburban housing to this day.
Cape Cod houses (see Figure 1) are distinguished by their
angular
roofs and graceful, symmetrical lines. Derived from
architecture found
in colonial New England (early examples date to the late
seventeenth
century), the name and style combine traditional American
simplicity with
the charm and comfort of a summer beach house.8 The Cape
Cod design
was revived in the late 1930s when architect Royal Barry Willis
won a
contest (against noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright) to design

the perfect
middle-class American home.9 This style resonated with
Americans and
became extremely popular; Cape Cods were a main type of
architecture
used in Levittown, for example, where 6,000 units were
constructed. An
extremely popular design, Cape Cod houses can be found
throughout
America. As one architectural historian notes, “it remains the
quintessential
image of the American home.”10 Given its ubiquity, a case
could be made
that the Cape Cod design represents one of the most historically
significant
styles of architecture in American history.
In contrast to the Cape Cods of New England, the Ranch house
(see
Figure 2) is intended to evoke life in the California
countryside—a
simple design nestled comfortably and unobtrusively into the
surrounding
landscape. Described as a “shoebox with a roof,” its one
distinguishing
feature is the large “picture window” in front, intended to turn
the outside
world into a changing panorama for those inside.11
These homes represent classic models of 1950s suburban
architecture,
and although non-descript and often excoriated by critics and

commentators,
they nonetheless offer insight into American history and
American life.
Perhaps the most significant theme that can be extracted from
classic
suburban homes is the fact that they were the product of
specific and
dedicated government activity. To study the history of a suburb
is to gain
understanding of how the American government has shaped
Americans’
lives in real and tangible ways. It could be argued, for example,
that the
most important event to occur in the United States since World
War II
was the massive demographic shift that occurred as a result of
movement
away from cities and towards suburbs. Such a process would
never
have happened without the actions of the United States
government,
and the study of suburbanization helps provide understanding of
the role
government has played in American history and how
government action
can affect the lives of its citizens.
The issue of property (and ownership of it) has been
fundamental in
defining American history. The American Revolution and the
Civil War
were both largely the result of disputes over property rights,
and the U.S.
government has consistently sought to create conditions to
facilitate and

Figure 1: Curbside exterior view of Cape Cod houses.
promote land ownership. Possession of property is also a core
value of
America’s republican ideals, as reflected in the writings and
beliefs of
founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
During
the Great Depression, homeownership was stressed as a
fundamental right
of all Americans, and several New Deal legislative acts and
programs were
created to assist in the purchase of homes. Although these
programs are not
as well known as prominent New Deal measures such as social
security,
the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), and the
construction of
public works, they nonetheless had a lasting and transformative
impact
on American history.
Prior to the Great Depression, bank lending rules and the
manner in
which loans were structured prevented many Americans from
purchasing
homes. A significant down payment was required, and loans
needed to
be paid off in a relatively short period of time (usually ten
years). New
Deal programs such as the Home Owners Loan Corporation
(1933)

and the National Housing Act (1934) dramatically altered the
rules of
home buying, however. These measures lowered the required
down
payment needed to purchase a home (to 3%) and lengthened a
mortgage’s
repayment period—extending it to a maximum of thirty years.
The
Figure 2: Curbside exterior view of Ranch house.
National Housing Act also created a government agency, the
Federal
Housing Authority, which guaranteed and underwrote mortgages
issued
by banks; this encouraged lending and lowered interest rates.
As a result,
homeownership became a realistic possibility for millions of
(largely
white) Americans who could not have purchased a home
otherwise.12
Like many New Deal programs, these benefits were intended
mainly
for white Americans, and preference was given to white
homebuyers.
The FHA would only underwrite mortgages for homes bought in
white
neighborhoods, for example. This helped begin a process that
turned the
United States into a rigidly segregated society, divided by race
and class.
The social consequences of these government actions became

evident in
the 1950s and 1960s, as cities became populated by poor
minorities while
suburbs were almost exclusively white enclaves.
Though little new home construction occurred during the Great
Depression and World War II, a system was established that
allowed the
suburban boom of the 1950s to occur. These government
actions also
produced a substantial ripple effect by expanding the banking,
insurance,
construction, and retail industries, reshaping America’s
economic life in
the process. As a result, the policies begun during the New
Deal played a
major role in reshaping and reordering American life. A
suburban home
is more than just shelter and a way to satisfy a basic human
need. Rather,
it is the product of a long historical legacy and offers evidence
of how
government action has transformed the lives of generations of
Americans.
Although the American government worked to create conditions
that
would promote homeownership, houses still needed to be
constructed
and made available to buyers. The challenge was to build
homes that
were affordable for a large number of people, given that the
median
American household income in 1950 was approximately $4,000
(roughly
$37,000 today). Traditionally, suburban homes were custom

built by an
owner or built in small lots by a contractor. The novelty of
post-WWII
suburbs was the way they were mass-produced in large numbers
using
innovative construction techniques. The similarity and
monotony of
suburban architecture was not the result of some degenerative
strain in
the American psyche, but rather a way to minimize costs to keep
the
purchase price within reach of a majority of buyers. Builders
such as the
Levitt family were able to achieve for homes what Henry Ford
did for
automobiles by minimizing expenses and maximizing
production, making
them affordable for people of limited means.13 This was
accomplished
by using assembly line construction methods, eliminating the
need for a
basement (an expensive and time-consuming room to build),
controlling
the cost of raw materials such as lumber and concrete, and
employing
cheaper unskilled labor.
The end result of these innovations was that homes could be
purchased
so cheaply that it was more expensive to rent an apartment in a
city than it
was to buy a house in the suburbs. The suburban home provides

