Product Description

In America, in contrast to almost anywhere else in the world, the good life means traveling a long distance to get to work. How and why this came to be our cultural norm is the subject of this long-awaited book.

Because more than two-thirds of all dwellings are single family homes surrounded by an ornamental yard, suburbia is the most distinctive physical characteristic of modern American society. Crabgrass Frontier is the first book to trace the growth of suburbs in America from their origins in the 1820's--in Brooklyn Heights opposite Manhattan--until the present day. Combining social history with economic and architectural history, the book discusses suburban communities in every section of the country as well as making comparisons with Europe and Japan.

Jackson considers such intriguing questions as why transportation technology changed the shape of American cities more than European ones, why the family room and the television set replaced the stoop and the street as the focus of social interaction, how the evolution of the garage reflected increasing affection for the automobile, how federal housing programs undermined inner city neighborhoods, and how government policies insured the collapse of the nation's once superb mass transit system. The book shows not only that Americans have long preferred a detached dwelling to a row house, rural life to city life, and owning to renting, but also that suburbanization has been as much a governmental as a natural process.

About the Author:

Kenneth T. Jackson is a Professor of History at Columbia University and the author of The Ku Klux Klan in the City.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28391 in eBooks
• Published on: 1987-04-16
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

Review

"A compelling narrative.... Jackson traces the consequences of the predominantly North American process [of suburbanization] through three centuries of technological, economic and social innovation."--Philadelphia Inquirer

About the Author

Kenneth T. Jackson, Professor of History at Columbia University, is the author of The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930; Cities in American History; and a number of other books.

Customer Reviews

Fine job, maybe the best available of it's kind of book
Very illuminating study of the growth of suburbia in American history. However, the book is not without flaws. The editing of this book is rather poor (ie. the balloon house construction method is referred to as ballroom construction method) with at least a dozen typos, probably due to the fact that the author suffered the loss of a teen-aged son in a car wreck just as he was finishing the book. He devotes little time to the radical demographic changes in suburbia since World War Two, a situation leading to a barren lack of continuity in suburban towns. The author shies away from most racial causes of the rise of suburbia and urban ethnic and racial transformations. Still, Professor Jackson brings to life what most Americans consider a mundane, dull subject. This is a job well done- I wish he'd write another.

History of Suburbanization in America
It's an acknowledged classic in the field of Urban History, but it's twenty years old and the last quarter of Crabgrass reads like it. Delores Hayden has covered the same ground in her more recent "Building Suburbia". The approach is hisorical, Jackson takes each period of suburbanization in chronological order. In terms of explanation for why America is so surburban, he focuses on government policy and the unique characteristics of the american middle class mind. Also, the fact that land is cheap is important. Readers may want to check out Building Suburbia for a more recent treatment of the same subject.

Crabgrass Frontier: Suburban Dream Up In Smoke
Crabgrass Frontier is a thorough investigation of America's shift from industrial urban living to the semi-country suburban world sought as the American Dream by many modern Americans. Anyone how practices as a developer or builder should read this book. Unfortunately it would not change the thinking of most people deeply rooted in the current developer/builder practices, but it may sway some in the field and others, like myself, who are planning to enter the development world towards a more ethically responsible practice. In general, Crabgrass Frontier does a superb job identifying the factors, many of these immoral and illegal, that persuaded an entire country to strive for the Ozzie and Harriet lifestyle with the suburban cottage with white picket fence and a new Oldsmobile in the drive. There are many surprising facts related to the government's role in investing in the homogeneously white middle-class suburban developments that are now commonplace throughout our country. It is an excellent book that should be read and shared with others.