Suburban Is At Ion

"How far did the residential suburbs of Britain, North America and Australia have the same social meaning and spatial form?"

Brendan S. Howard, © 2006

This paper aims to explore the social identity of the residential suburbs that developed in Britain, North America and Australia from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as their patterns of spatial expansion. Social meaning in suburbia is investigated with issues of status, gender and escapism being of most significance. In relation to spatial expansion, the importance of population increases, transportation developments, increases in available capital and the quest for social exclusiveness are of key importance. Comparisons are made between the three regions with particular specific reference to some major urban areas.

There is no precisely agreed definition of 'suburbia' but the general consensus seems to be that the population density should be less than that of the urban area it is a subsidiary of. Furthermore, the suburb should have a character distinct to that of the primary urban centre but at the same time retain relationships with it (Jackson, 1985, pp. 5, 284). In Britain, suburbia developed in reaction to the overcrowding of the city. The middle classes found that by moving to peripheral estates they could avoid their daily contact with the urban poor and live in a much healthier environment. Most importantly, due to new developments in transportation (initially that of the tram) they were able to live at a distance far greater from their workplaces than ever before. The mass usage of the tram from the late nineteenth century that showed people were prepared to sacrifice up to one hour each morning and evening to commute to work. The importance of the bicycle too, particularly in the late nineteenth century, must not be forgotten (Artibise, 1975, p. 169). In London and New York, an underground system was chosen in preference to a surface electric tram system to avoid destruction of tremendous amounts of the urban fabric. The underground system became widely popular and was very convenient but unfortunately removed spatial awareness within the city. Users passed underneath most areas of the city with a blinding shield of earth and concrete above whereas previously they had to travel down the street exposed to the cultural goings on that were there. Thus, the underground was one medium that

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led to cultural ignorance of people in other areas of the city. The attraction of the suburb was also boosted by a new appreciation of the 'natural' (which Robert Macfarlane illustrates wonderfully in his book "Mountains of the Mind"). In the midnineteenth century authors such as Andrew Jackson Downing and Catherine Beecher began to write of the semi-rural lifestyle as being desirable (Jackson, 1985, p. 73). Attempts to 'recreate the natural' within man-made housing developments included careful yet calculated use of meandering streets as opposed to the unnatural grid iron pattern which had become characteristic of many inner cities, particularly in the newer cities of North America. Parks, streams, ponds and trees to screen houses from each other were also typical (ibid.; Archer, 1988, p. 218). The attempt to make the residential suburb attractive by applying touches of the natural environment gave rise to the terms 'romantic suburb' and 'garden suburb' in the period 1820-1860 (Archer, 1988, p. 214-218). At the start of the nineteenth century Ebenezer Howard founded the 'Garden City Movement'. This adopted the romantic suburb characteristic of using the natural but also emphasised a careful balance between the residential, industrial and commercial which would have a decentralising effect on the city (Mumford, 1946, p. 66). These concepts were brought to life with the creation of Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City (today simply 'Letchworth') to the north of London. The style of housing for the typical new suburban family in Britain varied, with cottages typical in places like Liverpool and Birmingham, terraced flats in Newcastle and Gateshead, and tenements in Scotland. The upper middle class often looked to Gothic designs with turrets to give their homes some social character rather than to Classicism, which was popular in North America.

The Garden Suburb idea was influential in the planning of suburbs in the United States and Australia such as Shaker Heights (Cleveland) and Haberfield (Sydney; ibid.) and led to use of the term 'Anglo-American suburb' (Archer, 1988, p. 214-218). The ideology of Haberfield was that the residents would be healthier and more productive if a monotonous landscape was avoided by the use of parks and gardens (Ferber et al. [eds.], 1994, p.7). Other suburbs were created for no other reason than to reduce housing shortages (such as Levittown, New York in response to the demand for housing from returning war veterans). However, increased awareness of the social needs of the populations led to the creation of playgrounds, swimming pools, community centres and the like in an effort to build social character (Dobriner, 1963, 2

