Suburban Fringe Research Articles

El plano de una ciudad desigual. La distribución espacial de la riqueza en la ciudad de Buenos Aires en 1839

This article studies the spatial distribution of assets such as real state and business capital in the city of Buenos Aires in the mid-nineteenth century. Tax records constitute the principal documentary source; it provides an accurate snapshot of urban wealth and their owners. Mapping and spatial analysis tools are useful to observe the patterns of distribution. We combine the variables of wealth (valuation and access of real property and commercial circuits) with other social and demographic variables, in order to differentiate economic areas in the city. Among the results of this research, we emphasize the existence of a classic pattern of distribution in which the rich center and the poorest suburban periphery feature a contrast. But we also perceive the growing importance of the suburbs as places of accumulation of wealth and opportunities of access to urban land for low and middle social sectors.

Emerging Perspectives on Automobilities in Non-Urban Australia: A context for Cruising Country

Since the early twentieth century, motor vehicles of all descriptions have been central characters in the settlement, governance and representation of Australia. They have been, and remain, objects of desire and exchange, characters in subsistence, ceremonial and market economies, sites of projective identification and spaces of distinctive social experience. Local and national spaces, time, histories and identities are reshaped in and through our car cultures. Represented in paintings, sculpture, films, literature, music, ceremony and other media, vehicles and the roads they travel communicate closely with the aesthetic spirits of modernity and its postmodern discontents. This issue of Humanities Research sets out to explore some of the key conjunctures of Australian nonurban automobility - intercultural exchange and communication, power and social transformation - from the vantage points of history, cultural studies, art history, anthropology, and visual art. The authors in this volume examine the ways in which car cultures in non-urban Australia produce social relationships between car owners, drivers, passengers, their families, and their observers through the mediating forms and forces of moving vehicles, petrol, bitumen, and the inevitable debris of car wreckages and ruins. In this respect, the analyses collected here provide fresh insights into what anthropologist Daniel Miller has called 'the humanity of the car'.1 The idea for this volume emerged as a coda to a symposium, a photography exhibition and a screening program - Cruising Country: Automobilities in nonurban Australia - held at the ANU Centre for Cross-Cultural Research in 2005 (26-28 May).2 The symposium canvassed car-focused histories, artworks, documentary film, ethnography, cultural analysis and personal storytelling offered by researchers, artists, filmmakers, and Aboriginal elders. As the producers of that event, we conceived the term 'cruising country' to conjure and capture the affective experiences of being automobile on a national map where 'country' is a multivalent post-colonial concept of enduring Aboriginal space and place; country is overwritten by tracks, roads, highways and the myriad 'cruising' journeys they have enabled, from the 'first contact' encounters of desert patrol officers to family trips, from rallies to 'grey nomad' adventures, artists' research routes and cinematic narratives (to name only a few that were featured at the 2005 event). Where once the analysis of car culture began in the driveways and petrol stations of cities and suburbs, the Cruising Country project has turned over the engine to confront another set of stories - those we call the 'non-urban'. Here, motor vehicles are seen making tracks across 'the frontier' of the post-colonial nation and carrying research across other romantic tropes of exploration that require ongoing critical attention in the analysis of post-colonial settler societies. The non-urban focus of our theme reframes notions of distance and 'remoteness', and repositions the desert, the bush and suburban fringes at the centre of narratives of Australian automobility. The exponential growth of Australian road construction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is intertwined with structural transformations of an economy balancing land-based primary industries (and the regional expansion that followed these developments) with domestic manufacturing and commodity importation and circulation of ever more goods beyond major metropolitan zones. Domestic and regional industrialisation of automotive manufacturing, the normalisation of car ownership, the fading of rail travel as mass experience and the development of a diversified market of road-based tourist travel have solidified automobility as contemporary Australian habitus. Given the ubiquity and normalisation of car travel as the primary everyday habit of mobility in postwar First-World countries, it is actually surprising that there has not been more humanities and social science research into the varieties of automobile experience in Australia, or elsewhere. …