evidence
of the role that innovation and ingenuity have played in
American life and
how technology has shaped American history and culture. The
means
through which these houses were made affordable gives the
suburban
home an important place in the pantheon of inventions that have
shaped
the lives of Americans. As one author notes, “Levittown was
the Model T
of the built environment.”14 To study a suburban home is to
understand a
transformative moment in American history and the ways that
technological
innovation can produce important historical changes. Indeed,
alongside the
automobile, the humble, yet affordable 1950s suburban home is
perhaps
the greatest American invention of the twentieth century.
The architecture, design, and physical layout of a typical
suburban home
also help facilitate understanding of wider themes and ideas
associated with
American culture. Earlier, it was noted that the distinguishing
feature of a
Ranch-style home was the large picture window prominently
displayed at
the front of the house. While intended as a feature for those
living in the
house, a large window such as this also lets passersby look into
the house
and see what is inside (which is why most picture windows are
barricaded
with walls of curtains). Each suburban home can become, in

essence, a
theater offering viewers a glimpse into the lives that exist
within them.15
More than a simple piece of architecture, a suburban home is
also a portal
into American life and culture. In some ways, suburbs are less
about homes
than they are about the lives of the people who live within them.
The term
“suburban lifestyle” connotes specific ideals, beliefs, and
assumptions that
are distinctively American, and to study a suburban home is to
understand
values central to the American experience.
If a suburban home is a form of theater, the residents of the
house must
all play certain roles. In suburban folklore and history (if not
necessarily
in reality), these roles are rigidly defined. For one, the cast is
small, by rule
a family of a husband, a wife, and generally one to three
children. This
separates the post-WWII suburban experience from the older
residential
patterns of urban life, where aunts, uncles, grandparents, and
extended
family all lived in close proximity to one another, often in the
same house.
The scale and design of prototypical 1950s architecture
prevented such
living arrangements, however, creating communities of small
nuclear
families. Each resident in such a house and family was
expected to perform
certain tasks and assume certain predetermined roles. In theory,

the father
worked and supported the household, while the mother cared for
the house
and raised the children.16 Children, in turn, got to be children
and enjoy
their childhoods without the pressure of work; post-WWII
prosperity
allowed the house to be supported without their assistance, and
unlike
earlier generations, they did not need to toil alongside their
father in a
coal mine or mother in a garment factory.
The design of these homes also helped reinforce these
predetermined
familial and gender roles. Walking into a 1950s suburban
home, the
kitchen was typically on the left, with the living room on the
right, and
the bedrooms in the rear.17 Locating certain rooms in front of
the house
conveyed their importance and focused the “action” of the
house in these
areas. Various design factors also helped keep residents inside
the house
and in their predetermined roles. The front lawn acted as a
green wall
of sorts, isolating the house from all around it. Whereas older
homes
had stoops or porches in the front, forcing residents of a
community

to commingle during hot nights and leisure time, in a 1950s
suburb,
activity happened in the backyard, a preserve isolated and
walled off
from outsiders.18 Household technologies that became
widespread after
World War II such as the television and air conditioner also
helped keep
families indoors and isolated from the surrounding
community.19 Nor
was there much to do in a suburb. While a father returning
from work
in Brooklyn had a myriad of leisure options to keep him away
from the
house, a father living in a suburb had nowhere to go and was
forced to
spend time at home.20
The suburban house thus became a vehicle that forced
Americans to
live and behave in certain ways and adhere to predetermined
roles. The
design of suburban homes and the nature of family life within
them came
to represent values and characteristics that are distinctly
American. During
the first wave of post-WWII suburbanization, the suburban
home became
a potent Cold War weapon, used to acclaim the benefits of
capitalism
and the triumph of the American system. Suburban homes and
families
also presented an image of a domestic utopia that helped
encourage and
maintain American democratic values. Buying a home and
raising a family

promoted social responsibility and civic virtue, focusing
peoples’ creative
energies towards the maintenance of a home and care of
children and away
from more radical pursuits.21
The 1950s suburban home serves as a means through which
much
can be learned about American history, society, and culture.
For one, it
illustrates the effect that government action can play in shaping
the lives
of its citizens. It also illustrates the impact that key historical
events (such
as the New Deal) have had on the lives of everyday people. The
suburban
home also serves as a symbol that illustrates a number of
themes central
to understanding American history. The suburban home and the
methods
used to construct it demonstrate the impact that technology and
innovation
have had on American history. Indeed, one can place the
suburban home
on a continuum of epochal American inventions that have
together shaped
the lives of generations of people. During the 1950s, the
suburban home
also represented an idealized vision of American life, and the
architecture
and design of suburban homes and communities helped promote