pp. 86-87). For the middle classes however, suburbia was able to offer a large home with a large south-facing garden that was out of the question in the inner city for a realistic price. In the United States, Frank Lloyd Wright was a key architect of the early twentieth century middle class suburban home and emphasised ideas of abundant space and the natural. The California Bungalow was one of the most popular styles of home in the North American and Australian residential suburb, fulfilling aspects of the American Dream such as having one's own garden and picket fence (Artibise, 1975, p. 188). The actual size of the house was not of primary importance. Rather, it was whether one owned a house or merely rented it that marked the difference between it being merely a house or actually being a home (Artibise, 1975, p. 190). In Britain, the USA and Australia there were continual increases in home ownership until 1945 (Jackson, 1985, p. 7). The movement into a suburban house thus became a symbol of achievement and social status for the better off working class families. The individuality that differentiates a house from a home is exemplified in contemporary society with the stories of council house tenants painting their doors a different colour to give them a sense of individuality. Nevertheless, although the working classes followed the middle classes to the suburbs, they were not to live once again alongside them. Class segregation of future suburbia was ensured by setting standards for the types of housing that could be built so the urban poor would be unable to afford homes next to the middle and upper middle classes (Simpson and Lloyd, 1977, p. 47). Initially all social classes had never lived too far away from one another but new developments began to divide the city into vastly separate socioeconomic areas. Isolation from the urban poor in the exclusive middle class suburb did not diminish fears of crime and terror, however. Fear of violent crime is just as prevalent in suburban Milwaukee as downtown Washington, D.C., although the actual crime rate is some twenty times less (Davis, 1990, p. 224). The 'gated community' is a modern phenomenon typical in American suburbia. Some suburbs became quite literally gated with guard posts restricting entry to residents and those with visiting permits. This was not only in middle class suburbia, but also in peripheral state housing projects such as Imperial Courts in South Los Angeles where security became enforced through fencing, obligatory identity cards and a police substation (Davis, 1990, p. 244). The climate of fear which has developed has also resulted in the destruction of public space (e.g. removal of public parks) due to fears of dangerous 'social other' characters (Davis, 1990, pp. 224-228). Children may still be allowed to 3

play in the street, but they have become more restricted to the semi-private neighbourhoods that have been created. It has become unusual for neighbours to talk to each other in the street and an attitude of avoidance has become common.

Although impoverished suburbs did develop in American cities, impoverished inner city areas remained most common (Garreau, 1991, p. 145) and the suburb became more associated with affluence and conservative white populations, sometimes colloquially referred to as WASPS (White Anglo Saxon Protestants). The black population in wealthy suburbs has increased through time however, in some instances almost to equal proportions with whites such as in Long Island, New York (49 per cent black) and Oakland, Atlanta (36 per cent black; Garreau, 1991, pp. 144145). Nevertheless, the abundance of the conservative white population in suburbia was shown by the great suburban support for Eisenhower and Republicanism in the 1950s (Wirt, 1965, p.647). Edson, Janosik, Millet, Pittman and Lubell carried out studies in that period to find the extent of Republican political domination in the suburbs. Lubell noted that some suburbs were becoming more Democratic, but "not on any scale that would threaten Republican ascendancy" (Lubell in Wirt, 1965, p. 648). Kennedy did however, go on to receive 49% of the suburban vote in 1960 (Wirt, 1965, p. 649). By 1980 the suburban population had grown to have the greatest electoral power within the United States (Baumgartner, 1988, p. 6).

Borchert has highlighted the size of suburbs as a distinguishing factor of their social character. He talks of 'residential city suburbs' as being intermediaries between a typical suburb where the residents have a common consciousness, and the cosmopolitan and more complex system that is the city (Borchert, 1995, p. 283). Indeed, peoples with a 'common consciousness', be it national, ethnic or religious, do tend to group together in certain areas. The term 'social segregation' has negative connotations but it is a reality in so many suburban (and inner city) areas.