Bedeutung und Beweggründe der Binnenverlagerungen von Betrieben in Deutschland

Significance and motives of firm relocations in Germany. The choice of a location is of fundamental importance for a firm. Usually it is associated with investments and relocation therefore linked with sunk costs. Theory and empirical studies suggest that it is especially young and expanding firms that relocate. This hypothesis is tested using a large and comprehensive database. It is shown that relocated firms are in fact more prosperous than those that do not move. They expand and employ highly qualified personnel more often and are distinctly younger than the vast majority of firms that have not relocated. Typically firms relocate over a short distance, so the relations to suppliers, customers and employees are not strongly affected. The majority of movements are from the centre to the suburban fringe, where sites are less expensive. However, centrality is often important for newly founded firms. Cities are ideal “seedbeds” for firms to be founded, but as the firms grow older and wish to expand, an attractive hinterland becomes important. The areas surrounding towns and cities benefit directly from the in-migrating of young and aspiring firms. But the cities benefit, too, if attractive jobs and purchasing power remain in their vicinity.

Land-cover fragmentation and configuration of ownership parcels in an exurban landscape

The rate of low-density development beyond the urban and suburban periphery, known as exurban areas, has occurred at a rate faster than both urban and population growth and has the potential to affect water quality, carbon storage, and habitat availability. This paper is aimed at understanding the relationships between the heterogeneity of the human and natural components of the land system and their interactions, through assessment of residential land-cover characteristics and ownership parcels in these poorly understood exurban lands. New data are presented that describe the distribution of land-cover quantities and their degree of fragmentation in three townships in Southeastern Michigan. Analysis of land-cover data, collected from aerial photographs from 1950–2000 and digitized with a 10 m minimum mapping unit, provide an empirical link between lot-size and vegetation. Results show, among other findings, 1) the quantity and pattern of land-cover types significantly differ with parcel size, 2) the degree of difference was greatest between small parcels and all other sizes and least among large parcels, and 3) of five landscape metrics used to evaluate the quantity and fragmentation of land-cover types in residential parcels, the percent of parcel area provided the strongest delineation of differences in land cover among parcel sizes. Capturing quantities and patterns of land-cover at different sizes of land (parcel) ownership provide new data that can be coupled to ecosystem literature and models to link the outcomes of residential land-cover processes with simple ecosystem functions (e.g. carbon storage, albedo). Understanding how residential land-use and management processes collectively create regional land-cover patterns can provide insight into how residential lands might be managed to mitigate the effects of land change on climate.

Urban and suburban lifestyles and residential preferences in a highly urbanized society

It is widely recognized that cities nowadays are confronted with (new) challenges like segregation and suburbanisation. This paper explores the idea that these processes are related with residential choices (or preferences) made by residents with divergent lifestyles and value patterns. The paper focuses on differences between urban and suburban lifestyles and residential preferences. Firstly the concept of lifestyles in general, and urban and suburban lifestyles more specifically, are approached. Secondly the results of a quantitative survey amongst residents within four neighbourhoods in the Ghent Region, a city in Belgium, are presented. This survey confirms that residents of urban and suburban zones have divergent lifestyles, but only for behavioural aspects, such as : private property protection, status behaviour and ecological behaviour. This results however in a social-spatial inequality and polarization between the urban centres and the suburban fringe. The shared aims amongst urban as well as suburban residents for a more secure residential environment and the ideal of the detached single-family house with private garden situated within a purely residential area, were identified as drivers for future suburban migrations. These residential preferences might cause (further) suburbanisation but do not need to lead to segregated social communities, since living with peers does not seem to be a driver for migration in Flanders, Belgium.

Study on urban agglomeration:Progress and prospects

Urban is a complex with the central city as the core surrounded by two or more cities.It is the objective reflection of the economic growth and social development as well as industrial layout in a region.It has also become a main form of in developed countries.In fact,the agglomeration concept in China is the characteristics of a noun,no equivalence in foreign countries.In Western literature,the agglomeration means cluster,that is,a big city and its surrounding satellite towns in remote sensing image formed the connected irregularities each other,and the spatial range includes urbanization area(UA) and metropolitan area(MA).Sometimes,some of metropolises connected each other are also called as urban agglomeration.United Nations gave a definition of urban as follows: Comprises a city or town proper and also the suburban fringe or thickly settled territory lying outside,but adjacent to,its boundaries.A single large urban may comprise several cities or towns and their suburban fringes. Therefore,urban in the Western concept includes the cities,towns and urban-region outlying areas.Urban agglomeration in China refers to geographical concepts of a group of major cities which are similar and interactions among administrative,transportation,economic,and social fields.In the 21st century,thanks to China's entry into the World Trade Organization,a national coastal urban has become the main region for the national trade economy,export and the world manufacturing bases.Urban as an important urban spatial pattern was a unique choice to promote the process of in China.This article reviewed some progress in studies of urban agglomeration,such as the concept of urban agglomeration,overseas research of urban agglomeration,early researches of Chinese urban and studies on Chinese urban as a national strategy.This paper has prospects for the studies of Chinese urban in the future.It argued that there is more complex mechanism for the rise and development of the Chinese urban than those in Western developed countries,so that the relevant researches need innovations.

