Rethinking Suburbia: A Case Study of Metropolitan Miami

Abstract

Greater Miami makes an interesting case study of suburbanization because of its recent history, the geographic limits of urban expansion, and its profound ethnic makeover at the time that postwar suburbanization peaked in North America. The city–suburb distinction here does not correspond to prototypes and it is equally difficult to find typical suburbs as conventionally perceived. A general discussion of the local meaning of ‘suburb’ and of the formation of suburbia and of city–suburb relations in southeast Florida is followed by a comparative review of six selected ‘suburbs’. While suburban features can be detected across the metropolis, they almost always combine with characteristics that are emphatically not suburban such as high densities or concentrated economic activity. Theoretically, this paper contests the conceptual dichotomies and ahistoricism that have long overshadowed research on suburbs. The study also highlights suburbia as a subjective category and as a complex and multidimensional notion that, in the modern metropolis, can manifest itself partially, and in different ways, in various geographic domains.