In some cases the function of the inner city almost completely collapsed as a result of the movement of capital to outer city areas, with Detroit being a prime example. The population of the city of Detroit fell from 1,849,568 in 1950 to 951,270 in 2000, largely due to the closure of the General Motors car production plants. However, by 2000 the Detroit metropolitan area (Combined Statistical Area) had expanded to a 4

population of 5,428,000 (US Census). The modern phenomenon of the urban agglomeration population far exceeding the population of the city proper is seen in cities throughout Britain and Australia as a result of the suburbanisation processes that have taken place. Jackson jokes that in some US inner cities the "streets are now so devoid of life that even the rats and roaming dogs have gone" (Jackson, 1985, p. 286).

Social deprivation has undoubtedly been a problem in certain suburbs (and in some instances remains a problem), particularly in Australia. The grid iron pattern was adopted there for the initial suburban developments. Square housing allotments were continually subdivided to allow for the continuing influx of population, particularly following the Gold Rush in the early 1850s (Barret, 1971, pp. 15-19). There were however, minimal street widths set for new streets in an effort to reduce overcrowding. Fitzroy was a suburb of Melbourne that became renowned for its atrocious slum conditions (Ferber et al. [eds.], 1994, p. 19). Social and moral disorder was rife: there were numerous gambling dens and brothels and frequent violence and racist conflicts (ibid.) Neighbouring East Collingwood is notable for its mortality statistics: 72 per cent of all deaths in 1861 were of those aged under five (in comparison to 62 per cent in Fitzroy; Barrett, 1971, p. 56). Whereas in middle class suburbs the police were seen as purveyors of safety and justice, there are reports from Fitzroy that the police were in fact the causes of some of the violence (ibid.) The problems of drunkenness, prostitution and overcrowded housing associated with the old slum of Fitzroy continued until a process of housing demolition began in 1959 to make way for Housing Commission flats (Ferber et al. [eds.], 1994, p. 32). However, even within generally poor nineteenth century Australian suburbs, such as Fitzroy, there were spacious, detached houses for the middle class (Barrett, 1971, p. 48).

The spatial expansion of the suburbs was rapid in all three of the regions being discussed. It was particularly rapid in Australia and North America, partly due to overcrowding caused by the influx of immigrants from Europe, and especially in the largest towns and cities (Artibise, 1975, p. 139; Hoyt, 1966, p. 53). Developments of mass transportation, periods of economic 'boom' and the desire for to live in a bigger and better home were fundamental. New transportation (from the tram to the motorway) and communication technologies (most notably the telephone) have allowed cities to expand well beyond their traditional rural frontier, covering areas 5

many times what they had previously and marking the beginnings of what we refer to today as the 'urban sprawl'. In recent years, spatial expansion in Australia has tended to spread along the coast due to the undesirable environment of the inland desert but there have been no such limitations in Britain or North America (Jackson, 1985, p. 129). The idea of the greenbelt has failed to see a decrease in the expansion of the city. At first the new public transport systems of the trolley bus and tram were too expensive for the working classes to afford (Archer, 1988, p. 218). However, continual development of the networks, both in terms of technology and scale, soon made them available to all but the very poorest citizens and allowed the development of the working class residential suburb. In the nineteenth century, railway lines expanded outwards and residential developments were built alongside them. This caused the spatial form of the city to develop akin to the growing tentacles of an octopus, stretching far out into the rural wilderness. With the spatial detachment of the suburban home from the inner city workplace, a certain feminisation of the suburbs developed: in the late nineteenth century the tendency was for the wife to stay at home whilst the husband worked within the city. Blythswood was Glasgow's principal middle class suburb in the 1830s but from 1835 the development of railways in Glasgow allowed residential developments to form several miles beyond the existing built up area. As a result, Kelvinside took Blythswood's position as the major upper middle class suburb in Glasgow (Simpson and Lloyd (eds.), 1977, pp. 46-47). The inner city was made accessible from far distances in a relatively short time by tram or train and as the city grew so did the speed of the transport. The tram from Manchester city centre to Stockport took fifty minutes in 1913; today it can take a mere thirteen minutes on the train (from Manchester Piccadilly; Northern Rail). Transportation developments in the North American cities tended to precede those in Europe by around a decade. Glasgow for instance, had only 61 tram rides per head in 1890 but this figure had increased to 271 in 1910 whereas Boston already had 225 tram rides per head in 1890 and this had only increased to 280 by 1910 (McKay, 1976, p. 197). The advent of electricity also allowed for the development of the modern elevator in the high rise building, which increased the density capacity of the inner cities and perhaps accounts for the slowdown in suburban expansion in the early twentieth century.