"They Congregate...in Towns and Suburbs": The Shape of Middle-Class Life in John Claudius Loudon's The Suburban Gardener

"They Congregate...in Towns and Suburbs":The Shape of Middle-Class Life in John Claudius Loudon's The Suburban Gardener Sarah Bilston (bio) It happens, in the progress of civilisation, and the changes that society is continually undergoing, that, at a certain stage, mankind arrive at a similar point to that from which they set out, only in a more improved and refined form; and as, in a rude state, they congregated together in encampments or in villages, for mutual protection and security, so, in a refined state, they congregate together in towns and suburbs, for business and refined enjoyment. —John Claudius Loudon, The Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion (1838), 10.1 For many Victorians, suburbia seemed a physical manifestation of middle-class values. Suburban areas were, from the first, shaped to separate housing from spaces of commerce and industry. Judith Flanders notes that in the early Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston "the leases ... were clear: no retail premises were permitted, nor was professional work to be undertaken in these houses" (xxiii).2 Over time, the physical separation of home and work life reinforced the emerging ideology of the sanctified home, so that by the end of the century, "suburban streets laid out in rows of domestic housing, whether small working-class developments or more spacious villas with gardens, were manifestations of the traditional middle-class belief in home and family" (Hapgood 8).3 Yet the first generations of suburban observers did not necessarily regard the distinctive, newly terraced streets as shaped by and catering to an ideology of family seclusion.4 John Claudius Loudon is a notable example of a writer with a very different perspective on Suburban areas. Loudon has long been viewed as yet another advocate for reserved domesticity and the sanctified home, as a writer obsessed with maintaining both class and gender hierarchies through the concrete boundaries of walls and hedges.5 Yet the 1838 edition of The Suburban Gardener, Loudon's important early articulation of suburban living, is more complex, for it situates the family home in a landscape whose shape Loudon presents as a sign of modernity and advance. Loudon argues that whereas once people "congregated together in encampments or in villages, for mutual protection and security," the defensive circle of the English [End Page 144] village is no longer necessary; protection and security can take a back seat to the modern middle-class pursuits of business and pleasure (10). The straight rows of suburbia are thus, for Loudon, a vibrant manifestation of England's move away from its rural past. Moreover, the author repeatedly argues that the suburban landscape allows residents to connect with one another and thereby benefit from the opportunities of modernity. He celebrates the public communal spaces in suburban areas, the possibilities for forming friendships with neighbours, and the vistas of an industrial landscape just beyond the suburban periphery. Above all, Loudon presents the garden as a space shaped by both the demands and opportunities of modern life: he admires the walls surrounding gardens not just because they keep out unwelcome eyes, but also because they make the space more manageable for the evening gardener returned home from work. With walls in place, a brand-new spade, and Loudon's book in hand, a suburban gardener (either male or female) may enjoy the delights of self-directed enterprise as a contrast to professional life—not to mention an older agrarian existence, where land cultivation was about food production as opposed to aesthetics. Loudon's admiration for industry and advancement seems all the more striking when the 1838 edition of the text is laid beside The Villa Gardener (1850), the posthumously released version of The Suburban Gardener. As we shall see, this later work, edited by Loudon's wife, Jane, erases expressions of admiration for the industrial landscape and celebrations of suburban community. Paying attention to this deleted material indicates how suburbia's promise was revised in the light of shifting cultural attitudes to the home, the family, and the middle class. The Rise of Suburbia and the Decline of the Rural Loudon's responses to the country and the cities in the 1830s are best understood in the light of broad...

Richard Longstreth . The American Department Store Transformed, 1920–1960 . New Haven : Yale University Press, in association with the Center for American Places at Columbia College, Chicago . 2010 . Pp. xi, 323. $60.00.