this ideal.
This vision continues to occupy an important place in American
society,
as buying a house and starting a family continues to serve as a
benchmark
of success. The study of a suburban home can help illustrate a
cultural
imperative that has defined America since World War II.
Life in the Suburbs: Roads and Highways
If houses constitute the dominant characteristic of a suburb,
then roads
and the cars that travel on them are only slightly less important.
Indeed,
the two have a symbiotic relationship, as suburbs could not
exist without
automobiles, roads, and highways and ownership of a car is a
fundamental
prerequisite for life in a suburban community. Much of the
criticism of
suburbs is predicated on this fact, and attacks on suburbs often
focus on
the cars so necessary to connect them to the outside world. It is
argued, for
example, that cars are dangerous, take up vast amounts of space,
consume
scarce resources, create pollution, and—because of the expenses
they
generate—represent a net loss for society as a whole, requiring
a massive
amount of resources to maintain the infrastructure that supports
them.22
Like suburban houses, suburban roads would seem to offer little
in way

of wider historical understanding. A closer look reveals their
significance,
however. For one, there is the obvious contrast between the
street pattern
in many American cities, which follows a rigid, geometrical
pattern of
perpendicular streets, with that found in suburbs, which usually
consists
of streets that gently curve and twist (called “curvilinear” in
developer
parlance), cul-de-sacs, and roads that go nowhere. The term
“subdivision”
is, in fact, a product of this phenomenon, as many suburban
communities
exist as isolated developments built off a single main road. Of
these two
types of road design, the gridded street pattern of cities offers
certain
advantages. Gridded streets are easy to negotiate and provide a
sense of
orientation and direction; they also help non-native speakers
find their way,
an important concern in communities with large immigrant
populations.
Suburban roads, conversely, are frustrating and confusing, and
even
with a map, it is difficult to know where one is going. As one
study of
suburban architecture notes, “unrelenting curves create an
environment
that is utterly disorienting.”23 These curvilinear, directionless
roads serve
several purposes, however. For one, they promote isolation and
discourage
strangers from passing through a community. Much as
individual suburban

homes serve an isolating function, so too do the roads that
connect them
to the outside world. Given how frustrating it is to navigate
curving
roads, only those who live in a particular place and who know
where
they are going will drive on them. Strangers will stay away. If
suburban
homes promote isolation among individual households,
suburban roads
accomplish the same effect for communities and subdivisions.
Planners
and architects have also discovered that people tend to dislike
walking
on curvilinear roads and that these thoroughfares exist largely
to move
cars from place to place. This further reinforces the often
anonymous
character of suburban life, and attests to the reciprocal
relationship between
automobiles and suburban homes. Like suburban houses,
suburban roads
promote a specific lifestyle and force those who live in them to
live a certain
way. They again testify to the nature, style, and character of
suburban
living—isolated, remote, and dependent on cars.
Life in suburbs is, in fact, largely about cars and America’s
historical
obsession with this form of transportation. This fact is most

evident
in the rash of highway building that occurred across twentieth-
century
American history. These highways illustrate a number of
historical
themes and ideas significant to wider understandings of
American history
and culture. Highways served as conduits into the suburban
towns,
speeding development and accelerating movement into areas
that were
hitherto remote and inaccessible. As a result, they not only
changed the
way Americans live, but also shaped their eating habits,
widened their
entertainment options, expanded the retail industry, and helped
speed the
decline of urban and town centers.24
Like suburban homes, highways also illustrate how the
government
has shaped American history and the lives of its citizens. The
highway
system that stretches across the United States could have been
built only
through government intervention and largesse on a massive
scale. The
motivations of various levels of government (federal, state, and
local)
to produce this highway system reveal a number of important
historical
themes and concepts. To study the history of highways, for
example,
promotes deeper understanding of the Cold War (due to the
government’s
desire to disperse America’s population during this period),

labor history
(because of the need to provide jobs for the building trades),
and the
way America’s government operates (due to the massive
lobbying of the
government by various industries to pass highway legislation, as
well as
the use of tactics such as eminent domain).
The study of highways also promotes understanding of the
dramatic
demographic and economic realities that shaped American
society after
the Second World War. Not only did highways foster
suburbanization, but
their construction began the slow process of decline in many
American
cities. Highways, for example, made it easy to relocate
industries and
manufacturing away from cities in the northeast and Midwest to
the
south and southwest.25 When built through cities, highways
also tended
to eviscerate the neighborhoods in their path, further
accelerating urban
decline and flight to the suburbs.26 This movement of people
and business
precipitated a migratory shift that has dramatically altered
America’s
demographic composition and its political and economic life.

Finally, and most significantly, suburban roads and highways
have
turned the United States into a nation dependent on cars. First
begun in
the 1920s, by 1960, the transformation of America into a
society built
around the automobile was complete. During the 1950s, when
gas cost
18 cents a gallon (approximately $1.61 today) and the
automobile was
viewed a symbol of status and prosperity, creating a society
centered on
automobiles seemed logical. The modern United States is, in
fact, a nation
whose very existence is predicated on the widespread
availability of cheap
gas. As a result, generations of Americans have lived their
lives around the
consequences of this fact.27 The expense of cars, gas and
maintenance, the
inconvenience of traffic, and the need to drive as a function of
everyday
life is a reality nearly every American must face, and this
reality clearly
illustrates how historical events and processes shape life in the
present day
and how decisions made in the past influence life in the present.
Life in Suburbs: People and Populations
Suburbs are not only about homes and roads. Ultimately, and
most
importantly, they are about people, and studying how people
live and
function within these communities is a last important
illustration of how

