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Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States

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This book is obviously a classic of urban-studies literature and a lot of people have said a lot of good things about it.

One thing to keep in mind when considering this book, however, is that (contrary to what others have said) it is *not* a history of suburbanization through the end of the 20th century. It is much more an explanation of the roots of 20th century suburbanization -- as they took form in the 19th century.

The author does an excellent job of explaning the cultural and technological conditions that existed in the 19th century which made the move the the perifery seem attractive and, above all, logical. Today, in the 21st century, we have a difficult time placing oursleves in the shoes of the aspiring 19th century home-owner. We get stuck on the question "How could they just leave their cities to rot?" This book takes us back to show us the ideals, hopes and dreams of the 19th cenury burghers -- which the author also expertly contrasts to 19th-century realities. In this way, Jackson shows us how the move to a tract-house on a winding lane named after a tree could only seem like the conquest of the new-world utopia to the train-hopping clerks who first embraced suburbia.

The brightest examples of these cultural trends are the author's description of the rising symbolic importance of the garden, as well as his emphasis on the media-images associated with the new "old" country gentry. Overall, he describes an America (ironically) in search of its "country" roots, while in the midst of the greatest urban/industrial boom the world has ever known. By placing the reader firmly in a world where the word "cab" connoted a horse and carriage and where "pollution" meant horse-dung, Jackson makes us aware that the suburbs arose out of a legitimate desire to improve living standards in a very real way.

In sharp contrast, to so many books on the same topic _The Crabgrass Frontier_ is not a vitrolic condemnation of selfishness or race-paranoia or consumer-madness. It is a cultural commentary on certain 19th mores which -- when taken to their logical extreme (as they were in the 20th century) -- have a profound effect on the geography of the modern American city.

It's an acknowledged classic in the field of Urban History, but it's twenty years old and the last quarter of Crabgrass reads like it. Delores Hayden has covered the same ground in her more recent "Building Suburbia". The approach is hisorical, Jackson takes each period of suburbanization in chronological order. In terms of explanation for why America is so surburban, he focuses on government policy and the unique characteristics of the american middle class mind. Also, the fact that land is cheap is important. Readers may want to check out Building Suburbia for a more recent treatment of the same subject.

Very illuminating study of the growth of suburbia in American history. However, the book is not without flaws. The editing of this book is rather poor (ie. the balloon house construction method is referred to as ballroom construction method) with at least a dozen typos, probably due to the fact that the author suffered the loss of a teen-aged son in a car wreck just as he was finishing the book. He devotes little time to the radical demographic changes in suburbia since World War Two, a situation leading to a barren lack of continuity in suburban towns. The author shies away from most racial causes of the rise of suburbia and urban ethnic and racial transformations. Still, Professor Jackson brings to life what most Americans consider a mundane, dull subject. This is a job well done- I wish he'd write another.

Crabgrass Frontier is a thorough investigation of America's shift from industrial urban living to the semi-country suburban world sought as the American Dream by many modern Americans. Anyone how practices as a developer or builder should read this book. Unfortunately it would not change the thinking of most people deeply rooted in the current developer/builder practices, but it may sway some in the field and others, like myself, who are planning to enter the development world towards a more ethically responsible practice. In general, Crabgrass Frontier does a superb job identifying the factors, many of these immoral and illegal, that persuaded an entire country to strive for the Ozzie and Harriet lifestyle with the suburban cottage with white picket fence and a new Oldsmobile in the drive. There are many surprising facts related to the government's role in investing in the homogeneously white middle-class suburban developments that are now commonplace throughout our country. It is an excellent book that should be read and shared with others.

This book suffers from the same problems one can find in many other works by American social scientists: well researched, descriptive, meticulous, having the appearance of objectivity ... but lacking in insight, overview, and explanatory guidelines able to organize the information presented.

For example, in order to explain the first part of suburbia explosion (from the post-Civil War to the 30's depression), the author devotes page after page to the life work of this cottage architect, that land developer, this home economics bookwriter. He engages in generalities about how the suburban home was starting to be perceived as the anchor of the family unit. He points out the crowding in major cities, he describes at length the technological advance provided by mass transportation (mostly railroad and cable cars), and he proceeds to list numerous concrete examples where this suburb expansion occurred from major cities.

