Lone Star Suburbs: Life on the Texas Metropolitan Frontier ed. by Paul J. P. Sandul and M. Scott Sosebee

Abstract

Reviewed by: Lone Star Suburbs: Life on the Texas Metropolitan Frontier ed. by Paul J. P. Sandul and M. Scott Sosebee Robert Lee Cavazos Lone Star Suburbs: Life on the Texas Metropolitan Frontier. Edited by Paul J. P. Sandul and M. Scott Sosebee. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019. ix + 237 pp. Table, index. $24.95 paper. The past of Texas has created the Texas Myth, in which many people still see Texas for what it once was, a rich culture "dominated by cowboys . . . Texas Rangers, and above all the Alamo" (4). With a fixation on the past, historians have ignored the changing times through which Texas was going: the state had exploded into a huge suburban population. This new suburban history of Texas can no longer be ignored. Lone Star Suburbs, edited by Paul J. P. Sandul and M. Scott Sosebee, examines urban and suburban planning, policy, community self-governance, religion, environmentalism, and race/ ethnicity issues in telling the story of how Texas morphed into the suburban state that it is today. The first chapter, by Paul J. P. Sandul, documents the historiography and the demographics of the Texas suburbs. A cultural mindset that embraces conservatism, faith, privacy, and superiority: the suburbs symbolize everything Texans embrace. The city is seen as being too liberal—a place of violence going against moral values, and an unsuitable place to raise a family. Texans value their roots so much that they have done everything they could to hold on to them by taking refuge in the suburbs. Sandul does a good job at explaining the historical context of Texas's transition to a suburban state; however, some readers might not feel the census-tract data are warranted, as they do not fit with the rest of the narrative. The remaining chapters do a good job at describing the historical progression to a suburban state. Chapter 2, by Robert B. Fairbanks, discusses how planning allowed suburbs in the Dallas–Fort Worth area to create their own identity and become independent. Suburban communities sought out urban planners to "promote residential as well as economic growth and development besides improving citizens' quality of life" (53), thus creating "suburban cities." Chapter 3, by Andrew C. Baker, details the struggles these suburban cities experienced as they attempted to gain their independence. With an immense number of people fleeing the cities and seeking haven in suburban cities, there was not enough time to formulate guidelines that would allow for an easy transition to suburbia. Municipal annexation laws allowed cities to buy land and annex nearby communities to extend their boundaries and to increase tax revenue. This created conflict between suburbia and urban governments over land. Suburban cities attempted to create their own identity and self-governance through incorporation, but they failed. However, as Philip G. Pope describes in chapter 6, the city of Irving was able to win its independence from Dallas. When Irving was able to win construction rights to Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, it signaled the first time that a suburban city was able to attract a major business away from a metropolitan city. This paved the way for new businesses to be established and roads to be built. These three chapters are critical, as they discuss the struggles suburban communities underwent as they attempted to get out of the shadow of neighboring metropolitan cities; suburbia is not accidentally arrived at but deliberately planned. New roads created dependency on the automobile to connect the suburbs to the cities, as discussed by Tom McKinney in chapter 5. The automobile created spawl and congestion, and while "the construction of these urban freeway networks provided the Lone Star State with a boom in suburban construction . . . it also fostered a seemingly cultural dependence on the automobile" (127). McKinney discusses the importance of the Federal Highway Acts of 1944 and 1956, as they forever changed the urban landscape by allowing the construction of freeways in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio to expand to the suburbs. The suburbs represent Texas culture. And as Jake McAdams states in chapter 7, "suburbia [is] not the rural America that suburbia appropriated, [but] . . . has become the 'American Dream' where potential riches...