suburbs can produce deeper understandings of American
history. It has
been noted that the suburbanization of America that occurred
after World
War II produced dramatic demographic, economic, and cultural
changes.
Understanding the causes and consequences of this migration to
the
suburbs is central to understanding life in modern America and
how and
why American society has evolved in the way it has. Indeed,
the impact of
suburban migration on American life may be the most
significant issue to
arise of out of the nation’s history in the second half of the
twentieth century.
The post-WWII period of suburbanization produced a
fundamental
racial reordering of American society. Due to a varied series of
push-pull
factors, urban white ethnic residents were drawn to suburban
communities.
Cities, in turn, became populated by poorer residents of Latino
and
African-American descent. Cities suffered due to the
subsequent decline
in tax revenue, the strain on social services, and the concurrent
loss of
blue-collar manufacturing jobs that typically provided
employment for
new arrivals. As a result, many American cities entered a long
period

of decline and became increasingly segregated by race and class
from
the suburbs surrounding them. Even mighty New York City
entered an
economic downturn in the late 1950s, as its unemployment rate
began
to tick upward and it shed manufacturing jobs in large
numbers.28 By
the early 1970s, the city was borrowing money simply to pay
interest on
previous debts incurred. Although New York recovered from
this crisis,
many cities have not, and understanding the causes of urban
decline and
the consequences of suburban migration are vital for
understanding the
nature of life in modern America.
American communities are in a constant state of flux, however,
and
rarely do they stay the same for long. Although it is easy to
think of suburbs
and cities representing two diametrically opposed ways of life,
the reality
is not so obvious in the modern era. Studies of suburbs have
shown that
they have evolved significantly from their days as preserves for
white
urban refugees. For example, many suburban communities have
become
increasingly diverse and more “urban” in their demographic
composition
and character. Many suburbs (often called “ethno-burbs”) also
now have

a distinct ethnic profile, making them similar to the urban
enclaves of the
past.29 Moreover, the push-pull factors that lured white
residents to the
suburbs after World War II clearly still hold sway, and suburbs
still attract
people looking for better schools, the ability to own a home,
and a quieter,
more peaceful life.
Although suburbs are colloquially assumed to be prosperous and
peaceful, in recent years, many suburban communities have
experienced
symptoms of decline that have traditionally impacted American
urban
areas. As one study notes, “suburbs as poor as any city
neighborhood have
emerged to disrupt the myth of suburban success.”30 In some
cases, this
is simply a function of geography, as suburbs that directly
border cities
often begin to experience many of the problems (such as crime,
poverty,
and housing deterioration) that impact cities. These suburbs are
called
“inner ring” suburbs and they are generally older communities,
first settled
in the years after World War II. Many of these suburbs have
taken on the
characteristics of depressed urban areas, and historian John
Teaford refers
to them as “suburban ghettos” that “exhibit all the symptoms of
social
disaster.”31 Researchers refer to this phenomenon as the
“suburban life
cycle” and suggest that as housing in a suburb ages, the

community will
experience deterioration, culminating in a “thinning out” of the
population
and a subsequent decline in tax base and services. Eventually, a
suburb may
reach a “crisis point” in which various factors combine to place
a community
in severe difficulty.32 Today, suburban communities vary
considerably from
one another; they are not monolithic in their character, nor is
the idea of a
suburb easy to characterize with broad, sweeping observations.
Older realities about these suburban communities still remain,
however.
Many suburbs are still segregated (especially by class) and it is
not
uncommon for extremely wealthy suburban areas to exist in
close proximity
to poor urban ones, or for a poor suburb to border a wealthy
one. The
study of suburbs and their demographics can provide knowledge
of how
issues such as segregation and separation of wealth still impact
American
society. Moreover, the study of suburbs and the people that live
in them
also reveals the complexity of American life and how historical
forces
have shaped the lives of the American people.
Conclusion

Suburban communities are often viewed as innocuous and
uninteresting
(or worse), especially when compared with the rich histories
and
historical legacies found in cities. This would seemingly render
suburbs
as unimportant and not conducive to deeper historical
investigation. The
analysis here has sought to dispute this notion by showing how
suburbs can
serve as entry points for learning about issues and themes vital
to American
history. Incorporating suburban history into a curriculum is
integral since
America has become a suburban nation and most American
students now
live and grow up in suburbs. Using suburbs as a historical
resource allows
the places where students live to be connected to American
history and
to illustrate how their lives have been shaped by historical
forces. Even
the most innocuous and seemingly “boring” suburban town is
shaped by
these factors, and examination of them connects a community to
important
historical themes and concepts. Some of these themes and
concepts address
the political dimensions of American history; this is found, for
example,
in the legislation that facilitated home construction, home
buying, and
highway building. These government actions can, in turn, be
connected
to key events in American history such as the Cold War, the