But any sociological or anthropological explanation about WHY the flight to the suburbia actually took place, is notoriously absent. Also lacking, is any good explanation of why the flight to the suburbia remained such a predominantly American phenomenon.

Very rarely, the author drops an isolated comment here and there, casually mentioning "the hatred of cities that Americans inherited from the English" or pointing out that the owner's covenant on a given new development "prevented selling to any Negroes or Irishmen". But that is all. There is no followup at all, the author quickly returns to the boring enumeration of neighborhoods, developers and rail lines, and what entrepreneur helped improve what aspect of the cable car.

In sum: irritatingly, this author presents a vision of American suburbanization almost entirely explained in terms of fashion and technological advance (and later, government intervention).
No mention to racism, ethnocentrism, Black migratory waves, blockbusting, xenophobia, immigration, socialism, zoning as social control, white flight, etc.
It reminds me of those high-school textbooks that credit the Industrial Revolution "to the invention of the engine steam", as if English society hadn't undergone profound changes at the time (proletarization, the put-out, enclosures) that prepared the ground.

This book can be used as a reference for factual data about American suburban growth, but in no way explains it or provides much valuable sociological insight on the subject.

Jackson writes one of the seminal studies in urban history relating to the suburbs. The end conclusion is that suburbs have not been beneficial to the United States. This tracks things from the start of suburbanization to the downfall of downtowns. Race relations are a big part of the book as is the heralding of the automobile. Jackson writes very well and the book is wonderfully organized. If you are starting out in urban history this is an essential book to start off with. For those interested in post world war 2 American life this is also a must read.

This book is exactly 15 years old as I write this review. By accidental coincidence, today is also the day I finished reading it. As I always had curiosity and interest about American urban landscape, I thought this book would bring me different perspectives in comparison to two books I already had (both Suburban Nation (10th Anniversary Edition): The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream and It's a Sprawl World After All: The Human Cost of Unplanned Growth -- and Visions of a Better Future) and found Crabgrass Frontier a combination of both. While "Suburban Nation" focuses specially on the "technical" reasons the suburbs were formed the way they are, the other book develops more on the psychological and social effects that such environment created in many suburbanites.

Even though this book is relatively old, it contains arguments and definitions which are pretty much valid today, and predictions made about a city and countryside comeback due to suburbs decay and the rejection - at least for the most part - of a fragmented labor force, with white-color professionals working from the comfort and convenience of their own homes have proven to be accurate. After all, everything that goes up, must come down according to the gravity law...or everything that spreads outwards, must come inwards for that matter.

This is neither a pro nor an anti suburbanization piece of work, although it sometimes attributes social stratification and other inner city illnesses to this pattern of urban development. Rather, it describes what, when, how and why things are the way they appear today. It's a union of two other great books on the subject (the ones referred above) that is worth reading, especially those interested in urban planning and social and economical development.

Great book. You have to purchase it or skim it in a bookstore to get a sense of how good it is. Jackson uses historical facts as building blocks to describe the where and why with all of the creation of the US cities, and what that entailed. The Genesis of the City - a bible which describes the creations of the suburbs and sits on the same shelf as Gunther Barth's landmark book -- City People. It explains a lot.

I used this work for my background research on the post-WWII suburban housing market. Jackson's work is cited many times by a diverse group of scholars in geography and sociology. I find it a good reading book and very helpful to understand the housing market that so recently broke down.

Crabgrass Frontiers explores the development of American cities and suburbs in the late 19th up to the late 20th century. Jackson describes how innovations in transportation, including horse trolleys, steam-powered rail, and others including the private automobile, have helped shape the urban landscape. He also describes how as the cities expanded, minorities and the impoverished became "trapped" in the inner city, cut off by superhighways that speed suburbanites from bedroom communities in the suburbs to their offices in the central business district in the city core.