For well over a decade, the architectural historian Richard Longstreth has steadily chronicled what must be the most significant understudied aspect of the built environment: its retail landscapes. His books on Los Angeles in the first half of the twentieth century filled a gaping hole in scholarship by documenting and analyzing the profound impact of decentralization on the spaces of shopping in particular and on the urban fabric as a whole. Among the building typologies that formed the dramatis personae of The Drive‐In, the Supermarket, and the Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles, 1914–1941 (1999), the department store was a bit player. In several chapters of City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920–1950 (1997), it took center stage briefly, though importantly. Now, in Longstreth's latest book, the department store finally gets a well‐deserved star turn. Longstreth is hardly the first scholar to train his critical gaze on the great emporia. Indeed, the literature of the American department store is as vast as its cultural significance, ranging from monographs of individual stores to its role in the creation of gendered space and, especially, its relationship to consumerism. Longstreth's singular contribution is to examine the department store as one of the defining institutions of the modern city, one whose commercial raison d'être was in no way at odds with its civic contributions. An important aspect of the book is that Longstreth's conception of the city embraces both the urban center and the suburban periphery as part of an expanded metropolitan landscape, the social and spatial implications of which became clear during the period bookended in his title.

Success and design of local referenda for land conservation

From 1998 to 2006, over three-quarters of the more than 1,550 U.S. referenda targeting open space passed. We analyze the success of the conservation movement at holding referenda in areas with greater ecological value and greater likelihood of supporting conservation. To do so, we first analyze the patterns in where referenda are held and in which finance mechanisms they employ. Controlling for these two selection patterns, we then investigate the factors determining the success of the referenda. Our findings suggest that conservation groups are pursuing a successful strategy, targeting communities with above-average probabilities of passing referenda and higher ecological value. Nevertheless, our results suggest that overlooked opportunities exist in minority and middle-class neighborhoods, in suburban fringe areas, and in the Southeast. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Distribution Centers among the Rooftops: The Global Logistics Network Meets the Suburban Spatial Imaginary

Abstract Changes in shipping over recent decades have altered the geography of freight transportation in the USA in a number of ways. In particular, significant volumes of freight traffic are now traveling inland to the Ohio River valley and the Midwest. Within metropolitan areas here, large amounts of land on the suburban fringe are being developed as logistics or distribution centers in municipalities that are experiencing otherwise typical greenfield suburban growth. This article explores this development through a case study in the southwest suburbs of Chicago that are experiencing rapid growth in both population and freight distribution activity. Here, in a so-called global era of placeless flows, land use and economic development continue to be based largely on a spatial imaginary of bounded and discrete territories, with long-term environmental and economic consequences for the political units in question. Résumé Le transport maritime a évolué au cours des dernières décennies, modifiant de bien des façons la géographie du transport de fret aux États-Unis. En particulier, des volumes considérables de marchandises circulent désormais par voies fluviales jusque dans la vallée de l’Ohio et le Midwest. De nombreux terrains situés aux limites périurbaines des zones métropolitaines sont aménagés en plateformes logistique ou de distribution dans des municipalités qui, par ailleurs, connaissent une croissance suburbaine typique sur des sites agricoles. L’article explore cette évolution à travers une étude de cas portant sur les banlieues sud-ouest de Chicago qui sont confrontées à une augmentation rapide à la fois de leur population et de l’activité de distribution de fret. Alors que le monde connaît une ère dite de flux déterritorialisés, l’occupation des sols et le développement économique restent largement fondés sur un imaginaire spatial de territoires circonscrits et individualisés, ce qui a des conséquences économiques et environnementales à long terme pour les entités politiques concernées.

The Politicisation of Suburbanisation in Belgium

The electoral and political consequences of suburbanisation recently regained interest in the Anglo-Saxon literature, pointing to a growing polarisation between city and suburban fringe. This paper analyses these processes in the Antwerp urban region and shows the development of a similar electoral divide that is supported by the political parties involved. These observations add to the existing evidence that city–suburban polarisation in Belgium cannot be simply equated with the Anglo-Saxon experience, where a complete suburban fencing off from the city is observable. Rather, because of the comparatively limited development of functions in the Belgian suburbs, a suburban discourse emerges that focuses on safe and accessible cities for the suburban user, yet without much reference to its present inhabitants.