Civil Rights
Movement, and the New Deal. The study of suburbs also lends
itself to
deeper understanding of American cultural and social history.
Suburban
homes and roads have produced a distinctly American character,
one
shaped by the design and style of its housing and the role and
importance
of its roads. Suburbs also promote appreciation of the steadily
evolving
nature of American society. Such analysis helps students
understand
that communities rarely stay the same for long, and that factors
such as
immigration and segregation have shaped the places in which
they live.
This understanding, in turn, promotes deeper appreciation of the
nature
of historical chronology and how history is not merely a dull
abstraction
drawn from textbooks, but rather a vital process that is the
product of a
myriad of distinct processes, changes, and events.
Notes
1. Anita C. Danker, Multicultural Social Studies: Using Local
History in the
Classroom (New York: Teachers College Press, 2005), 112.
2. William E. Leuchtenburg, American Places: Encounters with

History (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
3. Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban
Growth, 1820-
1900 (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003), 10.
4. Robert L. Stevens, Homespun: Teaching Local History in
Grades 6-12
(Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001), xiii.
5. Douglas Selwyn, Following the Threads: Bringing Inquiry
Research into the
Classroom (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), 133.
6. An analysis of the critiques of suburbs would create a lengthy
discussion in its own
right. For a survey of portrayals of suburbs in films and novels,
see Robert Beuka, Suburban
Nation: Reading Suburban Landscape in Twentieth-Century
Fiction and Film (New York:
Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004). Well-known critiques of suburbs
written in the post-WWII
era include Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its
Transformation, and
Its Prospects (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961);
and William Whyte, The
Organization Man (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956).
7. These two models were featured in the original Long Island
Levittown, for
example.
8. G. E. Kidder Smith and Marshall B. Davidson, A Pictorial
History of Architecture
in America (New York: American Heritage Publishing

Company, 1976), 39.
9. Richard Guy Wilson, The Colonial Revival House (New
York: Henry Abrams,
2004), 179.
10. Allan Greenberg, The Architecture of Democracy: American
Architecture and
the Legacy of the Revolution (New York: Rizzoli International,
2006), 37.
11. For the Ranch house, see Clifford E. Clark, “Ranch-House
Suburbia: Ideals and
Realities,” in Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the
Age of Cold War, ed. Lary
May (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983),
especially 178-179.
12. The influence of the federal government in the housing
market is discussed
in many places, most notably Chapter 11 of Kenneth Jackson,
Crabgrass Frontier: The
Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985). Also
Alexander Garvin, The American City: What Works, What
Doesn’t, second ed. (New York:
McGraw Hill, 2002), 196; Hayden, Building Suburbia, 123-127.
13. For a discussion of the Levitts’ building techniques and the
comparison to Henry
Ford, see Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, Picture
Windows: How the Suburbs
Happened (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 120.
14. Jane Holtz Kay, Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took
over America and

How We Can Take It Back (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1997), 227.
15. On the suburban home as a form of theater, see Lynn Spigel,
“From Theater
to Space Ship: Metaphors of Suburban Domesticity in Postwar
America,” in Visions of
Suburbia, ed. Roger Silverstone (New York: Routledge, 1997).
16. Research indicates that gender roles in practice were less
rigid than popular
memory would indicate. See Stephanie Coontz, The Way We
Never Were: American
Families and the Nostalgia Trap (New York: Basic Books,
2000); Joanne Meyerowitz,
Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America,
1945-1960 (Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press, 1994).
17. For how suburban interior architecture shaped American
domestic life, see
Barbara M. Kelly, Expanding the American Dream: Building
and Rebuilding Levittown
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), 70; Clark, “Ranch-House
Suburbia,” 179.
18. Suburban lawns are discussed in Robert Messia, “Lawns as
Artifacts: The
Evolution of Social and Environmental Implications of
Suburban Residential Land Use,”
in Suburban Sprawl: Culture, Theory and Politics, eds. Matthew

J. Lindstrom and Hugh
Bartling (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 2003).
19. For the influence of the air conditioner, see Raymond
Arsenault, “The End of
the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern
Culture,” in Searching for
the Sunbelt: Historical Perspectives on a Region, ed. Raymond
A. Mohl (Athens, GA:
University of Georgia Press, 1993).
20. For this point, see Kelly, Expanding the American Dream,
70.
21. For the cultural and political significance of suburbs, see
Chapter 7 of Elaine
Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold
War Era (New York: Basic
Books, 1999). Also see Chapter 8 of Robert Beauregard, When
America Became Suburban
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006).
22. For the negative impact of automobiles and their
relationship to suburbia, see
Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck,
Suburban Nation: The Rise of
Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (New York:
North Point Press, 2000);
Anthony Flint, This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the
Future of America (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Douglas E. Morris,
It’s a Sprawl World After
All (Gabriola Island, Canada: New World Publishers, 2003).
23. Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck, Suburban Nation, 34.
24. For malls and the decline of cities, see Lizbeth Cohen,