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In Britain, the development of suburbia was largely due to the decline of domestic agriculture and the transfer of this labour force to trade and industry in urban centres such as London and Manchester (Lawton, 1968, p. 57). Originally the functions of residence, work and leisure in the urban sphere took place along side one other, and the city had a distinct market centre. The modest size of the city allowed this. However, the terrible overcrowding (which Charles Booth notably studied in London) and with the new possibility of cheap mass transportation resulted in the development of working class suburbia.

Horse drawn trams arrived in Sydney in 1861, one year after they did in London, but in Melbourne the there were no trams until 1885 following a long running antitram campaign (Barrett, 1971, pp. 150-152). This was not purely for reasons of aesthetics, but taxi drivers from the poor suburb of Fitzroy feared that they would have no business if the tramways were built. However, their attitudes changed when there was talk of increased land values from proximity to a new train terminal (Barrett, 1971, p. 154). By 1880 Australia had one of the world's most urban populations, only one hundred years after the first white settlers had arrived in an entirely rural nation (Barrett, 1971, p. 1). The extent of suburbanisation in Australia by 1960 prompted author of suburban sociology Donald Horne to proclaim Australia "the first suburban nation" (Davidson, 1995, p. 40). As well as problems of class isolation, the unprecedented rate of suburbanisation in Australia has led to problems of near-bankrupt transportation networks and of banks unable to fund loans large enough to keep up with rising house prices (Davidson, 1995, pp.40-41). This may be the ultimate cause of the slowdown in suburban expansion. After World War I, the private motor car became increasingly common amongst the middle classes and after World War II even amongst the working classes (Ward, 1964, p. 477). The importance of the motor car, highway and even the airport in modern suburban development cannot be understated. They have caused a huge increase in the spatial distance possible between the workplace and the home. These developments not only allowed the labour force to live at the city periphery but also encouraged the rise of light, footloose industry, which led to large areas of cheap land in the city outskirts being bought and developed on. In Britain, as in North America and Australia, every large (sub)urban agglomeration in the twentieth century

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developed with an intricate network of roads and motorways connecting different areas of the city.

It has been identified that there were similarities between the nature of suburbia that developed in Britain, North America and Australia. The movement to the suburb was typically due to overcrowding within the city as a result of immigration from rural areas and from overseas. The romantic suburb with its ideology of ample living space and transport links to the place of work became associated with the cities of all three regions. In more recent years the phenomenon of the gated community has developed, particularly in the USA. The desire for privacy and the decentralisation possible through transportation developments and footloose industrial technologies has seen suburban areas expand to create cities of a scale never seen before, both in highly populous nations such as the USA and in modestly populous nations such as Australia. The suburbanisation in Australia has been quite astounding for its size, giving merit to the title 'first suburban nation'. Limitations in expansion have been minimal with only minor restrictions on development from the desert in Australia and from greenbelts in Britain. However, there have been problems of cultural narrowmindedness that have developed from the lack of social integration which is characteristic of contemporary suburbia.

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