Suburbia

"Suburbia is where developers bulldoze down the trees, then name the streets after them." -- Bill Vaughn
By 1980, 18 of the 25 largest American cities declined in population while the suburbs grew by 60 million people.
What makes this cultural landscape placeless?

Answers: nothing distinctive remains:

  • all the vegetation has been removed
  • the ground has been leveled
  • the houses are essentially all the same size, shape, and height

    -- in other words, a placeless place.

    Suburban Developments
    In 1980,18 of America's largest cities declined in population, while the suburbs grew by 60 million people, 83 percent of the nation's growth. In California, in Los Angeles County alone, approximately 400 people arrive every day -- 146,000 a year. But for more than a century there had been suburbs, usually places where the well-to-do moved to escape the rising tide of immigrants into the cities during the late 19th century: Westchester, north of New York; Ardrnore and Chestnut Hill west of Philadelphia; and Oak Park, Illinois, west of Chicago. But USA suburban phenomenon mostly begins after World War II with the passage of the "G.l. Bill of Rights" and the resumption, in larger numbers than ever, of passenger car production. The G.l. Bill guaranteed returning veterans and their families low-cost, long term loans, and those went to underwrite home mortgages and auto purchases. The single family suburban house, once the prerogative of a few, now became available to many "honorably discharged" veterans who held jobs. With the government's help, five million veterans became suburban homeowners. Older, well-to-do suburbs were built around rail depots . The 'station wagon' once meant that returning executives would be met by their wives or hired help in such a vehicle as they stepped down from their train in New Rochelle, Stamford, or Garden City. But the new postwar suburbs were accessible only by automobile and, in many cases, accessible only to white buyers.

    Shopping Malls
    The mall -- an enclosed space where products are exhibited and sold -- has its roots in ancient bazaars and suks, which are still lively institutions in some parts of the world. In the West, the modern-day mall may have originated in London's famous Crystal Palace Exposition of 1851 (Expositions, later World's Fairs, are related to shopping malls in malls' secondary purpose of exhibiting new products and new technologies). The Crystal Palace was one of the first pre-fabricated buildings: a glass structure with an iron skeleton, it produced a greenhouse effect' which allowed for hundreds of tropical plants, many rare at the time, to flourish under its roof. Pictures of the entrance to its central galleries reveal a close affinity with much of 20th century mall design. The first enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in America, Southdale Center, was designed by an Austrian architect named Victor Gruen and built in Edina, Minnesota, in 1954. Today, the largest shopping mall in the United States -- the Mall of America -- is also located in Minnesota. The malls followed the exodus of city dwellers into the new suburban developments that proliferated in the decade of the 1950s and continues today. Like those suburbs, the malls were located off highways and accessible only by car. Today's 'mega-malls' often have their own exits on the Interstates and are found in or near Edge Cities -- high-income, suburban office and retail (especially, hotel) complexes of often striking mini-skyscrapers.

    Northwest Airlines has special flight packages from around the USA and Canada to attract customers to the Mall of America -- see this map!

    Read this interesting book: Lawrence Hott and Tom Lewis, DIVIDED HlGHWAYS, a Florentine/Hott Production, 1997.