“From Town Center to
Shopping Center: The Reconfiguration of Community
Marketplaces in Postwar America,”
The American Historical Review 101, no. 4 (October 1996).
For fast food, see Jackson,
Crabgrass Frontier, 263-265.
25. These points are drawn from Owen Gutfreund, Twentieth-
Century Sprawl:
Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape (New
York: Oxford University
Press, 2005); Tom Lewis, Divided Highways: Building the
Interstate Highway System (New
York: Penguin, 1999); Mark H. Rose, Interstate: Express
Highway Politics, 1939-1989
(Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1990); Thomas
J. Sugrue, The Origins
of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1996).
26. See Robert A. Caro’s discussion of the impact of the Cross
Bronx Expressway
on the neighborhood of East Tremont in Chapter 37 of The
Power Broker: Robert Moses
and the Fall of New York (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).
27. A discussion of this can be found in Kay, Asphalt Nation.
28. See Chapter 10 of Joshua B. Freeman, Working Class New
York: Life and Labor
since World War II (New York: The New Press, 2000).
29. See Hayden, Building Suburbia, 12-13. A profile of an
ethnic suburb in California

can be found in Timothy B. Fong, The First Suburban
Chinatown: The Remaking of
Monterey Park, California (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University
Press, 1994). A discussion
of the experiences of recent immigrants on Long Island can be
found in Sarah J. Mahler,
American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1995).
30. Bernadette Hanlon, Once the American Dream: Inner-Ring
Suburbs of the
Metropolitan United States (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2010), 15.
31. Jon Teaford, The American Suburb: The Basics (New York:
Routledge, 2008),
46.
32. William H. Lucy and David L. Phillips, “Suburban Decline:
The Next Urban
Crisis,” Issues in Science and Technology 17, no. 1 (September
2000).
Appendix A
Activity #1: Images of the Suburbs
The lesson promotes inquiry learning and historical thinking,
and can be accomplished
within a single class period. Note that this lesson can either
work as a jigsaw or as a

carousel activity. As a jigsaw, students should be successively
placed in two groups; in the
first group, students become “experts” in a particular historical
resource related to suburbs.
In the second group, the student experts work together to write
an informal “history” of
suburbs based on the materials they have analyzed. As a
carousel, students work together
to analyze each historical resource, moving together from
source to source. They then
collaboratively write the history noted above.
The resources used for this activity are listed below. Note that
teachers may want to
provide a graphic organizer and/or guiding questions to assist
their students in making
accurate conclusions.
Resource PossibleGuiding Question(s) Conclusion
1) Advertisements from the late
1940s for Levittown, PA.
Found at: http://statemuseumpa.
org/levittown/one/f.html
What arguments do
the advertisements use
to convince people to
move the suburbs?
Suburbs were aggres-
sively marketed to vet-
erans and city residents
at attractive prices.
2) Photographs of Levittown

during construction and from
the air. Found at: http://tigger.
uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown/
building.html
What are some charac-
teristics of a suburban
community? Why do the
houses on a suburban
street look the same?
Suburbs were built
using assembly line
techniques to lower
costs and speed
production.
3) YouTube clip (“Crisis in
Levittown”) of Levittown
residents outraged at an
African-American family
moving into the neighborhood.
Found at: http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=lrJMez9vkrw
Why are Levittown
residents concerned
about an African-
American family
moving into the
neighborhood?
Suburbs were originally
conceived as distinctly
white neighborhoods.

4) Lyrics to songs about the
suburbs. Examples include
“Sprawl II” by Arcade Fire,
“Jesus of Suburbia” by Green
Day, and “In My Garage”
by Weezer.* Found at: www.
azlyrics.com
What vision of suburbs
emerges in American
popular culture?
Suburbs are often
viewed as boring and
stultifying, especially
by young people.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown/building.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrJMez9vkrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrJMez9vkrw
http://www.azlyrics.com
http://www.azlyrics.com
5) Definitions of two federal
laws: The National Housing
Act of 1934 and Title I of
the National Housing Act of
1949. Found at: http://fraser.
stlouisfed.org/docs/historical/
martin/54_01_19340627.pdf and
http://61674785.nhd.weebly.com/

the-housing-act-of-1949.html
How did the federal
government create
a framework to help
Americans purchase
homes?
The U.S. government
took an active role in
promoting the growth
of suburbs.
* Experience indicates that students are motivated to a greater
extent by these contemporary
songs than by Malvina Reynolds’ 1963 song, “Little Boxes,”
which is often used when
suburbanization is taught.
Appendix B
Activity #2: Suburban Architecture
This activity is based on the “CSI approach” discussed by
Yohuru Williams in his book,
Teaching U.S. History Beyond the Textbook (Corwin, 2009),
and is designed to help
students access some of the themes associated with the study of
suburban housing. The
CSI method calls for students to take on the role of detectives.
Students are first given
various types of evidence and must then create an account or
recreation of what happened
at a specific moment in time.
For this exercise, students should be given different types of

materials that speak to the
character and ideology of suburban culture. Some examples of
this evidence are included
below. These are photos and floor plans of Cape Cod and
Ranch houses (see Images #1 and
#2 below for exteriors; #3 and #4 for interiors), and photos of a
1950s kitchen and living
room, the key rooms in the house (see images at
http://www.pinterest.com/dccalhoun/1950s-
interiors/). Additional evidence can be provided in the form of
advertisements from the
era, which also reinforce gender roles (see images at
http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/
household-ads-1950s) and the era’s obsession with automobile
transportation (see images
at http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/cars-ads-1950s). Finally,
YouTube clips of 1950s
television commercials can also be used for their portrayals of
1950s domesticity (see,
for example, the Coke commercial at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVPByTYlLks).
Students should be given this evidence and asked to create an
account of what life was like
in the 1950s. Some hints can be provided for “clues” that are
less obvious. For example,
the positions of the rooms in the floor plans of the 1950s homes
show how their architecture
helped promote a certain kind of family life. In the Cape Cod
house, for example, the
living room and kitchen are placed in the front of the house,
while the single-floor Ranch
house contains relatively small bedrooms, but a much larger
living room. Different kinds
of motivators can also be used to introduce this activity. For
example, students can be

