Building Suburbia and Crabgrass Frontier

Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, by Dolores Hayden

Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, by Kenneth T. Jackson

A foreign visitor to the United States might be intrigued by the different looks of the American landscape as compared to those of Europe, Asia, or South America. With their works, Kenneth T. Jackson and Dolores Hayden both shed clarity on the look of American tracts, malls, and highways with Crabgrass Frontier and Building Suburbia, respectively.

Kenneth T. Jackson writes Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States to answer the question: Why are American suburbs different from those in other countries? He investigates the dynamics of land use, process of city growth through history, and the ways in which Americans living in suburban areas have arranged their activities. Jackson attempts to discover the true meaning of ‘American Havens.’

Jackson looks at the adaptation of American suburbs from a place where low-income families lived, to the places where affluent Americans could afford a more luxurious lifestyle. Jackson most strongly argues that the trolley “had a greater impact on the American city between the Civil War and World War I” than any other invention. Stemming outward from the crowded business districts, trolley tracks opened up a vast suburban ring. Trolleys connected “an area triple the territory of the older walking city.” Along with the trolley, Jackson points to affordable housing as another reason for urbanization in American cities. With a quick trolley ride to urban housing areas, cheaper land than in cities, and the balloon-frame home construction method, American suburbs offered city dwellers a “safe and sanitary environment” that was preferable over city life.

After the trolley, Jackson points out that automobiles, along with higher quality roads and more abundant fuel, gave many city dwellers better access to suburban areas. “The automobile made it infinitely easier to commute in directions perpendicular to the trolley tracks.” In short, cities began to “come apart” from the center because of the better transportation offered by automobiles. Automobiles freed their owners to travel routes of their own choosing, to come and go wherever they pleased, all for a fraction of the cost of the trolley. 

An important aspect in the suburbanization of the United States is the American government’s policies used to socially control ethnic and racial minorities. One such control measure was the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Along with lowering interest rates, lowering the amount of down payment, extending the repayment period for guaranteed mortgages, and establishing minimum standards for home construction, the FHA made home buying cheaper than renting. The consequence of this governmental action “was the fact that FHA programs hastened the decay of inner-city neighborhoods by stripping them” of their middle-class constituency. This led to what Jackson terms “ghettoization” of public housing in the United States.

As Crabgrass Frontier comes to a close, Jackson argues that the process of suburbanization “will slow over the next two decades and that a new kind of spatial equilibrium will result early in the next century” due to several constraints. The rising cost and availability of fluid fuels will make it harder for urban citizens to live in urban environments. Also, Jackson asserts that the cost of land will constrain “the continued proliferation of suburbia.” A third factor inhibiting deconcentration involves the cost of money. “It is not likely that Americans will ever again have access to home loans at below market rates.” Fourth, building technology has not kept up with the demand for housing construction. “The median price paid for a new home in the United States tripled between 1970 and 1982.” Finally, Jackson points to the changing structure of the American family as the last constraint to strangle the future of suburban growth.

As an American urban landscape historian and architect, Dolores Hayden wrote Building Suburbia to document the suburban history of the United States since 1820. Similarly to Jackson, Hayden’s aim is to explain why American tracts, malls, and highways look the way they do. Hayden argues that there is great conflict between those who seek home, nature, and community, and entrepreneurs who search for profits through the development of rural tracts. In addition, she traces the long trajectory of suburban expansion, and considers future building and planning in the United States.

Hayden elaborates on the conflict between urban dwellers and profit-making entrepreneurs by examining the seven changing patterns of suburbanization. Here, she first introduces the history of “borderlands.” In the beginning of suburbanization, farms were converted to houses. However, as a true borderland, Hayden posits that they existed more in literature than in reality. She also describes that “the most desirable attribute of the borderland, closeness to nature, was also its greatest vulnerability because of the pressure to develop land.” Borderlands were a constantly shifting line of demarcation that lay at the heart of suburbanization. Next, Hayden expounds upon the wealthy picturesque enclaves. Of particular interest is Hayden’s attention to Llewellyn Park, New Jersey. Llewellyn Park is a typical picturesque enclave, lacking straight lines and 90-degree turns, containing a series of distinct landscape experiences, and featuring world-class architecture. Clearly, picturesque enclaves were not meant to suburbanize the working-class man. Third, Hayden covers streetcar buildouts in the history of American urbanization. Streetcar buildouts “began as linear real estate developments along expanding transit lines.” Houses in streetcar buildouts “were usually on a modest scale.” Residents lived together in close proximity, grouped together with paid and unpaid workers, kin, and boarders. Following streetcar buildouts, Hayden moves on to mail-order and self-built suburbs. “After 1910, entrepreneurs encouraged people with automobiles to reside in even more remote areas than those transit had touched.” Alongside an increase in the size of urban regions, options for selling and constructing houses began to change. Sears, Roebuck and Co. pioneered the mail-order catalogue, and then moved on to the mail-order house. As other companies followed suit, mail-order houses were meant to appeal to do-it-yourself homeowners. Comparing the growing suburbs of the post-World War II era to sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best, Hayden reflects on the fifth pattern of suburban history:  “model houses on suburban streets.” These sitcom suburbs held families of similar age, race, and income and notoriously lacked public space and public services. Next Hayden moves on to edge nodes. In this type of suburban area jobs outnumber bedrooms. Edge nodes are known for their malls and office spaces. These types of suburbs evolve “from automotive building types rather than from the residential building types connected to picturesque enclaves,” and sitcom suburbs. Finally, the rural fringes of edge nodes have seen expansion that covers more square miles than previously categorized suburban areas. Hayden points out that this type of suburban development has led to the loss of farmland and timberland. Wildlife has been reduced and waste runoff has damaged rural lakes and streams. Along and within edge nodes pollution has proliferated. 

Ultimately, Hayden urges the United States to preserve its older suburbs rather than reinvent suburban architecture and housing development. “Suburbia is the hinge, the connection between past and future, between old inequalities and new possibilities.” In order to conserve land, water, and air, the United States must support environmentally sustainable development. Federal, local, and state governments should offset entrepreneurial actions involved in suburbanization. As the United States continues to grow exponentially, it is up to her citizens to learn from the lessons of suburbanization.

Both Crabgrass Frontier and Building Suburbia focus on the history of suburbanization. Jackson’s Crabgrass Frontier sets the stage for suburban history with a general detailing of suburban history, and Hayden’s Building Suburbia stands as an important foundational text in the history of American suburbanization.