Walthamstow, a suburb northwest of London, England Photograph by Andrew Reid Wildman/Flickr citylab.com |
Today we go back to the suburbs to consider how they can be urban spaces. There is the perception of suburbs as these bucolic places with nice houses, green lawns, happy people, and plenty of parking spaces. Laura Vaughn reports, in her article "Suburbs Are Urban Places, Too" in CityLab, review of writer Peter Ackroyd's book, Suburban Urbanites: Suburbs and the Life of the High Street. Mr. Ackroyd posits that "suburbs are as old as the city itself," He asks us to consider the suburbs from a different perspective, arguing that suburbs actually possess "complex urban qualities, but they are poorly understood." Although the study of urban and rural places continue to thrive in academia, the study of suburbs is still a fairly new field. Regardless, Suburban Urbanites: Suburbs and the Life of the High Street. gives the reader new perspectives on the suburbs from a historical perspective.
Relief of Madaktu with suburban villas outside the city walls Project Gutenberg citylab.com |
Typical academic research into suburbs considers suburbs a separate undefined mass within the urban edges. The recently published Suburban Urbanites takes a different approach. Rather than take the city out of the suburbs and vice versa, the book considers the two together-"the suburb as a continuum of the city's spatial-social complexity." The book is intent on making the argument "...for suburban urbanity. It counteracts the binary opposition between city and suburb and challenges the perception that urbanity only exists in the city."
The Surrey Street Market, Croydon south London, England SouthEastern Star/Flickr citylab.com |
Taking into consideration the suburbs as part of the city's continuum, Mr. Ackroyd's book focuses attention on the "...metropolitan suburban centers-both in their relation to other centers, an in the role they play within their locality." This strategy is born out of the desire to shed light on full scope of non-domestic activity: people with home businesses, start-up, internet businesses, weekly markets, casual labor, and so forth as well as a diverse range of leisure activities that happen outside the home.
Laura Vaugh writes, "For example, London like most urban spatial systems, consists of interdependent network of linked centers which, when studied in detail on the ground, reveal a level of detail and complexity more normally attributed to cities." If we look at the suburban built environment as a stand alone subject and as distinct element of the "...spatial and temporal growth of cities," Suburban Urbanites reveals that Main Street is the core of non-domestic suburban activities. A special type of space with real potential for creating the beating heart of the suburb.
The suburban idyll Vintage car promotion treehugger.com |
Suburban development Photograph © Dan Reed/Flickr Creative Common license blog.nature.org |
Will America be urban, suburban, or both? fast company.com |
Suburbia with urban lights newsgeography.com |
This is both a spatial and temporal process that present the way in which "the built environment adapts to changing socioeconomic conditions by maintaining a balance between stability of the street network over time with a degree of adaptability of the shape and pattern of buildings themselves. This follows urban growth, based on the spatial logic go the successful existing network. Ms. Vaughn posits, "Indeed, suburban growth as been a positive solution for inner-city crowding, albeit reinforcing social class divisions in some instances."
Marylebone, London, England placemakers.com |
The Sir Richard Steele Hempstead, London, England pubhistory.com |
When the Sir Richard Steele was built in the 19th century, it was located on Haversack Hill and catered to travelers from London. The continues to operate in this capacity to this day, despite the incorporation of Hempstead into the London urban-scape. The continuous use of the pub building itself indicates a kind of "path dependency" that, in one respect, cities like London have been able to adapt to change.
Cities are routinely acknowledges as complex and organic environments, but this description is hardly used in reference to the suburbs, typically dismissed as the byproduct of the urbs, thus of little interest interest. In his opening chapter, Peter Ackroyd presents a detail critique of this widely held belief by demonstrating "how the idea of 'the suburbs' as an essentially non-complex domain has been perpetuated by a range of discipline and perspectives." He argues for a more substantive concept of the suburban built environment "as one in which socioeconomic processes and cultural identities can be contested and negotiated over time."
Nighttime aerial of Central London telegraph.co.uk |
Suburbs and cities have co-existed throughout history. While cities have been hailed as complex, organic entities, Peter Ackroyd gives use pause to consider that suburbs behave in a similar manner. Cities continue to change and adapt. The suburbs are part of the process.
This post is based on an edited except from Suburban Urbanites, published by UCL Press and available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial NonDerivative license ©2015.
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