told that they have been transported back to a 1950s suburb and
their explorations of the
area yielded the evidence that they now have before them.
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/historical/martin/54_01_193406
27.pdf
27.pdf
27.pdf
http://61674785.nhd.weebly.com/the-housing-act-of-1949.html
http://61674785.nhd.weebly.com/the-housing-act-of-1949.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVPByTYlLks
Image 1: Exterior of Cape Cod houses
Image 2: Exterior of a Ranch house
Image 3: Interior floorplan of a Cape Cod house
Image 4: Interior floorplan of a Ranch house
Appendix C
Activity #3: Government and the Suburbs

This activity can work in two ways. The main idea that
undergirds it is that the government
has played an active role in creating suburbs, and has therefore
established a lifestyle that
most Americans must today accept and aspire to. Students
should be given a semantic
map and asked to consider the consequences of various
government actions related to
suburbanization. Students can be provided with all the
conclusions (listed below) and
tasked with sequencing them properly, or they can be given
some of the clues and use them
to create their own conclusions and interpretations. A filled in
map might look like this:
Appendix D
Activity #4: Student Life in the Suburbs
Students should be presented with some type of instrument to
record their actions and
movements during the week of the school year. They should be
told to record all the things
they did during a given week and (most importantly) how they
got to the various places
they went. The purpose of the assignment is to illustrate how
adolescents who live in
suburbs are wholly dependent on their parents and that their
lives are shaped by cars and
roads. Additionally, once the record keeping has been
completed, students can be asked

to consider the consequences of this dependency. Research
suggests, for example, that
children who grow up in suburbs become less capable as adults
because they developed
no self reliance or independence in their teen years.
Appendix E
Activity #5: Transportation in the Suburbs
The purpose of this activity is to show students how roads shape
their lives. Students should
be given between five and ten destinations at varying distances
from their community.
They should then work collaboratively to determine the most
effective route to the various
destinations. Ideally, these routes should suggest that their
community is dependent on
certain key roads and highways. Once these are identified,
student groups should research
the origins of these thoroughfares.
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Urban Growth in American Cities:
Glimpses of U.S. Urbanization
By: Roger Auch, Janis Taylor, and William Acevedo

Growth of Urban Areas
The growth of urban areas throughout the history of the United
States has
been dramatic. Various circumstances and driving forces have
interacted
over 225 years to reach a point where 80 percent of the Nation's
population
now lives in metropolitan areas that occupy less than 20 percent
of the land
area. The amount of intensively urbanized land within these
metropolitan
areas is even less (Platt, 1996, 22-24). Urban population growth
started
slowly, accelerated in the second half of the 19th century, and
then
continued steadily throughout the next hundred years (fig. 2).
The form of,
and reasons for, urbanization have, however, changed
considerably over
time.
Figure 2. Source: Historical Statistics of the United States
Colonial Times to
1970, Part 1, p. 11-12; Statistical Abstract of the United States
2000, p. 38.
American cities grew steadily throughout the first 75 years of
nationhood but
remained relatively small in geographic area and population.
Most were
located along transportation access points: at seaports, along
navigable tidal

and major inland rivers, along canals, and around the Great
Lakes. The
regional hinterlands beyond the cities produced raw
commodities as a part of
rural-based economies. Those commodities were then processed
into
durable goods in urban centers and redistributed in the area or
transported
to other regions where they were refined or even exported
(Borchert, 1967).
By the eve of the Civil War, however, the nature of urban
development had
begun to change. Cities were becoming centers of industry as
access to local
and regional natural resources improved and these resources
were
exploited. In addition, European social unrest led to a steady
stream of
immigrants arriving in the United States. These conditions were
especially
marked in New England and the Middle Atlantic States. The
South and
Midwest, by contrast, remained predominantly rural, although
regional
economies were linked to urban markets (Goldfield and
Brownell, 1990, 95-
102, 104-109). A few Western cities also appeared at this time,
although
few were significant on the national scene. In general, their
economies
tended to be based either on localized mineral wealth or on
agriculture; a
handful were Hispanic cultural centers (Starrs, 1995, 271-285).

The pace of urbanization quickened following the Civil War.
Trains became
the dominant transportation mode throughout the country,
especially after
1870, when an economical way to mass-produce steel was
introduced,
allowing the construction of a vast rail network. Many cities
were created as
a result of railroad expansion, while others grew in size after
becoming rail
hubs. Industrialization also gained prominence, and by 1890 a
national
economy had been created. Natural resources from all parts of
the country
were used to fuel a rapidly expanding industrial Nation (Meyer,
1987, 321-
345). Immigration, mostly from Europe, continued to bolster the
burgeoning
population. Drawn by factory jobs, many immigrants settled in
cities. At this
time, the majority of the Nation's urban population was still
located in the
Northeast and the Midwest (Goldfield and Brownell, 1990, 185-
212). Cities
in the South and West continued to grow but remained smaller
in
comparison. For example, in 1896, Miami had a mere 500
registered voters
(Proctor, 1996, 269-270).
Changes in agricultural production increased the flow of people
to the cities
by the turn of the century. Regional specialization of specific
commodities as
a result of environmental conditions gave agricultural producers