Exploring normative scenarios of land use development decisions with an agent-based simulation laboratory

Suburbia and exurbia have an undeniable appeal to many urban dwellers. At the same time, they are characterized by an ineffective and fragmented residential patchwork of developed and undeveloped tracts. This research addresses a question of whether other arrangements of land, ameliorating the negative effects of current growth in the suburban fringe, are feasible from the perspectives of planning agencies and property developers. In order to answer this research question, the study employs two loosely coupled land use models: multiobjective land use allocation (MOLA) and an exploratory agent-based modeling (ABM) of residential development. The aligned modeling methodology has a number of advantages. Firstly, it combines top-down and bottom-up modeling. Such an approach is an attempt to represent society from two standpoints: institutions on one side (like zoning regulations of local planning agencies) and individual agents on the other (like developers). Secondly, the framework combines both static form (MOLA) and dynamic process (ABM). The MOLA model is equipped with mechanisms that encourage both compact and alternative residential land use arrangements. The outcomes of this model are used as zoning regulations in the ABM to examine the impact of regional-scale top-down urban growth plans on agent disutility which reflects the competitiveness of the local property market. Selected MOLA plans are further relaxed using different distance buffers. The findings point to a complex disutility–fragmentation relationship. Under the simulated planning situation, a potentially acceptable solution for planners and developers involves a relatively high compactness of development, which could satisfy agents’ overall disutility.

Greening metropolitan growth: integrating nature recreation, compactness and spaciousness in regional development planning

This article reports the findings on analyses of landscape morphology by density and green space distribution of the Stockholm county region, correlations between morphology and socio-economic data and assessments of two regional development scenarios for 2030 modelled in the proposed regional plan (The Office of Regional Planning and Urban Transportation in Stockholm 2010). Today, Stockholm is a relatively green and spacious metropolitan region with a small compact city core. We found the correlations between compactness (product of floor area and nature recreation area) and highly mixed parcels (R2 = 0.729, p < 0.001), between compactness and overweight (R2 = 0.47, p < 0.001) and between accessibility to nature recreation and reduced psychological well-being (R2 = 0.40, p < 0.001). It seems that new housing developments and income levels are driven by compactness in the city centre and spaciousness (quotient of nature recreation area and floor area) in the suburban periphery. The scenario FÖRDELAD is more spread out and spacious in the periphery and the scenario TÄT is more compacted in the city centre; however, both scenarios decrease in compactness and spaciousness in the inner suburbs. We consider that the decline in spaciousness in inner suburbia would be accepted if compactness also increased a situation that is not part of either scenario. The apparent risk of this development is that suburbia will lose its attractiveness and this will fall to a level that it will fuel even more peripheral sprawl. With support from the correlation studies and other sprawl research, we suggest that this planned development could have severe negative consequences for sustainability and attractiveness, which are claimed to be the core goals in the proposed regional plan.

The effects of exurbanization on the food and habitat of pileated woodpeckers

Abstract Background/Question/Methods Dryocopus pileatus (pileated woodpeckers) are the largest woodpeckers in the United States. They require large trees for roosting, nesting, and feeding and these trees must be dead or dying for ease of excavation and presence of the woodpeckers' main prey of ants and grubs. Because of these habitat requirements, pileated woodpeckers are used as an indicator species for mature forests. However, their status in exurban areas, or places of low-density development beyond the suburban fringe, is poorly known. Because exurbanization covers a large and growing portion of the eastern U.S.A., we examined how pileated woodpeckers and their habitat vary across a gradient of exurbanization. We tested the hypothesis that presence of pileated woodpeckers is positively correlated with forest structure and food availability, in exurban and forested areas. We conducted the study in Sewanee, Tennessee, U.S.A., establishing 30 randomly located sample points evenly divided between exurban and forested areas. At each point we assessed pileated woodpecker presence through visual and vocal surveys; forest structure through measures of downed wood, standing trees, and understory density; and food availability through presence of ants and grubs in soil cores and pitfall traps. Results/Conclusions We found no difference between the presence of pileated woodpeckers, amount and rot class of dead wood, and ant and grub abundance between exurban and forested areas. Mean tree diameter was larger in exurban areas most likely because many small trees had been removed by human landscaping. These data suggest that some exurban areas may provide habitat for pileated woodpeckers. However, more studies are needed to examine the breeding success and survival rates of pileated woodpeckers in exurban and forested areas. Because the mature forest characteristics that pileated woodpeckers prefer can be found in exurban areas, it is possible that other species requiring these characteristics could also find usable habitat in exurban areas. This could apply most specifically to those secondary cavity-nesting species that use old pileated woodpecker nesting cavities. More studies should be conducted to further explore the effects of exurbanization on other species that are thought of as indicating mature forests.

The effects of exurbanization on the food and habitat of pileated woodpeckers

Dryocopus pileatus (pileated woodpeckers) are the largest woodpeckers in the United States. They require large trees for roosting, nesting, and feeding and these trees must be dead or dying for ease of excavation and presence of the woodpeckers' main prey of ants and grubs. Because of these habitat requirements, pileated woodpeckers are used as an indicator species for mature forests. However, their status in exurban areas, or places of low-density development beyond the suburban fringe, is poorly known. Because exurbanization covers a large and growing portion of the eastern U.S.A., we examined how pileated woodpeckers and their habitat vary across a gradient of exurbanization. We tested the hypothesis that presence of pileated woodpeckers is positively correlated with forest structure and food availability, in exurban and forested areas. We conducted the study in Sewanee, Tennessee, U.S.A., establishing 30 randomly located sample points evenly divided between exurban and forested areas. At each point we assessed pileated woodpecker presence through visual and vocal surveys; forest structure through measures of downed wood, standing trees, and understory density; and food availability through presence of ants and grubs in soil cores and pitfall traps. We found no difference between the presence of pileated woodpeckers, amount and rot class of dead wood, and ant and grub abundance between exurban and forested areas. Mean tree diameter was larger in exurban areas most likely because many small trees had been removed by human landscaping. These data suggest that some exurban areas may provide habitat for pileated woodpeckers. However, more studies are needed to examine the breeding success and survival rates of pileated woodpeckers in exurban and forested areas. Because the mature forest characteristics that pileated woodpeckers prefer can be found in exurban areas, it is possible that other species requiring these characteristics could also find usable habitat in exurban areas. This could apply most specifically to those secondary cavity-nesting species that use old pileated woodpecker nesting cavities. More studies should be conducted to further explore the effects of exurbanization on other species that are thought of as indicating mature forests.

Introducing the ‘tee’ change‐marketing, management and planning implications

Mobility, housing and population movements have long been a concern of planners, demographers and geographers alike. More recently, focus has turned to the phenomenon known as the ‘sea’ and/or ‘tree change’ with various studies voicing concern about the implications involved in these types of movement to coastal and regional locations, as well as for the nation as a whole (Gurran et al. 2005; Murphy 2002; Stokes 2008; Walmsley 2003). Of equal concern, but currently under-researched, is the increasing growth of residential golf course developments as an alternate option for retirees, empty-nesters, or simply those seeking resort-style living arrangements. This type of development represents another aspect of exclusive residential development occurring not only on suburban fringes, but also in coastal and hinterland locations. Through a review of current literature, this paper considers the forces driving this type of development. It also questions whether there are any benefits to be gained by allowing these types of developments to go ahead and considers what implications might exist for future management and planning practice.

Where Things Are, From Near To Far by Tim Halbur and Chris Steins, eds., and David Ryan, ill.