in some
places an advantage over producers elsewhere. Farmers in areas
where land
was of marginal quality many times had to abandon agriculture
and seek
other sources of employment (Meyer, 1987, 326-334; Borchert,
1987, 103,
107). In the South, many African-Americans migrated to
northern industrial
cities to escape the growing failure of the postslavery
sharecropping system
that relied on monoculture cotton production (Clark, 1984, 145-
146;
Spinney, 2000, 167-170). Hispanic workers came to California
and other
Western States in increasing numbers as new irrigation projects
made it
possible to raise high-value but labor-intensive fruits and
vegetables.
Migrant field workers and their families often ended up living
in small but
growing urban areas throughout the region (Haverluk, 2000).
The old "downtown" city in America reached its zenith by the
end of the First
World War. The inner core of the city was the center of
industrial
management, production, and distribution. Such cities were
predominantly
densely populated, because most workers lived in multifamily
dwellings near
their sites of employment. Downtown landscapes were also
being

transformed as rising land prices and new technologies fostered
the
construction of high-rise buildings, or "skyscrapers."
Suburbanization was
initially limited to neighboring communities linked to city
centers by railroads
and electric streetcars. Modern highways were just making their
first
appearance (Muller, 1986). The U.S. Census of 1920 revealed
that, for the
first time, more Americans lived in urban than rural settings
(Platt, 1996,
215).
Between 1929 and 1945, the United States underwent both the
Great
Depression and the Second World War. These events ultimately
formed a
watershed that separated an old form of urban dynamics from a
new one
that has evolved over the past 50 years. Some of the seeds of
this change
had already been sown, however, during the previous few
decades. These
included the rapid increase in automobile ownership in the
1920s and the
creation of the modern mortgage loan in the 1930s. Consumer
spending also
was severely curtailed as a result of the Depression and World
War II, first
from hardship and then by forced austerity. This led to a
buildup of personal
savings that helped create the Nation's booming postwar
economy into
which the "baby boom" generation was born.

Another factor that influenced this change in urban growth
dynamics was the
involvement by the Federal Government, in both the national
economy and
those of local communities, in committing massive amounts of
money to
fight the Depression and later, the war. Several metropolitan
regions
included in this booklet reflect growth stimulated by this World
War II era
activity. One noteworthy aspect of this involvement was the
backing of long-
term home mortgage loans by several agencies, such as the
Federal Housing
Administration and the Veterans Administration, following the
war. Most of
the housing units financed in this manner were built on the edge
of the
existing cities (Jackson, 1985, 190-218). In time, the selective
funding of
major public works and the creation of a military-industrial
complex would
come to favor some urban areas over others (Goldfield and
Brownell, 1990,
323-341; Markusen and others, 1991, 8-25, 51-81). Examples in
the booklet
include the Boston, Orlando, Seattle, and Denver areas. A third
significant
influence on urban growth in the postwar era was the exposure
that millions
of Americans had gained to other parts of the country. During
the 1930s,
many people abandoned regions fraught with economic and
environmental
problems for new places that were thought to offer better
opportunities and

living conditions (Gregory, 1989, 3-25; Lewis, 1987, 433-436).
Others who
had been involved in the armed services were exposed to parts
of the
country that had greater appeal as future places of residence
than their
former communities (Mohl and Mormino, 1996, 424-425;
Lewis, 1987, 433-
436; Abbott, 1981, 37-41, 98-119). Orlando, Tampa, Phoenix,
Las Vegas,
and Denver are all examples of cities that had new military
bases during
World War II and offered different but attractive natural
amenities to
potential new residents.
A new form of urban growth gained prominence after the war:
mass
suburbanization around the older cities. Several factors fostered
its spread.
First, the development of an improved highway system allowed
people to
commute to their jobs in the cities from outside municipal
boundaries. This
trend began in the 1920s but accelerated greatly after the 1940s.
The
passage of the Federal Interstate Highway Act in the 1950s set
the stage for
large-scale, multilane roads that became a reality over the next
20 years.
Other driving forces behind suburbanization were subtler. The
Nation's
growing middle class, comprised of both blue- and white-collar

workers, now
had the financial resources to buy single-family residences
away from the
high-density city center and could maintain their suburban
lifestyle by
commuting (Jackson, 1985, 231-245). The suburbs also
represented a
refuge for a growing number of Americans who longed for
quieter, less
hectic lives that were removed from the congestion, noise,
pollution,
multifamily residences, and high land prices typically found in
the heart of
the city. Many of the Nation's citizens were only a generation or
two
removed from farm or small-town living; the suburbs offered a
means of
bridging small-town and city life (Herbers, 1986, 91-101).
Problem 6.2
Two students are discussing their methods for calibrating the
water containers shown below.
Student 1: "You have to first put in 10 mL of water from
another container and put a mark on the side of the container.
Then put in a second 10 mL and make another mark. You keep
doing this until you have finished. Then you can read the
amount of water in the container to the nearest 10 mL."
Student 2: "That's the slow way of doing it. Just put in 100
mL of water in the container, then divide the distanced between

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