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 19 No. 1 (Spring 2009) ISSN: 1546-2250 Where Things Are, From Near To Far Halbur, Tim and Steins, Chris and Ryan, David (2009). Los Angeles: Planetizen Press; ISBN 0978932927. I have sometimes attributed my career in planning to the hours I spent as a young boy pouring over Richard Scarry’s book What Do People Do All Day? I would lose myself exploring every illustration, fascinated by the anthropomorphic rabbit and pig families that inhabited the town squares, market places, dentist offices and bus stations of “Busy Town.” It was only after a fellow master’s student confessed that his path to planning ran down Disneyland’s “Main Street, USA” that I felt comfortable admitting this to anyone (including myself). So hat’s off to Tim Halbur, Chris Steins, and David Ryan for their recent contribution to children’s planning-related literature. Told in verse and animated by drawings, the book is a walk through “the urban to rural transect” with a son and his mother as she reveals the disturbing truth of her day job: she’s an urban planner. All joking aside, it’s a noble effort at explaining planning to the hard-to-reach 3-year-old market. The book uses simple language, bold text, rhyme, and detailed illustrations to walk us through the various built and natural environments of the city and to introduce the central idea that cities don’t just happen, they are built. Indeed, they are even planned. My daughter enjoyed exploring each page, pointing out the squirrels, the dog riding in the bike basket, and the Waldoesque frog that jumps along with the main characters through the book. But being the ripe age of seven, she haughtily declared that the book was boring and “too easy.” She allowed, however, that younger kids might enjoy it; a fact 357 confirmed by her 4-year-old friend Phineas, who deemed the book “very nice” (even though his older brother Thaddeus wouldn’t go beyond the cover). My 12-year-old son Kieran was more insightful: “It’s a bit simplistic, but hey, it’s for 3-yearolds .” Explaining planning to young children is no easy task. I remember my experience at parent career day when my son was in first grade. The dad before me was a fireman, and the mother after me was a nurse. My brief talk on being a planner drew many blank stares, and the thank-you note I received later from one of my son’s friends read: “Thank you for your talk. I didn’t know people did that.” Where Things Are will not only help explain that indeed there are people who do that, but will also introduce some important realities of urban development: that we’ve constructed a Euclidean system of separated uses where density is concentrated at the core and tapers off into car-dominated suburbs and a distant rural hinterland. Well, that’s the traditional concept anyway, and it was one of the ideas I found myself taking issue with as I enjoyed the book with my daughter and her friends. I certainly understand the usefulness of the transect, but worry that it perpetuates the idea that “good planning” has to provide for auto-dominated uses in sprawling suburban fringe areas. Does it? And if it does, can’t we at least shelter our 3year -olds from that reality until they are, say, five? Or do I need to come clean with my kids and let them know that it is the planner’s job to make “the suburbs wide”? Perhaps I’m being naïve, but with climate change staring us in the face, I think it’s time to polarize our rose-colored glasses and question some of our current conceptions. I detected that at least the book’s illustrator shares my sympathies. I could swear that the little boy in Where Things Are was walking with a bit less spring in his step as he passed the suburban strip mall. Even his mother is pointing off the page, into the promise of the less monotonous, more child- 358 friendly environment of the transect’s rural...

Living in an Oasis: Middle-Class Disaffiliation and Selective Belonging in an English Suburb

This paper aims to address the oft-mentioned dearth of research on the suburbs by examining processes of sociospatial segregation and middle-class disaffiliation in London's eastern suburban periphery. By drawing upon aspects of Bourdieu's theoretical framework, the paper shows how the home-owning, middle-class, largely white residents of the ‘Woodlands’ private housing estate attempted to shore up their threatened sense of exclusivity in relation to the nearby deprived ‘Eastside’ suburb. The empirical material is drawn from survey and interview research on incomers to Woodlands. For its affluent incoming residents, Woodlands' dominant place image was that of an ‘oasis’ within Eastside, an area dominated by a large council-built housing estate. Although the Woodlands incomers were physically resident in Eastside, they symbolically and practically disengaged from ‘local’ places, notably shops, pubs, and schools, and their lower class and not-quite-white populations. The author argues that the Woodlands incomers adhered to a spatially selective version of what Savage et al refer to as ‘elective belonging’. Such selective belonging denotes a spatially uneven attachment rooted in residents' schizophrenic relationship to the suburban area, embracing the Woodlands oasis whilst abjuring the ‘other Eastside’.

‘Subtopias of Good Intentions’

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the cultural and political meanings of everyday landscapes in postwar Britain. Public discussions of these landscapes have moved beyond relatively narrow questions about the aesthetics or design of public space to consider broader issues of land use, national identity, historical tradition and the management of social change. They have fed into anxieties about postwar reconstruction and the spread of ‘subtopia’, national decline, and more recent concerns about conservation and heritage. The article argues that the recurrent fear that Britain is being colonized by standardized subtopian clutter has tended to ignore more subtle historical shifts, produced by changing relationships between government and commerce, public and private space, urban centre and suburban periphery.

Suburban sprawl: Where does emergency medicine fit on the map?

The built environments of the American suburbs stretch out from cities resembling “the end of a Scrabble game,” but these spacious suburban dreamscapes create havoc for emergency care. In some sense, the scattered environs and the high-speed arteries that connect them created the specialty of emergency medicine and laid the groundwork for emergency medical services. The landmark 1966 National Academy of Science’s report Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society was largely in response to automobile accidents and the then-nonexistent emergency care system. The notion was reinforced in 2006’s Institute of Medicine report titled The Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health Care System, which criticized the stillfragmented nature of trauma care.